Blog 9: Information Operations -- Kind of Remind me of Politics

I think the first thing that struck me as I was reading Captain Flor's work, and later General Baker's, is how similar an information operation seems to a political campaign or a long-term advertising campaign. All three seem to involve using certain information to create a certain image or narrative that is completely unshakable, or at least quick to fix when opposing information appears, true or untrue, that tries to shake that image. 

The second thing that struck me is that's kind of creepy, how politics and information operations are similar to a long-term advertising campaign. After all, politics and military campaigns aren't as harmless as "no really, Crest is the best brand of toothpaste," the effects that military and politics have are much more crucial.

I found some of Flor's points especially odd. The very first point about how information operations should operate is that "Credibility is the currency of counterinsurgency:  'The truth is an asset, not a liability,'" then detailing the importance of keeping an information operation campaign honest and credible.  But then, his very next point is "Establish an overarching narrative: 'Stay on message.'" I feel when all information has to conform to a certain narrative, especially with something as complicated as military operations, it would damn near impossible to keep all reports entirely truthful, and you definitely wouldn't be able to tell everything.

I feel like these two points highlight the age difference between these two men, mentioned in our prompt: that Flor was closer to a college student's age when he wrote his article, while Baker was much older. I feel like Baker has no such naivety about creating honesty within a set narrative, for a key point between Baker's and Flor's articles is that Baker has no such section on honesty, though he has many other sections on how information campaigns should work: the importance of repetition of information, keeping to a set message, unity of that message, spending a large amount of time delivering the information, and setting up feedback mechanisms. I feel like Baker is aware enough on how these campaigns actually end up working out that he knows honesty can't always occur when keeping to a set message. 

I suppose I find their ideas of a repetitive, long-lasting narrative a bit disturbing. If the narrative is actually true, stays true, and helps create relations between foreign countries and the U.S., then sure, no problem. But when I think of established narratives, I think of extreme leftwing or rightwing politicians, of the mainstream media which targets the news to a certain audience, or fundamentalist religions -- everything that fits the narrative is heard, points that could change or argue against the narrative are swept under the rug. And especially in politics, avoiding debate or change is why nothing gets accomplished rather than pointless bickering between the two parties. It keeps the targeted audience ignorant too, of what is really going on.

I also think of our discussion regarding Bradley Manning, the information he leaked, and how he was treated afterwards. The video could have been treated as the beginning of a much needed discussion about many important issues, a discussion that everyone could know about and be involved with, rather than, at best, a taboo subject discussed in hushed tones by higher military officials. Instead, because it went outside the established narrative and was seen as harmful information, Manning was tried and convicted as a criminal. 

I guess I can see how, especially when operating in foreign and potentially hostile countries where untruths could be quickly spread by counterinsurgencies, establishing a constant, positive narrative is a good thing. I just worry about the potential for the truth to be changed, hidden, or silenced with the efforts to maintain a consistent narrative. 

Blog 8: We are the Machine. The Machine is Us

I admit I felt rather inspired by Molly's blog for this week, as I am also taking DTC 475 and have also been mulling over the similarities between the class materials. I also felt inspired by one of the videos we watched on Monday, The Machine is Us/ing Us, largely because while we've talked in class about how machines are like humans or are becoming like humans, we haven't talked so much about how humans are becoming like our machines.  

So in The Shallows, one of our DTC 475 readings, Carr talks about how information technologies mentally change us. Even as far back as the invention of writing itself our minds changed, we no longer needed to remember the massive amounts of information that an oral culture needed to -- it was just no longer necessary (Carr 56-57). Later, with the invention of the typewriter, we see how writers were affected by it, Carr offers a quote from T.S. Elliot who said that his writing changed from long fluid sentences to sentences that were short and staccato (Carr 209). 

We have continued to see this with the rise of the digital age. The main point behind The Shallows is to detail how the human brain has changed due to the internet, how we have lost some of capacity to think deeply, and instead have shifted to a brain more oriented to the multi-tasking many of us are used to on the internet, such as working with multiple tabs or programs.

I think part of the reason why the internet has seemed to especially take people by storm is just how immersive it is. As we discussed a little bit on Monday, advanced programming has made it so that the average user doesn't have to deal with code in order to post information, it seems to flow almost instantaneously. Typing a blog post for the world to see takes less time, effort, and money than, say, sending a telegraph.

An idea I was toying with for the midterm though, is the idea of will information technologies become even more immersive, to the point where posting information could be almost literally as fluid as thought? Will we reach a point where humans and information technologies are not separate entities, but almost combined into one? Perhaps you only need to think to post content? Or perhaps mouse control works by a device that tracks your eye paths? I decided against the idea for my midterm project since I don't see this happening in eight years, but it's something I could see something like it happening maybe even as soon as fifteen years. It would be interesting, as it would quite revolutionize how we currently consider our relationship with technology.  

What would this idea mean in regards to information though? In my midterm I talked about a defining moment where we need to decide how we handle information -- a technology like what I speak of might help provoke that moment, if it hasn't already happened. I say that because I think those technologies may increase our current problems of not knowing how to deal with the amount of information sharing and reproduction, if the problem hasn't already been solved by then. Such a fluid technology might make it even more difficult to control what users can and cannot access, and browsing and posting remixed information would ideally grow even easier. Perhaps it would be the final straw for current copyright holders, to either attempt to put a stop to the ease of accessing/reproducing information, or else to give up and let information remixers do what they want to a certain degree.  

Overall, it seems that information technologies are growing ever more immersive. It will be interesting to see what this immersion will cause us to reconsider -- whether it be psychology, copyright, or information itself. 

Blog 7: Information Technologies and the Deparment of Redundancy Department

(The actual image is a bit bigger. If you're having trouble seeing the image, here's the image link)

This image illustrates a connection between various information technologies that we have looked at: that redundancy in information given is incredibly important. The more information given, the better!

It's interesting because in everyday life, such as in writing and in speech, redundancy is not considered a good thing. We are encouraged to not beat around the bush and just to get to the point. Language that repeats a single point over and over again, or a point that is obvious is not considered impressive or interesting by any stretch of the mind. For example, if I wrote a story with this as an excerpt: "it was raining outside. I decided to take a walk in the rain. The rain got my hair wet. I almost slipped on the freshly rained-on concrete," the reader would probably want to throw something in frustration. The reader understood the information the first time, and it is neither useful nor interesting to repeat it over and over again.

In information technology though, redundancy is actually valuable. Repetition of information helps catch or prevent errors or miscommunications from occurring. We can see throughout history how redundancy in information can prevent errors and miscommunications.

For example, Gleick describes redundancy in the language of the talking drum as "the antidote to confusion" (25). Because certain patterns of tones could mean more than one word, adding additional information was a necessity to make sure that the correct message got across. While listening to the talking drum would be more time consuming than anyone would want a normal conversation to be, redundancy eliminated the potential for errors.

We also see Gleick detail how a lack of redundancy in abbreviated telegraph messages made them vulnerable to error. As Gleick says, "because they lacked the natural redundancy of English prose--even the foreshortened prose of telegraphese--these cleverly encoded messages could be disrupted by a mistake in a single character" (158). While the coded messages were economically friendly by reducing information to only the necessary, if hidden, core, these messages were prone to errors that couldn't be noticed without natural redundancy of language -- and in the case of the wool dealer Frank Primrose, even a single error turned out to be incredibly costly.

We also see the importance of redundancy in current digital information technologies. In one of the videos we watched, Claude Shannon - Father of the Information Age, we are told how Claude Shannon integrated redundancy to digital information -- by adding extra digital bits of information and various error detection and correction codes to any sort of digital medium, then the information can still come clearly through, even if part of the data is faulty or corrupted. (In the video, the bit on redundancy starts at about 15:03, or about there.)

While redundancy in conversation may make you want to strangle someone, it's hard to overvalue the worth redundancy of information has to information technologies throughout history. To bring it all back to the image I posted, when it comes to redundancy and information technologies, there's never too much of a good thing! With information technologies, it may be possible to say that there is really no such thing as Too Much Information.

Blog 6: ELIZA, Meaning, and the future of Psychotherapy

So both in this class and in my DTC 475 class, we have talked a bit about ELIZA, the 1966 chat bot and computer program modeled after the general idea of a Rogerian Psychotherapist. Despite that the program is very limited in its responses, and the fact that many of us today would struggle to talk to ELIZA without wanting to flip a table, at the time many people took the program seriously. There were many people who believed that ELIZA could understand them, and people would have long and intimate conversations with the program.

I believe this relates to our discussions about if computers can comprehend meaning. At the time of ELIZA, the program certainly couldn't comprehend meaning, but only guess and parrot responses based on what you said to it. Often these responses made absolutely no sense to the information you just fed it. However, while the computer itself doesn't comprehend meaning, the people who interact with the computer can create meaning from the information given, and even acknowledge meaning where it doesn't exist. As of today, I believe that this still remains true--computers give us information without comprehension of meaning, but we can pair appropriate meaning with the information given to us, or even create meaning where meaning isn't found.

On another note, I'm surprised that there haven't been further efforts and advancements in computer psychotherapy since ELIZA, at least not that I found. I believe that there could be promise in the idea. Yes, ELIZA is a rather frustrating program to talk to, but vast improvements have been made in programming and AI since then. If we could create a program with a substantial psychology database and incorporate our fuller knowledge of creating chat bots, there could be a future of creating an effective digital psychotherapist.

For the record, I'm not suggesting that we fully replace human therapists--partially because I know quite a few people currently studying psychology who probably won't be too happy with that idea. But mainly because it's worth noting that there are people who are likely more comfortable with having face-to-face interaction, and would rather speak with a real person. Especially in terms of being able to have heartfelt moments or exchange emotions, that is much harder to do with a computer. 

But on the flipside, there are also people who most likely are too shy and uncomfortable to talk their problems out to another person, and the unbiased nature of a computer program might be soothing to them, but adding a chat function would create at least a small sense of personal interaction. Personally, I've always been wary of therapists because no matter how much education and training a therapist may have, humans are imperfect by nature. I've always been hesitant about the idea of trusting my deepest issues, the most fragile parts of my self, to someone who could have some kind of personal bias, not be knowledgeable in the right area, maybe randomly not like me or work well with me, or just be terrible at their job.That's why I feel like pursuing the idea of a digital therapist would be a worthwhile idea--it may not solve all of these problems, but ideally it would create an unbiased source with a comprehensive knowledge.

However, obviously the technology isn't all there yet. For one thing, while chat bots have massively improved since ELIZA, it's still pretty rare that I can talk to Cleverbot without getting a headache. Current diagnostic programs are hardly perfect either, there are plenty of jokes about the misadventures of trying to diagnose oneself by WebMD. While WebMD has a large database and can accept information from you, it cannot understand the information enough to always give an accurate diagnosis. Overall, this program isn't one that can be created immediately, probably at least a few more years of work needs to be done.

There is also the question of, in order to be a good psychotherapist, would a program have to be able to comprehend meaning and emotion? I do feel that a digital psychotherapist would have to have a higher comprehension of meaning than computers of today do. Especially in terms of being able to "read between the lines" of what a patient might say--when in a sensitive situation like a psychological session, a patient might not always be able to be completely forward. The program may need to be able to comprehend when someone is lying or isn't being direct, and also the difference between those two. Largely so that the program can handle the situation correctly, and also to avoid misdiagnosis (like with WebMD) and the general chatbot frustration as the program tries to figure you out. 

I also feel that at least a basic comprehension of emotion might be needed, especially to tell if the patient is upset or uncomfortable. If a chatbot continued to press personal questions on a patient who, to a human, is showing clear signs of agitation, then the patient might get too scared or disheartened to continue the conversation, and might even be scared away for good.

I could go deeper into this, but I fear this blog post may turn into an actual essay, so I'd better stop here. However, I find the idea of digital psychotherapy a fascinating concept, especially since we recently read about how information theory ended up giving inspiration to psychological researchers. Hopefully, as technology continues to grow smarter, it'll be an idea we'll see developed in the future.

Blog 5: Where I voluntarily make myself nuts, bit by byte.

Stock prompt: what is the most complex or difficult about the reading's references to Boole, Russell, Gödel, Maxwell, and others? Why is it challenging? What words or concepts in particular are problematic? I pose these questions because I know that difficulty is often a way in or point of access: if you figure out what's difficult about a text, you've figured out its problem. That lets you investigate the problem. If you're a designer, an artist, a videographer, a musician, or somebody who works in media other than text, I'd love to see how you'd represent and upload to your blog the most complex or difficult problem posed by Gleick.

So since the very first chapter of Gleick, Claude Shannon and his work has rather confused me. I've been struggling mainly with a single question: what exactly is a bit? How can information, which once could only be conveyed through physical or more direct means (a record for music, a letter for writing, paint for colors, or even a physical conversation) be somehow now portrayed through a mathematical code of 1's and 0's? 

I understand that Charles Babbage created the beginning of mechanized information, Ada Lovelace foresaw the future of mechanized information, and Claude Shannon played a huge role in the reality that is our digital forms of information today -- but I just don't understand the connections between binary, information theory, and everything we can gain from our computers and phones -- sound, images, text, etc.

I wish I could say that I successfully did my research and can now explain it all awesomely to you. But...not really. Don't get me wrong, I did my research--it just turns out, information theory isn't exactly something that can be understood in a day, especially by a rather technologically and mathematically illiterate person such as myself. However, I'll try lay out what I did understand from the reading, and what I have come to understand from my investigations: 

The comparison that helped me initially begin to understand what a bit is, is the description on page 174 of Gleick, comparing binary coding to logic: "As in logic, he saw that circuitry could make 'if...then' choices." This is basically what a single bit is: only capable of a if/then, yes/no sort of question/answer. A 1 represents an open circuit, or basically "yes," while a 0 represents a closed circuit, or "no."It's a very basic, electronic logic pretty much.  In it's simplest form, binary is more or less a digital maze for an electronic pulse, each binary code giving it varied commands. As more bits are added, the paths become more complex, like so:

 (Behold, a crappy image drawn far too late at night)

 Perhaps not the best illustration, since 1's and 0's are generally described as opened and closed circuits, but I feel like it shows how different binary combinations can lead to different paths, thus very different command executions. From what I've seen, it seems the more bits you have, the more complexity the code can offer, thus the more complex commands a programmer can give. The difference in what you can achieve between a single bit (a yes/no question), a byte (equal to 8 bits, and can create numbers from 0 to 255), to multiple bytes (30-90 bytes might equal a line of text), and beyond to megabytes, gigabytes, etc.

So more memory, more bytes, allows for more complex functions, such as sound, text, and color. The exact how it all works I think is the part that is beyond my current understanding. I think part of it is where codes to extend binary further than numbers come in, such as ASCII, and the programming languages such as C++ and Java further help programmers to be able to instruct computers without having to write out each individual 1 and 0.  I'm sure Claude Shannon's Information Theory would shed some light on the matter if, again, I had even remotely the brains and background to comprehend it. 

All in all? I admit that I didn't gain even remotely the even slightly comprehensive knowledge of the nitty-gritty of electronic information that I was hoping for, but it didn't take me too long into my research to realize that this was a hopelessly giant and highly technical subject to try to comprehend in a day. However, I do feel like my research has helped me to understand, just a little tiny bit (pun not intended?), the background of digital information. My investigation was a pretty interesting experience too -- interesting enough where I didn't just do the smart thing by dropping the subject and writing instead about telegraphs or telephones. If nothing else, I do feel like I understand my computer slightly better.

Also, I now have an even greater respect for the scientists, engineers, programmers, and mathmeticians who can fully understand this subject, because daaaaaaang: this is some complicated stuff right here. 

I'll leave you with some links that I thought were helpful for a layman like me:

Youtube: Computer Tutorial How Binary Code Works
A Binary Overview
More info on bits and bytes, and a little on ASCII
Webopedia entry on ASCII

Also, a shout-out to my brother, who has done some programming, and was able to tolerate my breath-taking ignorance long enough to give me a somewhat more knowledgeable perspective on computing languages.

Finally, I shall end with a fun fact: apparently if you type “binary” into Google, it will tell you that there are “About 0b1000001110011011011010000000 results.” Google humor strikes again!

Time, Convenience and Consequence: From the Railroad to the 3D Printer

Read Gleick 125-143, about early networks, and write a blog entry. If you want to write a stock answer the following question: Gleick writes early in the chapter that in 1849, "already railroad time was telegraphic time" (125). Why was this so? How did the invention of railroads lead to time zones? What are the implications of differences in the velocity and magnitude of transporting information and transporting things? Are those differences today getting larger or smaller, and what do you see as the effects of that trend? Find at least one Web link that supports your opinion and quote it and link to it in your blog post.

In my own opinion, the reason that our consideration of time changed with the invention of railroads was due to the speed of travel and the ease you could now reach destinations that might have once taken a day to travel. With this invention, you could go from one town to another with ease, but then the problem arose of standardizing time – on one hand, the speed and regularity of trains made it easier to arrange to see people in other towns, but without a standardized form of time you still couldn’t really make an exact appointment. For example, a clock in person A’s town might say his train will arrive in person B’s town at 2:40, but when he got there, person B’s clock might say 3:13. Might as well just say “I’ll see you…at some point this afternoon, hopefully.” Standardizing time with the invention of the railroad solves this problem.

In terms of the velocity and magnitude of transporting information and things: at one point they were equal, both things and information could only travel as fast as the person delivering them. But information developed an advantage of speed after awhile, as early as the fire beacons during the Trojan war – a coded message is weightless, and can travel much faster and farther than a person carrying a physical object. 

Over time, the velocity and magnitude of both information and things has increased steadily, but I say that information still has the advantage over physical things, and the difference between the two continued to grow over time. Take the telegraph vs. the railroad for example – both were phenomenal breakthroughs in the fields of delivering information and things, but the telegraph had the advantage I think in both speed and magnitude. And if we look at today’s technology, this difference is even more apparent: For example, if I ordered an item from China on Amazon, I could have it in about two weeks or so. Pretty impressive, but not nearly as instantaneous as the email notification I received from the company to inform me that my order was placed. 

However, I hypothesize that the size of the difference between the velocity/magnitude of delivering information and things has reached its peak, and now the gap will begin to grow smaller, and that the delivery of physical objects will grow to become quicker while the delivery of information stays more-or-less the same. 

One supporting idea for this hypothesis can be seeing in the recent craze for developing 3D printing. Ordering items could one day be as simple as placing an order from your computer/smart phone/talking watch/whatever, and then instantly being able to print the item from your own printer. 

The velocity and magnitude of 3D printing, if it could ever become a commercial technology for the common consumer, would be fantastically convenient. However, already people are considering the potential dangerous consequences of 3D printing, such as the danger of being able to print weapons. The Department of Homeland Security feels that the ability to 3D print guns would be difficult to control access to, and impossible to regulate. (Source) 

Like with digital music and information, because this would be such a strange and new way of being able to access physical items, no one is quite sure how to regulate it yet. Unlike if someone illegally downloads a song though, there could potentially be quite dangerous consequences to the wrong person printing a gun. So it seems that this particular method of increasing the convenience of transporting physical items should be treated with more caution than increasing the convenience of delivering information.

Open Source Textbooks: A Crack in Knowledge Cartels? Or are they Too Big to Break?

As we watched "Ending Knowledge Cartels" in class today, I suddenly remembered a conversation I had with my aunt roughly a year ago, regarding a project that our state was doing that was creating open source courses. I wondered, what ever happened to that project? What was it anyway?

Some Googling later, I believe the program she was referring to was opencourselibrary.org. Opencourselibrary.org is a program funded by the state of Washington, as well as by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. What the program basically does is it provides Creative Commons (specifically share-alike) sources to the top 81 most enrolled community college classes in this state. These sources range from completely free to a $30 maximum.

At first glance, the program seems to be something like a dream. Students can save themselves a ton of money by using these sources; projections say that if this program were to be adopted statewide, Washington students as a whole could save a whopping $41.6 million annually. While the writer of the study admits that the chances of the program being adopted statewide is low, even a partial adoption of this program would relieve many a financial burden for students. The same study estimated that the annual savings for students of one department in one community college could add up to $223,791.46. (Source)

The authors of these free sources wouldn't be losing out either. The authors of the works used (selected through a competitive process), were compensated through grants from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

But one thing really bugged me as I was reading about this program: this project was launched in October 31, 2011; within 11 days of its launch, the site saw 10,000 visitors. In the beginning of 2013, the amount of courses offered, these courses being the top community college courses, raised by 39, taking it from 42 to 81. It all sounds very promising, and yet...why have I heard almost nothing of this? Except for a coversation with my aunt (who worked in the education field), I had heard nothing. Even as I was looking up resources for writing this blog, it was hard to find sources that dated past early 2012, despite 39 more courses being added to the program in early 2013.

The latest source I found was an online article from May of 2013, and the author's wording made it sound like he was not in favor of the program, or hesitant at best. Why? Well, the author does raise a very good point: without the power and backing of the big publishing companies, these Creative Commons authors don't have the same resources, and therefore credibility, as the big textbook manufacturers. Opencourselibrary.org's sources are usually semi-formal documents published through Google docs -- I'm sure the content was sound, but in my mind, I just didn't find them as reassuring as most of my own current, if woefully overpriced, textbooks. The author of this dissenting article, "A Web raid on traditional higher ed" fears that cheaper alternatives like opencourselibrary.org will drive out the "expensive but irreplaceable educational experiences" that are our traditional textbooks.

The author doesn't completely disapprove of open source resources, but only advises that we be cautious. He feels that our goal should be "to ring in the best of the new – without ringing out the unique value of the old." Ideally, this would mean that these forward-thinking publishers should team up with the publishers of old to create resources for students that are both cheap and credible. The problem is though, I imagine with the intellectual monopoly that big textbook publishers currently have, resources like opencourselibrary.org will likely not have an easy time seeking a partnership with them.

So what will become of providers of educational CC sources, such as opencourselibrary.org? I don't know if I see them causing the big revolution in educational resources that my aunt was hoping for. At this time, in my opinion, the outlook looks bleak for them -- big publishers just have too much of a knowledge monopoly for them to crumble over smaller, if forward-thinking, companies like this.

The only way I could see this possibly changing is if this program can get a little less unknown (outside of the educational field), and for the common man to stage a rebellion, not unlike Dave Parry's recommended 10 steps to rock the knowledge cartels. Perhaps then, and only then, would textbook publishers feel enough pressure to work to create products that would benefit the students and the universities they attend, instead of primarily themselves. Maybe.

Read more here: http://blog.thenewstribune.com/opinion/2013/05/06/a-web-raid-on-traditional-higher-ed/#more-16041#storylink=cpy