Week 6 questions.

DAI 227 WEEK 6 Lecture Questions

1) Steve Mann describes his wearable computer invention as a form of ________ for one person (fill in the blank)

-  Architecture for one, or a building for a single occupant. He gets this idea because his dad worked for a clothing company when Mann was little.

2) Steve Mann's concept of opposing camera surveillance with "Sousveillance" is described as a form of “reflectionism”. What is meant by this?

- In a way, it is reversed SURveillance. With Souveillance it is like holding a mirror and asking people themselves if they liked what they were doing as described. Basically act as a mirror for people to see themselves.

3) In the section of "Sousveillance" called "Performance Two" Steve Mann describes how wearing his concealed device becomes more complex when used in what type of spaces?

- “These relationships, however, become more complex when wearing the device into spaces such as shopping malls that are semi-public rather than fully public” In a heavy surveillance area Mann was questioned more his souveillance.

4) The final paragraph sums up what Mann consider the benefits of "sousveillance" and "coveillance". What are they?

- With these technologies, this type of surveillance can act as neighborhood watches (for self protection and neighbors) while people are out and about doing activities.

5) In William J Mitchell's 1995 book "City of Bits" in the chapter "Cyborg Citizens", he puts forth the idea that electronic organs as they shrink and become more part of the body will eventually resemble what types of familiar items?

-  Mitchell theorizes that these items will eventually become a part of our clothing attire, things that contour to our bodies as a whole.

6) From the same book/chapter, list two of the things that a vehicle that 'knows where it is' might afford the driver & passengers.

- Other than being just a GPS, it can tell the person operating the car the history or background about the certain spot. (Which reminds me of the sightseeing tour on Alcatraz with the earplugs I was once told about.)

7) Mitchell tells the story of Samuel Morse's first Washington-to-Baltimore telegraph message. What was it?

- “What hath god wrought.”

8) Donna Harroway in "A Cyborg Manifesto" argues that women should take the "battle to the border". What does she say are the stakes in this border war?

- The things that are at stake in this ‘border war’ were the territories of production, reproduction, and imagination for women.

9) Harroway posits the notion that:
"We require regeneration, not rebirth, and the possibilities for our reconstitution include the utopian dream"What is this dream?

- “…Of the hope for a monstrous world without gender.”

10) Many have argued that 'we are already cyborgs' as we use devices such as glasses to improve our vision, bikes to extend the mobility function of our legs/bodies etc, computers and networks to extend the nervous system etc. What do you think? Are we cyborgs?
 

- Well, the difference in meaning between a robot and cyborg is that a robot is fully mechanized and a cyborg was once human now with partly or whole artificial limbs and parts (for example Robocop.) So the question is are we cyborgs? Partly yes/no and with partly yes, physically most of us still have our biological limbs so to speak. For people that are unfortunate to have to have artificial operations, they can be considered as partly mechanical (another example, that guy who lost his arm in a mountain climbing accident, movie: 127 hours, in an interview he is still does mountain climbing, and he said that with his new mechanical hand, he is stronger and better because of it). The no of this part of the answer is people cannot be as strong as the terminator per says even with mechanical enhancement. The yes, spiritually or the lack of actually. In this day and age, everyone and I mean almost everyone is depending on either a cell phone or laptop or at least some sort of a mechanical device, so in that sense I believe we are all somewhat of a half-assed cyborg, so to speak anyways and I do not think many people could disagree with that, or at least we are mechanically dependent on machine and technology.