Chapter 10

An interesting conversation arose in my English class this past tuesday. The following question was posed: How would it effect you personally if you woke up tomorrow and the internet no longer existed? How would it affect your community? How would it effect your profession? Now, take a minute to think of that before you read my response.

***

Ok, now, this is an expansion of the notes that I jotted down during class to add to the discussion. The first thing that popped into my mind was that scene from the IMAX 3D version of Order of the Phoenix where Ginny "reducto"'s the rows of prophecy balls and everything comes crashing down and little glass fragments are flying everywhere in 3 dimensional slow motion. Back in reality, my first thought is, I would be out of a job and have a degree that has become pointless, and I have been working for years toward a bachelors degree in a program that would no longer exist. I would have to start over in a completely different field.

Next I thought about school in general, mainly penn state. A lot of professors make use of Angel for communication, grade tracking, posting assignments, and even quizzes/exams. This would all be pen and paper again. Not that it was so long ago that I sat in a classroom and took a pen and paper test. I've just gotten used to the convenience.

On the topic of convenience.. its easy to shop, pay bills, get directions, and gather general information online. It's so simple to hit up google or mapquest rather than the way we used to do it prior to those sites. I have had hand-written directions to follow, I have spent hours in a library doing research, I have written checks to pay bills, and I still do the majority of my shopping in actual stores. It wasn't so long ago that we didn't have these conveniences, I personally have just adjusted too nicely to them.

Entertainment wasn't much of an issue for me, I do play games online, but I also read books (the printed paper kind with covers) and go out to movies. I listen to music, on the radio, actually since I've had to recover my hard drive I don't have much downloaded. Thats not to say that I don't enjoy playing games online, or downloading podcasts and music. But this is probably the only area of my life that wouldn't be completely affected by the internet disappearing.

Communication is another area that may get some taking used to in having to go back to the prior way (I hate the term "old way", I am not old.. just older.. and did things differently previously :) ). I had pen pals, I even wrote letters to friends that lived in the same city as me over the summer when we weren't in school. We also talked on the phone, but at 12 or 13, it was nice to get mail once in a while. Now, its very simple to write a quick email, chat with someone on aim or yahoo messenger, or meet tons of new people at any number of message boards or forums. I moved from philadelphia to harrisburg, so I use email and messengers to keep in touch with friends and family. But could do this over the phone or through a letter, but like I've said before, I've gotten all too used to the convenience of it all.

One of my classmates wrote a similar blog about using texting and ims to communicate, and he's absolutely right, there is no replacement for human contact. I'm not quite as bad as someone who sends and im or text to someone next to them. Although, I must confess, I have sent an im to someone I was on the phone with. But, what happened there was that we were chatting on aim, and the conversation got a little complicated so my friend called me. We stopped our aim conversation while we were on the phone, but I needed to send her a website addy that was relevant to our convo. It was easier to im it.

Any thoughts?

Chapter 9

Not much has caught my eye in the way of news about the ways that people are using the internet to communicate.

I am participating in a class wiki, where my part within my group is to talk about the same type of things. The evolution of writing on/for the internet. I just realized that I haven't talked about wikis yet.. so the subject of this post has been decided - the Wiki.

The definition of a wiki, as posted by the most popular wiki in the world - Wikipedia, is: software that allows users to easily create, edit, and link pages together. Wikis are often used to create collaborative websites and to power community websites.

What this boils down to is, a web of information posted and edited and updated by users. Some wikis are specialized, such as The Penn State Wiki, and others are general like Wikipedia (which is more of an online, open source, encyclopedia).

There are pros and cons to wikis, the major pro is that information can be constantly updated and edited to make sure it is valid. Of course, there is some authentication process (some require a username/password combo to be able to update, others have admins fact check information before it officially gets posted). This also leads to the biggest con, wrong information getting out before someone fact checks it, or someone else comes along to correct it.

Overall, I believe wikis can be a good source of information. As with anything you read on the internet, it is always good to double check sources for validity.

Chapter 8

Digg.com is a type of ranking website for news stories from various other websites. I happen to stumble onto a function that digg.com offers where you can post stories that you "dugg" directly to your blog (as long as your blog was part of one of the services that they are able to post to). This is useful, because it allows digg.com members than have blogs to share certain stories with the viewers of their blogs with a simple click.

This is a lot easier than copying and pasting the entire article, or emailing several people, or even manually creating a link. Readers have the option to click to read the article, or not to.

Also, with this digg.com option, I could have written my entire post. All the text except "WooHoo!" was generated by Digg. All of the text, including the subject line, is able to be edited or added to.

Neato idea! :)

Deathly Hallows to be split into two films

It's official! The LA Times has confirmed that Deathly Hallows will be split into two films AND will be directed by OOTP and HBP director David Yates.Woohoo!

read more | digg story

Chapter 7

This week's post (ok last week's post that I forgot to make, but didn't have anything to say..) is about something we talked about in my English class. Copyright and Authorship on the web.

There is an on-going lawsuit between J.K. Rowling/Warner Brothers and RDR Books over the publication of an encyclopedia type book based on the Harry Potter Lexicon website written by the site's webmaster Steve Vander Ark.

Here is the article posted on the Leaky Cauldron about this issue.

I'll summarize it. The HP Lexicon is an online unofficial encyclopedia. It is well known in the Harry Potter fandom as one of the best places to find information about the HP books and other parts of the HP fandom. What I mean is, 99% of the information is pulled directly from the books and presented in an easily searchable way.

J.K. Rowling herself gave this website her "fansite award" for Steve Vander Ark's dedication.

Now, the webmaster wants to publish the Harry Potter Lexicon in print form. That is, publish an encyclopedia for the Harry Potter books. And, J.K. Rowling has responded. It has never been a secret, or a very well kept one anyway, that she plans to release her own encyclopedia. She mentioned it in an interview she did with PotterCast (Leaky's podcast), and I believe it was mentioned a while ago on a Biography interview show where they filmed her house and she showed some drawings and books and things. This material is what is mentioned in the PotterCast interview as 'some' things that would be in her "Scottish Book" (the attempt at hiding the intent to publish an encyclopedia).

So, part of the argument on the side of Steve's Lexicon is that there are other books published about the series with no lawsuits.

This is true, there are. But they don't reprint word for word the books in the series. The 2 that come to my mind are Mugglenet's What Will Happen In Harry Potter 7, which is an analysis of popular theories about things that may or may not happen in the 7th book, which was written even before the title of book 7 was released. If something from the book is mentioned, its quoted. Otherwise, its the 3 author's opinion as to the big questions of what would be in the last book. The other is called The Great Snape Debate, which is a 2 sided book, one side talks about the reasons that the character Severus Snape is "good", and if you flip it over and upside down, the other side the explanation and theory on why Snape is "bad". I have the mugglenet one, and only glanced at the Snape book. Neither one infringes on copyright because they don't pull text from the books for the majority of their book, and if they do use text, they quote it. I believe they have sources at the end as well.

So the question of copyright arises. J.K. Rowling wrote the books, therefore has full copyright of the characters, and the world that she created.

Steve Vander Ark compiled the Lexicon. Where he states he's not the author, and originally made a statement that he put his webpage online so that others wouldn't try to publish an unofficial encyclopedia because J.K. Rowling should be able to do that herself.

Now, i'm all for his website. You can tell he put a lot of time and effort into it, gathered other fans to help, and produced a great resource for Harry Potter fans. However I don't believe he should be able to publish a print version of his website. Why would someone pay for something they've been looking at for free for years? And something that isn't official, yet being passed off as the definitive Harry Potter encyclopedia.

There were also statements made by RDR Books and Vander Ark that fans would buy both. Um no. Personally, I would wait however long for the official J.K.R encyclopedia. She says she'll publish one, so she will when she's ready. I can wait.

I wouldn't buy the Lexicon book even if JKR never releases her own encyclopedia. I have seen the website, if I want to look something up, I'll go there. Or, I'll re-read the books. Or listen to the audio books. Or watch one of the movies. Or go to another site where the webmasters aren't trying to gain profit on something that isn't their's and that they wouldn't even have if the books had never been written.

I think, even if Vander Ark is able to publish his book (which I doubt.. but still, for arguement's sake), he'll lose money on it anyway. Especially after this lawsuit. It makes him look HORRIBLE! He makes the members of the fandom look bad. He makes webmasters who put up honest pages look bad. What fan would buy into something like that? Although it would be fun to see what he'd say should his book be published and then flop...

And I'll end my rant there...