How real is Inception?

Ever since I read some of the books by Carlos Castaneda, I've been very interested in the study of meaning of dreams. The film inception discusses the power of dreams so I decided to look further into this. The following article discusses the scientific validity of dreams in Inception.http://www.huffingtonpost.com/matthew-edlund-md/dream-sharing-inception_b_652088.html#s116939&title=Is_Time_Altered

Techonology and History

A close friend of mine is taking a history class and is really getting into it. He was recently studying the Romanovs and he found a great documentary about their lives. It is amazing the way that this documentary recreates the characters and the time and events. Yet, what struck me the most was that it is all in Russian. You may wonder then how non-Russian speakers or more specifically we (as Americans) who are so linguistically limited, can understand it. Well, the video has a feature to have subtitles in various languages, which you can select. I think that this is a way example of how technology can take learning into amazing levels.
Great documentary, I highly recommend it!

What is reality?

The more we explore the concepts of our class "Life Online" the more I begin to question reality and the power of our minds. I think about the concept of our physical reality versus virtual reality or alternative reality, and though I know there is a difference, I wonder how much of our physical reality is constructed. Could it be like in cyber punk films that our so-called reality is imaginary? Could it be like the film Matrix? Or like inception? Are we all just dreaming?
Many anthropologists have explored the human desire or need to achieve altered states of consciousness by many means. Our ancestors resorted to hallucinogenic drugs, dreams, and trances. Today we are technologically advance to achieve an alternative reality by other mediums.
Yet, I remember a quote from the following film which really makes me wonder...

Inside Job

I recently watched a documentary about the conditions and reasons that led to the current U.S. economic crisis. I think that we've been kept so distracted in order for these culprits to rob as they please.
Check it out and see what you think:

How does Second Life work?

After reading the book, and never having played Second Life, I was very curious as to how it actually works. It made me wish I had more time (and I wasn't so cheap) to sign up for this game. Instead, I found this video which explains how the game works.

Can the Avatar Speak?

This week we are presenting the ethnography Coming of Age in Second Life by Tom Boellstorff and I found a very interesting article which raises questions of linguistics and power in the book.
Paul Manning from Trent University explores the way that the book uses empirical methods such as ethnography and participant observation to an exploration of an online community, Second Life. Manning poses technology as a "shifter" , a novel technology requiring novel methodology. This "seeks to explore the technologically mediated 'gap' between actual and virtual life precisely by approaching these novel communities using the most traditional, time-honored method of anthropology, participant observation" (311).
He later examines the way that the "avatar embodiment is not meant to erase the gap between the actual and the virtual, but to create it" a fascinating idea which in a way contradicts Boellstorff's point in the book.
You can read the full article:
http://www.anthro.uci.edu/faculty_bios/boellstorff/Manning-JLA.pdf