globalnook

Globalization Marches Onward...

     I see that the group of  White Supremacists who demonstrated against immigration in Los Angeles yesterday were shouted down by the immigrants.
     A middle-aged, bare-chested white guy (looking like a biker with all of his tattoos) as well as a contingent of Neo-Nazis were part of the supremacist group who claimed that immigrants were stealing  jobs and committing crimes.
     Meanwhile, the multicolored melting pot which represents LA’s immigrant population--Asians, Africans, Mexicans, Koreans, Croats, Salvadoreans, East Indians, West Indians, Chinese, Peruvian, Russians, Italians, Danes, and all of the others races the world represents shouted them down as being racist and ignorant.
     The scene was a microcosm for globalization.
     In the global village, the voices of the disparate, multicultural, globally-represented masses is louder and more powerful than the voices of any single, uniform group.
     Just another sign of the times.
     In the global village—as a result of mass media--human beings have
started to recognize their essential sameness in spite of race, color, religion,
age etc.
     And it is growing larger and more pervasive throughout the planet with each and every passing day.
     Over the next 200-300 years, the biological synthesis of all the various races of the earth will produce a single race with a single, light mocha-colored skin.
     It’s not surprising that Americans elected a black man to lead the free world during the last  U.S. presidential election. That would have been unthinkable ten years ago.
     The silent, but dominant attitude among modern human beings is a relentless drive toward homogenization which is necessary for true globalization of the human race.
     Globalization marches onward.

Globalization at it's finest....

Ok,  Ladies and Gentlemen,  check out this link:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070628/ap_on_re_eu/ireland_black_mayor

     This is the story of a Nigerian, a native black African man, who has been elected mayor of a city in Northern Ireland. This is guaranteed to be a first in Irish social history. In short, the Irish are accepting a black man as a leader of one of their  local governments. Even 50 years ago, say in 1957, this would have been unheard of. The local politic would not have stood for it.  Now that we are in the 21st Century things are different. Very different.   
     This is just further testimony to the way that global media is homogenizing humankind.
     This global media effect is causing all human beings to recognize and appreciate one another's sameness, rather than their differences.  The human race is homogenizing.
      Globalization marches onward...

Intimations of Globalization III

Check out this link, boys and girls...

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070220/ap_on_re_us/megachurches_race

This piece is in-your- face testimony to the fact that all of the races of the world are becoming "homogenized".
Planet earth is becoming a "melting pot".
Like it or not!!

TCP/IP: Man's Greatest Invention?

     You can argue that all of humankind’s major achievements down through history was due to some sort of new technology. Each of these new technologies presented new and improved ways for human beings to feed, clothe, warm and protect themselves. Each and every one of these “achievements” represented a new media, some new extension of the individual.
     It’s safe to say that the naked, upright ape—the pitiful critter which stepped out of the jungles millions of years ago was, for all intents and purposes, was essentially media-less. His entire repertoire of extensions consisted of the six natural, God-given ones. These were the five senses, taste, smell, hearing, speaking, feeling and the movement (kinesthetic) sense. You could say he was media-challenged.
     Early tools consisted on sticks and stones he fashioned in various ways to more effectively gather food and defend himself. The discovery of fire enabled him to have a source of light, warmth and a method to cook his food. You can also rest assured that he used fire as a weapon in many cases against wild animals and his enemies.
      It was only natural that, once he discovered fire, it wouldn’t be long before he started melting down metals to fashion new tools out of bronze, iron and other metals. Of course, this new technology of melting/fashioning metals led to an enormous revolution which ultimately resulted in the sophisticated mechanical contraptions of the 18th and the 19th century. These were the legacies of mechanical media. These included all sorts of mechanical gadgets—both large and small—such as farming implements, industrial machinery, household appliances, automobiles, jet engines and such.
      In the late 19^th century, a new category of media—electronic media—appeared. This included the telegraph, telephone, radio, television, phonograph and film. The ultimate electronic device was the computer. In the computer, human beings had the supreme contraption for storing, organizing and manipulating data. All kinds of data… words, numbers, formulas, music, books, letter… you name it and the computer could handle it in a more efficient way that any device human kind had come up with. The computer was the incarnation of all other electronic media. It was a telegraph, telephone, radio, television, phonograph and film. In many ways, it could also duplicate many mechanical media including the printing press and the typewriter. It could not take you from point A to point B like the vast spectrum of mechanical transport such as cars, bicycles, airplanes and boats. But, in its own way, it can transport you into another dimension, like a book. In a figurative sense, computers can “take you places” just like a car. But now that humankind has this new computer contraption, wouldn’t it be nice if all of that stored, filed, manipulated information could be shared with everyone else on earth? That’s where TCP/IP comes in.
      TCP/IP is the networking protocol complex which allows one computer to talk to another computer (or computers) over the internet. It is the software suite which adds functionality to hardware such as servers, routers, switches and cables. It is the essential infrastructure of cyberspace which allows a packet to be sent from the application layer of one computer to the application layer of another computer anywhere in the world. Now that’s quite an achievement, if you ask me. That has to be one of the greatest inventions of all time, if not the greatest. Of course, TCP/IP would never have been created if it hadn’t been for fire, metal manipulation, electronics and the computer chip. As the great mathematician Sir Isaac Newton once said, “I’ve stood on the shoulders of giants.” I guess media has to done the same thing over the centuries.
     Aristotle once said “We are what we do repeatedly…..”
     If browsing the web, sending email, FTPing, searching databases, doing word processing, creating spreadsheets and maintaining webpages/blogs is what we do all day then, Oh, Great God, what are we becoming?
    I fear that the computer is turning all of us into one.
   As we meld ourselves deeper and deeper into the computer world, we begin to see ourselves and our psychological/biological processes as little more than a mechanistic replica of the computer. Our brains are CPUs, our long-term memory is a hard drive where data is stored. Our central nervous system is nothing more than random access memory where processing occurs. Our involuntary muscular system (breathing, heartbeat etc.) is the biological counterpart of ROM (read-only memory) of a computer. Our hands and feet are nothing more than peripheral devices connected with cables we call arms and legs. It's scary, but it is happening each and every day.

 

Houses and Websites

        As media, there are a number of distinct similarities between houses and websites.
         A website and a house are decorated and furnished for the same purpose. These purposes include comfort, aesthetics and functionality. Some people like to have the kitchen very close to the family room. Others like the cooking area closer to the patio. With webpages, some people like to have the loud, glaring logos which bugle-call their products. Others like their webpages to emanate muted, quieter tones. The subtle approach so to speak. It’s all a matter of comfort, style and taste.
         Both are collection of individual components which make up a collective whole. Bedrooms, bathrooms, living areas, kitchens, closets etc. make up the living experience of a house. A website site is a collection of index page (a central room) with supporting/supplemental components which provide the total experience. Within a house, you move from room to room. On a website, you move from page to page.
        Once a home or webpage is built, the major portion of the project is complete. From that point, construction is finished, but both must be constantly maintained to meet the changing vagaries of life. Information, pricing contact info etc. have to be periodically updated on the webpage. A house must periodically be reroofed, repainted and have the grass cut.
         As media, there are a number of distinct similarities between houses and websites.

 

 

      

They call it "Driving"

     Everyone knows what "driving" is.
     In the most common usage, "driving" is the act of getting into your car, starting the engine and instructing this form of mechanical media to move you from point A to point B. The car is the hardware (equipment)  and you are the software (instructions). The interface you have to accomplish this is a steering wheel, brakes, gear shift, accelerator, turn signals etc. The mechanical media moves you across the surface of planet earth and you and your passengers witness the scenery as you travel.
      The person "driving" is the person responsible for providing a comfortable, interesting experience for their passengers. As a result, the "driver" is constantly getting comments and judgements from others who are along for the ride. In fact, car culture has invented a host of colloquial names for wanna-be drivers, including "back-seat driver".
      As with cars, most computer users are a single driver at the "wheel" of a single pc. They take the routes they like and control the "scenery" according to their personal goals and individual tastes.                                        
      When computer nerds get together to discuss and review some new computer program, there may be 10 to 15 people who gather together in a room and the presentation is on a screen controlled by a single computer. One person, usually the head nerd "drives" the computer through cyberspace and controls the sequence of  images which appears on the screen. He is responsible for the flow of the "experience" and the nature and quality of the "scenery",  so to speak. If someone else takes control of the computer, they are the new "driver". The interface the "driver" has to the machine is a mouse and keyboard. His "windshield", so to speak, is the computer's monitor. In this scenario, the onlookers are his "passengers".
     You can have a "back-seat driver" at a computer just like you can for a car. Whenever someone is "driving" a car and a passenger says: "Slow down...I want to see that!", it's the same thing as a computer "driver" having someone over their shoulder point to the computer screen and shout: "Click on that! Click on that!"
     The culture of the automobile changed mating habits, methods of buying and selling and man's vision of the world and himself.
     The culture of the computer and the internet is doing the same thing.
     It has been said that cars brought the world to the common man. The very thing can be said for computers.
     So the next time somebody asks you: "Do you want to drive?",  ask them: "Are we taking the car or the computer?"

Intimations of Globalization I

    The television reality series," Little People, Big World", is a sign of globalization on the march.
    This show follows the daily lives of the Roloffs, a family of six who live on 33-acre farm near Portland Oregon. The episodes focus primarily on the lives of Matt and Amy Roloff, the parents, and one of their children, teenage son Zach, all of whom have dwarfism. The other three members of the family, two sons and a daughter, don't have the genetic trait. In the global village, all of the members want to better understand fellow members, especially minorities. No matter what differences exist in the global village, everybody wants to have available information about ALL other members. This keeps the playing field equal. Members of the global village wants to see one another's similarities rather than their differences.  Showing this family going through its daily life contributes to that understanding.  The program shows the humanity of this family and how, despite this genetic difference,  all of the members are viable, productive, valuable contributors to the entire village.
    Globalization marches onward...

Matt Roloff's new book...

Hardware and software

""The real danger is not that computers will begin to think like men, but that men will begin to think like computers." - Sydney J. Harris

The nature of media--in fact, all of life itself--could not be fully understood until the advent of the computer.
The computer is an in-your-face, cut-and-dried, loudly proclaimed combination of hardware (equipment) and software (instructions).
Mankind's  tools down through the ages were actually nothing more than a combinaton of hardware and software. If you use a club, a knife, a shovel, a gun, a hammer... any kind of hand tool, the tool is the "hardware" and the user is the software (instructions).
When you drive your car, the car is the hardware and you (instructions) are the software.
The dynamic meshing of hardware and software within a computer is a universal paradigm for all of life.
With computers, as in life itself, if either is lost, the other is useless.
Software can perform cerebral gyrations unimagined by the human mind. Hardware can perform movements unimagined by human hands.
When you draw an arrow in a bow, the bow, arrow and string serve as hardware and the perceptions, thinking processes and musculature of the archer serves as software.
When you read a book, the book is the hardware and your perceptions and thought processes are the software.
When you play music, the machine is the hardware and the CD is the software.
If you ride a bicycle, the bicycle is the hardware and you are the software.
In nature, all designed movements represents some form of hardware (equipment) and software (instructions).
When a worm moves across the earth's surface, the gelatinous substance which makes up its body bulk is hardware. The crude system of natural instincts and involuntary reflexes which makes up the worm's "thought" processes is the software (instructions).
In one very real sense, all living things are a combination of hardware  and software.

Blogging and globalization

Blogging is the perfect forum for the global village.
If necessity is the mother of invention, then blogging arrived right on time.
Now that the global village is here, members needed a medium through which every individual voice could be heard. Blogs were the answer to that need. A blog is an individual-to-village interface. Websites were primarily designed for communciations between groups and individuals. A blog, on the other hand, is like a personal letter open to the world. All human eyes and ears can hear your innermost thoughts, know your innermost desires and examine the deepest nooks and crannies of your psychoterrian. Websites were sort of the newspapers and magazines of the internet. A blog is the personal letter of the internet. A blog gives the individual a voice to the world. Everyone on earth can now spill their hearts to everyone else on earth. The great database of human knowledge can now we built by all the peoples of the world. Everyone--every breathing human on earth--can be a contributor.

The first true beauty of blogging is that its virtually free. All you need is a pc and $10 a month and you have a megaphone to the world. The second true beauty of blogging is that you don't have to beg someone to publish your work like you do in the traditional publishing world. You write what you want and you publish it just the way you want it. There's  nobody going to say you can't say: "Damn!", that you can't use a double negative or that you can't publish a photo of Frankenstein on the front age.  In a blog, you have TOTAL individual freedom.

While mechanical media empowered groups, electronic media empowers the individual.  And let me tell you,  my friend, he is being empowered.... Blogs are the ultimate democratic medium. Within the blogosphere, all participants are equal. There are no big guys and no little guys. The playing field is perfectly level for all particpants. In this environment, there are no considerations as to race, gender, nationality or religion. Everyone is equal and all comers are invited to participate in and contribute to the collective intelligence of the human race. The only reason some one comes to your blog is because you have (or they hope you have) something interesting to say.  In this environment, participants are made aware of their similaries rather than their differences.  Blogs are the great equalizer. Blogs represent human homogenization via electronic media at its finest.

Billiards gets its comeuppance

Over the course of human history, it is interesting to note all of the ways humankind has created diversions out of balls. All kinds of balls. Baseball, football, basketball, tennis, soccer, golf, marbles, ping-pong, lacrosse, and last but not least, billiards, otherwise known as pool.
Baseball is played on a diamond; football on a gridiron, tennis on a court; golf is played on a man-replica of earth itself; marbles are played on natural earth, but ping pong and pool are played on a "table".
Each and every one of these diversions have their own means of thrusting and controlling the spheroid. Golf uses a thrusting instrument called a club; the human arm is used in baseball and football; the human foot and head is used in soccer; a racquet in tennis and a paddle in ping pong. Pool is the only diversion in which the thrusting and control of the ball is done with a "stick" called a "cue". The billiard cue is a five foot long piece of wood which has been lathed to a tiny tip on one end and a size on the other end which was designed to fit the human hand for gripping. The spheroid is propelled by striking the cue ball and its movement is achieved with the use of English. While the baseball player has curve, sinker, fastball and change up, the billiards player has draw, stop, side, kill and running english.
Until the advent of the global village, pool was viewed as a backstreet activity for ne'er-do-wells. Since all forms of individual artistry is appreciated in the global village, pool has gotten its comeuppance over the past few years. Today, top billiard players collect and meet for world championships. These events draw huge television audiences and players sign lucrative contracts, promote the products they serve and become national heroes.
It is interesting to note how that, in pool, the female's essential physical weakness (a dynamic that separates male-female competition in other "ball sports") has been neutralized. The women players are just as good as the men. Playing pool is closer to playing a violin than it is to hitting a baseball or a golf ball. In fact, in many ways, the female has the advantage because competition occurs at a "table". The female has a much longer tradition of performance at a "table" than the male. In the sport of billiards, the male and female have been "homogenized", so to speak. This is a perfect example of the way media (as a performance art) equalizes the differences among human beings.