Blog #6: EOTO Reaction

I enjoyed the Each One Teach One technology presentations, as I got to learn about new technologies and learn more about some that I use every day. My favorite topic that I learned about was Josiah's presentation about carrier pigeons.

Carrier Pigeons

During Josiah's EOTO presentation, I learned about how pigeons were used to deliver messages across distances.

The pigeons, referred to as Carrier Pigeons, would deliver mail during the Roman Empire. They were also popular in the Middle East. The most common method of mail delivery was by horse, but the wealthy could use carrier pigeons because they did a faster job. The pigeons were also useful for sending messages during WW1 and WW2.

The British Royal Family has been collecting pigeons for racing for a long time, which Josiah believes gave the species a purpose and is the reason for their large population.

I thought it was an interesting point for him to bring up the large pigeon population and connect it to their work. I agree with Josiah that the British collection of pigeons could relate to their liveliness. I did not know the British enjoyed collecting them and setting them up in races! 

That is really interesting to me because when I think of a pigeon, I think of a bird walking around near restaurants in New York that people are shooing away. Meanwhile, a British person might take it for their entertainment.

My Thoughts

One question I have about carrier pigeons is how does the bird know where it's going? I am guessing they are bribed by food and treats by whoever is receiving the mail.

I also wonder how much weight the pigeons could hold and comfortably take flight with. I imagine that however the mail attached to them, it was uncomfortable and potentially disrupted their flying abilities.

Finally, I am curious about whether carrier pigeons could only fly in nice weather conditions. If you need to ship mail on a rainy day, can you do it or do you have to wait for clear conditions?

Blog #5: Privacy, Online and Off

The modern world's technology can be an amazing tool and resource in our day-to-day lives. However, it can also be invasive and dangerous. My eye has been opened to the dangers of the internet and our identities on it after watching several Ted Talks. One video in particular stood out to me.

Electronic Tattoos

The Ted Talk was given by Juan Enriquez. He began with an analogy about how people are stuck with their tattoos forever, and how we are also stuck forever with our electronic tattoos: our data on the internet.

This was a useful way to help people grasp that whatever they put out onto the internet stays there forever. It is a common thing that people regret sometimes years later, similar to regretting their tattoos.

These electronic tattoos include information such as your activity on Facebook, Twitter, Google, LinkedIn, Yelp, GPS, cell phones, Travel Advisor, Wikipedia, credit cards, credit scores, and more.

Enriquez discussed that this information is being surveilled by people and that it is difficult to hide from your electronic tattoos for this reason.

Facial Recognition

Facial recognition is another large aspect of being linked to your digital actions. There are machines that can identify a person from their face and reveal their shopping habits for sales associates to take advantage of.

Enriquez speaks about how people used to have to try really hard to get famous and be known, but now we all risk unknowingly being known because our data is easy to access and being watched.

He also says we are threatened with immortality due to our identities being plastered on the internet, which will live forever.

Personally, I was aware of the idea of electronic tattoos before because I think it is similar to the term "digital footprint", which I am familiar with. I believe this is a crucial topic that should be taught to young kids before they put anything on the internet that they will regret.

Protection Moving Forward

The only solution I can think of to protect ourselves from our electronic tattoos being used against us is to be careful and conscious of the tattoos we create moving forward. I say this because we know we can't change the impact we have already had, hence why they are electronic "tattoos".

Blog #4: EOTO- Newspaper

Early Newspapers

The newspaper wasn't invented at a specific time or place, but it evolved into its creation with the development of technology. One of the earliest forms of newspaper was in Ancient Rome in 59 BCE, called Acta Diurna. 

These were daily government news updates that were handwritten and posted publicly. Information such as events, births, deaths, daily gossip, military campaigns, executions, and more were shared with the people.

A similar system occurred in 1556 in Venice, Italy. This newspaper, also known as Avisi, was centered on military and political notices.

Both of these newspapers were handwritten by scribes since the printing press was not yet invented, or widespread. Scribes could only write a limited number of copies by hand. Therefore, it was common for some community members to be uninformed.

Impact of the Movable Type Printing Press

The world of newspaper was forever changed when Johannes Gutenberg created the movable type printing press, a machine that could print many copies of paper quickly at a large rate. This was revolutionary compared to the block printing method, where the writing would be carefully carved into a block of wood before being transferred onto the paper in ink. It was laborious and time consuming. 

In contrast, the movable type sparked efficiency with the individual metal letters and symbols that could be arranged quickly to form any message. This was incredibly useful because the printer operators spent far less time carefully making the message into the wood, and they were able to focus on maximizing their output of copies.

Gutenberg's innovation was a game-changer and began the Printing Revolution. The mass production of newspapers allowed for the thorough dissemination of information.

The Penny Press

Newspapers in America were quite costly for the time, generally six cents. The high expense was another obstacle to distributing newspapers and having a well informed society.

In 1833, Benjamin Day took note of the high price and created a New York City newspaper called The Sun. His paper found major success because he sold each one for only one cent to gain a larger working class audience. This became known as the Penny Press.

Comic Strips

In 1896, comic strips were introduced into newspapers. Publishers wanted to attract more customers to their papers by including comics for immigrants and non-English speakers to look at, since they could not understand the written news.

Yellow Journalism

While the newspaper is a fundamental step in the progression of communication in society, one downside is the spread of misinformation. Publishers and editors became greedy for more people to buy and be interested in their newspapers, so they wrote deceiving titles. These titles make the story seem intriguing and tempt people to buy it to find out more information.

Known as Yellow Journalism, Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph created the term as two opposing publishers who would alter the information and exaggerate for a larger profit.

Click Baiting

This reminded me of the very common concept of click baiting today. Click baiting is when titles of videos or online articles entice the viewer to click on them by exaggerating or rephrasing information. Often, when the viewer is baited in and clicks on the title, they do not find anything about what the title insinuates. This strategy uses its misleading nature to achieve more viewers, which is similar to Yellow Journalism in the newspaper industry.