Alright I didn’t fully understand everything about the idea of a cyberinfrastructure, nor am I able to spell the word cyberinfrastructure without the assistance of spell check.  What I did take from the video and paper is that the web is being underutilized and people are just willing to accept the tools they are given without question.  The web is a big, sprawling place that can be used to help spread creativity and allows for a degree of anonymity so post can be put up without fear of intense personal ridicule.  Ridicule still happens on the web because that anonymity allows people to also just say whatever they feel like without fear of repercussion.  You need to be able to detach yourself from your online persona that has been created to survive the web in my opinion or else that negative “I’m going to hunt you down and murder your family” comment on your youtube video is going to break you and send you back into the confines of the real world where any sort of expression cannot reach as far as on the web.

The idea of a digital face lift was also interesting.  Any company will generally tell you that online is the way of the future but very few companies actually take the time to learn how the web works.  Instead they are content to have their service or product digitized and carry out business in the same fashion as before.  Some companies refuse to try and learn how the web works at all and try and bring everything back down to the level they feel comfortable operating in.  During the discussion on the digital face lift Jim Groom brought up academic journals and how millions of people are prevented access to research that often times was funded by the public.  This is an example of a journal going online and trying to continue business as if it was still a printed journal by charging outrageous prices and preventing many people from access to content that they should have a right to view.

The video and paper were fine but watching the video or reading the paper was not nearly as engaging or interesting in my opinion as the discussion that happened in class.  The idea of using the web to teach an entire class was relevant since we have been conducting classes via skype.  I’m hoping to see options become available like that more readily, or even just recording a class in case someone misses out due to sickness.  Some day they may even be able to just watch class through skype while they’re sick.  There was also talk of learning surgery online, still don’t think that’s a good idea.  Cutting into a 3D model of a body is probably a ton different then cutting into a real body.

That’s about all I have to say.  There was a lot of good info to digest and the ideas in the paper and the video are something I’ll have to look back into as I continue this adventure into the realm of online creativity.  For now instead of just thinking about what a cyberinfrasturcture is and about bags of gold I’m just going to create, post, interact and see where the ride goes.