"The stupidest possible creative act is still a creative act." - Of Shirky's speech
                                                                                                                                      
There is a case when we don't perform things because we think we can already do the things. But, this is a false thought. Not until we represent our ability, though it is trivial, we cannot say that we conduct the things. Probably, people who have learned to play instruments such as piano and guitar might know what I mean. A student who learns to play the piano  sees a music score and thinks this is playable enough. After a couple of days, s/he tries to play the music but feels it is not as playable as s/he thought well. My point is "if a person does not express his/her ability, the ability cannot be completed. Likewise, the LOLcats design, Shirky mentioned, might be a foolish creative performance, but if users didn't represent the foolish actions, there would be nothing about creativity. This is one point of "cognitive surplus" Shirky asserts.

Franky, I was trying to find out commonalities among three materials, Meggs' article, Howard's book, and Shirky's lecture, for next seminar. Instead of commonalities, I found myself some shared words among them: media (all possible communicative devices from humanistic tools like language and visuals to technologies), accessibility of information, and positive and developable change.

A History of Graphic Design (1998) describes the evolution of human communication tools, specifically, written language. According to the book, there are largely two written language types; one is logogram or graphic characters such as Egyptian and Chinese hieroglyphs and the other is alphabet form.

First, let's look at hieroglyphs. This was invented by figures of things. For example, these letters was made by imitating figures of sun and moon. Contemporary Chinese language still has a number of hieroglyphs whose combinations makes new meanings. It is interesting because new meanings made by the combinations are logically going on. Let me introduce some letters. Tree is represented as "木" in Chinese. When it is double written like "林," it means forest. When it is triple written like "森," it means forest with a lot of trees.
Unlike such graphical character systems, "an alphabet is a set of visual symbols or characters used to represent the elementary sounds of a spoken language"(27). This alphabet's invention encouraged more active human communications because its written systems are easier than hieroglyphs. From a historiographical view, letters as written communicative tools seems to evolve into more convenient and accessible forms.

Technology changes rapidly; Humans don't: While technologies may change rapidly human beings don't!
While reading this chapter, I came up with one issue: technological determinism vs. social determinism (we have already read about this issue last articles). A few months ago, Steve Jobs launched iPad which is a form of table computer. There are a lot of opinions about the tiny computer. But those opinions are largely divided as two: one group argued that iPad is really cool and it helps users more effectively communicate, and the other group asked what iPad is different from other lap tops or tablet PCs.

First group basically follows technological determinism. That is, technological developments can result in social change. Second group implies social determinism. That is, social demands cause technological developments. Actually, social determinism seems to be more persuasive than technological determinism in a capitalistic sense. As Howard said, the reason Hiltz and Turoff excellently anticipated the future of media environments is that "they based their predictions on a sociological understanding of the history of communication technologies and on deep-seated understandings about fundamental social needs rather than technological possibilities"(207). 

However, consider about iPad case again. Who has imagined the form of iPad? I mean, is this really a socially-demanded technology? I think Apple Company tried to change societies in a technological deterministic perspective. Functions of iPad are not new any longer. Some said iPad is a bigger version of iPod. There is NOTHING about new technology. It just changed its appearance as Lexus and Camry have the same engines, different bodies. According to Maxism, it might be called fetishism. I would like to call this iPad case instrumental surplus. This instrumental surplus makes users more interested in an appliance itself than information or the access of the information. Thus, I don't think human being doesn't need to sensitively respond the rapid technological developments. Socially-demanded technologies do not appear as quickly as we think so. Their appearance looks so fast because there are lots of instrumental surplus.