I found in interesting website that discusses the very same WTO protest in Seattle that Spier discusses. It talks about a UK group known as the "Electrohippies" that practices "electronic activism and civil disobedience". The article discusses how some people protest in person while others protest by using their computers. In the case of the Electrohippies, "bombard[ed] the WTO Web site with http-redirects in a massive denial-of-service attack attempting to bring the site down". I agree with the article that this definitely goes beyond activism and into crime. What do you guys think?

Here is the article

And the hyperlink thing still isn't working. Lets try again.
Here is the first article.

Here is the second article.

I forgot to make them hyperlinks. Here is the first article.
Here is the second article.

I want to post two articles I found:
here's http://www.washingtonian.com/blogarticles/people/capitalcomment/8815.html, and here's http://www.huffingtonpost.com/andy-borowitz/mccain-makes-historic-fir_b_114002.html. They are both about how McCain was lacking on the technological front. The first article was serious and at one point discusses how McCain explained that "information technology [w]as an area where he would likely need assistance from a vice president". The second is a humorous piece written by comedian Andy Borowitz and also addresses how McCain was not very technologically savvy. To be perfectly frank, I feel that it would have been absurd to have elected a president who didn't know how to use a computer.

quotes from the Spier article

I don’t agree with Cass Sunstein’s quote, from his book Republic.com that “the internet is replacing the physical public space where citizens are exposed to different point of view with a private place where individuals withdraw into themselves and reinforce deeply held prejudices”. There just doesn’t seem to be a basis to make a claim such as this one. As shown through Spier’s case, where he was able to come in contact with hundreds of Brown University students and many professors who shared his fervor to speak out against social injustices, there are many “real life” places to do this. Rather, I think the internet only helps to connect people with similar views. “The internet became for Spier the doorway to a public sphere that was at times the classroom, the library, the dorm and even the Internet itself. Although the Internet did not replace face-to-face meetings and brainstorming sessions, it facilitated them, and in some cases enabled the discourse to extend temporarily and geographically beyond the confines of the physical setting”. It is important to not look at the internet as an alternative to reality but to look at it as a facilitator to reality. The internet is not the opposite of reality, rather it is a part of our reality.

First of all, I’d just like to thank everyone who congratulated me on my blog being the first to be show up on the blogger team’s spam-dar. I got an email from the “Blogger Team” yesterday and I emailed them back asking if they had any positions opening to become a member of the team. Needless to say, they are yet to respond.
Now lets get down to some Transient and Long Term Online Relationships discussion. Suller says, “On the one hand, text-only communications restrict the experiential range by which people can express themselves, but at the same time the partial anonymity it offers also allows some people to disclose themselves more freely”.
I think this line ultimately sums up why some people prefer online relationships and why others do not. Ultimately, it’s a question of insecurity. Do you value your own anonymity over having “true” 100% fully-sensual relationships?
Or can you combine the two? I was talking to my friend who took a course similar to this one at Vanderbilt. He told me about a man on Second Life, the virtual reality world, who developed a machine that would pleasure him in reality in the style that his Second Life partner was pleasuring him in virtual reality. Pretty awesome? Incredibly gross? Awesomely Gross?

Suler's Ch3: In-person versus cyberspace relationships

The combination of Alexis’ and Craig’s story and Suler’s discussion regarding what is better, in person relationships or cyberspace relationships, got me thinking about those people who resort to only having cyberspace relationships. Unlike Alexis and Craig, there are many people who use the internet as an excuse not to develop in person relationships. Due to some sort of social anxiety, brought on from something or another, they prefer to keep their relationships strictly, or more-or-less strictly, web-based. Suler says, “As much as I respect and enjoy cyberspace relationships, I would be very unhappy if I could ONLY relate to my family and closest friends via the Internet, even if sophisticated visual/auditory technology made it seem like actually being there with them. Cyberspace relating is a wonderful supplement to IPR, but in the long run it's not ultimately fulfilling as a substitute, especially when it comes to our most intimate relationships. Most people who develop close friendships and romances in cyberspace eventually want and need to meet their friend or lover in-person. And once they've done that, returning to cyberspace-relating can feel at least a tiny bit flat and incomplete, despite the effects of the online disinhibition effect”. I think Suler makes a great point that cyber-space relationships should enhance real-life and not substitute it.

I agree with Dr. Bob's comment regarding the fact that viewers of media are drawn to the bloody crime stories that so often dominate our newspapers and news shows. I have to admit that oftentimes I go to msnbc.com and peruse the crime & courts section first, because that section has the most action. Ultimately, the news outlets are reporting on, based on their facts and statistics, what the most readers or viewers want to hear about.

Online Relationships

It seems that, for Alexis, her relationship with Craig really worked out. I have to admit, however, that the entire time I was reading the interview, I expected Craig to either turn out to be some sort of sociopathic criminal or a woman. I guess once they started talking on the phone, my theory that Craig was a woman sort of fizzled. We are trained by the media and our parents to be very skeptical of online “chatters”. While I am sure that what happened with Alexis happens quite often, we really only here about when these situations go horribly wrong. There is no headline in a newspaper entitled, “Girl Falls in Love with Lumberyard Worker She Met Online”; and there certainly is a headline in a newspaper entitled, “Girl Gets Axed by Lumberyard Worker She Met Online”.

Alexis’ story was refreshing in that it did work out. At one point, discussing when she met Craig in person, Alexis writes, “…the concept of who he was did not change at all... it just solidified because i had the actual person there with me”. It is important for us to realize that not everyone chatting on the internet is an axe murderer. On the other hand, this is not to say we shouldn’t be vigilant or skeptical of those we meet online, I just feel like the media really does sensationalize a microscopic aspect of the internet.

I have a blog!