Mat Honan’s account of how he lost his digital life to two hackers was an intriguing read. The article was written in a friendly fashion and was enjoyable to read. I was surprised to see how far some hackers went just to get someone’s Twitter handle. This is funny to me as I personally know someone who desperately wants another person’s Twitter handle; but going so far as to hack and destroy someone’s accounts for it seems a little too far.

I personally use Apple products. I’m writing this from my MacBook Pro right now. I am very involved on the Internet and I have multiple emails and accounts. It’s safe to say that I am just as vulnerable as Honan was. In that sense, the article was a good lesson to me about the vulnerability of the digital age. I liked how Honan outlined exactly what happened and discussed what he did wrong. At the end of the article, he described what he should have done. This was a very useful section in the article because I try to follow those methods to stay safe and secure with my identity.

I was surprised to see how easily Apple gives information away to others and how easy it is to get into an account. It seems like Apple is not the only one who does that, though. I feel like it would be relatively easy to call into any tech support and get information, as long as you provide the basic requirements to gain access. The digital age brings a new haziness to identity, and there are a number of human flaws that can also play into it. For example, pulling up the wrong account.

Safety is a vital issue and I think stories like Honan’s are influential in updating and fixing account security. I think it is ultimately up to the user to be as secure as possible. Hackers may be bad, but in committing these ethical crimes they force companies to build a tighter security network.

I’m not exactly sure how “secure” I am with all of my technology. I used a variation of a similar phrase for most of my passwords, which is pretty bad. However, for things that are more personal, I use a completely different password. I don’t disclose private information with anyone and I don’t autofill all of my accounts, so that keeps others from gaining access to my information. I keep a lock on my laptop so that only I can access its contents. Nonetheless, I feel like I could be a much smarter and more safe digital user. I know that there is room for improvement.

I decided to browse the Archive Team website for this assignment. Upon first glance, I thought this site looked rather unprofessional. The layout of the page resembles that of Wikipedia, so I subconsciously linked the two sites together. I think the typically negative stigma of Wikipedia, and the accidental link of that site to archiveteam.org, lessened the credibility of this site. However, the fact that Archive Team is a .org site gave it a little more credibility. Another thing that I found unprofessional about the site was the image that is posted on their front page. In a memelike image it says “WE ARE GOING TO RESCUE YOUR SHIT.” That’s a great intention, but the diction detracts from that. Also, the language throughout the site is pretty informal.

Aside from all of that superficial stuff on the surface of the front page, I think the site is actually pretty useful. I like the intentions and philosophy of the site. I like how easy it is to get involved, but there are no anonymous edits so everyone has to have some verification. I also like the fact that they monitor sites that are important, just in case something was to happen to them. One of these sites is Internet Archive, which is the home for one of the other options for this assignment. They also watch sites that are on decline, which seems useful for when these sites do go down.

Some of the sites are related to education and more “important” topics. Others, however, related to fandom and more “insignificant” topics. Regardless, preserving these sites are important for the future.

As for the legality of the site, I think they are safe. They back up pages of sites and wait until the site gets taken down before the put up their stored replica. If there was an issue, I feel like the primary man who runs the site (Jason Scott) would take the heat for it because he states “This means it’s my fault” under his name.

I thought the video about the Amen Break was incredibly fascinating. The first time the loop was played, I immediately recognized it from other songs. I have heard that loop dozens of times in drum and bass and hip hop tracks, but I didn’t know its origin until I saw the video. I distinctly remember it in the theme song of one of my favorite childhood shows, The PowerPuff Girls. Here‘s a link to the theme song. See if you can recognize the Amen Break.

Although the video was very interesting, the narrator was extremely dry. His monotone narration bored me to an extent, but the content was still intriguing enough to keep my attention. I thought the first half of the video was more interesting than the later half, especially the comparisons between the Amen Break and samples of its use in contemporary tracks. One quote that I liked was:

“I find this quite interesting: hundreds of tracks, dozens of DJs, a number of clubs and events, in effect, an entire subculture, based on this one drum loop.”

There is a lot of controversy on the topic of sampling. Some say sampling and mixing is lazy songwriting and is therefore unoriginal because the artist is just taking beats and pieces from other tracks. On the other hand, the artist who uses samples from other tracks is creating a new masterpiece in itself. This very process, however, has always fascinated me as a fan of electronic dance music. The entire genre is composed using samples and then building upon them to make a new, original track. So then how can we block the usage of samples when all it does is foster, inspire, and create new tracks? To stop this would be to stop progress. I enjoyed Alex Kozinski’s quote on this matter:

“Culture is impossible without a rich public domain. Nothing today, like nothing since we tamed fire, is genuinely new. Culture, like science and technology, grows by accretion, each creator building on the works of those who came before. Overprotection stifles the very creative forces it’s supposed to nurture.”

The documentary brought up a thought-provoking analogy between photography and painting to an original track and a sampled track. A photograph, much like a sampled track, simply captures what is already visible (or audible) whereas a painting, like the original track, is the product of hours and hours of laborious creative output. Does that make photography lazy or unoriginal? Does that make this entire culture that is based upon sampled music lazy or unoriginal?

As for copyright laws, I think that as long as an artist gives credit where it’s due then there should be no issue. When content, such as a sample, is used as a building block for a new work it should not be considered copyright infringement. In the documentary, it mentioned that the original artist doesn’t even get money from the lawsuits or sample fees when a new artist uses their work; the label gets all of the money. The artist clearly deserves any money that would result from such a case. But, since that’s not the case, I think the artist deserves at the very least proper credit.

A perfect demonstration of this is the case of Clyde Stubblefield. Stubblefield’s drum beats are widely spread into other tracks and genres without his consent. However, he could care less. His easy-going and understanding attitude is admirable because he understands that music is ever-changing, just like everything else, and needs some foundation for further progress.

The video about the “heavy metal umlaut” was fascinating to me. There were quite a few things that surprised me while viewing the video. First of all, I had no idea that there was a Wikipedia article solely dedicated to the usage of umlauts in heavy metal bands; it’s such a unique topic! The next surprise occurred when I saw how full the page seemed to be with information. Regardless of whether or not the content is reliable, it’s still astounding to see how much information is poured onto the site.

Obviously, the progression of the Wikipedia page is really interesting to watch. I really enjoyed seeing the process from a short stub of an article into a fuller, richer article that was professionally divided and organized. More specifically, I liked the way the video focussed on a few little themes and traced their progress chronologically. It was interesting to see the development of minuscule subcategories of the article. Another thing that I found interesting was the professionalism the surrounded the article. The fact that an article about the use of umlauts in the names of heavy metal bands was constantly being edited and updated surprised me. Especially the fact that there was a 5 minutes series of vandalism and cleaning up.

I think this goes to say a lot about Wikipedia. I know there is a negative stigma about using Wikipedia because it isn’t a great source for research. However, it is a good starting point in research, seeing as they’ve expanded their references page to include worthy sources and have a relatively new sense of professionalism to their aura.

I’m interested to look back on the history of other weird Wikipedia pages now. I just looked up Loudoun County, Virginia. This is the county that I’ve lived in my whole life. The references for the page are numerous. Here’s a screen shot of the references:

The history of the article is interesting to watch. It seems to have been constantly updated since 2002. The last update, for example, was on the 9th of this month. I like the fact that the article is “live” and still being watched and edited.

When the article was brand new, it was very bland. It only listed very basic statistics, such as geography and demographics. The content and information was only from the year 2000. In terms of organization, the article was loosely arranged and lacked a table of contents.

Today, the article is full and professional looking. I would use this page as a basis or starting point for information or research. However, I would link out to the extensions and references of the page to get more reliable and trustworthy information.

1) An op-ed on a labor dispute involving public school teachers from before 1970
To do this, I went to ProQuest’s Historical Newspapers section. I searched “labor dispute school teacher 1960-1969” and only got one result: this. But I didn’t think that seemed right.
Next I searched “labor dispute public school teacher” and then sorted the search using the ProQuest tools on the side by including only “article,” “letter to the editor,” and “editorial.” Then I selected the publication date to be between 1960 and 1969. I still ended up with 521 results.
Frustrated, I searched “”labor dispute” AND “public school teachers”” and applied the same time stipulations. This left me with 4 results. Two of these were straight news (not op-ed articles) and another was about a garbage strike. This article was the closest thing I could find.
I wanted to try another search, but then ProQuest had some problems. Moving on.

2) The first documented use of solar power in the United States
I searched “”solar power” AND “united states”” in ProQuest (after it got fixed somehow). Then I sorted it to only show articles and other. I ordered it to show the oldest articles first and ended up with this.

3) The best resource for the history of California ballot initiatives, including voting data
I don’t even know what this means. Anyway, I went to JSTOR and searched “california “ballot initiatives” AND “voting data”.” I got 19 results, which is not bad. I thought this article was pretty good.

Although this assignment wasn’t incredibly difficult, it was frustrating. It’s hard to narrow searches on such obscure topics! I spent a good hour and a half trying to find these items, and I don’t even think I found the “right” stuff. This did, however, teach me some really important things about search engines, narrowing searches, key words and phrases in searching, and patience while trying to find something so specific.
I’m excited for class tomorrow so I can see what everyone else found!

I found the chapter on digitalization of today’s analog artifacts to be incredibly interesting. I like how descriptive and informative the writing is because it does a great job of helping me to understand what’s being discussed. I also really like how easy the book is to understand because the language is relatively simple. There were a few topics in this section that really stuck out for me. These were quality, expenses, and accessibility.

Quality is a significant factor in the digitizing process and there are both pros and cons to this aspect. An obvious problem here is a loss of quality. This is especially prominent in the digitization of visual and audio files. One quote from the text that I liked is:

“But with 24 bits , you would have millions of colors at your disposal and could thus better approximate, though never fully match, the rich rainbow hues of Monet’s Water Lilies.”

As the quote implies, digital images just aren’t the same as the original piece. We cannot completely and perfectly duplicate an image, only approximate it. Aside from this, however, the quality gap between original and digital is being bridged as technology gets better. Additionally, sometimes quality of an old photograph, for example, can even be enhanced and salvaged as a product of digitization.

The expenses of digitalization is also important to discuss. Generally, costs for the digitalization process are high. When quality of work is in question, cost generally increases even more. Although prices are being lowered and it is becoming more affordable than before to digitalize the past, expenses are still significant. I found that costs seem to go hand-in-hand with quality. I personally think that top quality is worth the money.

Lastly, accessibility is another important topic. I personally believe that this is the most important product of digitalization. The accessibility of a file increases drastically once an image, sound clip, or document is digital. This makes it possible to look up and find an important document online that was perhaps only available in a museum. The only drawback to this is searching for a file. For example, audio and visual files are hard to search for because we can only search in text form. However, adding text tags usually solves this problem. Other than that, I think the accessibility of all these now digital items is the biggest pro in this process.

There is no denying that the future, and I dare say even the present, is digital. There are some negatives associated with the process of making analog items digital. Nonetheless, I believe that there will be less problems as technology advances in the future.

Here’s a little about me:

• My name is Kamna.
• I’m a sophomore Comm major.
• I’m 19 years old.
• I was born and raised in Loudoun County, Virginia.
• Here‘s my Tumblr page, in case anyone wants to follow me. (Sorry, I just needed to throw a link in here somewhere.)

Here are 3 less boring things about me:

1. I love going to concerts, mainly metal shows or large festivals.
2. My name means “desire” in Hindi.
3. I’m vegetarian.

Here’s what I look like:

And here’s something that I’ve been listening to lately:

T.H. Nelson’s “Complex Information Processing: A File Structure for the Complex, the Changing and the Indeterminate” was incredibly detailed and informative. Throughout the piece, Nelson primarily focusses on design of a system and then builds upon the early groundwork laid by Vannevar Bush. I’m glad to have read Vannevar Bush’s article beforehand and have it fresh in my mind while reading this because Nelson does reference the article, and more specifically the memex, a few times. He also references ‘Bush trails’ when explaining linking outlines. So having read Bush’s article, I had a good background and foundation for Nelson’s paper.

One of the main points Nelson discusses is an evolutionary list file, or ELF. ELFs seem clean and organized, which stick to Nelson’s idea of being simple and not complicated. There are three components to ELFs: an entry, list, and link. Entries are essentailly the objects that are being created or altered. I thought the list was very much like a folder on a computer because they contain all the objects or entries. The link is like a pathway to the objects, but they lead to any other entry from any other list. I found that to be very useful because then it’s open to all other lists.

I liked how the uses for the system are very open-ended. Nelson even writes, “Remember that there is no correct way to use the system. Given its structure, the user may figure out any method useful to him. A number of different arrangements can be constructed in the ELF, using only the basic elements of entry, list and link.”

Nelson’s writing was not as complicated as Bush’s; however, some concepts were a little difficult to fully comprehend. But because Nelson stressed the importance of a simplicity in programming, he was also fairly simple in explaining terms. This is seen when he states, “The basic arrangement chosen for these purposes is an information structure I will refer to as zippered lists. (We might call it permutation-invariant one-for-one inter-list entry-linking, but that is not necessary.)” I actually found that a little funny.

Although the technical terms were a little hard to fully understand, I found Nelson’s work to be very informative. I’m more interested in this field than I had previously thought!

Vannevar Bush’s article “As We May Think” was a very interesting read. Although I did find it confusing at times and I did have to re-read several sections to fully grasp the meaning, I still got a lot out of it.

One thing I liked about the article was its structure. The first few sections merely described ideas or concepts, and later sections had more concrete examples of those ideas. For example, Bush discusses “dry photography” towards the beginning of the article and then references it many times specifically toward the end. This layout made sense to me and helped me to understand exactly what he was talking about.

On the other hand, I disliked how complex the language was. There were several terms that were either too advanced or too specific to a certain topic for me to understand what was going on. I had to re-read some parts of the article to feel less confused, but was still left unsure of exactly what Bush was talking about. This didn’t fully distract me from understanding the article as a whole, but it did lead to some uncertainty and even frustration.

As for the content in the article, I found the points Bush made to be incredibly relevant to contemporary technology. Although “As We May Think” was written in the 1940’s, it seems advanced and more recent because most of what he discusses is pertinent now.

Starting in section 6, Bush describes a machine he coins a “memex.” Quite obviously to someone in today’s age, he seems to be describing a computer. I found it really interesting when he explained the processes of which a computer, or memex, works. When he spoke of trails, for example, it reminded me of the folders on a computer. This made me think more deeply about the technology we use today and how it really works. This deeper thinking was also evoked in other sections, such as section 5 when Bush described the simple way that a telephone works.

Vannevar Bush is a genius in the sense that he wrote of such advanced processing technology in what seems like such a long time ago. Despite minor distractions and confusion due to the writing style of the piece, “As We May Think” was a gratifying read.