TV & Technology

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Nicholas Carr

The Shallows: 

What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains

What IS the internet really doing to our brains?

Have you ever stopped and taken the time to realize how much your brain does for you especially without you even realizing it?

No? Well then take a step back and read…


The Internet

Your Brain

Imagine you are reading a book…and at the same time you are reading that book you are simultaneously working on a crossword puzzle…this is what Nicholas Carr believes you are doing while you are using the Internet 

Make sense? No? Well think a little harder… 

The internet is continuously changing the way we all read, the way we all think, the way we process information. Sound a little bit more like a crossword puzzle now?

Nicholas Carr

“The medium IS the message…we have this different kind of ‘self’ than our ancestors”

The way YOU choose to convey THE message, IS the message


The Shallows

Carr believes that the internet is a medium based on interruption, and it is changing the way people read and process information

Research began for The Shallows after noticing a change in himself in his own ability to concentrate 

“I’d sit down with a book, or a long article, and after a couple of pages my brain wanted to do what it does when I’m online: check e-mail, click on links, and do some Googling, hop from page to page” – Nicholas Carr to Robert Siegel 

The internet is a chronic state of distraction that follows us long after we shut down our computers 


Ask Yourself This…

Do the movies and TV you watch mimic the way you have always thought?

Have we learned by the way TV and movies have taught us to think it is the way it should be?


So I Asked Myself… 


https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=127370598

Music & Sound

DigitalChain

 


Music

 

African music – the feel is very lazy, they are very behind the beat

I thought this was a very interesting point, I have never once thought about what is the item that makes African music so distinct compared to other types of music – the feel of the music being lazy and behind the beat


Sound 

Sound is pressure waves traveling through the air

Sound in air is like ripples moving through water

The pitch of a note is determined by its “frequency” – how frequently it vibrates

The higher the frequency, higher the vibration

Every musical note we hear is known as a fundamental pitch (the loudest)

Different instruments have different fundamental pitches, there is an overtone series that makes them sound different

There are physical proportions embedded in the strings of an instrument

Principles of form embedded in the universe


“We shall therefore borrow all our Rules for the Finishing our Proportions, from the Musicians, who are the greatest Masters of this Sort of Numbers, and from those Things wherein Nature shows herself most excellent and complete.”

Leon Battista Alberti


Digital Music Theory

It is physics, it has a mathematical order written to it, and that order is possibly written to the universe

Definition: In Music Theory and Digital Composition, students explore the structure, writing, and recording of music as a design problem, with the intention of creating and releasing a finished piece of original music

Harmonic ratios as room shapes – I did not understand this

Is there some underlying math that rules/runs the world?


The Creation of Vinyl Records

As you sing, the diaphragm would vibrate, that connects to a needle that is connected to a disc made of wax, as you started singing, the vibrations of your voice would cut through the wax, then the process continues until you could stamp the wax disc

1950’s: music was recorded to tape, rather than to wax

Highest frequency humans can hear – 20,000 with perfect hearing, with age it deteriorates


Analogue vs. Digital 

Analogue

EX: singing into the microphone, current generated in the microphone, generated by my sound

The electrical current generated is analogous to the sound wave

It is changed its form but has not been created into numbers

I have no idea how this example relates – It makes sense yes but I don’t get how mathematics and physics all tie into this

Electric currents varies with vibrations

Analogue process – converted to electricity

Digital process – converted into numbers, numbers represent possible frequency distributions (any yes or no answer)

 

Idealism vs. Realism

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Idealism vs. Realism 

Idealism

Idealism is envisioning or seeing things in an ideal or perfect manner; essentially, the theory that states that our reality is shaped by our thoughts and ideas

Idealists settle for perfection, aiming for high, sometimes unrealistic goals, glass half full kind of person

Although, idealists deal with things as they should be, through the internal world of rationalism and ideas

Realism

Realism, is when things are viewed in a more pragmatic approach and actual view of the situation

Realists settle for mediocrity, only aiming for achievable targets

Although, realists deal with things as they are, through the external world of material and facts


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“I believe you find life such a problem because you think there are good people and bad people. You’re wrong, of course. There are, always and only, the bad people, but some of them are on opposite sides.”

– Terry Pratchett

“I’m not ready to let the youthful part of myself go yet. If maturity means becoming a cynic, if you have to kill the part of yourself that is naive and romantic and idealistic – the part of you that you treasure most – to claim maturity, is it not better to die young but with your humanity intact?”

– Kenneth Cain

“Scratch the surface of most cynics and you find a frustrated idealist – someone who made the mistake of converting his ideals into expectations.”

– Peter M. Senge

“The idealist hopes. The romantic sees doom. The postmodernist sees doom and hopes.”

– Bauvard

“They said that I should lose my ideals and begin to believe in the methods of practical politicians. Now, I have not lost my ideals in the least; my faith in fundamentals is exactly what it always was. What I have lost is my childlike faith in practical politics.”

– G.K. Chesterton


What are YOU?

Idealism causes you to see things in a very hopeful manner, shaping situations with your own ideas. Realism, on the other hand, causes one to assess a situation as it is, without overt emotional involvement

Idealists tend to be more positive when compared to realists, in how they perceive things and carry out tasks

When making decisions, realists are more goal oriented and thorough than idealists, who may have lofty ambitions, but lack the clarify and focus to put them into action in an achievable way


https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/idealism