Common Sense, the savior of the home computer

Talking about all these risks with social media or just plain interaction for a computer can be quite daunting. Of course, the number one rule to browsing the web is to BROWSE SMARTLY. I cannot stress just how much common sense can save you from doing horrible horrible things on social media.

Some examples of common sense in action

• Ignoring suspicious emails from weird "addresses"
• not clicking on links you don't know
• not typing your information on those links you don't know unless you can surely see it is the correct site (the secure lock on the top left corner is always a nice thing to see if this is a legitimate site that YOU HAVE BEEN ON BEFORE)
• not giving out your information publicly unless you feel there are no repercussions to it
• constantly checking your privacy settings on facebook, phone, twitter, etc.
• and I cannot stress this enough, don't go to links that may be "Shady" (In the most PG sense I can put it), and if you must, make sure you have a good anti-virus/firewall and make sure you are surfing safely

And having a legitimate adblocker helps too if you must go on those sites to prevent misdirection

I have had many stories of fellow friends coming to me with bricked laptops or PCs wondering why their computer won't work anymore, first thing I do once I actually get it somewhat functioning again, is to go on the person's browser history and point out the sites they probably got the bug/worm/virus/trojan/rootkit from and how these sites can cause "problems" if you don't have the proper security needed for a computer (this includes Macs too)

In modern society, government officials can fall for this as well, and we have seen it multiple times, until people properly understand the responsibility of a computer and its connection to practically everyone if exposed, well we see better usage of the product, just like cars (unless you live in South Florida). 

Well...This is my final post for the course, I have had a blast learning and having so much fun taking this! I would like to thank Professor Dennen for introducing to the world of blogging, and it is such a nifty tool to talk about whatever you want...I really want to continue this.

E-Government and Security...oh No

Did you know that in the US alone, over 20,000+ serious cyber threats attack governments daily? No? Well now you know..

And Knowledge Comes Power....and Infoleaks!

These leaks and breaks through security can come through many forms, whether it be to gather information, mess with the production of a service, stopping services for extortion , or allegedly influencing the votes of an election, cyber threats and attacks happen more often and more common than you think, even if some are more in "jest" or for political statements. Hacking to a government service can be costly, and with the role of CTOs (Chief Technology Officers) to keep up with the times in terms of security and updates versus a continuously clever group of actors, the battle is never fully "won". What government is doing though is at least taking those steps into helping mitigate the solution through training and hiring of "competent"(allegedly) personnel to handle these breaches. Yet there comes another problem to this. Human Error.

Oh yes....those humans

Human error, especially when it comes to being tricked by "Social Engineering", or influencing one to give away information, whether it come via phone calls, emails, etc.

These CTOs do try to teach the Three As (Access, Authentication, and Authorization) or the Three Ds (Deter, Detect, Defend), but unless a user is truly listening and will not "shirk" off responsibility, these problems can arise in any agencies anywhere up or down the chain!

So how does one fix this? well, the next post may surprise you...Okay, it won't cause I said it earlier, and I mean it is "Duh" seriously people why don't you use it...

Youtube and Twitch, A Streamer's worst nightmare

While stardom is an amazing feeling when streaming as a regular on the world wide web, it can also come at its negatives. With social media, and especially focusing on interacting with the audience, every little tick/noise/distraction/accidental screen opening, can give away more personal information about you. With this personal information constantly being at risk on livestreams (as human error is probably at its highest live than in lets say something one could take the time to write and review), avid fans....or at least users who think they are "Friends with you personally" can take the time to find and stalk your location. This type of incident is not rare, and has happened to the likes of many streamers and major youtube hosts.

Pewdiepie, one of the biggest youtube channels right now had a good video talking about it, and the issue he has with these people, it is 2 minutes and a rather good video of how youtube stars feel. The Twitch Reddit also has had discussions about stalkers harassing the producers virtually, another big issue in the community. Whether it is physical or virtual, those producing run the risk of stalking, especially in the age of internet and access to information, the gathering of information (if you are rather easy-going with it) can be very easy in locating you. Even if you are at your best, you can check some government websites if you have a hunch where the house is, or location of the streamer (which they usually post on their profiles), and look through properties till you find the owner of the household (and with faces constantly being shown or names being given away, these scary occurrences can come true.

A lot of youtubers and streamers withold their faces so fans will not know who they look like (such as Youtubers "I Hate Everything", "Pyrocynical (Formerly until another youtuber showed his face without permission)", "GradeAUnderA", and many many MANY more. Some youtubers after a while may feel lax and do a "Face Reveal Special" after so many subscribers, but to the ones who try to prevent as much information from leaking as possible, really have to keep their information away from even the closest of friends on who they are online, unless they want to run the risk of leaks.

It is a dangerous world for youtubers/twitch users and is something that videos on demand and livestreaming don't tell you when one becomes popular enough.

Final week for EME6414 T_T

Well, it has been a fun ride in EME6414, but all good things eventually come to an end.

It was pretty great taking a break from the social sciences that focused on government and land use, and to rather explore the digital world of interaction. Will I continue this blog? possibly. It may be a little more sparse due to my oral exam followed by prospectus arriving very VERY soon, but I may have some more ramblings, and might stretch this more into other topics within the web! I know this week deals with wrap up and privacy, so I figured for the next posts I'll take about safety on the web, especially on social media and web 2.0 services, putting it towards livestreaming and youtube, we have the issue of "Stalkers", when it comes to E-Government we have the issue of "Actors", and when it comes to personal use, we have the issue of "Common Sense"(Wait what...that's mean).

So Long, Farewell. For now T_T

Crowdsourcing into action

Ok, well this is a little off the trail of my usual talk on government processes (or live streaming), but I can't help marvel at what happened in the news today... McDonalds caved into demands from fans of the show "Rick and Morty" and sent the creators of the show, Dan Harmon and Justin Roiland a bottle of "Szechuan Sauce".

This sauce is a "joke" in the fandom, that exploded rather quickly due to the popularity of the show online, with the first episode of the season running a big joke with the main character "Rick" ranting about his passion to get the limited edition "Mulan Szechuan Sauce" no matter how long it will take, Nine Seasons if it had too, it is his series arc! (No seriously, that was said on the show).

Now this was all a big joke, Mcdonald's was never going to bring back the sauce, even though a crowd-sourced petition almost 42k strong signed to bring back this "Mythical" dipping sauce. But....they did, at least for Roliand and Co.

THEY DID IT. THE SERIES ARC IS OVER, WE HAVE SAUCE.

I found this fascinating due to just how much corporations (not just McDonalds) have been interacting to pop culture through various ways other than advertisements on TV and Billboards now. If a grassroots joke just happens to be brought up, or pop culture that brings back nostalgia is expertly crafted, you have some amazing things such as the cutouts Arby's makes or the "Snarky" Wendy's twitter feed that form. These companies interact with the consumer, and sometimes through the magnificent push of a joke that the consumers are producing, listen and create! I feel like at least in corporations sense, we are having a bit of a very fluid and natural interaction sometimes, compared to some advertising cases with a "Forced meme", which just feels unnatural. It is nice that they are doing this, in the end it will help their revenue due to fans loving the brand (and this totally made people love McDonalds again, hell I want the Szechuan Sauce now).

Have you seen ways in which corporations, or really anything entity, interact with consumers who pushed something in a grassroots way, via social media?


Now...lets relate this to government...Well I guess we have This....okay, look, I'm just really excited that on my birthday Rick and Morty Season 3 is happening at 11:30 PM...it's the best show, seriously, best show, 100 years, rick and morty.

Can it be a management problem

Looking into the previous question, I wondered about why we may have slowed down in development compared to our allies...We are one of the most technologically advanced countries in the world, but our E-Government system isn't fully utilized...yet. One article caught my eye in Governing Magazine, talking about the management changes that spurred the use of E-Government in the UAE...it was a rather interesting read.

In the article it explored the rise in rankings of the UAE from once 49th to 28th, through its management style in which it is rather decentralized. Meaning that departments can make any services they want as long as it is bound to the common parts that the central government is building for all departments (payment, customer support), which creates a somewhat standard model that allows for sharing of innovation from department to department as it is related that that common part supplied by the central authority to each department (Newcombe, 2014). This plus the increased spending in IT products has skyrocketed, creating a focus for this endeavor on new e-government experiments.

This type of management style is very peculiar to me, while at one hand it works in the UAE, how exactly could this style be fitted into the United States as a whole. While a central core would be nice, how exactly with the CTOs (chief technology officers) and CIOs (Chief Information Officers), handle the semi-standardization of 19,354 "incorporated places" within the United States, not even including technologies at the county and state level? Would this type of standardization be looked at "smaller" in which the state provides this core, allowing for governmental processes that citizens are usually affected by to be easier to function? Or would it be through the county level depending on the density of cities? not each city needs its own e-government system due to its population, or access to technology (as rural areas can be lacking at times). Creating a common theme in technology is not a new thought for the US though, as at least federally is the "Federal Chief Information Officer", in which it is their job to commit to some standardization of federal processes...though again, this doesn't relate to states or cities..

It is a great question, how would you raise participation and development into technologies, would it be through the user or through the management?

Works Cited

Newcombe, T. (2014). The United Arab Emirates: A Rising Star in E-Government. Retrieved from Governing Magazine: http://www.governing.com/columns/tech-talk/gov-clicking-with-the-times.html

International Perspectives of E-Government? Yes Please

Regarding E-Government, there have been loads of articles from the international community and their respective experiments, in fact when it comes to E-Government, the International community is "Top Dog" compared to the United States? How much so?

Well the UN creates an "E-Government" Survey every two years, recording the international community's development of E-government systems, as well as participation. The end result? For the year 2016 the top 10 developing systems and top 11 participative systems are all international countries, The US appeared on both tables nearing the bottom of the top 10 and 11 in 2014, but that was the last time it has appeared, we are currently 12th (UN, 2017). Now why is that? well, possibly due to the some of the advantages that this system can bring compared to some of the safeties the US might possibly have.

These two areas? Costs, and Corruption. While both are still major issues in the US, they both have proved to be serious benefits of an E-Government system. So much so that a study of users interaction and costs done in London found tremendous differences in use and price, with self-service on a website being found to overshadow usage of face to face and call center interaction combined, while doing it at only .25 pounds a visit compared to the face to face 14.65 and the call center's 1.39!

Stories, such as fighting corruption are also prevalent in some countries, with one event in Macedonia noting that e-government tools and regulations involved in making an automated standardization of fees for cross-board licenses applications actually lower in cost due to the account of no corruption involved in the process from a physical representative, just a mouse click.

Two great advantages, and if you think they are worth it...well you are right, it is so great that the top countries embracing the E-Government boom are....

Whelp...I don't think these countries have any cost or corruption issues, except Italy

So for the US to not be one of the top 10 or 11 countries, but rather outside the table is quite puzzling, these are all rich western culture countries (except Singapore, Japan, and to an extent S.Korea) that have all embraced the turnover to these new digital technologies, and the citizens of these countries are active in them!

Does the US have a motivation problem? I would love to hear your thoughts!

If you want to check out this awesome interactive graph showing each countries' e-government index, click here!

Works Cited:

Perera, D. (2008, October 2). Fighting Corruption Through E-Government. Retrieved from The New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/03/business/worldbusiness/03iht-EGOV03.1.17420751.html

The Economist. (2008, Feb 14). The Good, The Bad and the Inevitable: The Pros and Cons of e-Government. Retrieved from The Economist: http://www.economist.com/node/10638105

United Nations. (2017). UN E-Government Knowledge DataBase. Retrieved from United Nations: https://publicadministration.un.org/egovkb/en-us/Reports/UN-E-Government-Survey-2016

Birthday week! And some really cool articles dealing with Twitch Streaming and Web 2.0 education

Hello!

So this week was rough, I had to do some last minute grading for my students since finals are deceptively fast for the Summer C semester here at FSU. It also is my Bday today! Yay!....and my parents arrived unexpectedly...well there goes my time to do work!

Yes, keep on dancing forever

Regarding this week, it will be a grab bag of topics due to working on my produsage topic! For my "assignment" I focused on getting students to appreciate and understand the amazing tools of livestreaming! I talked about it in week 2 rather briefly during "people week" when it came to AGDQ/SGDQ, but there is just so much you can do!

So much so that formal readings (ACTUAL JOURNALS) talking about Twitch have been a growing thing! and so I found several articles! Notably:

o   Tang, J. C., Venolia, G., & Inkpen, K. M. (2016, May). Meerkat and periscope: I stream, you stream, apps stream for live streams. In Proceedings of the 2016 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (pp. 4770-4780). ACM.

o   Hamilton, W. A., Garretson, O., & Kerne, A. (2014, April). Streaming on twitch: fostering participatory communities of play within live mixed media. In Proceedings of the 32nd annual ACM conference on Human factors in computing systems (pp. 1315-1324). ACM.

o   Pires, K., & Simon, G. (2015, March). YouTube live and Twitch: a tour of user-generated live streaming systems. In Proceedings of the 6th ACM Multimedia Systems Conference (pp. 225-230). ACM.

o   Zhang, C., & Liu, J. (2015, March). On crowdsourced interactive live streaming: a twitch. tv-based measurement study. In Proceedings of the 25th ACM Workshop on Network and Operating Systems Support for Digital Audio and Video (pp. 55-60). ACM.

What I thought was cool from each of these articles was just how similar their studies relate to the class we are currently going through. Each one focuses on the producer or consumer and the socialization/interactions between each other. They go into "Crowdsourcing" and how it creates a supportive community that can be informative! Or they will touch on what makes livestreaming a new form of web 2.0 that is truly lifting off from its former fringe days of social media use! It is a growing medium that has been slowly rising, and as an alternative to TV, it is starting to become one! Especially with the rise of livestreaming tools and esports (professional video gaming!). If any of my readers are interested, I recommend you check out one of these articles and give them a read, talk below in the comments what you see can be related to our class!

Helpful Specific Wikis

That is not to say all instructional learning is bad, and in fact a lot of sources such as github forums are GREAT when it comes to learning with technology.

As a Raspberry Pi User, a micro PC that runs on minimal power and on a budget (around 36 bucks). I decided to make a many arcade for all the LEGAL ROMS (Files of Video Games For Emulation) I have. Since I purchased Neo Geo ROMS legally from a reputable seller (and they sponsored the ROM selling for charity), I had about 15 games for my choosing on emulation.

The Raspberry Pi was my solution to portable arcades (and the cabinet I eventually want to make) for when I truly have a massive collection of legal roms to use. Arcade Joystick, cabinet and all, that is the dream!

Now...I didn't know how to set up this machine, but fortunately that is where user sites like Github come in, actually giving away the linux code for you to understand and emulate on my machine. To understand how to port neo-geo roms to my "Pi" I checked Here! (It is safe, don't worry). And it is one heck of machine now because of it!

I love you mini Neo Geo Machine sooooooo Much..

Githubs are used in multiple things! Python/Java/Linux/etc. anything needing coding, you got it. And users all help in submitting code for those wanting to learn or at least emulate! Retropie is one example of this type of fascination into cool coding and there are many other types of wikis too.

You got your fandom wikis to keep you up to speed on "Game Of Thrones" so while you hate the show or hate the books, you can at least catch up and understand what the heck your friends are saying (like me!). Or you might participate in a really cool wiki community that prides itself on its forums, rumors, and posts!

Wikis in good nature are endless, and we must appreciate that fact, just like Wikipedia is consensus based, altcyclopedias can be harmful, and wikileaks is murky, fun wikis providing specific information can be useful (again as long as you do your due diligence).

Wikileaks, or "Lets Make the Government Love or Hate us 101"

Wikileaks, this is a term we hear about. Whether the government loves or hates them depending on what political opponent they outed, or agency revealed, it is a mess. A hugely, respectable, dangerous mess.

I'll say this about it. When it comes to instructional learning, it should be treated the same way as wikipedia. You don't use it for sources, you use it as an investigation starter (in research we sometimes use the citations from the site to actually lead us to books or journals to read, wikipedia I mean).

Yes, the documents are nice and in my opinion Assange is one smart, narcissistic son of a gun for pulling what he has done with his website, but I can't say to fully trusting or not trusting the site. Wikileaks is the same instructional learning, instead it is posters submitting "leaks" for all to believe in. Yes it has the word "Wiki" in it, but that doesn't mean it is related to the biased consensus pushing like Wikipedia is. It isn't fully checked, just leaked to the public. And Assange (or at least his site) has released personal information on many people before.

If one was to handle Wikileaks, you need to uncover more and question what you can through the sources you reach rather than come to a startling conclusion. Which is why I have nothing but contempt for those in public administration who flip flop on Wikileaks all the time. Case in point, CIA Director Mike Pompeo, who recently expressed his hostile beliefs towards the site stating that :

“WikiLeaks will take down America any way they can,” he said. “I don’t love WikiLeaks.” (Benen, 2017)

But Wait, this was when Wikileaks was attacking the US government that he was hired to help run. He supported it completely and used it as "Evidence" against Hillary for her emails (Benen, 2017). Wikileaks could be ran by hostile state actors, or it might not, I don't care as just like any true scholar or academic, you take a Wiki with a grain of salt and use it as a jumping point to find the research you are looking for. Government, especially in instructional learning, needs to work the same way...Hopefully...One day...Yeah it probably won't. 

Works Cited: 

Benen, S. (2017, July 21). CIA Director Pompeo's Views on Wikileaks Have Apparently Evolved. Retrieved from MSNBC: http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/cia-director-pompeos-views-wikileaks-have-apparently-evolved

Encyclopedia Dramatica...When "Learning" goes too far

Don't go on this wiki. Don't do it, don't go on it, and if you did I am so sorry you did.

Encyclopedia Dramatica started in 2004 and is a parody of Wikipedia and other encylopedia sites.... It is user ran and maintained, and is ran by your fellow buddies on that side of the internet, you know..the "fun" side, the side that you don't want to be associated with.

There is an Irony in this

With user created instructional learning, comes user created UNinstructional learning, and in this case passing "harmless"(They aren't) jokes or memes around until people think they are actually real. So much so, that this wiki has been taken seriously in lawsuits, such as recently last year in England where the charge of  £10,000 due to posting accusations of paedophilla and "photos of proof" to a formal public administrator. The anonymous user who posted those acusations "has not been found" (Corfield, 2016).  These rises of "Encyclopedias or Altopedias" actually can be thanked to Wikipedia which released the source code to make these types of websites (Brodeur, 2017). As Wikipedia is a "user backed process" we all know in at least our classes not to use it as a source.. As this is ran not by facts, rather individuals, and biases (political, cultural, etc.) can affect the writings on the article. Fortunately studies have shown, the more a crowd "Works" on an article, the less this bias comes to show, though Wikipedia still has more bias than its "Britannica counterpart" (Frick, 2014). Britannica and Wikipedia are big names, compared to the more satirical or even "Alt-Fact" wikis...And some people might go to those to find the "Truth". With less people are those in a "Groupthink", there will surely be major disparities in factual evidence and high biases no matter what side of the aisle one leans or believes.

Sites like the satirical (Dramatica) or politically charged (Conservapedia or Rationalwiki) are problems, though fortunately the populations using them are not harmful...yet.

Disclaimer: I for one like looking at Dramatica time to time if the subject is actually funny. Sometimes some of the topics are funny, most of the time disgusting, and a good amount of the time pretty bad or hurtful, don't go on that site.

Works Cited:

Brodeur, M. A. (2017, June 23). The Rise of the Online Altcyclopedia. Retrieved from Boston Globe: https://www.bostonglobe.com/arts/2017/06/22/the-rise-online-altcyclopedia/iXQtJ6JuFE7wxzf98be13N/story.html

Corfield, G. (2016, July 29). Encyclopedia Dramatica User Hit With 10k damages after calling ex-councillor a "Paedo". Retrieved from The Register: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/07/29/encyclopedia_dramatica_dynastia_likeicare_samuel_smith_10k_libel_case/

Frick, W. (2014, December 3). Wikipedia is More Biased Than Britannica, but Don't Blame the Crowd. Retrieved from Harvard Business Review: https://hbr.org/2014/12/wikipedia-is-more-biased-than-britannica-but-dont-blame-the-crowd

Wikipedia and Corruption! Fighting Government Through Anti-Censorship

Since focusing on wikis this week, I figured to talk about something that happened recently in the news. This being "Fontgate". The main basis for the story is that the Pakistani Prime Minister's Daughter was found allegedly in relation to the Panama Papers, and in 2006 wrote a declaration regarding one of the firms involved. In investigation, it was found she used "Calibri" font when in 2006 "Wasn't out to the public yet". Yet the Calibri font was created pre 2007, in 2004 (and given in private before its full release). To defend a possibly corrupt government, supporters flooded the calibri page in turn to announce it was created in 2007 rather than 2004. Wikipedia put a stop to this, and locked the page to editing (Benjakob, 2017).

This isn't the first time Wikipedia stood up to hostile changes, nor is it the last, as Wikipedia has been a supporter against government acted censorship since its creation. Though this does not mean governments have been able to censor Wikipedia at all. Due to a change from HTTP to HTTPS, instead of governments blocking IPs going to one page, the government (to prevent education of specific issues), just block Wikipedia entirely (such as Russia with Marijuana) (Ukani, 2017).

You go Wikipedia in being you, but what about other encyclopedias? Is instructional learning through user created teachings hostile or even harmful? Well, yes. It just depends on the "Wiki" you are looking at...Instead of creating fake names for Australian currency and having a strict user base make sure to fix it (Langford, 2017)....you instead have well "Wikis".

The Best 100 dollar note though "The Most Worthy Rectangle"

Works Cited: 

Benjakob, O. (2017, July 13). The Calibri Font is Threatening to Bring Down Pakistan's Government. Retrieved from Haaretz: http://www.haaretz.com/world-news/1.801006

Langform, S. (2017, July 21). The Most Worthy Rectangle: Wikipedia Deletes Amazing List of Fake Aussie Slang for $100 Note. Retrieved from Junkee: http://junkee.com/wikipedia-list-slang-100-note/114214

Ukani, A. (2017, June 29). Wikipedia Against Censorship. Retrieved from Harvard Magazine: http://harvardmagazine.com/2017/06/wikipedia

Intellectual Property and Big Data. Who Owns The Rights?

When it comes to this week, Intellectual property (protection of content for users who create it) was a big topic in class. So I figured to incorporate it into this week's big data.

Intellectual property, whether it comes to protection of consumers, technologies, innovations, or even "starting twitter feuds" (yes this is real), it relations to governmental laws with web 2.0 services is a rather new frontier that is still constantly being tackled of governments throughout the world.

With the growing pace of technology, government and its regulations are rather anticipatory to it than mitigating. As one cannot expect what new technologies releases, or what is the biggest new thing, government needs to quickly adapt these technologies when dealing with legal matters to truly have a hold on things. Unfortunately, for that to happen you need a constantly active congressional session handling every little technological affair, and that is rather costly. Sometimes we can't even predict the correct scenario for some of the laws, especially intellectual property, based on who exactly owns the rights to the work submitted/shared/sold online! for example look at this picture:

pretty good pic

This picture is currently going to court to see whether the monkey owns the rights to the distribution of the picture for his selfie, even though it was taken on another person's phone (yes PETA is the one fronting this case...and yes, PETA can be crazy...). This case can throw a wrench in copyright laws and the handling on IP laws on the internet, due to the extent of how much a photograph of something or someone really can mean to those laws based on accusations of who exactly posted it (Kravetz, 2017)!

In terms of E-Commerce, or property of technological properties, China is a major thorn in the US(Rather the world's) side due to the high production of counterfeit, or practical knock-offs of specific products or IPs. This is due to China's current ease of IP theft from its "forced technology transfers" (U.S. business must hand over IP to chinese partners to do business there), lax competition laws that interfere with IP rights of other nations, and limited outreach on E-Commerce (which it has been slowly improving!) (Okun, 2017; Melnicoe, 2017).

In terms of big data and social networks, other countries such have Japan also taken charge of who in fact owns the "Big Data". In this case Japan sided with the companies that collect the metadata of where your devices have checked out, your cars have driven, and so on (Nikkei Asian Review, 2017). This collection of data would only be IP eligible if it is deemed "valuable" to business activity, and amassing and storing would be considered a great deal of effort, depending on the industry collecting specific data and how they did (Nikkei Asian Review, 2017). While this is great in spurring industries to actually use data without massive legal issue (as the data they collected is theirs), it does bring up some major questions in how citizens own privacy related to this big data. What once was an open collection of information that may be personal to the citizen is now eligible to be the IP of someone else, because lets face it, all data will be deemed "valuable" and amassing/storage of it would be considered a great deal of effort. Governments must find ways to make both the consumer and producer happy when dealing with IP and big data conundrums. To those reading, what are you beliefs of your data considered the IP of someone else?

In terms of promotion of IP, the government does try to get people to understand or at least appreciate the ability of personal protection of rights (though through some of the dumbest ways ).

 See you all next week! For now, I got a date to the best show on TV tonight at the Civic Center...so hyped for the WWE house show!

Oh, please please please be there

Sources:

Nikkei Asian Review. (2017, March 12). Big Data to get intellectual property protection in Japan. Retrieved from Nikkei Asian Review: http://asia.nikkei.com/Politics-Economy/Economy/Big-data-to-get-intellectual-property-protection-in-Japan

Kravets, D. (2017, July 15). Animal Rights? Monkey selfie case may undo evolutions of the Internet. Retrieved from arsTechnica: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/07/animal-rights-monkey-selfie-case-may-undo-evolution-of-the-internet/

Melnicoe, M. (2017, January 26). China's Draft E-Commerce Law Aims to Protect IP Rights. Retrieved from Bloomberg BNA: https://www.bna.com/chinas-draft-ecommerce-n73014450306/

Okun, D. T. (2017, March 10). US must bolster fight with China over intellectual property rights. Retrieved from The Hill: http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/economy-budget/323346-us-must-bolster-fight-with-china-over-intellectual-property

Surveillance, NSA, and Snowden: The complications of Big Data in security

Well, just like last week we talked about the good of the internet, now to talk about the bad (or at least ethically gray) of it. Surveillance as stated in a previous post focuses on the personal details for a given purpose, this statement is of course broad depending on the context, but the big question is how focused?

Well if you were the NSA pre-2013, focused meant use big data to collect information on metadata on phone calls, logins of specific technology, and other unknowing data disclosed on social media (Lyon, 2013). What the heck is metadata? well it is not your exact "data", not what you post or where you lie on the political spectrum, but rather the data that was used to POST that data...this being even scarier, your IP address, location of calls/message, duration of message, identity of contact (and why I highly recommend to leave your location services off your phone), word processing program use, license plate recognition data, it again all depends on what context companies or government are looking for this "data about data" (Lyon, 2013). Metadata is scary when you think about it, and as such has gone through legal struggles in terms of who exactly holds the rights to this data (the user, the social network, the government, nobody?). Yet all hell broke loose when a whistle-blower by the name of Edward Snowden, released information to UK's The Guardian dealing with practices by the NSA when it came to collecting this metadata, forcing phone companies to submit this data over. The US isn't the only one caught red-handed doing this, other advanced countries such as the UK have also done it as well when it came to the collection of this data (Lyon, 2013), and I can assure that many other nations not caught currently have similar practices.

And the issue is still tackled this day in other "Intellectual Property" rights

Now, I am not going to be fully sticking up for what Snowden did, as some channels when it came to whistle-blowing may be considered illegal (hence why he is not in the US anymore), but he did create an alarming point to US citizens, that in the age of new technology and this "big data", government surveillance is as broad as ever to all citizens using services from these devices. Fortunately, post leaks, Obama and congress passed a law limiting NSA collection of phone records due to the "USA Freedom Act" of 2015 (Diamond, 2015). Yet by the start of 2017, the Obama administration also relaxed laws to share more data, and allow the NSA to look through raw data, aka more private information to innocent individuals (Savage, 2017). Even with the USA Freedom Act, it is notable to notice that it only mentioned "Phone Records", again with surveillance (and big data), depending on the context it can mean many things! Phone records are only a slice to the whole data pie that is collected!

Issues when it comes to this collection, especially in surveillance can be a "nuisance" when determining who exactly is considered a threat or not. The consequence of broad searches through big data means that automation must take place. As trillions of megabits are shared, it is impossible for a human to specifically collect on a few people doing broad searches, automation must come in and do that job via these searches (Lyon, 2013). Anticipation is also another issue, as due to the automation, anticipatory approaches to handling specific individuals (even if innocent) can cause "Pinpointing potential dangers" (Lyon, 2013), which I don't know about you but why does this sound familiar?

Oh yeah, that's why...

Now we aren't going Minority Report at all (or at least we don't have all the technology to see the future yet). But it does propose an issue when it comes to privacy of information of innocent citizens. The NSA and other securities must adapt to a constantly changing landscape of big data collection and how legally they are allowed to collect this data.


Sources:

Lyon, D. (2014). Surveillance, Snowden, and Big Data: Capacities, consequences, critique. Big Data & Society, 1-13.

Diamond, J. (2015, September 7). NSA Surveillance Bill Passes After Weeks-long Shutdown. Retrieved from CNN: http://www.cnn.com/2015/06/02/politics/senate-usa-freedom-act-vote-patriot-act-nsa/index.html

Savage, C. (2017, Janurary 12). N.S.A. Gets More Latitude to Share Intercepted Communications. Retrieved from The New York Post: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/12/us/politics/nsa-gets-more-latitude-to-share-intercepted-communications.html

311 and the importance of internet in government

When it comes to using data, government and its task of collection is rather important. So much so, that when it comes to collecting, validating, processing, analyzing, reporting, protecting and storing data by civilian federal agencies, the price to do so is $60 billion as of 2012....Military? Boost that spending to over $200 billion, with trillions of megabits being collected each year by the federal government (Holzer & Schwester, 2016).

Best part? The spending for it grows dramatically each year! 

Big data is a big deal not just in our federal service, but our state and local as well, with more positions opening for CIOs (Chief Information Officers) and CTOs (Chief Technology Officers), they are considered the new "it" position to have in the local government arena, due to the rapid expanding of technology, which includes making sure data is stored securely; as well as information, which collection has rapidly improved and thus requires adequate sorting, collection, processing, and of course privacy.

Management courses now teach exactly the pros and cons of using specific technologies due to privacy, and the ability of malicious people to access said ways. Such as explaining what exactly is the "cloud" (put it briefly, cloud computing, runs on the internet housing data instead of a particular spot of servers in a physical area holding and sharing data), or how to recognize human error and vulnerable areas such as web security, networks, emails, mobile, and how to fix them (Holzer & Schwester, 2016).

Seriously, government officials fall for this

 Data has grown so much so throughout the world, that government needs to understand exactly how to properly handle said information, with 90% of the world's data being generated since 2012 (Holzer & Schwester, 2016), it has grown to a big problem of who protects said information, and how exactly can on effectively transmit data properly to those looking.

How does this big data relate to applications? Well, certain applications like a local government's 311 system is effectively taking this "big data", information given by citizens and put in a database, to properly handle and collect citizen data, requests, certificates, and questions to continuously improve itself, or as a spot to understand the needs of the constituent.


The history of the 311 system is rather recent in terms of technological innovation, as it was initially used in the city of Baltimore in 1996, to help reduce an already overwhelmed 911 system which listened to not only emergency requests, but non-emergency requests or confusion about government processes (Goodyear, 2015)....yes people called 911 to complain about issues with trash collecting...and it wasn't good for the system.

With a $300,000 federal grant to see if this would help alleviate the problem, it was found to be a booming success! Federal government after seeing this working in alleviating the congestion of 911 systems, reserved the 311 number to all police departments just in case those local governments wanted to use it (Goodyear, 2015). Jump a couple of years later, and major cities (such as Los Angeles, and Chicago) creating their own systems and slowly incorporating other public services in there, New York created the "premium" 311 service in 2003, as it is able to respond to 180 languages and incorporates thousands of municipal services 24 hours a day(Goodyear, 2015). This strive to continue 311 support still grows to this day, as cities such as New York accepting digital images from phones as part of 311 information now (Rivera, 2007).  Some cities such as Los Angeles, even incorporate twitter and a specific hashtag to its system, to address problems and reports! While some have made 311 systems programs open access to constituents, to build better apps for cities involving 311 (Open311) (Goodyear, 2015)!. The use of being a cost saving machine compared to a constant phone center stressed is another one of the benefits that can come from it, as cities such as Miami appreciate the 311 system for that reason after their budgets were slashed (Wilkinson, 2010).


So how does this amazing service relate to big data? Well, everytime you(the citizen) submit a call to the service, or use the 311 app (digiTally app in Tallahassee as an example, which I recommend all citizens should get here), it is recorded. Yes, your location (if using the app of course, or giving your address to address the problem), your topic of problem, and what your needed are all recorded in a 311 system constantly collecting data to improve the services of government to you.

And this is why we now have CTO and CIO positions to protect this data, or metadata..sometimes it works?

  This data has been used in numerous government research, having seeing a whole panel dedicated to 311 research during my time at PMRC (Public Management Research Conference) this summer. We as scholars love to see what exactly are main issues of the public towards the government, and so are journalists (wait what?). WIRED posted an interesting article, collecting the data from a span of about a week in 2010 showing what exactly the complaint was, and what areas of New York used the 311 system the most! I highly recommend reading this article, and there are neat pictures in it too...and I know we all like neat pictures (Johnson, 2010). In terms of emergency management, 311 systems and social networks such as twitter (at least for cities which now used twitter and crowdsourced data), can prove to be of high use to emergency managers during a natural or technological disaster. Cities like New Orleans used both types post-Katrina to help in knowing who exactly needed help, or where downed trees or lines were. New York after Sandy on the other hand, had issues with their 911 service when people again called for "non-emergencies"(Grohsgal, 2013). This may be due to lack of education of the 311 system and how it works, but when promoted effectively, should prove its use to all.

Totally not looking into this app for research at all and totally don't have any *Cough* bias *Cough* towards it.

In relation to big data, the 311 system is an advancement of good when in relation to it. But there are incidences of when information from big data can be used improperly by those in government (or at least a little too far beyond the bounds of the intent of some organizations), and can be called out upon as major issues. This will come to with surveillance and big data..

Sources:

Goodyear, S. (2015). 3-1-1: A City Services Revolution. Retrieved from Citylab: From The Atlantic: https://www.citylab.com/city-makers-connections/311/

Grohsgal, B. W. (2013). The Role of 311 and Social Media During Disasters. Retrieved from Government Technology: http://www.govtech.com/e-government/The-Role-of-311-and-Social-Media-During-Disasters.html

Holzer, M., & Schwester, R. W. (2016). Public Administration: An introduction. New York: Routledge.

Johnson, S. (2010, November 1). What A Hundred Million Calls to 311 Reveal About New York. Retrieved from WIRED: https://www.wired.com/2010/11/ff_311_new_york/

Lyon, D. (2014). Surveillance, Snowden, and Big Data: Capacities, consequences, critique. Big Data & Society, 1-13.

Rivera, R. (2007, January 18). Plan Will ALlow 911 and 311 Lines to Accept Digital Images. Retrieved from The New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/18/nyregion/18cameras.html

Wilkinson, K. (2010). Miami 311 Goes Online, Keeps Phone Calls. Retrieved from Government Technology: http://www.govtech.com/e-government/Miami-311-Goes-Online-Keeps-Phone.html

Big Data Week

Ok, since last week was people week, and the week before was a general "Government in the Electronic World". I figure I should dedicate this week to another pressing topic in government. Big Data.

Ok this isn't exactly big data, but i'll still pray to the cloud gods

Big data, in terms that we view it in public administration (and hopefully in other fields as well), is split up into two areas, these being "Big Data" and "Surveillance". David Lyon in his article separates the differences between these two by calling big data:

"The capacity to search, aggregate and cross-reference large data sets"(Lyon, 2014)

He further goes on to state that this definition of course is not the same depending on the area it is applied, as similar ends to success differentiate between the view of the context it is currently under (such as terrorism, marketing, health care, etc.) (Lyon, 2014). 

Surveillance on the other hand is used as the:

 "Systematic, routine, and focused attention to personal details for a given purposes (such as management, influence, or entitlement" (Lyon, 2014)

This too is rather broad and can depend on the present purpose it is being used for and how exactly it is being used, yet for a "basic" understanding, it is what it is.

Why these two definitions are rather important to e-government and the understanding of their definitions, is due to the work that both can help and harm those affected by the collection of data. The use of the 311 system (which I will talk about in another blog post) as well as the debate vs mass surveillance, or scrutiny towards individuals. Big data can also fall into the issue of intellectual property law, which has created a ground of interesting debate on "who exactly owns" this data outright?

As you can see from these definitions and previous examples, the use of big data and surveillance in government is rather daunting. It's spread being extremely complex and can be rife with consequences (Snowden leaks of NSA surveillance, being an example). I figured this would be an interesting topic to cover for this week's class due to our focus on intellectual property, and the rights one may or may not have on the web (specifically with interactions to web 2.0 tools) towards this data (it's the best I can do at least comparing it to e-government at least, please don't hate me going the boring route!).

The road of big data and government is not one in which it is constant "conspiracy theories" yet at the same time, we should be mindful of what exactly we give out as "information" on the digital web, and at least know what we blatantly give out "for free". 

Sources:

Lyon, D. (2014). Surveillance, Snowden, and Big Data: Capacities, consequences, critique. Big Data & Society, 1-13.

Learning Project: Twitch Streaming?

So! For my upcoming project for my web 2.0 class, we will be looking into knowledge sharing.

For this reason, the web 2.0 tool i'll be using is the Twitch Livestream service, in tandem (hopefully if I can figure it out) youtube for "Videos on Demand"

If you wanna watch a guy try to teach a lesson on public administration while also keeping focus on a game requiring thinking/listening/so many retrys, check out https://www.twitch.tv/drfreckles

My schedule will be variable (Student and other work), but i'll try to stream between these times:

Monday 2PM-5PM
Tuesday: 6PM -9P< (not this tuesday though)
Wednesday 9PM-11AM
Thursday:7PM - 12AM
Friday: Anytime between 12 PM to 2 AM
Saturdays: Anytime between 2 PM to 2 AM
Sunday: Anyime between 2 PM to 2 AM

If you want to keep up, just check notifications and follow me on twitch!

Memes: or How I learned to Stop S***posting and Love the Cancer

Memes, you know em, I know em, your minions loving grandmother knows em. Memes are a common source of entertainment in society, and we can see memes naturally grow through acts of embarrassment, artistry, pictures, pets, and more. They also could be forced and well....they aren't really good, until they become ironic memes making fun of those forced memes, and there are a couple...

When it comes to a lot of memes though, do you know that your lolcats, green text stories, motivational posters, arthur pics, and so so many more probably spawned from a site you never checked before? Boards such as somethingawful or 4chan really are the spawn pits for a lot of the older memes that generated the internet.

This? 4chan Caturdays

WHOA WHOA WHOA 4CHAN!? THAT PLACE, WITH ALL THE TROLLS WHO POST NOTHING BUT NAZI STUFF? Look okay yes, 4chan is different but we aren't all bad people, and a lot of great boards which really don't connect with the /pol/ board there do thrive, just like a lot of subreddits don't interact with theredpill... A lot of memes we know are rather lighthearted (or at the most juvenile) and don't amount to a lot of controversy. I myself am a chronic memer (and my SO truly truly hates me for it), but I am not a hateful person. I would argue as of late, memes have gotten a bad rap due to recent trends, but as long as you block the right people, and stay on the safe parts of the net (and they are obviously safe parts), you should be fine not seein...oh..oh yeah that one.

Dammit

The Pepe meme was created on the Robot 9000 board (/r9k) on 4chan, and it was a rather lighthearted meme, it was just a collection of stupid frog pictures which artists changed and made the meme of "rare pepe" or the collection of pepe memes (they were all rare pepes). Just like all great memes, it spread and other boards championed it.

It was a good time collecting those Pepes(I still have my folder of them in case I decided to post on 4chan every now and then for "keks"(oh god and that is another thing that got co-opted)). 

Just like all good things (PATTERN IN THE LAST 2 POSTS), they can turn bad very very fast. Memes get old, once the community catches on, corporate takes over, and makes them over-used and excuse my language shitty. Once the mainstream audience catches on, well it sucks to us, it was OUR joke, OUR meme, and we don't like seeing these things used against us....and one way to "save" a meme is to make it unusable for the mainstream....hence where we are today with Pepe. 

In all accounts, it worked, Pepe has been saved for us on the /b/oard for continued collection, it just has that negative connotation of being a white supremacist icon. Wait what.

Memes!..and how I feel

The folks over at the politically incorrect board /pol/ decided to champion pepe and its many uses as a blank slate for "artistry" as a symbol of hate. Those who have not seen the media, or used any web 2.0 application may have been saved from seeing this at all, but I can take a wild stab that if you are reading this article, you probably saw this iteration of Pepe at least once. What /pol/ did was take the meme away from the general audience and use it for this one thing. And pepe for all intents and purposes IS NOT A SYMBOL OF HATE. The ADL cements this as

 "However, because so many Pepe the Frog memes are not bigoted in nature, it is important to examine use of the meme only in context. The mere fact of posting a Pepe meme does not mean that someone is racist or white supremacist. However, if the meme itself is racist or anti-Semitic in nature, or if it appears in a context containing bigoted or offensive language or symbols, then it may have been used for hateful purposes."


The people of /pol/ with the good graces of specific medias promoting the image as hateful or supportive (and politicians from both sides of the aisle depending on its usage...looking at you Hillary and Trump). Did something that you would not expect from a board that thrives in the anonymous freedom hate speech, gain followers. Memes such as Pepe, or specific acts that gain notable attention bring eyes to these pages. What originally was a rather small page, now has even more viewers as some outlets misrepresent exactly what board Pepe originated from. Sometimes these boards may be doing something in the act of good (/b/ has used resources to catch killers and animal abusers for instance)...or media articles misrepresent(the whole collective is a hacker known as 4chan) or accurately state specific boards(that is rare) them for bad, thus attracting more users or lurkers  (This article being an example of media with 4chan at least). This is just one example, the names of r/redpill and others have been spread as well and just as good news is great, bad news is also great for business.

So...Pepe, good or bad? well it depends on where how you use it. In today's society, I probably won't post Pepe memes on facebook or else I'll get the wrath of being called a racist, but that is how memes can be taken and changed to whatever we feel like (yes even the cat memes....). We as users of the web, and produsers of web 2.0 must know when to embrace or ignore specific changes to content and how to react when we see it from other users who may not be "in the loop" of it's cultural designation (but even then, the internet IS the internet and people mostly do what they want due to the freedom of it). A tolerable and loving community is great with nothing but "good memes" but there always will be something dark in each and every one, it just depends on how we as the community interact with those who use it for darker purposes, and how we really should not give them the attention they crave, it will only make us worse for wear in the end. Drama is always enticing, but sometimes it isn't worth it.

Sources:

Anti Defamation League. (2017). Pepe The Frog. Retrieved from Anti Defamation League: https://www.adl.org/education/references/hate-symbols/pepe-the-frog

Annnnd the bad... When Anonymity can also cause areas of hate

Well, the internet is great! BUT the internet also sucks. Why? Well, as long as you don't publicly announce who you are to those in forums, repercussions are fairly low (unless people specifically dox you). The probability of a context collapse (when people from different realms of your community collide) is relatively low when anonymous. A specific power of anonymity is felt, and well to some users, we can write some really BAD things.

SGDQ was great this year, but it didn't come with its controversy. With the inclusion of multiple trans runners, the twitch chat was put into "Emote Only" mode instead of its usual meme filled text mode due to fears of anonymous users saying hate to those runners rather than hate to their skill for dying on an easy 2 frame jump (I kid, that is too easy, all about 1 frame backflips). The meme adage of who you really are when using the internet is a great example of this being:

This is rather true. No one KNOWS who you are, thus any inhibitions, beliefs that you may harbor that aren't acceptable in real world face to face conversation can be unleashed, causing some of the ugliest of human emotion to come out. This isn't a thing restricted to twitch, but rather mostly all web 2.0 sites. Reddit with their Redpill, 4chan with /pol/ /b/, youtube with its comments section (and in some cases even some of the video providers), tumblr, facebook fake accounts, and so on. A device used for good can also be reversed, and with the champion of these devices promoting anonymity (sans facebook really), there is not a lot that can be done.

This is all I could screen cap...there was more, but I'd figured it wasn't acceptable to see

Dennen (2008), and her explanation of identities in blogs can help explain a little bit on what exactly is fostering this rampant amount of hate.  Identity. Identity in this case is "anonymous", you may have a tag name but sometimes you don't. The user wants to be accepted into a specific community, and if they fall down the wrong holes, will expand their "profile" to gain more acceptance in the community and have a larger network. These people might circle around specific areas such as r/theredpill or Sargon of Akkad on youtube, and from there it grows. In the gaming culture, back in the day for me I was part of "Clans", groups of people together to work together in specific games. The culture there was rather hate filled towards specific people (including to my annoyance, people like me). It took understanding and something to break the barrier of "belief" from the whole in a calm and tolerant way to truly start changing the culture at least in the "clan". I can't say it will work in other HUGE communities such as /pol/ but, these areas just like the r/speedrun community are "communities" whether we like it or not, and it is the attention we give to these communities that strengthen it just as much as the guys at GDQ in viewer appreciation. And well, one example of this is through "memes"....

Sources:

Dennen, V. P. (2009). Constructing Academic Alter-Egos: Identity Issues in a Blog-Based Community. Identity in the Information Society, 23-38.

Web 2.0 and citizen use...for good?

Because our class looked into the wonderful world of Reddit and Youtube this week. I figured I should talk about some of the amazing things such sources of produsage and similar (Twitch, 4chan, Tumblr), can create for society.

Yes it is a little off from government in general, but it is useful for administrators to see when it comes to the "public values" of the changing nation. Such sources such as Reddit run "ask me anythings" or AMAs, in which figures work with reddit (or even by their own accord), create discussion with questions from the whole internet community. Yes, not every question will be answered, but it gives insight as a politician on what questions will be brought up from a wide range of audience who may not make it normally to a town hall meeting (see Brazil last article allowing for the creation of open forums).

And the logo is still pretty adorable

Reddit, is not just good for AMAs, nor is youtube just good for cat and dog videos (though seriously it is great for those). Both can also spread awareness to many issues going on in today's society as well as influence many about some amazing philanthropic events happening at that moment. Through uses of front pages for both services as well as others (such as video game streaming service Twitch), such events as "Games Done Quick" would never have happened. To explain the good of web 2.0 devices such as this, I will explain the three-way impact of Games Done Quick (or Summer Games Done Quick in this instance) and the effect it has as a web 2.0 run charity and its many outreaches and community building that come from it.

To quickly explain, Games Done Quick (or GDQ), is a bi-annual event with one event happening in the early part of the year (this being your Awesome Games Done Quick, or AGDQ) and your Summer Games Done Quick (SGDQ). Both events dedicate all proceeds towards specific charities, with SGDQ focusing on Doctors without Borders, and AGDQ focusing on the Prevent Cancer Foundation. This year alone, AGDQ raised $2,222,791 for their charity, and SGDQ wrapped up yesterday with a whopping $1,776,486. This even champions the speedrunning community (a community of gamers who "Run" games to get the fastest time for completion) while making a fun event for all watchers to learn about some of these games and see these speedruns happen in one area.

and it is a truly awesome event

The use of web 2.0 technology is what helped spurred these charities to reach the heights they are. Since 2010 both of these events use the platform "Twitch" a livestreaming service to help in promoting the charity as well as community to those logging on. This event has caught the attention of millions of watchers and followers, and some are even crazy enough to actually donate money!(not really crazy, but still, sending $100 to say potato puns is pretty funny)

The speedrunning community used static websites and forums to help create their respective community through sites such as speedrun.com. The creation of reddit has further connected this community with the r/speedrun reddit, making it an easy site for all users speedrunner or not to access..

Pretty cool place to read up on stuff

This whole week i've been watching the event and keeping up with the reddit page, observing the interactions of users in it. The realization of connection finally hit in and just how important web 2.0 can be for this event. GDQ, and the web 2.0 programs it uses helps in fostering a growing community, brings attention to some of the speedrunners, raises money for charity, and creates a mostly "safe" location for those who feel they may not be accepted elsewhere.

The GDQ event did this through several ways. For each speedrun there, the twitch would state the runner's "Twitch" handle to watch further runs, and nearing the end of their runs they usually mention the specific forum or community they come from. "Covert_Muffin" a runner for the Star Wars Jedi Academy games is just crazy to watch and was a prime example of followers that would join after appreciating his commentary and moves throughout the game.

He ran on Friday, and the follower count exploded!

His run last year

Covert Muffin is probably (at least to me) one of the most entertaining guys of the whole show, with his constant never-ending commentary WHILE he is doing some crazy moves in game, and his motto of "Take a Bath" after beating something. Twitch chat, the service watching him was enamored by his run, and he reaped the fruits of his labors at a charitable event with even more followers. Covert Muffin, also helped the speedrunning community, on the reddit page people who may have not been interested in speedrunning a game before now want to gain more knowledge on how to do it, and to join the specific communities of said game (including people like me interested now). Covert Muffin not only did GDQ a favor by raising money, he did himself and the Star Wars Jedi Academy community a big favor due to his actions.

SGDQ also showed the fruits of what happens when you foster a community that focuses not on looks, but on skill. People like Halfcoordinated ran a 3D Role Play Game called Nier:Automata with ONE HAND. You usually need two to move, but this guy made it look like it was natural only to use one hand to do the job. Why? Well he is a disabled runner, he has hemiparesis which causes limited weakness on the right side of his body including limited usage of his right hand (Tamburro, 2016). This wasn't Half's first rodeo at GDQ, with a run at SGDQ last year, and if you weren't tearing up by the end of that one you have no soul by how amazing and inspiring a runner he was. And it wasn't just my word, it was the donation comments coming in from disabled gamers throughout his run saying he was a hero to them, which may have caused him to tear up a bit, especially after his own father left a message too. People were hyped to hear him come back to run again this year at SGDQ as he is a figure to a lot of us. 

I can't even beat some of the bosses he plays and he makes it look like child's play

SGDQ also had many trans runners, with multiple trans-female runners running some amazing games such as Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, and Tetris (yes tetris). The community is rather open and inviting, if you can do the run and kick butt doing so, or even just show a general interest on how to route for faster runs, you are accepted. A community is formed. 

To continue the awareness of the event, the reddit page stickied "Videos on Demand" (VODs) of the runs you missed during the 24 hour 7 day event. I high recommend if you are interested to check it out, and I recommend if you are truly interested to watch a little of HalfCoordinated and CovertMuffin's runs. The link is here!

GDQ isn't the only phenomenon, and there are many more such as desert bus for charity, and just general fun loving in the community. The gaming community has at least embraced the wave of web 2.0 a lot compared to others, and it is something of interest to understand on how people react to one another creating a culture for us to understand. This culture of interactivity is one we can experiment with and use it towards other areas such as our "public service" and see that with a little ingenuity and fun, we can bring people together.

Did I mention Desert Bus is another great charity cause it is and it is the best. 

Sources:

Tamburro, P. (2016, July 6). SGDQ 2016: Disabled Speedrunner Receives Standing Ovation After Tear-Jerking Speech. Retrieved from Crave: http://www.craveonline.com/entertainment/1007277-sgdq-2016-disabled-speedrunner-receives-standing-ovation-tear-jerking-speech