Others EOTO Tech Post#7

    Learning about the other technologies from the other students opened my eyes to how many of these communication technologies started, along with their effects on the world when they became popular and mainstream. Some of which I never really knew the extent of their effects, starting with the television.

    The first television started out as a series of pictures that were all captured just frames after the other, and when spun around with light pointed at them, it made it seem as though it was happening in real time or as a video. What came as a surprise to me was the structure of the TV itself, and the evolution of it throughout the years. I have never been much of a TV person, not even as a child, but the spread of this device allowed for more than just information world wide. Advertisements and entertainment ended up being some of the largest uses for TV. It also has its benefits along with its downsides, where it can be used to spread information, watch your favorite team score a touchdown or home run or have a romantic movie night with you spouse. However, I have also seen it as a replacement for parents to interact with their children, and sometimes just let them sit inside all day without talking to other kids their age, and now they don't know how to interact with other children at the age of 10-12.

    There are some good shows that help teach lessons and help with creativity, sure. You have shows like The Wiggles, and Elmo to help kids learn the alphabet and other lessons, like not hitting people, but after this, the rest of life's lessons are learned in person and with others. 

    On a similar topic would be Facebook. Made by Mark Zuckerberg in 2003 and originally called "TheFacebook," took the world by storm in just 7 years. After adding a marketplace and chat feature, Facebook soon not only became a place where you can post photos of yourself with family and friends, but also a way to communicate across the globe, both socially and for business, and even became the most downloaded application for roughly 10 years and the first application to have over 1 billion downloads. Despite Facebook taking the world by storm and having more active users than any other social media platform at the time, they opted to buy one of their competitors, Instagram, in 2012, further extending their reach across the age ranges, as Facebook became for older folk and Instagram was the new big deal for the younger generation.

    These two forms of communication, while having their cons, allowed for so much more than we though possible for a long time and expanded communication as we know it, and changed the world with its introduction. Social media like Facebook and Instagram allowed for a more intimate connection with family and friends by sharing videos and pictures of their experiences with one another from opposite sides of the world, letting you feel like you were right there with them. The television allowed for a whole new form of entertainment and being a billion dollar industry.

Progressive Era post #6

    We hear time and time again about why we are going to war with some other country be it "To stop communism!" or "To stop the terrorists who attacked us!" but we never hear about the reasons why we shouldn't, let alone the voices of people who are looking into the war and where the funds are going, the real reasons why we are there in the first place be it oil, making money (because war is very profitable) or even just getting a leg up on someone. 

    People that spoke up about war would just get pushed aside from social media, get shadow banned or actually banned, and sometimes even just punished if they reveal the real reasons why the government decides to go to war. Anti war efforts are there to just not put us into something that either doesn't need to happen or shouldn't happen just to stop the violence.

In 2001, the anti war effort soon became a crime, and was considered to be propaganda, enough to go ahead and put someone in prison for saying "We really shouldn't be at war with these people." And even though we very well may be able to come to some kind of conclusion via conversation or non violent methods, these past few years have just been jumping the gun to the violent approaches and totally skipping over the talk it over aspect.

    This is also something that is not limited to the US. Other countries like China are infamous for doing the same, be it Tiananmen Square or just hushing people for speaking out.

    So why do we have to go to such lengths to find obscure information on anti war voices? Put simply, it's probably because the government doesn't want us to know what's really going on, and floods the information systems about all the reasons why we should got to war and all the "benefits" there are to it.

EOTO post #5

    Long distance communication was a form passed down from generation to generation, each with roughly the same idea before the cellphone, instant messaging, email or even the fax (if anyone eve still remembers that) and we all know about Graham Bell and his phone. So what did they do before we had the Telegraph? The invention that revolutionized the way we were able to communicate across the world, be it for war or spreading news to the opposite side of the world in just a minute? well lets jump into that history for quick bit.

Signal Fire

    Now you may have read that and thought "What? Fire?" but yes, fire was used as one of the first ways that humans communicated long distance. They would often be placed on tall objects, either tower or mountains, sometimes even buildings, and would be used to signal typically only a few things, but most commonly it just meant there was trouble happening.

Chappe System

    Now this is one that I never heard of before, but it was made by a French man named Claude Chappe in 1794. This system was made as an upgrade of sorts to signal fires and smoke signals, as it would allow you to make out shapes in order to spell out words, which allowed for a more specific message to be passed for long distance. Many of these would be placed within a reading distance from one another and passed down a line. Think like a game of telephone.

Tin Can Phone

The last one that I thought was important to mention was the tin can phone. I'm sure some of you have done or at least heard of connecting two cups via a string at the bottom and talking into it. I know I have done it as a child. Anyways, this idea came about by a man by the name of Robert Hooke in 1664, where he presented the idea. As fun as it would have been, his idea never really took off, but did inspire many after him to create better inventions.

The Telegraph

    The moment we have all been waiting for, the telegraph! Created by Samuel Morse, this invention came about in 1844 where he sent the first message from D.C. to Baltimore which said (in Morse Code, another invention by Samuel Morse) "What hath God wrought". Now, the telegraph was not the most expressive machine. you can't put exclamation points or question marks and definitely not able to make fun little doodles to your lover like on physical mail. It was strictly informational, and you had to be pretty skilled to be able to use the machine, as it required a lot of speed to not only send messages efficiently and timed well enough, but you had to hear the letters correctly they would spell out for you in order to understand the message. This opened up a lot of job opportunities for people to become incredibly skilled in Morse Code and using the telegraph. 

    Now, it being the fastest way for people to send a message, yes, but it was also quite expensive to do so, let alone have one implemented to your house, as each foot was roughly $4 today, or about 12 cents back then. The telegraph would also typically be charged by word, not message, so having long conversations with your brother across the state to say something silly was out of the question, and would only really be reserved for important events that were time sensitive. 

    Due to its fast messaging capabilities, this was used quite often during the war, as it was far superior to having someone run back on foot, horse or drive back to HQ via car in order to report what was going on. It was also great for news reporters to send messages across the world, so information was now really starting to get quite close to the "Instant" news that we have nowadays.

Values of Expression post #4

    Free speech is an incredibly important right that we as Americans have and one that not all people around the world have the luxury of, with many consequences being put into place should you decide to say something the government does not particularly like, such as criticizing their governing body or their religion. In America, we can say how much we despise anything really, be it the government, the policies they make, a religion or even your neighbor upstairs who plays their music too loud and stomps on their floor till 2am, but so long as it is only you saying you do not like or agree with them. So no threats or anything of the sort. On that note, after going over some of the speech theories we discussed and reviewed in class, here are a couple of the ones that I like the most.

Protect Dissent

    This idea came about by Steve Shiffrin and was spread about via his book, Dissent, Injustice and the Meanings of America. This boils down to the fact that even if everyone else disagrees with you, your opinion is still protected from our right to free speech. There isn't going to be a mob at your door demanding you change your viewpoint if it does not agree with what the majority of people say. I think this one is rather important because being able to say what you want about any topic and not being persecuted for it even if everyone disagrees is reassuring. So it is not just the government we can say we disagree with, but even the people themselves, no matter how different your hot take is.

Check on Governmental Power

    Made popular and spread by Vince Blasi from his theory published by American Bar Foundation Research Journal, is one that I find arguably the most important. We have all heard about Watergate, Irongate and all those other gates that have put our government behind some kind of conspiracy or shown that they are involved with more than it may seem to the naked eye, which bring in our speech theory here. In essence, you are allowed to call the government out on it's BS as publicly as you desire. This can be any from newspapers, blogs, news from tv or even a podcast if you desire. Ant media source that you can post on can essentially be used to spread that word should you desire. This is really important because: 1.) you can not be persecuted for doing this so long as you are just spreading real information and 2.) it helps keep our government in check, hence the header. Last thing we want is a government that has too much power, and this perfectly made speech theory tells us just how right we are in doing so.

    So to wrap things up nice and neat, those are the speech theories I thought were the most important or at least the ones that stuck with me the most. I believe free speech is a luxury and one I wish some people did not get to use as they do but hey, they are just as entitled to their own opinions and thoughts just as I am mine, regardless of how sensible or senseless anyone's is.

Founding Era Blog

    I know the supreme court has a lot of power. they can say whether something was wrong or against the law or not, and what they say essentially goes. But something I didn't know about them is that they have a lot more on their plate than I had once thought before. They go through so many questions and hearings of people, but I only really thought they dealt with the most serious of cases. instead, they actually hear out everyone that brings up their case to that level of court. The videos sad they had an average of 16 years, with some of them serving almost twice as long, outlasting the presidents that appointed them as a justice by decades, which is pretty crazy to me.

    I think the most important takeaway is that the supreme court, at the end of the day, are just people doing their job to maintain order and law in our country. Sure, there may be some cases that we may think unfair or that we don't agree with, but if it is against the law or constitution, then so be it.

Something I found most surprising about the supreme court is that they are able to just stay in office for decades. I get it if they are good at their job and fair with it, but 32 years? I feel like that is a bit too long of a time for someone to sit in the supreme court.

I don't know if the videos changed my way of viewing them, but it definitely showed me some things that I didn't know about before. I typically see them as the justice of America, and I'm not sure if that will change unless something would point out otherwise.

Internet Privacy: On & Offline

    Privacy is a big thing for me. I'd like to keep my information to myself and those I trust. I get tired of receiving spam call after spam call whenever my school asks for my information, be it my email, phone number, or anything else, and after listening to the Ted Talks in class, I found out it can be much worse than just spam calls or emails. I always had the impression that the government knew almost everything, but after realizing that not only can they get access to it but people in other countries get that information? that was a bit surprising. Social media companies selling the information of millions of people just sounds illegal, but due to many loop holes in their ToS and being a private company, they can practically get away with whatever they want. And with the government using their power to, in a way, threaten these companies, they can just fork it over to the government officials just because they gave a veiled threat.

You have companies like twitter that hide what the are doing with the whole twitter files investigation going on right now. How they censor certain people because the government wants them to, or because they just don't like what you said.

You also have companies like Instagram, where it feels like they are always advertising something you just talked about with your mom or friends over the phone. It also feels like once a month they send me a message asking if i tried to sign in from Brazil or Russia and as confirmation, they send me an email. so there is clearly a leak somewhere about information.

My Five News Sources

    Obtaining information about what's goin on around us is a good habit to have in this day and age. Staying informed and educated about these topics can help people see what is going on all across the globe about political affairs from country to country, stocks about your favorite company and even how your local bakery is doing after their follower count on social media has sky rocketed. Here are the 5 news sources I use to get my information. I don't often check the news, so i'm not the most informed on many issues or current events.

Social Media

 

Social medial has been around for a while now, and there are many accounts out there that report information to the public much like any other news source. You can find a politician you like, follow them and then see what posts they have. I personally try to find people that are as unbiased as possible that look into a bunch of other news sources and report both sides as a middle man.

National Geographic

I mainly use National geographic for a lot of the environmental news and stories. I get a lot of their magazines and see what some of the photographer have been up to and some of the research that is done about the environment and also some really cool discoveries from around the world.

New York Times

I use NY Times mainly because I get their magazines pretty often and check their website every now and then. They report about a bunch of issues and current events, so they have a good variety to pick from what you want to read about.

USA Today

Like The New York Times, USA Today covers a lot of different stories, though it focuses solely on what is going on in the US. It's good for finding out what's happening in your country.

Apple News

Apple news is not one that i use often, though I hear about a lot of people who use it and are happy quite happy with it.