Why the Hell would people want a computer in their home?

      I think a number of great ideas have circulated with this week's texts, and I will try to elaborate on more than one in this brief commentary. I will admit that kluitenberg's article was gripping for myself, because I like the archaeological approach to technological artifacts.

I think back to a chapter by Trevor Pinch and Wiebe Bijker, which looks at the evolution of the bicycle. So while the bicycle isn't exactly a medium, other discourses do push for the merger of communication and transportation, so I feel a brief synopsis here is justified. Early bicycle models consisted of the big front wheel and the tiny rear wheel, AKA Penny-farthing's. The problem was, many people weren't tall enough to ride the things and a woman in a dress most certainly couldn't mount one. Secondly, they were dangerous; Think about being that high off the ground on wooden wheels over cobblestone streets. So social forces began pushing for redesigns of the bicycle: The front wheel began shrinking, the rear wheels grew, a frame resembling that of today's contraptions emerged. A number of heroic men however though this saftey-ing of the bicycle was balderdash though. The big front wheel got, well bigger. This didn't last though. The most interesting segment of this long narrative was the introduction of pneumatic rubber tires. People roared with laughter at the bicycle, claiming the technology would never catch on. The rubber tires won its first sanctioned race and was later black-boxed.

I think this chapter demonstrates a proper archaeological approach to a technology, versus our current understanding of the bike moving from the Penny-farthing to the current state somewhere in time.

Corresponding to this post's title, the computer itself was not immediately recognized as a viable technology for personal use. People scoffed at the idea of people having their own computers. Why would they want them, they really don't serve much use. Not to mention, in the era of vacuum tubes and punch cards, computers were the size of garages. it would be decades later, with the emergence of transistors and proper software that computers were deemed viable as a public commodity. I could give many intimate details, but let's consider the mouse. It was developed midway through the 20th century as a military artifact. Later designs in the 1960s changed its shape from a trackball to a mouse proper. Xerox had their own design they wanted to used with their Alto computer. Apple appropriated the design into their own computers, seeing its usefulness in their operating system. So the mouse wasn't just born the mouse for the computer, but in fact  was eventually integrated as a peripheral for personal computing.

As Kluitenberg says, media archaeology is a "method of constructing a diversified historical apprehension of media technology cultures by uncovering material lineages of apparatuses." (P.42)

I think the former examples elaborate on this point.

I'm trying to wrap my head around the idea of technology also shaping people, but I think I can, at least, try to appropriate these examples into it. For the bicycle, I think while the technology was adjusted to human dimensions, people did have to adjust themselves to this new mode of transportation. Humans may inevitably learn to walk, but we aren't wired to ride a bicycle without tumbling a few times. Consider the city of today too. Traffic is squashed aside to bicycle lanes (quite possibly the most idiotically unsafe idea in a while) to accomidate for riders. A regulatory infrastructure has also been created to prevent riders' usage of sidewalks. Etc. Etc.

Now, look at human behaviour with the advent of ubiquitous computing. No, I'm not going to relinguish myself to talking about this 'need for connectivity'. The point is, computers operate on a certain'language', which differs from that of human language. With Huhtamo and parikka's article, they speak of electromagnetic media and that of computer hardware and more. Humans aren't just translating what is emanated from a monitor into human data, but human communicative practices really are assimilating to those of the computer. At times, it's just easy enough to tell the computer what to do in C++ or HTML. Google searches are another good example. I'm not going to search for 'the Scuderia Italia Lola F1 car from 1993', when i could just search 1993 Lola Scuderia Italia F1. In this interaction with the computer's algorhithmic methods, we kiss goodbye normal linguistic structure for ones the computer can utilize to find what we want more effectively. But the computer isn't getting any better at our language, is it? 

 

50-year-old-computer

History that doesn't fit into textbooks

Last Thursday we engaged with the concept of history-as what is written down. We need to affirm first the fact that at one point certain groups of people could not write, and thus document their own histories and second, that technologies available do impact the capacities to document 'historical' events.

The making of history, I'll call it, is frequently in the hands of a select few- think the journalists following the agenda of a news agency, controlled by a major conglomerate. They want the stories that sell, the ones that get attention, that move people. Notice that news headlines frequently cite plane crashes, ships capsizing, and even minute accounts of people getting shot. The world isn't exactly this grim, and certainly someone centuries from now peeling through our old news articles would document our society as quite tragic, or at least obscurely obsessed with tragedy. What makes this 'history', is that we define our day to day world by these happening events. At the end of December, we revisit the year past based off these events- our own little historical account of the year.

This approach to historymaking is problematic as evident. First, theres large corporate entities determining what events are historic. Second and following the first point, this way of history making is grossly undemocratic and only touches the 'selling' events. We each have our own perspectives, and thus our own life histories which will rarely make major headlines. Similarly, a great portion of personal instances are discarded by our memories. To prove this, recall EVERYTHING you have done in your life. You can't, but they are still a part of your historic string of existence. It's a broad thing to tackle, but I am demonstrating how we too determine our own historical account of our own lives. So too did the historical figures in text books, but it's doubtful the account of their lives printed and that which was within their own memories were very congruent. 

Technological advancement has impacted the collective history-making of culture. I'm certain illiterate peasants in the 14th century too joked about silly animal behaviours they saw in the day, however they had no means to document this external to word-of-mouth. Our historical accounts of past civilizations are constructed on documents, existing written accounts, artifacts and the like. Less society-moving events are forever gone. So, imagine in 2112, when the content of web sites are stashed away in what's left of the HDDs from now, connected and synchronized, revealing a different account of our own lives. Not only have we a fetish for blood and horror, we as 21st century people took vigorous steps to documenting humorous animal behaviour and funny signs-so that what people with the means and autonomy to document their own daily event document, is that which is entirely different from the news accounts. Finally, I'm sickened to think what future generations will make of our own live history a la Facebook. "By God Mr. Walker, I found a photo-biography of someone on this drive! The definitive event in his life was New years 2009!"

Wrapping up, what is historical first is determined by those with the power of making such documentations, which today are often in the hands of corporate media. Everything has a history, and we as individuals make our own historical accounts of our lives (our childrens' too), discarding redundant information we may deem unimportant. With the advent of online social media, our capacity to document our lives has increased- although just as often, what is documented is more reflective of cultural trends, not which we regularly deem a historical event.

Much more must be said on this topic.

 

Oh Hai

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Well you've found me. I'm Cameron Walker as you should all know very well by now, if not, then this will be a challenge. Introductions are formulaic and repetitive and most don't care much for them. I imagine the odd bloke is dying to know the basics, so, to begin, I spent my childhood traversing the Canadian landscape; I was born in Pointe Claire Quebec, but due to at the time policies my only exposure to French was a 'potate' is actually a pomme de terre, which is actually a potato, which is actually a French fry waiting to happen. Funny how things reciprocate. Some fear the deternal darkness of the far north. Try living in Winnipeg, with eternal winters. Escaping further west, I became the only Athiest in Saskatchewan, where the only escape was the mystical land of Alberta or Ontario, the latter which we opted for. Somehow I ended up in Guelph for a decade, a city where by order of the 12 hour clock and grassroots culture, 4:20 occurs twice daily. With my non-conforming teen attitude in high school, I was surprised to find myself studying at WLU, having never owned a Polo shirt. When academic interests transcended the 4 year curriculum in Communication Studies, I entered the Masters program at Laurier. There you have it, 22 years in a paragraph.

So just what compelled me to do graduate studies, you ask? The tale begins with a low-paying labourer position with an electrical contractor. In 2009 Kitchener, Ontario started cashing in on creative city trends that made places like Toronto popular stomping grounds for not only those in the art and design industries, but also to anyone wishing to assimilate themselves to the creative culture. This includes minimum-wage baristas, decked-out with scarves, iPhones, and a knack for howling three-chord progressions on their Ovation guitars. Maybe I sound sarcastic, oops, but something attracts young people to the urban core, and Kitchener had to have it. Combined private and public investment saw a 300,000 square foot factory known as the Lang Tannery get transformed into a creative centre for the city. Once a popular shoot-up spot for the 'economically challenged', the complex is now home to Google, Communitech, D2L, and an assortment of cookie-cut restaurants and coffee houses for the young experts in creativity. My job was to make this happen. We strung out the wires and cables and installed the lights which brought to life the Tannery District. Needless to say, it's done pretty well for itself over the past two years.

But with every action comes an equal and opposite reaction. The economic prosperity enabled by local policy changes and the urban revitalization projects means the cost of living in Kitchener's downtown goes up. We all can't afford expensive lifestyle which plays homage to grassroots culture. Who benefits, who suffers? What is the city's future vision, and how does it promote this to the public? As a so-called proletariat with wirty denim and a tool pouch-turned scholar, I want to answer these questions.

 

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