Writing About Cool Intro, Ch 1, Ch 2

• page 1 Rice talks about cultural dimensions of electronic writing
• on page 3 Rice shows how cool is used to related to youthful attitudes
• on page 7 Rice tries to explain that he will talk about using each definition of cool as a model for writing in hypertext??
• page 9, Rice shows how cool as a form of approval for urban youth
• on page 10 he talks about popular perceptions of cool, like individualism and rebelliousness
• page 14 points out early groups like TheWell and their help in moving the word cool to the internet
• page 16 talks about attitudes associated with words like cool and how their subject to being used rhetorically for consumer purposes??
• pages 20-21 talks about everything2.com and the movement of the word cool from a marketing tool to a writing system

This reading was easier than McLuhan, but I still wasn't quite sure how Rice was trying to make connections to the word cool. When he uses hip hop as an example of cool in our culture, it just confuses me as to what he is using cool for. Sometimes it seems like a way of doing something, other times it seems like he's just using examples of things that are considered "cool" to prove a point, but I really don't understand it too well.

We discussed in class a little bit about this reading. From class notes I got a better understanding that he is pointing out relationships between sites can have different motives, like some for being cool or others might have financial gain as a reason for linking up with other websites. We also talked about hypertext, and linking that goes throughout that which is used to create a perception for the users to buy into. I still wasn't sure from class with the term "cooling". We talked about it being linking with unexpected relationships among sites, but I really still don't understand the many different ways the word cool is being used.