Topic 4 - Old Communication Technologies and Theories

This weeks lecture was about the history of communication technologies, and the accompanying theories and philosophies that went with them. Early on, smoke signals, rock paintings and cuneiform tablets were the most advanced methods of communication. These were the staple forms of communication up until papyrus was 'invented'. The Chinese were the first to use paper, and the Europeans followed shortly after. The next big invention was the Gutenberg movable type, which allowed mass production of books, and has been used in the printing press until recent times. Technological innovation has really sped up in the 19th and 20th centuries. Key innovations in this time period include - the telegraph, radio, television and of course video.

A key Critic and Analyst of Art was Walter Benjamin, whom Steven talked about. He was one of many to philosophize on the impact modern technology had on society, and in this case Art.

The Lecture cleared up the meanings behind Walter Benjamin's The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction. Benjamin argued that the aura in art was cheapened, or falsified, by the mass production of paintings and other forms of art. His contention was that the history, cult and magic behind the painting was diminished by reprinted copies, which watered down their relevance. However, he did see the mass production of art as liberating, as now not only elitist groups and rich people could afford important works of art.

Benjamin also looked at film, and pointed out that film is more easily analyzed because certain parts can be more easily isolated. The immediacy in plays is different to the immediacy in film. The actor in a play tends to be more vulnerable, and his emotions cater to the live audience, whereas in film, the actor is always wary of his presence on camera - thus giving the filming medium more chance to get certain scenes right.

After reading Walter Benjamin's piece on mechanical reproduction, it was time to start my tutorial task. This week we had to answer the questions below, with the catch being we weren't allowed to use google or Wikipedia. So i just used Yahoo! Yahoo was the go-to search engine before Google as i remember, but slowly and surely Google became the premier search engine. I didn't find the inability to use Google Frustrating and i certainly wasn't inconvenienced by this. However, not being able to use Wikipedia was a greater challege. Wikipedia has become the encyclopedia for the new generation in a way, and it really is an open slather information service, as anyone can add facts and info. Some facts are totally bogus too. Anyway, despite this minor hindrance i did manage to find the answers to the questions below, despite being stuck on question 5 for a while. I had to use a calculator to find this out, as there weren't any pages showing how many kilobytes made up other memory units. After answering these questions, i realized that most of the sources i used looked considerably more reliable than Wikipedia, though i can't say more convenient. Here are the questions i answered:

1. Who was the creator of the infamous "lovebug" computer virus? Onel De Guzman from:
http://www.ausgamers.com/?commentsid=1848560

2. Who invented the paper clip? William D. Middlebrook from:
http://www.ideafinder.com/history/inventions/paperclip.htm

3. How did the Ebola virus get its name? It is named after the Ebola river, in Zaire from:
http://www.crystalinks.com/ebola.html

4. What country had the largest recorded earthquake? Chile from:
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/regional/world/10_largest_world.php

5. In computer memory/storage terms, how many kilobytes in a terabyte? 1,073,741,824 kbs from:
http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-a-terabyte.htm

6. Who is the creator of email? Ray Tomlinson from:
http://www.nethistory.info/History%20of%20the%20Internet/email.html

7. What is the storm worm, and how many computers are infected by it? Storm worm is a virus that has affected a network of computers, numbered at roughly 50 million computers from:
http://www.infoworld.com/article/07/10/22/Storm-Worm-now-just-a-squall_1.html

8. If you wanted to contact the prime minister of australia directly,
what is the most efficient way? You can use the Prime Ministers website: http://pm.gov.au/contact/index.cfm or post to him at:
The Hon Kevin Rudd MP Prime Minister Parliament House CANBERRA ACT 2600

9. Which Brisbane-based punk band is Stephen Stockwell (Head of the School
of Arts) a member of? The Black Assassin from:
http://www.users.on.net/~lenus/nct/2005/04/nct-week-6.html

10. What does the term "Web 2.0" mean in your own words?
Web 2.0 is a term used to describe the new, information, application and community based internet that is considered a more functional version of its predecessor.