Week 1

Reflection #1:

This week's readings were very interesting and my favorite would have to be Cannevar Bush's "As We May Think" partly because it was written decades ago and partly because it's so ironic that his "memex" is a great comparison to the idea of how information is connected on the internet and seen today. For an article of it's time, he used some really applicable analogies to how the human race has evolved over time and used knowledge/information to progress that we can glean from. For example, in Section 7 when he describes how "searching" for information in memex would work. Say you were interested in the origin/properties of the bow and arrow; specifically why the short Turkish bow was apaprently better in combat than the English long bow. Well, when the encyclopedia pops up an article, he can then open up another article and link them together. After this is done, he can return and see his linked information on this topic. Building this trail of interest reminds me of bookmarking site on the internet and compiling them in a folder.

In "Networks of Remediation" from Remediation: Understanding New Media by Jay David Bolter and Richard Grusin, they discuss how society had different feelings/opinions about each of these. While some viewed the advancement of such technologies as positive leaps others viewed it as pitfalls for negativity. Taking some sociology classes in the past, this article seems like a sociological study of how different cultures emerged into such different groups. (BTW, this reading was difficult because the pages were slightly confusing to read on PDF since it was sideways sometimes.)

In "Technologies of the Third Mediamorphosis" from Mediamorphosis: Understanding New Media by Roger Fidler, he gives a historical timeline using electricity, computers, wireless communication, radio/tv media, etc. as landmarks. In the second half of the chapter, he describes how the internet shifted in the 80's because the military gave control to civilians. Now we have an uncensored, free internet that shapes relationships/networks. Probably, the most interesting/shocking idea Fidler talks about to me is how extremely long it takes to really move on from old technologies. For example, the telegraph lasted 150 years before the telephone and modern digital telecommunication networks finally appropriated the remaining niches. And yet, still to this day, telegraph key and Morse code are still used worldwide. I would just think to ditch it completely and move on! :P

The extra credit article, The Internet: A Short History of Getting Connected from the Federal Communications Commission was a pretty dry read. The FCC has published a few links that highlight aspects of the "more recent history of the Internet and recognizes some of the Internet's key inventions/inventors." Full of acronyms, I found the most useful bits on the home usage since 1993. Apparently, large institutions, governments, and businesses have found it economically worthwhile to pay for high-speed connections for most of the past forty years while American homes didn't. I remember growing up with 56 k modems operating over public phone lines and I would have to use the internet when my parents were off the phone. However, recently introduced broadband products offer households the possibility of getting access to a bit more of the bandwidth and connection speed actually available on the Internet. ("Access to broadband began in 1996, when Rogers Communications introduced the first cable modem service in Canada.")

(moved on 11 april)