EOTO Communication Tech Timeline Reax

 Introduction

This weeks EOTO was on the history of communication technology. Everybody chose a piece of communication technology from throughout history and presented on it. A lot of people chose some pretty out there choices and I ended up learning a lot of information I did not know before.

My Favorite Presentations

My favorite presentation was Kaitlyn's presentation on carrier pigeons. To be completely honest, I did not even know carrier pigeons were real. I thought they were just a made up fantasy thing like talking animals, but no. Apparently they were real and people actually used them to send messages. And they were actually pretty good at that at were a vital method of communication at the time.

pigeon shaken by the terrors of war

But it's not only messages they can send, I also learned that these things were used in warfare. That was a very interesting fact. Apparently gunpowder was attached to the pigeons and they would be used as arial bombers of sorts. They would also be used to send messages and espionage in WWI. Who knew pigeons could be so evil?

The last interesting thing I learned about carrier pigeons is that they were used up until 2006! Carrier pigeons were used in my lifetime. Again this is crazy to me because I thought they were not even real before this.

Another presentation I found interesting was Ella's on CD's. I thought it was interesting that CD's were a really big part of pirating music. I have not thought about CD's in so long that I never thought about them being used mischievously like that. Makes me think if things we think of as dangerous right now, like A.I., will not be thought of in that way in 50 years. I also thought it was really interesting and funny that big tech companies forced the CD companies to compromise with the threat of boycott.

I learned a ton of interesting stuff from the other presentations as well. One that caught my attention was Paige's presentation on photography. First thing she said was that photography dates back to 400 B.C. with tracing, which, yeah I guess it does never thought about that. But what was really interesting was the first underwater photo, taken in 1826. The problem with taking this photo was not taking it underwater, but the lighting. So what they did was create a large explosion and take a photo at the time of the explosion. This is a really cool and insane fact that I really liked.

Another interesting fact I learned was from holt's presentation. His was about Netflix and apparently, the entire reason Netflix even exists, is because the creator got upset after being late to return a movie to blockbuster. Kind of prophetic that it ended up being what killed blockbuster all those years later.

Final Thoughts

Overall this was an amazing EOTO, no exaggeration. There was not a single bad presentation. Everyone made sure to prioritize visuals and they were all confident speakers. I know it sounds like I'm just saying this but, no, it's true. I've seen a lot of bad presentations and that's what I was prepared for that day, so I was very pleasantly surprised on how good they were. If any of you are spying on my blog for whatever reason, good job you did a good job on the presentations yay :).

Communication Tech Timeline EOTO

This week's EOTO was on the history of communication tech. The communication tech I researched was the newspaper. The outline for my presentation is below:

"Hey guys, it's Brad.

I’m gonna talk about the history of the newspaper. Now you youngster millennials have probably never even heard of a “news paper”, i know I hadn’t before this. This is because they died in about 2005 because people realized the internet was better and free. To my knowledge, the only person who still reads the newspaper in current year, is my dad.

Before newspapers were invented, people got their news from a giant rock in the middle of town that the
government carved the news into. But after the invention of the printing press, people realized they could write their own news and hand it out to everyone.

The first ever newspaper, called relation, was published in 1605 and it looked like this. It's in German but after translating we find that the website I used to translate it isn't very good. The point is the common folk now has wide access to news that was not made by the government. Of course, the government didn't like this so a lot of newspapers were shut down. Some had to write their papers anonymously so they wouldn't be persecuted.

Anyway, fast forward to the revolutionary war. The United States becomes it's own country and they decide to add freedom of the press to the bill of rights. Newspapers suddenly have the power to do almost whatever they want, and they abuse it. They starting making wacky nonsensical headlines for the sole purpose of grabbing readers attention, a strategy still used by journalists today.

But their quest for infinite money didn't stop there. The news companies think, "why stop at news?" So they start cramming whatever they can into these papers. Restaurant reviews, job listings, opinions, crossword puzzles, obituaries, comics. Although most of these things are pretty boring, people still bought these papers because it's the 1900's, there's no video games or internet yet. Life is extremely boring. So to them, this hodge podge of random information, puzzles, and garfield, distracts them from the monotony of their day to day life.

But then, in the mid 90's, the internet became mainstream. This was the beginning of the end for the newspaper. Most newspapers since have closed. These companies that were once giants in the media world have been reduced to that website we go to for the daily wordle and mini crossword. Luckily, nothing of value was lost because the modern internet just does everything the paper did better. But in it's prime the newspaper was known and read by pretty much everyone, and is recognized as the first ever form of mass media."

Final Thoughts:

Overall there were a few things I did well and a few things I could've done better. I'm proud of my slides and my overall presentation, I was able to speak confidently. When writing though I think I focused too much on my presentation being engaging and funny rather than informative. My presentation didn't have a lot of information about why newspapers were so important, it was more so the history. That's something I want to work on next time.

Sources:

https://www.britannica.com/topic/newspaper

https://open.lib.umn.edu/mediaandculture/chapter/4-2-history-of-newspapers/

https://www.cislm.org/what-history-teaches-us-how-newspapers-have-evolved-to-meet-market-demands/

https://www.historyofinformation.com/detail.php?id=34

https://time.graphics/period/560245

https://www.washingtonpost.com/magazine/interactive/2021/local-news-deserts-expanding/

https://www.psprint.com/resources/history-of-the-printed-newspaper/

https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2019/jul/28/history-comics-section/

https://translate.yandex.com/en/ocr

https://books.google.com/books?id=AcHvP9trbkAC&pg=PA2#v=onepage&q&f=false

Eight Values of Free Expression

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Introduction

The freedom of speech and expression are among the simplest of rights we have as Americans. Yet they are also among the most important. It's something we have become so accustom to that we rarely think about what it's like to not have these rights. And the rare times when we do not have these freedoms, it instantly upsets us.

Think about a time someone told you that you were not allowed to say something you believed in. Or a time when you had to change out of clothes you liked because they did not follow the dress code, or were deemed "inappropriate." Now more likely than not those times were not actually a violation of your freedoms, unless it was the government saying those things. But either way it stung the same. It just feels bad to not be able to speak or express ourselves how we want to.

So why is this? Why does it feel bad to not be able to express ourselves? Why is this freedom one that we as Americans value so much? That brings us to the eight values of free expression. These values are the reasons that we value our freedom of expression so much, and furthermore these values must be upheld by the government in order to truly have free expression.

Values I Resonate With

For me personally, value number seven, promote innovation, is the one I resonate the most with. I consider myself to be a creative person, and I strongly believe that everyone should share their ideas, not matter how wacky they might be. Part of working well in a team is being able to express ideas you may think are bad, and bouncing them off your team members to create better ideas.

image credit

Another value I strongly resonate with is number four, individual self-fulfillment. Something that's always seemed so awful to me is school uniforms. I've never been in a school that's had a uniform, but the idea of it always rubbed me the wrong way. Walking into a room and seeing everyone dressed in the same exact clothing, it's like a dystopian society where no one is allowed to have an identity. 

As humans, our differences are what make us special. And the way people choose to express their individuality is part of what makes those differences special. It's why we find some people so interesting. A society where people are not allowed to express their individuality sounds bland and dull to me, so it's a freedom I greatly value.

Conclusion

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We've become so used to the freedom of expression that we forget that it has not existed for most of our species existence. Freedom of speech is a relatively new idea, and at the time it was considered very radical. Even today it is still a contested issue.

For example: Whenever a new rule or guideline for social media is put in place, the first thing that happens is a wave of outrage from the userbase. They do not like being told what they can and cannot say. For the website twitter, this was a highly debated issue for years, to the point where Elon Musk decided to take the matter into his own hands and straight up buy the website in an attempt to promote free speech on the platform.

Now technically none of what happened actually violated freedom of speech, since it was perpetrated by the private company twitter, not the government. But it shows how outraged people will become when this right is taken away from them, and what lengths people are willing to go to to protect it. Even if it's rashly investing billions in an unprofitable social media platform.

Supreme Court Article Reflection

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The article: https://www.history.com/topics/us-government-and-politics/supreme-court-facts

What I learned

The supreme court has changed drastically through this nations nearly 250 years of existence. I knew that the amount of justices on the court has increased through this time; from six to nine. In fact, people are still arguing that it should be increased more to this day. What I did not know is that that initial number, six, was not specifically written into the constitution. According to the article, that number was specified by the judiciary act of 1789.

I also did not know that, prior to 1891, two times per year the court was required to travel to every judicial circuit in the nation to hold circuit courts. This sounds really hard to properly organize so it makes sense that this practice was abolished in 1891.

How the Article Changed How I Think About the Court

Learning that the amount of justices was not even planned when the constitution was drafted caused me
to think of the supreme court as neglected. When we think about the three branches of government, it's easy to see the legislative and executive branches as more important. I get the impression that the early founders of the United States government thought in a similar way. But as time has gone on, the court has gained a lot of power. It can singlehandedly decide constitutionality and reverse existing laws. 

Important takeaway

The most important takeaway about the supreme court is that it is constantly evolving. The supreme court of the early days of the U.S. is almost unrecognizable to how it is today. The court has and will continue to change in order to ensure that the values of the constitution are upheld.

Images Used:

https://arc-anglerfish-washpost-prod-washpost.s3.amazonaws.com/public/TWWKBB4ASQ6R3YRQ46SCDT2JXQ.JPG

https://cdn2.picryl.com/photo/2023/08/20/first-supreme-court-pr-ff3a40-640.JPG

https://www.havefunwithhistory.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/The-3-Branches-of-Government.jpg

Top 5 Best News Sources

 Introduction

As a part of the first generation to grow up in the age of information, access to news about current events is quicker and easier than it's ever been. But in the same vein, misinformation is more widespread than it's ever been. Today we have more options for news sources than ever before and it's more important to choose the right ones than ever before.

#5 U.S News

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/18/U.S._News_%26_World_Report_logo.svg/2560px-U.S._News_%26_World_Report_logo.svg.png

U.S. News is a great hub for statistics. It's most known for it's college ranking, ranking all nationally recognized colleges based on a variety of factors such as value, quality of education, student life, etc. I, and chances are my peers too, used this website to select the university I am in today. The website is not just the college rankings though, it has a variety of rankings regarding the U.S. economy, and it has articles like any other news site. U.S. News is great for finding general information and statistics, but it's important to take this information with a grain of salt. These rankings are not purely objective and you have to keep that in mind when using the site.

#4 Reuters

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/8d/Reuters_Logo.svg/2560px-Reuters_Logo.svg.png

Reuters is a news source that prides itself on reporting accurate, unbiased information. What I respect about this site is that it specifically has a section called "breakingviews," which is specifically for opinion pieces. The site specifically keeps that separate from the main site which seeks to provide impartial news. No source of news is completely immune from bias, of course, but Reuters makes a serious effort to minimize that bias and it's pretty effective.

#3 Twitter

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/6f/Logo_of_Twitter.svg/512px-Logo_of_Twitter.svg.png

I praised the last two entries for being objective and unbiased, so putting the website formerly known as twitter next may seem like an odd choice, because it's the exact opposite. You basically just see everybody clamoring to scream their viewpoint out louder than everyone else's, but that's also why it's great. 

By looking in the replies and retweets, you're seeing a wider variety of viewpoints, from real people, than any other news source could possibly offer. You feed on twitter will also be based on what you like and who you follow, so the news and information you get will be tailored to you. Twitter is a great source for seeing the most relevant information and what people actually think about it, but you can't believe everything you read on it. It's important to form your own opinion based on what you see.

#2 Google News

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9b/Google_news_logo.png

I'll admit this one is cheating a bit. Google news has the same advantage as twitter where you will see a wide variety of viewpoints. Instead of it being from a bunch of random people, it will be articles from large news companies. The problem with most large news organizations is that they spew out a lot of biased viewpoints. By looking at them all together, it's easier to recognize those biases and instead form your own opinion. Overall Google News is great for seeing a wide variety of sources.

#1 Friends

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Some people say that we are who we surround yourself with, but I like to think that who we surrounding ourself with is who we are. Chances are you have a lot in common with the people close to you, and you care about similar issues. A friend is someone you can trust. 

Now I do not mean you are getting the news directly from your friend, but your friend, just like you, browses the internet and reads the news. And if they send you an article, you can go into it with more trust that it will be accurate and important to you. A friend is also someone you can have a genuine discussion with about what's going on, as opposed to a pure article which you are just reading. An open discussion forces you to consider the opposing viewpoint, and leaves you more informed in the end.