#lecture summary

1. Ikhlas tak selalu terasa ringan

Keikhlasan tak selalu tumbuh dari rasa ringan dalam melaksanakan perintah "berangkatlah baik dalam keadaan ringan ataupun berat dan berjihadlah dengan harta dan dirimu di jalan Allah yang demikian itu adalah lebih baik bagimu jika kamu mengetahui" (QS attaubah: 41)

maka tak pantas kita menghakimi orang-orang yang menampakan rasa berat di dalam perjuangan, justru bisa jadi pahala yang mereka terima jauh lebih besar daripada yang merasa ringan-ringan saja sang nabi pernah berkata pada Aisyah bahwa pahalamu senilai dengan kadar payahmu. Alangkah berharga jika kita lebih mengaca diri tanpa menghakimi mereka yang merasa berat menempuhnya.

2. Ikhlas tidak selalu bikin tenang

Apakah seorang yang ikhlas itu selalu tenang ataukah dia gelisah? pada sebuah jiwa yang sadar akan siapa dirinya dan kemana ia hendak menuju keikhlasan justru disertai kegelisahan dan ketakutan sebagaimana firman Allah

"dan orang-orang yang memberikan apa yang telah mereka berikan dengan hati yang takut, sesungguhnya mereka akan kembali kepada Rabb mereka." (QS Al muminun 60)

3. Ikhlas itu Gerak bukan Diam / Pasrah

Kegelisahan yang disebabkan ikhlas, akan melahirkan langkah-langkah besar untuk berbuat lebih dan lebih lagi terus dan terus semakin baik dan semakin sempurna. Berlomba-lomba ini tergambar dari kelanjutan ayat diatas yaitu

"mereka itu bergegas segera dalam meraih kebaikan dan merekalah orang-orang yang terdahulu memperolehnya" (QSAl-Mukminun- 61)

Memang tak jarang yang tenang tenang saja yang merasa tak terbebani akan amal-amalnya itu kalah ikhlas daripada yang khawatir. Karena mereka yang tenang saja, merasa cukup dengan amal sholehnya dan merasa aman dari azab Allah, adalah orang yang justru bersalah. Mereka orang yang tak pernah berhitung bahwa nikmat Allah itu tak terhingga, mereka orang yang tak pernah mengira bahwa dosa-dosa mereka telah jauh berlebih dari yang mampu disangga.

4. Yang paling berat dari Ikhlas

Yang terberat dari ikhlas sesungguhnya adalah saat kita menyadari bahwa dia terletak sejak sebelum kita berbuat, ketika kita sedang berbuat, dan sesudah kita berbuat, seterusnya sampai maut menjemput maka menjadi ikhlas adalah proses yang tak kenal henti. Maka terkadang ikhlas itu mudah awalnya yang sulit adalah tetap ikhlas seterusnya (istiqomah)

Maka Rasul selalu membuka pintu harapan agar proses menjadi ikhlas bisa terus berjalan ia tak peduli seperti apapun awalnya menjadi ikhlas adalah terus mengaca diri lalu berbenah.

Behavioral Design – Lecture 2

Today in lec, we had to name one thing we are good at and one thing we are bad at. That is when I realized I think I am bad at thinking I am good at anything. So my answer to what I am good at was nothing.

After that, we moved on to status quo bias which has three types. Continuity familiarity and comfort. Then came a bunch of cognitive biases that shape how we think and make decisions.

Anchoring effect is when our decisions are influenced by initial reference points. For example instead of saying I expect a salary of eight to ten say ten to eight because people always focus on the smaller number.

Decoy effect is when a skewed reference point forces an upgrade.

Confirmation bias is when we agree with things that match our existing beliefs. Even algorithms take advantage of this.

Availability heuristic is when we base decisions on what is easiest to recall. This is why trauma sticks with us more than other emotions.

Loss aversion is when we are more afraid of losing something than excited about gaining something.

Overconfidence bias is when we overestimate our abilities based on past success.

Framing effect is when the way something is presented changes our perception. An example is saying half full instead of half empty or pricing things to end in nine.

Sunk cost fallacy is when we keep going with something even if it is not worth it just because we have already invested time energy money or emotion.

Bandwagon effect is when we do things just because others are doing them.

Halo effect is when we assume someone is good at everything just because they are good at one thing. An example is thinking that if A = B and B = C then A must = C.

Attribution bias is when we focus on character instead of context.

Self serving bias is when we justify things in a way that protects our self esteem.

Endowment effect is when we value things more just because we own them. An example is how DIY furniture like from IKEA feels more valuable because we assembled it ourselves.

After this we moved on to choice architecture which is about organizing options to influence behavior without restricting freedom of choice.

It involves

Grabbing attention

Influencing decisions

Facilitating actions and

Sustaining behavior.

CMF stands for color material and finish.

Nudges are default options that make it easier for users to find the primary function.

Visual cues make it easier to identify things.

Social proof is when we trust something more because of reviews or others using it.

Reminders help keep important tasks in mind.

At last Friday’s lecture at the Beckman Institute, Judith Pinar gave a presentation where she talked about interactive fiction--particularly gaming--with a focus on hodology and meta-hodology. The talk was surprisingly entertaining, refreshingly unpretentious, and, in my opinion, one of the best academic lectures I’ve ever attended. The lecture itself was accompanied by a hilariously self-aware PowerPoint presentation full of randomly placed pictures of dragons, and phrases like “bullet points are the ramen noodles of ontology.”

In terms of content, Pintar set out her discussion points right off the bat, taking apart the mouthful of a title on her intro slide: “The Appeal of an Endless Horizon: Collaborative Game Design as Meta-Hodological Play.” She kicked things off explaining to her audience exactly what “meta-hodological” meant, describing it as an “awareness of the contexts that shape the paths through which methods are created.” She mentioned structural inequalities, such as Robert Moses’s design of the Long Island bridges, and how that had the effect of giving objects (the bridges) agency.

In the next section of her talk, she discussed game design--collaborative game design, in particular. He described hodology from the player’s perspective as the path they take through the game (this can be referred to as a “desire path”). Meta-hodology--from the game designer’s perspective--would be the awareness of every potential path the player could take. Pintar also mentioned Richard Bartle’s four player types: killers (acting upon players), achievers (acting upon the world), explorers (interacting with the world), and socializers (interacting with other players). One real-world example she referenced was the “Quad Game” she has her students work on.

In the section of her talk about “endless horizons,” Pintar explained that “social context of narratives, relations, practices are often invisible except to designers, dedicated players, and game critics.” An important part of how a game is perceived is the manner in which it’s presented--or, if you’re creative enough, the manner in which you think about it. She used the example of dodgeball; it’s supposed to be this great childhood game, but a lot of kids actually hate it because it’s an easy opportunity for bullying, and some kids just want to hide. But if you change the narrative from “hiding is weak, get out there and throw balls at kids!” to one where different people have different jobs--some kids throw balls, others shield people, etc, then the narrative becomes very different.

On Thursday, September 29, 2016, I went to the Briscoe Western Art Museum for a free lecture by Dr. Adrienne Keene, titled as “Cultural Appropriation, Stereotypes, & Native Peoples in Popular Culture.” Dr. Keene introduced herself as a citizen of the Cherokee Nation. She spoke first in Cherokee and then in English. She said more than her name and nation, but I don’t remember with precision what other items were noted. I follow Dr. Keene on Twitter and have cited her in one of my previous blog posts regarding speculation on Rey’s attire in Star Wars being inspired by Navajo design.

The lecture started with her telling us the material she was going to cover overall and then showed us the Google search results for if you type in “Native American,” noting many of the images are historical, some repeats of the same person photographed by Edward Curtis, and often specifically plains Indians. There are over 566 federally recognized tribes, so that is a limited view on the vastness and diversity of Native American tribes. Keene noted that one result matched with Johnny Depp’s costume and her amusement that he grabbed one of the first Google search results as well as that the artist for the original image question being something they simply made up on their own. She shared numerous examples further. It’s common to see T-shirts with a skull and war bonnet. In fact, I saw one the day before I went to this lecture while having dinner with my child at Las Palapas. I do not recall if it was this specific stream of discussion or later when discussing stereotyping but one of the series of images shared with us included “Trail of Tears” fireworks, extremely upsetting, and the logo for the Washington NFL team that Keene refuses to say because it is a racial slur.

Keene explained she was from California and went to Stanford, then later moved east to go to Harvard. There, she would meet people who would tell her to her face their assumptions and stereotypes about Natives, including the belief that they were all dead. During this time, she went to Urban Outfitters and saw an onslaught of appropriation so started her blog discussing the topic. The Navajo Nation is suing UO over six items, and she stated 3 of them went to UO’s favor. It’s a highly contested and important case.

Why does appropriation matter? I don’t recall the exact words she used, but she shared a quote by Buffy Saint-Marie that I could not find by Google alone. I think it had something to do with taking cultures and history that aren’t yours. I do remember her discussing one particular side that had two rectangles listing further points, one for economic, the one easier for people to understand in a capitalistic society with intellectual property laws, and the moral/cultural one. Since IP laws protect individuals rather than a collective such as a tribe, appropriation can be difficult to prevent or protect against. It is largely dependent on the issue of power within colonialism.

Keene shared with us some information about a study done by a friend of hers that showed not only do Native kids’ self-esteem drop when seeing images of Native stereotypes like Disney’s representation of Pocahontas and the Cleveland Indians logo of Chief Wahoo, the self-esteem rises for European American children. She summed it up as the “reification of white supremacy.”

She suggested we be aware of recognizing of Native appropriation and encouraged us to buy Native with an upcoming Yanagauana Indian Arts Market this weekend. She showed a picture of rug that matched with one even within the room hosting the lecture. She told us about a ring she wore that a friend made for her.

In the later part of the lecture, Keene tied the lecture into the current issue of the Dakota Access Pipeline and #NODAPL hashtag. If you aren’t keeping up, I suggest you go and read about it. It’s a pipeline being built to go through North Dakota down to Illinois. It is intended to specifically go through the Standing Rock reservation in North Dakota and presents a significant threat to their water, as well as the water for everyone further downstream of the Missouri river if that pipeline were to ever leak. Keene had photos to share and tell us about her recent trip to North Dakota this past weekend as well as sharing that ranchers surrounding the area genuinely felt fearful of Natives and believing they planned to do things like burn their hay. This type of reaction results from the constant, surrounding stereotypes and appropriation explained earlier in the lecture. Hence, these images are truly harmful and influence non-Natives to perpetuate this harm.

The lecture concluded with Dr. Keene taking and answering some questions. One question was how to help teach second-graders about the issue, and she told us about her mom, a first grade teacher, symbolically throwing Scholastic’s Columbus Day guide in the trash every year and taking a video of the action. She told us about resources for Washington state, and I forget the other one. She referred to Debbie Reese (@debreese) and her work in covering children’s literature (at which I quietly and emphatically nodded). Another question asked about buying pawned items, and she told us she personally would avoid doing so in case items were pawned in desperation rather than with intention to be pawned. Someone asked about the Oneida tribe in Wisconsin and the loss of language. Keene explained to us that by estimations of current blood quantum requirements for enrollment, the tribe will be gone by 2045. The final question was about media representation, and she told us about a channel in Canada that is all about Native people. All of the actors and people represented are all Natives, and we currently don’t have anything like that in the U.S. Someone else commented on a lack of Native people in New York, and Keene corrected that misconception as several Natives were actually relocated there as well as Los Angeles.

Afterward, I took a browse at the items in the room as recommended earlier in the lecture, such as a squash blossom necklace and a rug. I wanted to at least shake Dr. Keene’s hand and introduce myself, and alas, that’s all I really had a chance to do. Her friend came to help her start to leave, and then another person started to talk to her as well. I thanked her on Twitter too. I want to share my whole life story with her, but I feel I shouldn’t take up too much of her time. I’ve mentioned my heritage several times on this blog in trying to understand my race and my continual conclusion to say mixed. Recently, I had a talk with my mom who seemed unsatisfied with that decision. I challenged her to name my race and she called me Caucasoid. I can’t even begin to explain how wrong that is, but to my readers, do not say Caucasoid or Caucasian to mean White and understand that whiteness is largely based on what you are not so if you tell a person of mixed heritage that they are white, you erase the non-white part out of them as if it doesn’t matter. One of the questions, that I’m only remembering as I type this, was about how many Native people there are in the U.S., and Keene answered that it’s very complicated. For instance when Latinx people, such as myself, fill out forms, they often don’t consider themselves white so will mark Native American, skewing the numbers. It could be anywhere from 1-4 million (numbers not guaranteed to be verbatim of what she said). I actually mark White because my dad was, and a lot of my family is, and I always feel a twinge of guilt because I feel like I’m erasing my Native heritage out the way I took offense at my mom doing it to me though that was more of me saying I use mixed because I want to recognize both. As you see, a Native person would consider my choosing the Native American response as skewing the numbers, so, I’ll stick with what I’m doing and acknowledge in posts like this one that I understand these things are complicated.

Things ain't what they used to be spaces of display.

 Museums are built on loss and its recollection. The point is museum without incompletion. Museum finds in loss its most powerful things. Museums defend traditions and they remember and represent.

 Museums shelter not so much objects as meanings and their work is that or articulating, linking them in a network of significance.

 The second key point is what is the culture and protecting. The National Gallery suggest the question, Which one is the most valuable? and they said that it is equal to price and money. this is connecting cultural value.

The Ten: Principles and Strategies

 The topic is recycling system and business system. In the future, there will be a few materials in the world. The solution of these situation are science& well-bing and sustainable strategy. The Ten suggests solution which they think.

 The Ten.1 -Design to minimize waste

They insists that we have to reduce size for solving the problem. The brand of NIKE implements to reduce 50% produce of waste. It can gain energy. 

 The Ten.2 -Design for cyclability

The key word is downy cling. It's to mix everything for example, color,textile etc. They insists the way to recycle. First, they waste product and it can be made raw material. These rotation recreates new material.

 The Ten.3 -Not Any Dye Applied

They use sustainable polyester finishing techniques. For example, alternative, quilt,felt,print color and heat laser.

 The Ten.4 -How to conserve water

The topic is design to reduce energy and water use. So how to use conserve water? First use waterless technology, use gas and use attached sunshine.

 The Ten.5 -Design that explores cleaner, better techniques.

Instant fabric, 3D printed clothing, repaired manufacturing, enhanced experience.

 The Ten.6 -Design that takes model from nature&history

They are inspired by nature, shark skin, on-loom finishing effects and dye from soil.

 The Ten.7 -Design for ethnical production.

They ask a question that supports and values people and skills? To do this, fabric library, social innovation, technologies and ethnical for trimmings.

 The Ten.8 -Design to reduce the need to consume.

In week four we started off the lecture looking at the "dot com" bubble, wikinomics and the "wealth of networks." We discussed the beacon of hope that is found in the internet in a world of economic stagnantation, through the creative industries. Creative industries give the internet value, and are symbolic in their representation for innovation and breakign new ground to create new markets.

We also discussed "mass self-communication" which is a new concept made possible by the internet. For people to be able to independently publish whatever they want (self selected and self directed) and for that product to have the possibilty of reaching millions. There are three forms of communication within this "mass self-communication" and they are; Interpersonal, mass and mass-self, which all coexist, interact and compliment each other.

Digitization and the internet are allowing us to move from scarcity to abundance, by giving the consumers more power in the digital economy and allowing newcomers to break through the market more easily. This is because it is easier to promote and sell products because there is less investment in physical property and expense with the internet.

However, the internet is not a completely free market - capitalistic monopolies have developed in certain industries from goods selling (Amazon) to online publishing news networks (Fox and Time Warner). The monopolies exist because overall money still does matter in the great game of the internet, eventhough anyone can access the internet - it doesn't mean they have control over it.

In the lecture section about Convergence Culture you have the issue of "total commodification of human creativity" (Fuchs). you have the convergence of promotion and social networking - the use of general internet users to promote programs at no cost by simply doing things like post a facebook status or a blog post that could be seen by thousands with every post. We discussed how corporate media is aware of this and taking full advantage, and the issues it raises because the people who are doing the leg work, referred to as "prosumers" (a producer and consumer) aren't getting any kind of compensation for it.