Saturday, January 25, 2020

Identity on the Internet :: Technology Computers

Identity on the Internet Before the internet, there was only the computer, large ones that take up a whole room. The computer then was seen only as a tool, and then a few years later there was the personal computer which made it more accessible and more interactive. The PC was a kind of evolutionary step which enabled us to have wider relationships. But these relationships did not appear yet until PCs started to become interconnected. This is where internet comes in. At first it was only a military tool, used by the States to connect their military branches and easily share their data. That was until someone saw the commercial value and the great potential of the net. In the article of Sherry Turkle, she described a new world where we have started to populate over the years with several mirrors of ourselves. The cyberspace is exactly that strange new world people have inhabited with the help of technology like the personal computer. With our lives now inside the screen and our personal selves cannot be determined by the other end then the internet, we gain the ability to recreate ourselves virt ually in the new world. We now have the ability to create characters will may or may not reflect our own identity. With MUD or multi user domains the characters we play can even have emotions that can be conveyed to a large number of other players residing in the cyber world. Through the interactions we have with players around the world, our real life personas, Turkle pointed out, go to â€Å"sleep† and our characters materialize inside the virtual domain. Players often border between real life (RL), a term coined by several MUD enthusiast and their cyber worlds and as a result there are several analogies that will work for this topic. Let’s take Play by Email (PBeM) as an example; this will be discussed further later on. The author is the player in cyber world and the interaction in the game is in the form of writing and the computer is the converter of simple words into the character’s actions, thoughts and feelings. Anonymity is a window to a new character. The internet also gives a person a chance to explore his other desires. He may be a man in RL but plays a woman in the game. She maybe a lawyer but plays a bartender.

Friday, January 17, 2020

Memoirs of a Geshia and Andrea Del Sarto Essay

The film adaptation of Memoirs of a Geshia faithfully depict the context in which it was taken. Woman are portaryed strong feminists in today’s society. Sayuri’s blue eyes symbolise the Japanese culture, as the element of water is often associated with adoption and change, as it can be both a relaxing and a desructive force. Sayuri’s growth from a young servant to one of the most sought after geshia in her district â€Å"water is a good guard against fire. Sayuri is portrayed as being a worthy protective for the equally formidable element of fire which can be associated with the beautiful but highly dangerous Hutsumomo. Both â€Å"woman of fire† and the â€Å"girl of water† illustrate the dominance and power of women in today’s society. as both characters were associated with the element of earth, emphasising the power of women in today’s society as they have gained power over time. On the other hand, in Andrea del Sarto, Browning rejects the tendency rejects the tendancy of romantics to project all their desires onto a female object . His dramatic monolouge in the poem is a variation on the theme of men processing women as objects, â€Å"You beatiful Lucrezia that are mine! † reveals the artist’s desire to assert his male dominance over her female passivity. Browning showcases the role of women during the Victorian era and the time as men only refer to them as objects as they were only desired by men for their â€Å"perfect eyes†¦ perfect mouth†¦ â€Å"over time women have become more powerful as portrayed in Memoirs of a Geshia as the society has recognised and potential of women.

Wednesday, January 8, 2020

Chalicotherium Facts and Figures

Name: Chalicotherium (Greek for pebble beast); pronounced CHA-lih-co-THEE-ree-um Habitat: Plains of Eurasia Historical Epoch: Middle-Late Miocene (15-5 million years ago) Size and Weight: About nine feet high at the shoulder and one ton Diet: Plants Distinguishing Characteristics: Horse-like snout; clawed feet; longer front than hind legs About Chalicotherium Chalicotherium is a classic example of the bizarre megafauna of the Miocene epoch, about 15 million years ago: this gigantic mammal is virtually unclassifiable, having left no direct living descendants. We do know that Chalicotherium was a perissodactyl (that is, a browsing mammal possessing an odd number of toes on its feet), which would make it a distant relative of modern horses and tapirs, but it looked (and probably behaved) like no plus-sized mammal alive today. The most notable thing about Chalicotherium was its posture: its front legs were significantly longer than its hind legs, and some paleontologists believe that it brushed the knuckles of its front hands along the ground when it walked on all fours, a bit like a modern gorilla. Unlike todays perissodactyls, Chalicotherium had claws instead of hooves, which it probably used to rope in vegetation from tall trees (a bit like another prehistoric mammal it vaguely resembled, the giant sloth Megalonyx, which lived a few million years later). Another odd thing about Chalicotherium is its name, Greek for pebble beast. Why would a mammal that weighed at least a ton be named after a pebble, rather than a boulder? Simple: the chalico part of its moniker refers to this beasts pebble-like molars, which it used to grind down the soft vegetation of its Eurasian habitat. (Since Chalicotherium shed its front teeth during adulthood, leaving it bereft of incisors and canines, this megafauna mammal was clearly unsuited to eating anything except fruits and tender leaves.) Did Chalicotherium have any natural predators? Thats a tough question to answer; clearly, a full-grown adult would have virtually impossible for a single mammal to kill and eat, but sick, aged and juvenile individuals may have been preyed on by contemporary bear dogs like Amphicyon, especially if this distant canine ancestor had the ability to hunt in packs!