getting hyper

Friday, January 31, 2003

Chris Christa Mike: Nerd Pride!
Yes yes today I finally managed to connect to this site after a month of Prof. Duemer's email languishing in the Twilight Zone. I couldn't get email for a couple of months due to a clientside proxy error. It took the OIT guy five minutes to fix the problem that I had coped with for a month. Oh well ... This brings up another point: The Internet has all kinds of files that nobody can access because they've forgot about them, the links are broken, etc. Nobody can see them, and they're not really tangible, just random electrons on a whirring disk somewhere.... Do such files really exist? or do they simply drift off into a state of ethereal nonexistance? What is a symbol when it isn't symbolizing anything?
posted by dave Friday, January 31, 2003

Thursday, January 30, 2003

Sigmund, I know what you mean. Although The Clouds kinda makes "rhetoric" into an evil thing, it does prove a good point: words are powerful. It makes me think of the movie, The Devil's Advocate. If you've never seen it, you really should download it (yeah, yeah copyright infringement, whatever). You can also look at what happened to Socrates. People argue that The Clouds is at least partially responsible for his death. Again, words are powerful. If you slander someone, it can hurt them worse than if you beat them up: black eyes go away, but oftentimes emotional scarring doesn't. I got made fun of when I was a kid for being a "nerd" (among other things), and as a result, I still have insecurity issues. Another good movie that relates is Gossip. I don't know if that one's on DC, but it was on TV a few weeks ago. And btw, Mamary was cool, word up to her.
posted by lkjawefoijalkjsdf Thursday, January 30, 2003

YAY for School
posted by David Thursday, January 30, 2003

Just look at The Clouds by Aristophanes. Though the impression it gives of Socrates is not necessarily one hundred percent true, it still mentions the art of convincing people to take your side by use of words. Is this what rhetoric is, or is this some form of rhetoric? I believe one major factor of rhetoric is being convincing, so I'd say an important foundation for it is being persuasive and getting your point across. You should read the play, it's quite amusing. I own it if you want to borrow it.
posted by Sigmund Thursday, January 30, 2003

Although a lot of us think that Lanham's book is probably boring, I think he does make some very good points that we can relate to in our lives. While I am at school, I don't have the liberty of watching all that much television that I would when I am home. But on occasion, I do watch "Law and Order", the television series. In Lanham's 3rd chapter, "20 years later", he writes serveral pages on the differences of persuasion techniques in the court room. One approach uses logical comparisions. Premises are given and then based on evidence, a conclusion is drawn. Everything is "taken literally". The other approach uses manipulation which employs superficial techniques to attain their goals. Lawyers often employ tactics that will invoke strong human emotions that can sway a jury one way or another. Rhetoric mostly comes into play when analyzing the manipulative nature of the courtroom. The art of properly conveying ideas to the jury is very important, although it shouldn't be. If we looked at the evidence from a completely logical point of view, rhetoric wouldn't matter at all. But the fact that we are human, and our emotions do effect us, allows for this manipulation to occur and allows rhetoric to play a part in this manipulation. "Law and Order" is a great example of how the court system is manipulated. Essentially, every show is a chess game, where the lawyers, defendents, and police move to manipulate the jury to checkmate each other.
posted by Frederick Thursday, January 30, 2003

It's okay Chris. We're all at least a little nerdy--or we never would have gotten into the Honors Program! (j/k)--Christa
posted by Christa Thursday, January 30, 2003

Wednesday, January 29, 2003

One of the signs that you're a nerd: You own a copy of a book that Richard Lanham talks about (James Gleick's Chaos). Though maybe it's only in this semi-anonymous forum that I can admit to my nerd-dom. Either way.
posted by Christoper Wednesday, January 29, 2003

In class we discussed how the internet allows individuals to be published easily. This was fresh on my mind when one of my best friends from highschool sent me an IM telling me that here artwork was online. Indeed, an online publisher or mysical artwork had allowed her a page on their server for her drawings. I thought this was an interesting example of how technology changes not only text, but also all kinds of visual arts. Here is the link in case anyone is interested in looking it over.Jen's artwork.

posted by Marianna Wednesday, January 29, 2003

Just to prove that Lanham isn't making up all that stuff about chaos and fractals:

The Chaos Hypertextbook

Who knew?
posted by Jeff Wednesday, January 29, 2003

Alright, perhaps I was a little harsh on Lanham's book (by the way, I apologize for misspelling his name either here or on my own blog =<). When looking at it from Dramatic, point of view, it can be seen as addressing a particular group of individuals, with a particular intent. Lanham, appears to be an extremely cultured individual--having a plethora of literature, dramatic, musical, and artistic references at his fingertips. Thus the audience of his work is that of others who are also familiar with such arts. Secondly, his motive is to install a sense of anguish in the predictability and uninteresting nature of basic essay writing. The techniques he utilizes are those of the "Old School" almost as a sense of rhetoric in itself, proclaiming the need for literature to once again be refreshed. Thus, though the The Electronic Word might be difficult to understand in some areas, it does fulfill the objectives of Lanham, by creating a mood of traditional writing by which to compare the excitement of hyper-literature.
posted by Marianna Wednesday, January 29, 2003

Hello Kyle
yay for hp101
posted by Ken Wednesday, January 29, 2003

Nice call about The Onion. It's a lovely website. Have a nice day.
posted by Justin Wednesday, January 29, 2003

Tuesday, January 28, 2003

Just thought that I would share some links with everyone. These two are certain to keep you entertained for at least half of your adult life. Guaranteed. And to follow Dan's example, I suggest that everyone use the spell checker before posting. See "dramatically."

Something Awful
The Onion
posted by Kyle Tuesday, January 28, 2003

OK, that does it. Hope needs to go Here, if she hasn't already that is.
Thats what you get for beating my *enters/exits dramatically.*

Enjoy : )

PS: I don't have a clue what you’re referring to Kyle. Perhaps you should seek psychiatric help.
posted by Dan Tuesday, January 28, 2003

Wahoo!
posted by Kim Tuesday, January 28, 2003

*in the wall of the castle's great hall there appears a swirling vortex of color that gradually widens outward, revealing a portal through which a green, sunny, forested landscape can be seen....as the mists of the Time Portal settle to the floor a woman with flowing red hair dressed in green steps through and the gateway closes behind her....in a sultry voice she whispers to the room* greetings all....

kudos to the RPG imagination
posted by Hope Tuesday, January 28, 2003

Monday, January 27, 2003

*Enters Dramatically*

"Present!"

*Exits Dramatically*
posted by Dan Monday, January 27, 2003

Even though I know that one of the advantages (ok, so it's debatably and advantage) is that you can link to different passages and so forth of other weblogs, I am not certain of my skill with that (I think I will experiment with my own weblog first), and anyway, since I am a traditionalist (in so far as I prefer books to screens) I will copy paste some things that I would like to share from my weblog.

Reflective comment: Copy/pasting is too easy... it is so tempting just to not edit out any of the less relevant material, but if I leave it, it will be very long and you would have to be very motivated to read it, so I will do my best to cut out nonessentials.

[1/23/2003 12:18:13 AM | N Yapa]
It occured to me that I have put up nearly nothing about my reactions to the Lanham book and Holeton book. Right now what is foremost in my mind is that although I have never engaged in these multi-player games with people I do not know, I do believe that "virtual rape", etc, can be extremely scarring. Of course, you are kind of setting yourself up for it by putting yourself in such a vulnerable position around people you do not know.

I was reminded of a section of "The Novel", by James A. Michener in which he describes a budding author who composes a book that consists entirely of loose pages. The pages are packaged in a box for the buyer and they can be read in any order. Even within the pages, font sizes, font styles, etc are varied, and the orientation of the lines are changed as well. Each section may start in the middle of a sentence and end in the middle of one as well. It was entitled "Kaleidescope" (sp). There were a few sample pages within the book, and I found them quite fascinating and well written. The idea was that at first you would not know what was going on, and you would constantly be buffetted to different times and places, but as you read all these snippets of one consistent story, the shape of events would gradually form in your mind.

[1/21/2003 9:35:37 PM | N Yapa]
Topic to start with on Thursday: To what extent can we decide whether an interpretation of a piece of text is "wrong"? In reference to that, I find an answer in one of my philosophical views. I noticed that Justin commented on his philosophical views in the analysis of his poem exercise. It is food for thought... Anyway, I hope to bring this up on Thursday, but my answer to that question (at this time) is that truth is basically what the majority of people believe. There is no "absolute" truth. Reality itself is simply a mass agreement on what to accept as facts, and if things do not "make sense" -- if things seem supernatural at times, then we should not be surprised, since we have just imposed an arbitrary set of rules as being "normal".

[1/23/2003 12:11:22 AM | N Yapa]
I was browsing the weblogs up so far on the HP 101 website. Most notable was Danielle's Domain, which I am going to proceed to analyze, meaning no offense to Danielle in so far as:

1) I do not wish to make my life difficult by making an enemy for no purpose

2) I will proceed to say exactly what I think anyway

I note that I come off sounding rather obnoxious in my above comments, which actually ties in exactly with what I was thinking when I read through Danielle's weblog, which is: I perceived her completely differently than I do in real life. Of course, I do not know her that well, and only within the limited context of the classroom, but of course, the weblog is also to a certain extent within the context of the classroom since however much we may pretend otherwise, this weblog was initiated for a class, and is part of our class participation grade. Incidentally, Danielle, I really liked that first poem you put up. In her weblog, Danielle seemed, to me, to be more opinionated than in the actual classroom. I saw her, in real life, smiling and joking and seemingly taking a rather fun side of life, but the weblog seemed darker, solemn, matter-of-fact.

posted by Nadeeka Monday, January 27, 2003

I just recieved the invite so I thought I would send a test message. See you all in class tomorrow.
posted by Andrea Monday, January 27, 2003

Happy birthday, Sarah!
posted by Nadeeka Monday, January 27, 2003

Just received this invite. Thought I'd write a note to test it out to make sure it works. Today is my birthday so I haven't been very productive, but I will begin contributing to this page soon! Just thought I'd say that keeping a weblog is a good idea, especially one where the class can all correspond to each other and ask questions that weren't discussed/answered in class!
posted by Sarah Monday, January 27, 2003

Picking up on what Marianna & Sharon said, & responding to some of the difficulties a few of you have mentioned reading Lanham, here is a piece on the American philosopher Kenneth Burke, who, more than anyone else, has shaped our understanding of rhetoric. Ask yourselves what Lanham's motive is, in Burkian terms. There are a lot of Burke resources online--do a bit of looking around & post interesting finds here. An example: Kenneth Burke & The X-Files.
posted by Joseph Duemer Monday, January 27, 2003

There was just some weird little glitch in the timestamps for posts. Sharon's post should be above (more recent than) Marianna's. Blogger lets you control time, so I forced the post from the future to the past. Talk about relativity!
posted by Joseph Duemer Monday, January 27, 2003

Is anyone else finding it difficult to understand The Electronic Word (chp 3)? I understand what Ladem is exactly depicting, but am unable to connect the innate nature of humanity to better itself to the the computer-text revolution. Unless of course he is trying to say that text naturally wants to better itself and thus electronic text is the perfectly logical outcome. Even still, I don't find the greedy nature of humanity to correlate with "desires" of text. Text might be human made, but it can not desire or seek in itself to be bettered.
posted by Marianna Monday, January 27, 2003

Greetings. Here's the link to Inpassing. Its greatly amusing if you think about it and there are lots of comments to talk to people on. Have fun.
posted by Rae Monday, January 27, 2003

A class weblog! How exciting!
I'm just really testing to make sure this works.
Or maybe testing will be a bad idea because then everyone else will want to test...

So I guess I will post a link to one of the coolest sites on the net:
Slashdot.
posted by Josh Monday, January 27, 2003

Sunday, January 26, 2003

On the subject of interpretation, HM has something interesting to say.
posted by Joseph Duemer Sunday, January 26, 2003

I agree with Marianna. I see that text is human made, but it is unable to have desire. I also found chapter 3 to be a little bit more hard to understand that the rest of the chapters that we have read.
posted by Sharon Sunday, January 26, 2003

Wednesday, January 22, 2003

This is where we'll post information related to our class. I'll be sending out invitations to join this blog on Thursday 1/23.
posted by Joseph Duemer Wednesday, January 22, 2003