A blog on Technopoly: The First Half

In Neil Postman's book, "Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology," he writes about the benefits and the downfalls of technology. In the opening of his book, Postman quotes King Thamus on his outlook on the evils of writing, “Those who acquire it will cease to exercise their memory and become forgetful; they will rely on writing to bring things to their remembrance…” (p. 4). What I surmised from that passage is Postman feels that technology has made us lazy and forgetful, with more evils to come. At times, Postman paints a bleak picture about our love for new technology. Postman also writes that society is all too willing to turn over independence, individuality, and free will to the all consuming technology.

While I did not always agree with Postman’s ideas, I did find his theories well thought out and at time quite interesting. When Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press, educating the masses started society down this road and while it started at a crawl, we are now racing down that road at rocket speed. Postman goes on to write about every major invention and how the people in power feared their loss of control over the common man. Yet, with every new invention the common man’s life become easier. That is what technology does for us at this time, but in some cases, it is a luxury we do not need. Someone please tell me why we need a camera on our phone?

Postman writes about “information” and before we owned computers the world’s   "information" was found in books and encyclopedias. Now, information is found on Blackberries, computers, and other handheld devices, it is literally at our finger tips. Postman writes about “information glut”, and the dangers of the “long-range result”. Information is not asked for, it just appears. Here again Postman traces “information glut” back to the Gutenberg press and its introduction to educating the masses. (p. 61)

Technology has become the foundation of the United States and our lovely new toys, and there is definitely no going back. I found Postman to be a little dramatic in his thoughts, although I did find him to be an entertaining writer. After reading the first half of Postman’s book, I have to say he made me stop and wonder. I agree that technology should be monitored, it is a powerful tool. Our culture needs to step back and take a good long look at the direction technology is taking us and the affect it will have on our future. I have to say I have my doubts this will happen, due to the billions, maybe trillions of dollars technology brings into the companies that manufactures the new toys.

A blog on the 2nd Half of the Reading

I am happy to write in my second blog about the second half of Computers: The Story of Technology by Eric Swedin and David Ferro, that it was not as boring as the first half. In chapter five, the two authors got my attention right away when they wrote about the Altair 8800. I am a big Star Trek fan maybe that is why I became interested in this computer. When I read about the cost, $397 unassembled and $100 already assembled, I thought that sounded like a reasonable price, but then I remembered this was the 1970’s. What I also found interesting is the way the CPU communicated with the “expansion slot”, through a bus. An “electronic roadway” so the computer can find out what needs attention. (p. 86)

After reading an article about the Altair 8800 in the magazine Popular Electronics, Bill Gates and Paul Allen notified Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems (MITS), the manufacturers of the new microcomputer, and reported to them that they were working on a BASIC language for the Altair. They gave Edward Roberts, the inventor of the Altair, a demonstration on the BASIC language. Everything took off from there and almost every computer now is based on the Altair 8800. It is fascinating to read about the beginnings of an empire.

Another interesting part of computer history is the separation of software and hardware in the merchandising industry. The sales of software “completely revolutionized the software industry” as stated in the book. The numbers are staggering, “$10 billion” in 1982 and “$25 billion in 1985”. (p. 103)  I did some research on the Internet and according to the IT Channel Planet website, “Global Enterprise Software Sales to Exceed $232 Billion for 2010”. These numbers are mind blowing!

As we all know, the invention of the Internet changed the face of the planet! I remember thinking while I was reading about the IP numbers and how hard they were to remember. At the time, I was so happy when they started giving addresses names instead of mile long numbers. It was fascinating to read about the six specific domain endings that are used for the addresses: “.com: commercial, .edu: educational, .net: network, .gov: government, .mil: military, and .org: organization”. (p. 120)

After finishing this book, I could not help think of how close science fiction has come to reality. With the invention of the computer and the Internet, our culture will see science fiction and technology’s world get closer and closer. As a society who worships the next convenient gadget, only our imagination can either hold us back or catapult us into what the future holds. The book closes with a thought about how society will look back at us and think how primitive we seemed. I do not think they will be far off, think where we were fifty years ago and what inventions where created even in the last thirty years!

 

An Evening at Rutgers

On Friday, September 17^th, I attended a lecture on the website, Texts from Last Night, (http://www.textsfromlastnight.com). The lecture was hosted by the two creators, Ben Lator and Lauren Leto. These two friends started this website late one night in February 2009. The website grew at an astonishing rate overnight. This is a website where can voice your opinions to comments about your drunken experiences. What is great about the website is that you post your comments anonymously. Due to the success of this website Ben and Lauren have a full time job; it is a bona fide business. Ben and Lauren created a website where the poster can write whatever they want without fear of revealing themselves and this is a freedom that can be quite fun. Unfortunately, not all entries can be posted due to the volume of the website. I looked it up on the Internet and TFLN receives about 3.5 million page views a month. During the lecture Ben stated he is the reader of all those posting!

While I cannot argue about their success and the Internet has made quite a few people rich, what these two people accomplished is impressive. I think that is the point to how the Internet works. Here are two students going to school to get a degree, so they can be a success. They were not looking to get rich, but to entertain their friends. Now they have a million dollar business, with merchandise, book deals and an upcoming television show. Speaking of their book, during the lecture, there was a raffle to hand out copies of their book based on their website. No, I did not win one of their books, but the students that did win seemed very excited. As, I sat there I began to think about the attraction of this website. I realized college students and teenagers need something that is their own, even if it is about a drunken night and the morning after. I agree with Stephanie, Ben and Lauren sure do know their audience.

Blog for the First Reading

This book, Computers: The Story of Technology by Eric Swedin and David Ferro, presents a timeline for computer technology. It starts with both the history of computing and also the key ideas present in today's computers. I can see were this would be an interesting book for someone interested in technology, but I found to be written like an extended laundry list. Although I have to say, I marvel at how technology has changed and how much I use it every day.

Swedin and Ferro write about a complex subject. The story of computer technology is complex and involving not merely the technology, but also the politics, personalities and the clash of cultures from various scientists.

Even though technology is not an interest of mine, there were aspects of the history of the computer I found attention-grabbing. In the very first chapter, the book starts with any interesting story about the find of old wreck, possibly of Roman in origin. Through the modern invention of x-ray photography, it was discovered that a corroded lump of metal found in the wreck was a mechanical computer for calculating solar and stellar calendars. I was shocked to read that a machine, even a type of computer was used as far back as Roman times.

Another interesting section in the book was the discussion on human computers. I was interested in finding more about people who used “slide rules, abacus, pen and paper”, and later on used mechanical adding machines. The most amazing thing was that this term “human computer” was used up until WW II. Unfortunately, this was a small paragraph in the reading.

With World War II came the von Neumann architecture, the basis of most current computers and then the solid state transistor at Bell Labs in 1948. Progress seemed so slow, in retrospect. But then the narrative speeds up, as Moore's Law took effect in the late 1960’s and the invention of microprocessor in the late 1960’s. The reading seemed to pickup just as this week’s reading came to a close. I hope the rest of the book moves this smoothly.

While reading the first half of “Computers”, I could not help notice that with every new invention, the speed at which technology was traveling accelerated even faster. We are a society that wants “it” now and better. In today’s time line and with the invention of the internet, we are traveling like a rocket to the stars. My question is: when will that speed level out? Will there come a time when we have all we want and in a speedy turn over? I think the answer is we will never stop wanting the latest gadget or the newest toy or tool. That is only human nature, but will we over speedy out of control?

 

Keeping a Journal

I started a journal on how often I use a computer during the day. I started on a Thursday and finished the next week on Tuesday night. It was 6 days in total. What I found interesting was how often I use the computer at home. I am a librarian and I work on a computer all day, from 7:30AM to 4:30PM. I enter new material in an online database and check my email every few minutes, as this is the fastest way to communicate with my customers. This is what I do 5 days a week. When I get home, unless I have homework, I use to stay away from the computer, due to the fact I am on the computer all day. That was until I bought a laptop computer last February. The convenience of a laptop has made it much easier for me to watch movies online. I am what is called a cinephile. That is a person who is a devoted moviegoer, especially one knowledgeable about the cinema. I check on and revise my Netflix account every day online.
While keeping my journal, I recorded 3 nights where I watched episodes of TV show I had missed during the year. Netflix makes it possible to watch movie and TV shows on their website, if you have an account with them. Another aspect of working on a computer both at work and at home is the use of email. Up until this class, emailing was my primary source of communicating with friends and family. I also recorded that I do not spend as much time on the computer over the weekends. Although, since buying a laptop, I do spend more time that I did a year ago before I bought the laptop.
Recently, I started texting on my cell phone. I do not like it as well as email, due to the small keys and multi-letters on one key. Although texting is the only way I can communicate with my nephews and nieces. Now, I have started this blog, and having a new experience on the computer.