It was a quite difficult lecture as I was not familiar with Plato or any other philosophy that much. However I think, the point of the lecture was, the virtual world is not the things you can describe as real or not. You cannot put things on hierarchy like people used to do in old days like Plato. The virtual world and the real world is laid there, side by side.
And the task of the week is:
....students should select one of these themes (Negative Impact of technology on humanity, Fusion of man and machine, Corporate control over society, Uprising of the underground, Ubiquitous Access to information) & complete some basic research on it (ideally finding a short fiction online that deals with the topic (there’s heaps of online cyberpunk fiction, so this shouldn’t be a problem). Once students have a basic understanding they should try and identify a current news story that reflects their chosen topic.So I chose the 'Negative Impact of technology on humanity' theme.
Once they have found a story they should attempt to re-write the news story as a persuasive piece about how their piece of cyberpunk fiction has forecast the particular story/event & how it will inevitably lead to the world becoming a post-industrial dystopia (like every cyberpunk story does/is). (The_TuteSpark_Repository, viewed 17/09/10, http://tutespark.blogspot.com/2010/09/week-8.html)
"Negative Impact of technology on humanity: In a cyberpunked near-future, technology runs rampant, and usually manipulates most societal interactions. Dystopian near futures are very common, but so are futures where the impacts of specific technologies are played out in a world only slightly different from the present. Sacred societal boundaries are often crossed with regularity. Often the earth is severely damaged. Crime and drug use are often key supporting themes." (The_TuteSpark_Repository, viewed 17/09/10, http://tutespark.blogspot.com/2010/09/week-8.html)
'Pixels', the movie I uploaded for week 4 belongs to this category. The pixel characters of the virtual world started attacking the real world, and the earth became one pixel at the end. Probably, many people think 'oh no, it's just a story' after they see that video, as everything was described in cute way and not really serious. However, think about the images you see everyday in your life. Many TVs are now digital, and you are watching the whole images created by tiny pixels. Most people take photos by digital camera these days, and enjoy them by watching a creation of pixels. News paper and most magazines are printed by tiny dots - pixels as well. Many street signs and packages of almost all products are also printed by dots - pixels. Computer and the Internet is all made by pixels, of course. Pixels are really taking over our real world.
Now, the health risk of the mobile phone is still not confirmed, but many people have an uncertain worry that it may cause headache, nausea or even brain tumors and cancer. I found this funny news as well: Lady Gaga 'Scared To Use Mobile Phone Due To Health Risks' (Gregory, J. 2010, News, GIGWISE, viewed 17/09/10, http://www.gigwise.com/news/58150/Lady-Gaga-Scared-To-Use-Mobile-Phone-Due-To-Health-Risks). According to this story, Lady Gaga hires an assistant to hold a phone for her to avoid the mobile getting too close to her head while she uses the loudspeaker!
(photo: GIGWISE, http://www.gigwise.com/news/58150/Lady-Gaga-Scared-To-Use-Mobile-Phone-Due-To-Health-Risks)
And then here comes this video. Have you seen the video which the mobile phones make popcorn? I remember this hilarious video became viral through email.
Have you seen this? I was so shocked when I saw this first. Wow, no wonder there are so many rumor about the health risk with mobile phone, look at this, the mobile phone signal can even make popcorn!!! The radio frequency radiation kills us!!!
I never had a doubt it was not real, but I found out it was just well plotted fiction. This was originally made as an ad for Cardo Bluetooth headsets. It is suggested that there is a hot plate hidden under the table and the heat makes the corn pop. (Hoax-Slayer, Making Popcorn With Cell Phones, viewed 17/09/10, http://www.hoax-slayer.com/cell-phone-popcorn.shtml). To tell the truth, I was very disappointed to see the truth here somehow. Damn, they really tricked me.
However, it is true that there are some studies from reliable organisations that confirm an increase of health risks by using mobile phones. For example, the WHO released a study regarding a connection between mobile phone and cancer rates. People who uses their mobile phones, wireless home phones and WIFI connected more than thirty minutes a day have more risk of brain tumor. (Gifford-Jones 2010, Protect yourself from cellphone radiation, Tront Sun, viewed 17/09/10, http://www.torontosun.com/life/healthandfitness/2010/09/08/15284781.html)
So I made a news story like this. ARGUS is the name of a web magazine created by the photo journalism students of Griffith University Gold Coast Campus.
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Police arrest eleven men in connection with possible terrorist attack
September 17, 2012 by C. Fridge / ARGUS
Prime minister Julia Gillard announced that is is confirmed a group of four people were arrested on a suspected terrorist plot in Sydney.
Eleven men, including two former Telstra employees and three university science researchers, were being questioned yesterday afternoon in north Sydney on suspicion of plotting a terrorist attack. They started a business called ''Phone Geek" and planned to open 8 shops this month. It is suspected that they were intending to attach a nano-scale device inside 20,000 mobile phones including Nokia, Samsung and Sony Ericsson, and they were about to sell those modified mobile phones through their shops around north Sydney area. The size of the device is almost invisible by the human eye.
Yet the health risk of a mobile phones radio frequency radiation is still controversial, the group of suspects have conducted research for five years now and found that two times enhanced radio frequency radiation for twenty minutes or more daily can cause multiple tumors to 80 percent of people in six months. It is suspected that they created a nano-scale device to enhance the radio frequency over five times with the aim of harming anonymous people. It is believed that they have a strong connection to the known terrorist group Al Qaeda.
New mobile phones are normally sold with opened packages as the shops have to insert a SIM card and copy the contacts over as a courtesy before they hand them to consumers. "People would never realise if the mobile phone is already modified before they purchased" says Peter Tompson, a sales person of Crazy Johns Mobile Phones. "It is very scary to imagine what they were planning to do".
The World Health Organization (WHO) released a 10-year study into mobile phone use and cancer rates in 2010. The WHO recognized a significant correlation between malignant brain tumours and people who used their cellphones, wireless home phones or WIFI connected for more than 30 minutes combined daily.
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Well, this is all for the week. Have a lovely mobile free weekend!
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