Tag: technology

Wii and Wii Fit Review: First Impressions
It’s been over a week since I bought a Wii and just under a week since I bought a Wii Fit. I’d like to share just a few brief first impressions (not a lengthy review but a bulleted list of likes and dislikes).

Wii: Likes & Dislikes
- Likes
  - Active, physical involvement in the games
  - Something fun to do with my husband besides the obvious
  - Great fun when friends & family are visiting
  - Opportunities to play over the Internet
  - Internet connectivity for news, weather, etc.
- Dislikes
  - Graphics at a maximum of 480p with the component cable I was lucky enough to find on sale for $19.99. Not much better than the 480i graphics with the composite cable that came with the Wii. I’m not saying they suck; I’m just saying HD graphics would be preferable.
  - Music is, well… not bad, but it gets old fast. It would be nice if the system and each game would play different music sometimes or have better, less “canned” sounding music.
  - The number of nags you have to click through to do anything. “Remember to wear the wrist strap” Click A. “Make sure there’s enough room around you” Click A. “Hold down the A and B buttons on your remote.” Okay, already!
Wii Fit Likes & Dislikes
- Likes
  - Balance board. As a gaming peripheral, it’s a marvelous invention.
  - The ski jump and ski slalom games. I bought the Wii fit mostly for these.
  - Even more exercise than you can get with the Wii alone.
  - Measuring, charting, goal-setting (imperfectly implemented, but good per se).
- Dislikes
  - Being told I’m overweight when to the world, I’m normal.
  - Not being able to set a BMI goal. The Wii tells me I’m overweight because my BMI is around 25, but it doesn’t let me set a goal for a lower BMI; it only lets me set a goal for a lower weight. At 5’10” and 175#, I don’t really need to lose weight.
  - The number of nags you have to click through to get to anything you want to do. This is even worse that with the Wii in general. There’s all these little fitness tips and cheerful banter you have to click through, such as “Winter’s almost gone, so it’s a good time to take some of the weight off our bellies” and “Good morning! Do you feel refreshed?”
  - The emotional roller coaster of positive and negative feedback it gives you. You make it through the slalom, no matter how badly, and the graphic shows your Mii with its ski poles in the air (Yay!) and the caption says, “Goal!” But the very next thing you see, if you didn’t do a near-perfect run, is your Mii hunched over, panting, drooping, sad-eyed, like a big LOSER! A sore, petulant loser at that. It’s ridiculous. Best to ignore it and enjoy the game. I’m certainly not slumped over like my Mii!
  - A word about step aerobics. I’m a singer with lots of music and dance training. I played tenor drum in a marching band as a teenage. Like Gene Kelly, “I got rhythm.” Now don’t you tell me that my steps are “OK” but not “Perfect” because I don’t keep in step with the other Miis! Urgh! I’m telling you, the movement of the Miis is OUT of step with the music. The only way for me to move ahead and unlock the advanced step aerobics was to step with the other Miis, which felt very dysrhythmical! Can I get an Amen?
Summary

All right, I know it sounds like I don’t like the Wii Fit because my dislikes were longer rants than my likes. But I really do like it overall. I love the slalom and ski jump. I haven’t actually skied in years (decades), but I love the sense of freedom I get from “skiing” with the Wii Fit. Which brings me to a final “like” which applies greatly to both the Wii and the Wii Fit: the opportunity to play all these different games without having to haul out all this different equipment. The opportunity to jump from playing “virtual” golf, tennis, bowling, baseball, boxing (Wii) and aerobics, yoga, balance games, and strength training (Wii Fit) all in one place with minute changes to the “actual” world must not be underestimated. Think of all the tennis balls you don’t have to go chasing and collecting! It’s no replacement for the real world, but it’s damn cool virtual one.
March 20, 2009
Sexting highlights society’s issues with privacy and shame

Listening to NPR‘s All Things Considered just now, I heard a story on sexting — teens sending photos of each other naked via text messages — that got me to thinking “what exactly is the big deal?” I don’t ask that question to minimize the phenomenon, but to analyze it for the social taboos that are being broken here.

Shame

I recently finished reading The Cluetrain Manifesto, and its message about people finding their voice on the Internet and how this might change issues of privacy had me listening in a certain way. One of my favorite questions one of the authors of Cluetrain asks is, “What would privacy be like if it weren’t connected to shame?”

Indeed, none of this “sexting” would be an issue if it weren’t for shame– shame that teens may or may not feel about their developing bodies, shame that adults may or may not feel looking at photos of teen bodies, and all the nebulous shame that society places upon the naked human body.

Self-expression

What if these kids aren’t ashamed of their bodies? What if, as the authors of Cluetrain assert, people gravitate toward the Internet to satisfy the age-old human desire for self-expression? Maybe these kids are just using these media to express themselves, to say, “Look at me. I exist. I’m unique. Yet I’m a lot like you.” Aren’t adults heaping shame upon these kids by charging them with felony child pornography? What’s the big deal if kids want to show each other their naked bodies? “It may lead to teen pregnancy!” Yes, it may. So may having sex without a condom and/or birth control medication. But I seriously doubt that “sexting” is bringing about a rise in teen pregnancy.

Privacy

So, what is the issue? Well, privacy is a big part of it, and it goes along with distribution. To whom are they distributing the nude photographs? Maybe to a few friends, maybe just to one. But if that one friend distributes it to others until it becomes distributed exponentially like viral Internet media, whom do we blame for the distribution? Do we blame the first sender who “should have known better” than to send anyone a nude photograph of themselves knowing that it might end up in the wrong hands? Or do we blame the subsequent distributors? What if the exact chain of distribution could be traced? Do we blame each and every one? Where does this distribution cross the line from acceptable to unacceptable? When does the private become public?

Intentionality

I faced some of these questions when I took an artistic nude photograph of myself that I wanted to share. Why did I want to share it? Well, because I liked the way I looked and I liked the way I took the photo. Was my intent to titillate? No. Was it pornography? Well, not to me. My penis wasn’t even visible, for whatever that’s worth. I questioned myself when I published the photo to my Flickr account. Should I mark it Public or Private? Should I mark it Private: Friends Only or Private: Friends & Family Only? If I marked it for Family & Friends Only, would my family and friends feel I singled them out for the viewing of this nude photo? I didn’t want that. So I used Flickr’s SafeSearch filters to flag the photo “Moderate” (“may be considered offensive by some people”). That way, only those people who have their SafeSearch browsing settings on “Moderate” (“You’re OK seeing the odd ‘artistic nude’ here or there, but that’s the limit”) will see the photo, be they friends or strangers.

Irreducibility

Socially, it seems acceptable to display yourself nude in an artistic venue as long as you’re not personally flashing people. And I’m all about filtering my content so that people see only what they’re comfortable with seeing (when it comes to nudity, that is). Yet, I am not so naïve as to think that just because I published a photo on Flickr with SafeSearch filters means that no one else will ever see it. I know that a photo on Flickr can be taken out of Flickr, indeed, taken out of context. I have to laugh at what Brian Shaler said in his Twitter bio: “Take me out of context.” (He’s since changed his bio, but that’s what it said last time I looked.) So, yes, people may take me out of context. But I am okay with that because, as one young nude man so eloquently said in an avant-garde play I once saw, “I am irreducible. My nakedness does not diminish me.”

Self-esteem

What if we lived in a world in which a person’s nakedness did not diminish them? What if it didn’t matter if teenage girls took photos of themselves in the shower and the whole world saw it? I know we don’t live in that world, but I can imagine it. I think as long as no one is forcing these kids to be photographed naked, it’s not pornography. So what if these kids are playing Doctor on their cell phones? Maybe we should spend less of our energy trying to control their use of our technology and more energy on fostering an “irreducible” self-esteem in children of all ages.

UPDATE: This blog post was published in in a textbook called Sexting in August 2011.

March 11, 2009
Technology is a wonderful thing

A Wonderful Thing
Originally uploaded by Daniel Greene

This little thing slips over my husband’s ear and makes our relationship different from any relationship in the history of the world– up until a decade ago. Okay, not just our relationship, but everyone’s. Just think of it– when else in history could a couple spend their whole commute home from work talking together in separate cars? We can now tell each other about our day, plan our evening, list things to do… sometimes we even discuss how we feel about each other and say anything that was left unsaid the last time we saw each other. By the time we get home after one of these discussions, we’ve moved past all that and are ready to settle into a comfortable evening together. Mobile phone technology and Bluetooth headsets have changed our lives, and I’d say for the better!

I took this photo in response to a monthly theme / challenge in the Gay Photographers (Family-Friendly) group titled "Belonging to Your Beloved." The object is to share a photo of something belonging to your beloved with a brief description of the item’s significance.

February 15, 2009