George Lakoff and Mark Johnson

Area 1: Lakoff and Johnson make it very clear that most of our perceptions, if not all, are very heavily influenced by several factors that influence how we actually view, interpret, and even recall things. It seems that this is highly natural, as most of our experiences need to be interpreted in a way so that we can comprehend our world with minimum discomfort. It only logical that we would find small baselines to cling to that could help cancel out or act as a lifeline during moments of high stress or potentially traumatic events. Many people have things that they do, whether it's prayer or uttering a nursery rhyme under their breath, we all have a mantra that we can draw upon from time to time. The concept of metaphors and how they compliment and are likewise complimented by language and descriptors regarding mood is very apparent to me, as I tend to look at things in a highly creative way that is reliant upon metaphorical contexts. A favorite line that I rely on often is from "If" by Rudyard Kipling. "If you can fill the unforgiving minute, with 60 seconds worth of distance run". type text here

My name is Dan Salinas. I am a DTC major with a background in Graphic Design, Fine Arts, Art Education, and Human Resources. After a few years working with directly with the Developmentally Disabled, and also in administrative roles, I decided it was time to seek out more creative career options. I like to paint and sculpt, and also enjoy working on building custom furniture projects and learning new tech. Having grown up in the 80's, I find it difficult to sit still and concentrate when I'd much rather be outside making a huge mess of things. I seem to be the only one in my family who enjoys firing up a chainsaw or digging in the mud, but it is quite comforting to know that they are willing to tolerate my less admirable qualities. I have a 2 daughters (20 and 10), and a 15 year old son whom I affectionately call the baby sasquatch. I look forward to sharing my adventures in school with them, whether they like it or not. My wife is awesome, and she likes me sometimes. My dog is the only one who really gets me. Maybe we're just too similar.

Reading Annotation 3.4

In the final chapters of the text, it seems as if the core premises are clearly defined and contextualized. The value of how definition and categorization has been done in previous cataloging of information in major databases, most notably in the Library of Congress. The efforts of actors like the students at Dartmouth and other activists that saw fundamental flaws in the categorization and labelling of data in libraries. In previous chapters, it was clearly shown how much labelling and the lack of correcting biases therein can affect outcomes in the real world when it comes to marginalized and vulnerable groups; in essence, the data served to deliver information that would reinforce long established prejudices and the underpinnings of a superiority/inferiority narrative in the consciousness of Americans descended from European ancestry. The aspect of the bias in the previous systems of cataloguing has produced a demonstrable effect in how information is gathered and presented in commercial search engines, and most readily shown in search results that feature sponsored content. Many times in my own emails, I will receive solicitous correspondence in Spanish, and even in offers that come through traditional paper mailings. This is most likely based only on my last name, as I don't speak Spanish. The only answer that seems plausible to me for this is that in some measure, a minimal amount of my personal data has been used to influence commercial correspondences regarding myself. I feel that this is demonstrative of the beginning techniques of the "prosumer" model that is becoming a major driver in ecommerce and it's emerging business practices as it consumes and transforms the age old supply and demand practices. This dynamic is interesting in it's design, as it is meant to tailor the online experience toward the consumer, making use of the audience as commodity, or "audience commodity". As this stylized demographic data can provide a more user friendly experience for some, the prevailing narratives of otherness are even further bolstered by the Digital Divide. As the input affects the output, access is readily reflected by what can come up in web searches. Web searches are far less likely to show results that take into account that the consumer is not a White American of a certain age with certain interests. Due to the Digital divide, people of color are unable to compete with the sheer amounts of data entered into search engines or web based AI's of any sort; As communities of color are far less likely to have access or the financial ability to afford services such as Google Home, Amazon Prime, or Apple TV, they are far less likely to find results that are representative of their interests. As this is an ongoing trend where any technological revolution has happened, the efforts to effect change toward inclusion have been met with equal efforts to leave the status quo unaffected. As bias in the algorithms has been displayed and taken advantage of by large corporations, so has it been used to disseminate information that appeals to certain consumers. The information, as it is more often than not, is heavily tailored to an audience that have certain viewpoints and is made more palatable. This has led to a much higher incidence of information being spread that is highly sensationalized, misleading, or false. The issue with this lies in the prosumer model, where companies and vendors are on the lookout for people who ascribe to a certain outlook. This is how it happened with Dylann Roof, looking for materials concerning "black on white crime". Prior to his shooting at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, Robert Gregory Bowers was very active on social media outlet Gab, which is known for having a high number of users that espouse and spread White Nationalist content. John Timothy Earnest was active on 8-Chan, where he posted his manifesto shortly before carrying out an armed attack on a synagogue in Poway, California. He claimed that he had been influenced by the actions of Brenton Harrison Tarrant. Tarrant is the man who perpetrated attacks on the Islamic community in Christchurch, New Zealand in March of 2019. Tarrant himself had been highly active on Alt-Right message boards, and even Cited Anders Breivik as one of his influences. Breivik is the man who carried out a mass killing in Norway in 2011, whom also had written a manifesto; a part of his manifesto was copied directly from the manifesto of the Unabomber, Ted Kaczynski. There is a real body count that can begin in relation to these real inequalities, and the results of how information from these algorithms played a definite role.

Reading Annotation 3.3; Noble Ch. 2-4

design impacts on social relations, search & oversimplification, the right to be forgotten The discussion beginning in Chapter 2 is very ambitious, and extremely necessary in my personal opinion. When Safiya Noble speaks about providing the tools and support to craft the new narrative where African Americans are "digitally undivided", I feel this concept is identical to the concept of "network sovereignty" that we read about earlier as written by Marisa Duarte. While there is definite proof that communities of color are structurally and in many cases excluded from being allowed to compete for careers as programmers or other growing technologies despite having adequate education/certifications and experience. In further exploration of Noble's claims, there are several questions regarding digital access that move to the forefront, yet another issue that seems to mirror a concern that Duarte had asserted was a major stumbling block in providing suitable broadband access to Indian Country. One thing seems to be universal; a lack of money equals a lack of access. I personally believe that the most important aspect of countering the negative social impacts that have been recognized by these authors is to do exactly what they have been. To continually identify and analyze the multiple areas where peoples of different socioeconomic backgrounds are systematically and underserved is exactly what is needed; to show that in this system once imagined as a place where unity could come from rapid communication and free flow of information has been brought to heel for now. As plainly demonstrated, there are too many interests involved with commercial search engines to keep biases long under wraps. The algorithms have managed to identify and predetermine outcomes for a vast number of queries, unwittingly entrenching older schools of thought having to do with gender, race, age, religion, and any other possible factors that it can use to calculate the likelihood of interests infinitely. This is thoroughly exemplified by the example given of Dylann Roof and his course of action taken at the Emanuel AME church, ultimately ending with the massacre of several African-American parishioners. It is explained in whole on his personal website where he was motivated by the Trayvon Martin murder and the subsequent media coverage, he wondered why there was never any reporting of black on white crime? In his google search, he came upon the Council of Conservative Citizens website among others. These sites addressed the issue in terms palatable to his biases, espousing a narrative and skewing figures in favor of a viewpoint where white people are currently in the crosshairs of a cultural genocide and being replaced by the Jews and whomever they control. In a line of his manifesto, he states "...I am completely racially aware". In the way this reinforcement of antiquated views is ever-present, it also seems that there is a growing culture of the dissemination of partial truths presented as fact in order to support a chosen narrative; to radically omit or oversimplify information with little regard for context. This could be a part of a modern phenomenon of tribalism, based on a certain set of factors that amount to a litmus test where acceptance or exclusion has real world implications and has a definite interrelationship with social media and other online entities. As the "right to be forgotten" concept clearly illustrates, there may be a need to begin applying pressure to the large corporations where personal data is concerned. As there are several instances laid out in the book where people whom had participated in the adult industry in their past were outed publicly, and made to suffer professionally regardless of past circumstances or in light of recent performance or accolades. This could, in fact, also be illustrated by an incident not long a go in Washington D.C. involving a field trip of young men from the Covington Catholic High School. The initial reaction to one of the young men seemingly smirking dismissively face to face with an older Native American man whom was singing and drumming created an enormous online backlash that included death threats, picketing, doxing, and a need for increased security for the family of the youth in the picture. The hostility was more based on what a young man in a MAGA hat seemingly disrespecting a Native American elder was all that was looked at, not the actual context of all of the occurrences aside from the photo. It may not be possible in instances like this to force big tech to begin taking the "right to be forgotten" seriously, but occurrences such as this should at least force them to visit the possibility more seriously than they have.

Reading Annotation 3.2 Noble Ch. 1

The first chapter from Noble is a clear mission statement, nearly wandering into territory where it wouldn't be difficult to argue it's more of a manifesto. Illustrating her reasons behind the burning questions regarding the algorithmic biases on the internet are clarified by Noble, beginning with the stark differences in the results of search engine results where gender and race are concerned. Her reaction during the initial anecdote with her stepdaughter feels equal parts shock and expectation, as she had earlier been recalling her introduction to the search results regarding "black girls" leading to a variety of sites focused on pornography and the sexualized commodification of black women. Later, as she looked more in depth, she realized that what had been long touted as a reliable and unattached source of information incapable of bias, was in practice actually reinforcing and perpetuating virtually every conceivable negative stereotype. The algorithm, in particular the algorithms used by such large entities such as Google were fundamentally flawed, thereby producing search results based upon enormous amounts of historical data, not necessarily based on anything to do with the user making the query. When she further explored the history and the process by which these types of results continually come back, she noticed that the effects of commerce and sponsorship creating a large part of the disparity could not be ignored. Google is able to alter the order of preference in their search results based on revenue that companies pay in order to move higher in the order of the search results. In many cases, this can lead to not only to the aforementioned negative stereotypes, but also to the dissemination of misinformation. This due to the combination of said algorithm and the ability of companies with a vested interest in serving a certain narrative better able to affect the outcomes of search results by financial means. On the other hand, using search engines that don't utilize a similar format that is used by well known browsers like Google or Bing are a bit problematic to navigate. It's fair to say, that they cater to no one and is so reflected in their results. One such browser is "Meekd" which utilizes strictly raw search results, with no cookies or sponsored content being allowed to alter the results. I will say, it was rather boring and alien to me. However, it was refreshing to know that they (and many other companies like them) are putting out browsers and search engines that refuse to collect any personal data or allow any sponsored content to affect my search results. I can say that in the Meekd search engine, I typed in "Black Girls", and the results had BlackPeopleMeet.com as the top result, followed by several sites dedicated to various levels of support for black girls; not a single porn site. Bing was nearly all ads for porn; Google fared slightly better, as there was various sites associated with positive content for "black girls", but had a sponsored ad for "Ebony web cams" at the bottom of the page. It seems there's still a lot of work to do in the main stream of search engines.

Discussion 3.1

I've known for quite a while that web based algorithms are imperfect. The main problem with them lies in the fact that thay base their output directly on their input. This allows for all searches and commercial interests to be tailored based on algorithmic predictors based on not just your own historical data, but also endless other compiled data to be compared with. An algorithm or any running formula is not biased on it's own; it relies on input and the resulting bias is clearly a result of this data. As there is a definite vested commercial interest, just as with Google and other search engines that provide preferred results (marked as sponsored). Early in my scholastic days (1999), one of our instructors had an assignment where we were to interact with an on-line AI that had been developed by programmers from a college that I can't remember; but it was running on algorithms. When I logged on and went through introductions, the presence (a poorly rendered female sprite) began to take the conversation to an inappropriate context, and began to explicitly berate me with the coherence of poorly translated swearing from foreigners when I declined the weird sexually charged invitations. THe next day in class, a number of ribald young fellows bragged loudly that they had in fact engaged quite dirtily with the AI, and even had roommates joining in and had provided the link to friends and relatives. The class wondered aloud how it came to be that the AI had learned such interactions, all the while the answer in large part was sitting amongst us guffawing about their exploits. It later came out that the project was scrapped due to the majority of the visitors going to see how dirty they could get with the AI project, and it had unintended consequences and an unforseen outcome for the programmers. I guess that this sort of speaks to what Noble and O'Neil are speaking about; the algorithms of search engines are absolutely biased due to the fact that the data gathered and never-ending input is tailored based upon what people are actually searching for, whether it's an ethnic fetish, political fodder, or the cheapest prices for cereal, it's all in there and the scenarios of each have played out in full billions of times with a guided interest almost the whole time.

Midterm Course Reflection

I'm going to be as honest as possible with my midterm reflection, as I think it necessary to perform some brief introspection. 1. The research projects are not that difficult per se; I must admit that the difficulty lay with me having to reacclimate to being in college classes. Having to readjust myself to a pace where schoolwork takes priority, and making those adjustments fit with family life has not been easy. Having been sick twice and also leaving an HR position, there has been quite a bit of adjustment. It was also very sobering to remember that there is a much larger degree of exploration allowed in 400 level classes. 2. If I were to have done anything differently, I would have made sure to put more focus on reading according to the schedule. I had many late posts, and so that just means that I'll need to be more disciplined and time conscious. 3. I'm not sure what support I would need from the school or from the instructor going forward; any support I'll need will most likely be from my family and delegation of shared responsibilities.