First Blog

Engelbart’s intelligence  oviously surpasses mine without a doubt, especially when it comes to teachonolgy and its parts. The second paragraph immediatly brings up the fact that instant satisfication by humans is insisted even though the complexity of the problems are great. We are not satisfied if technology doesn’t work instantly or correctly!! How many times have you seen someone screaming or even abusing their computers because the internet is too slow or it just doesn’t work in general. In one part of the essay Engelbart describes his encoded cards with notches, he lost me there for a bit, and required me to read and re read it, and some how I’m still confused. Anyways, I laughed when I read this quote, “this type of device should not be too hard to develop and produce for a price a professional man could justify paying…” The part that made me laugh was the fact that it would be easy to create and develop. My mind is thrown when I read articles such as this one about inventors who just come up with these intricate types of technology, but now seem so simple; such as the mouse. Hopefully our discussion in class will bring some light to this article and Engelbart’s work in general for me.

as elizabeth said, we hope to become “masters” at facebook and its applications. We are not sure exactly how to go about doing this and to go deeper into than just our usual facebook profiles. So we will be asking lots of questions! We can look into either creating a new “fake” profile or something like that….not sure really where to go from here

The whole concept of man-computer symbiosis and its development is very easy to believe because of the rapid advancements in technology. One quote that really caught my eye was when Licklider discussed, “There was only one kind of organism-man-and the rest was there only to help him.” This is very true; humans tend to believe we are the most intelligent “organisms” on earth. In reality, computers and other technologies are becoming so included in everyday life, so much so it is impossible for some people to interact with other humans without the use of technology. Licklider for saw this coming, even in 1990 when the article was first published, “It seems entirely possible that, in due course, electronic or chemical “machines” will outdo the human brain in most of the functions we now consider exclusively within its province.” I understand that man-computer symbiosis has goals which are suppose to create an equal bond between human and computer; however, it is very possible that computers will soon out think and out act humans. Scary thought in my opinion.

The fact that Bush wrote this article at a time when new media and techonology in general was just starting to flurish is amazing. Section 2 interested me the most since Ilove photography and all it entails. The detailed description of the mechanical and technological parts of the camera, as well as him fore telling of what he believed was coming in the future was easy to understand, but also made an impact. Bush asks questions and actually answers the majority of them about what is going to happen in the future, such as the topic of dry photography and chemically treated film. Bush’s concept of the memex and the developments of new media show that these type of ideas were not too far away. The fact that this article was published before and after the attack on Japan makes sense because it gives the public some information about what types of techonologies were being invented and what to expect. The one question I have is about the general public’s response to this article after the attack on Japan. Was it mostly positive or negative?

This is the first time I have ever heard of or seen the book “The Garden of Forking Paths.” The concept it describes and elaborates on it very interesting though. I really enjoyed the idea of looking at a book as a labyrinth.  Also how everyone thought the labyrinth was a “code key” to the indecipherable novel that was written, when in fact they are one in the same. Although there are not many novels where every type of situation occurs, it is interesting to think about this in the way that different people’s perspectives on situations and ideas are this. In another one of my classes we are talking about rhetoric and all of the various definitions of it. This is similar because the way something is perceived, characterized or talked about can be a situation similar to what the labyrinth was trying to show.