digital cultures . english 6560

     The first reading I chose was Harry McCracken’s “The Web at 25: Revisiting Tim Berners-Lee’s Amazing Proposal.” Before I could fully engage in the article I had to know what the acronym CERN stood for.  After visiting their webpage I was able to discern the meaning of the seemingly elusive acronym CERN. Having a limited background in French I was able to make sense of the letter placement. It turns out that the acronym stands for the European Center for Nuclear Research.  In French, the adjective follows the noun; therefore (in French), it reads as follows: Center European Research Nuclear (CERN).

     The history of the internet and how it came to be is very interesting in that one of the pioneers Berners-Lee was simply seeking a better storage method for data.  He was attempting to store data in a central location that users could retrieve no matter their location. According to McCracken, Berners-Lee thought,”…it would be easier to find if it were all linked together in a way that made it accessible from any computer.” (McCracken)  Because of Berners-Lee’s insight into the need for documents to be accessed from multiple computers, I was able to complete a project for a course last semester after my laptop died with all of my essays and research documents on it. Without my Google Drive, I would have undoubtedly panicked.  Prior to Google Drive, most people myself included stored documents onto flash drives, and for those of us that are a little older, we even used floppy disks. The most important thing that I took from McCracken’s article was that all of the storage methods that are common and available to all that access the internet enabling its users to store and access information from any internet connected device because of a vision that Berners-Lee had.

     Even before my near miss with a life-changing loss, I was first introduced to the internet in 1995. I was stationed in Germany at my first duty station, and I was told that I needed to communicate with my peers via email.  Bear in mind that despite Andreessen and Bina’s announcement most people did not have access to the internet, and we certainly did not know what email was. While I can recall using a computer in the 1980s, I’m certain that it was not connected to the internet, as the nuns that ran the new and impressive and computer lab were given the task of updating the computers on a regular basis via floppy disks.  

     While Berners-Lee initial intention was not intended to be an avenue for its users to earn a profit, it most certainly has evolved into just that.  Despite the published function of web pages today, they all are connected by sort of monetary exchange. Aside from the fact that some web pages are run by non-profit agencies, there is still a monetary exchange of some sort. The exchange could be as direct as a donation of funds, or in an indirect sense by advertisers sponsoring the web page.  The sponsors are seeing a profit from the customers that patronize their business due to viewing their advertisements from the non-profit web page.

     McCracken makes a highly debatable claim in closing the article he claims, “… it’s going to make life better for future generations in ways that are unimaginable right now.” (McCracken) While this was certainly the case for me last semester, I have students that would definitely beg to differ as the internet is a source of much pain for them.  Their lives have been complicated in unimaginable ways. Torture for them and their bullies is simply one mouse click away.

 

Works Cited:

     McCracken, Harry. “Web at 25: Tim Berners-Lee’s Amazing Proposal Document.” Time, Time, 12 Mar. 2014, time.com/21039/tim-berners-lee-web-proposal-at-25/.

“CERN Accelerating Science.” Superconductivity | CERN, home.cern/about

The “Modern History of Computing”, dated 2000, and updated in 2006, which I found a bit ironic because of its abbreviated and “get to the facts” presentation of information. Though it makes sense, I did not know that the computer originated from the common calculator. Cambridge University’s Mathematics Professor Babbage’s calculator transformed from its original computing mathematical tables. I thought it was very poetic (pun intended) that while working with Ada Lovelace, Babbage began to open his mind to other possibilities for the machine. The romantic in me thinks that literature somehow factored (pun intended) in this equation (pun intended). Alas, like most great ideas for future technological inventions that Babbage may have envisioned, would not manifest for years and would in fact change directions that he may have intended.

What I noticed throughout this abbreviated but sufficiently thorough historical piece was that with each level of technological advancement, the intent was not to start over or recreate the wheel, but to make the invention better or to expand on what existed. Babbage adopted the idea of analytical machines which were later developed them for wider use, and those machines were analog machines. Analog machines were not as cost efficient the machines that were decided for usage were the turning machines.  And so on…

With “The Web at 25: Revisiting Tim Berners-Lee’s Amazing Proposal”, I remind myself that the greatest minds are British and they must have the gift of foresight or hidden away time travel machines. Berners-Lee’s modest proposal was simple- information management:  expanding on existing ideas, realistic expectations, aiming for compatibility, simplicity, and anticipating a product or service that all businesses would need and would want to develop. Again, expanding on what exists and forward thinking never hurt humanity.

Gleick’s “The Information” defines information, analyzes information, and relates information with other references. For example, he begins his article with an event that results in the Mathematical Theory of Communication, measurable and quantifiable information. He goes on to give examples of how we have been conditioned to accept scientific and mathematic information as important. On the contrary, we are actually experiencing TMI (too much information) and that we grew/continue to grow too dependent on that information, which somewhat connects to “The Long Tail”.

I think I connected to the “The Long Tail” the most. I have never been a person who NEEDED to see what music or movies everyone felt was relevant and popular OR what polls and ranks TOLD me what was relevant and popular. The hit-driven culture has become daunting under current economics.  Now, with new data from sales research teams, entertainment companies no longer force their most lucrative movies and music, they now make all material available, even the unpopular material.

by Thursday next week (January 24), each of you will post here with your own thoughtful response(s) to our readings for weeks 1 and 2. this post is an example to get things started. I invite you to shape your own blog writings in ways that suit your own learning/thinking styles, and to create discussion by commenting on and extending others’ ideas as well.

Our first two weeks’ of readings provide a variety of views on a few important things that came before the internet: global military and academic research endeavors, analog and digital computers, various forms of programming, phone networks, the concept of information as measurable quantity… and more. These readings begin to give us at least a glimpse into how far the roots of the internet (and the roots of all the digital cultures it has facilitated) reach back towards older practices, older hardware and software, older ideas, and pre-existing communities.

One of my favorite connections between computers and older technologies comes up in the Stanford overview—the detail about Charles Babbage having been inspired by the 1700s Jacquard loom. If you’ve ever seen a large loom in action, or thought about how a loom + thread + a pattern can create dozens of differently intricate woven rugs, then it makes pretty good sense that all those analog interlocking pieces and colors = a machine very like a computer (albeit one with a very focused range of input and output).

The loom is likely not the only relatively ancient technology that prefigures the modern computer. After reading Gleick’s book excerpt in the NYT, I want to see numbers and coins as pseudo-digital technologies, too. If, as I’ve heard many scholars talk about, numbers and accounting were the impetus for the first written language ever, then we owe those technologies quite a lot in terms of culture and the humanities.

Along with this central idea of history/historical precedent, another theme I felt throughout many of these readings was that of speed. The Standford history overview references speed as a prime value for almost everyone involved in developing early computers. The TIME magazine tribute and the in-depth O’Reilly essay both mention how fast things changed (and continued changing) once the web became part of the average person’s life. Speed and change seem to be key ideas. I wonder how those themes might show up in our other readings later in the semester.

A third theme that I feel might be important to keep in mind is one of public vs. private, and the spectrum between the two extremes. The timelines and milestones of digital history we’ve looked at so far focus largely on government-sponsored projects, military projects, and academic projects. For the most part these are motivated by public good. As McCracken writes in his TIME magazine piece, the network that Tim Berners-Lee proposed in 1989 was something that he “gave to the world.” But as we see in Anderson’s article on The Long Tail, there are plenty of private, capitalist interests online now, making money and changing the world in their own ways. Many of the biggest influences on digital culture today are commercial companies: Google, Apple, Facebook, etc.

Whether we’re talking about public organizations (like governments, universities, or non-profits) or private companies (like businesses, start-ups, service providers, etc), it’s never as simple as “public” or “private,” with no in-between. Even public institutions need financial stability, and even for-profit companies should (hopefully) be thinking at least a little bit about the public good. How do public and private entities work together and influence each other in relation to digital practices, policies, and cultures?

Somewhat related to these questions: I started watching National Geographic’s The Valley of the Boom this week. I wish I’d seen more about this series before I finalized our reading list this semester, but the timing just didn’t work out for me to add it as required viewing. The show adds yet another historical perspective on the internet—this time from a corporate angle. If you’re at all curious, I’d definitely recommend it.

Finally, I have to comment on how many acronyms have cropped up just in these first few readings. Maybe another mini-class-project we could undertake is a short glossary of acronyms and accompanying explanations. So far I’ve noted P2P, HTTP, HTML, XML, XHTML, CSS, AJAX, PHP, MySQL, RSS, NNTP, and I’m sure many more will cross our paths as we continue through the semester. Which of these acronyms are you already familiar with? Which are new to you? Thinking about when and why you’ve learned some of these but not others could help as you brainstorm and plan for our first assignment, the digital literacy narrative.

This course explores past, present, and emerging practices and trends in digital culture. We will consider a range of digital tools, platforms, and cultures, closely examining how such tools and practices influence how we create, share, and preserve texts and other cultural artifacts.

This semester, we’ll engage with historical and contemporary theories of digital culture, and you’ll get to practice creating your own digital artifacts.

As we read and explore ideas of digital culture together, we’ll dip in and out of many types of discourse and media, sampling theory and critique on a range of topics– from social networking platforms, open source principles, fandoms and gaming communities, to crowdsourcing and crowdfunding initiatives, vlogs, blogs, web series, podcasts, and social justice movements.