Post #2: "History of the Internet"

This video was awesome. Really well done, and the voiceover guy had a sweet voice. I was also familiar with some of the terms (ARPAnet, TCP-IP, etc.), but I never really had a firm understanding of what they are or what they do, and I definitely wasn't aware of their history.

For me, the most fascinating part of the video was how it made me realize how removed we are from the infrastructure of the Internet. It seems to be a common theme for the Internet - people often are more brash or inappropriate when communication online, for instance, because they are able to hide behind whatever appearance they create for themselves on the Internet. We're removed from face-to-face communication, so we feel we can say whatever we want.

I guess to me, the construction of the Internet works the same way. I can't even begin to count how many times a day I use the Internet, but before this video, all I could really say about its history was that it was something military-related...maybe. Now I now how networks were created and how they developed, and I also know the political/social/cultural context in which the Internet was founded.

Post #2

I thought the video on youtube about the history of the internet and its creation was very interesting. I'm glad there was a visual animation along with the explanation because the technical terms were confusing at times. I thought it was very interesting how different nations contributed to this American concept, for example the idea of packet-switching in England. It's incredible to think about the amazing strides that have been made with computers in such a relatively short amount of time. Its hard to imagine society today without the internet. Many people seem to rely on it just as much as they do with their friends or family. Without it, not only would so much less information be readily available but communication between people would also be far less rapid. Its also hard to imagine doing schoolwork at the high school or collegiate level without using the internet as a tool.

History of Internet Response

I thought this was a very thought provoking video, and there are two things immediate thoughts I had.
The first is the notion of going from the old Mainframe-Terminal approach of computers to fully functional laptops and desktops we see today. While today's computers have far greater capability then the mainframes of old, I fear we are slowly steering back towards a "mainframe controlled" approach. The mainframe could be represented by the giant web companies such as Google or Facebook, whereas the terminals are your everyday computers. Without Facebook or Google arguably our computers (the terminals) would lose a lot of use. By having sites such as Facebook run on centralized servers where Facebook is literally in control of everything you do and enter on the site, the user loses control. Things like Google Docs are almost identical in concept to mainframe/terminal word processing applications that would have been around long ago. If Google, Facebook or your mainframe goes down or is compromised your are SOL.
Finally, last semester I took a computer science class on Computer Networks. That class went into very high level detail on how some of the technical concepts from the video (TCP/IP etc) actually are implemented.
All I can say is I'm glad to be done with that technical stuff and looking at more of the cultural implications, it's much less boring!

History of the Internet

I just watched the YouTube video on the history of the Internet, and it was quite interesting, partially because the narrator's voice really made me interested for some reason. He sounded insanely smart. Anyways...I think it's astonishing to know that 54 years ago, the Internet didn't even exist--at all. And now look, I watched the video on my smartphone. Thinking back, I can still hear that annoying dial-up tone in my first-ever computer, which was about the size of a microwave oven. To think that that was only about seven years ago is astonishing.

I think it's quite ironic/interesting that the reason the whole Internet thing got rolling was in response to a possible nuclear war breaking out. Now-a-days, you have companies like Google, that are frankly taking over the Internet world. It's interesting to me to dwell on what is going to happen in 54 years. What sort of blog will Comm Arts 346 be posting on? Who knows...but it's definitely something cool to think about.

Blag Post no. 2: No tubes? No Al Gore?

The history of the internet, part 1.

I thought it was an interesting video. The direction and animation was just as fascinating as the information. It's certainly no surprise that the internet, like many things, started out the with the military. I guess I'd consider that video the pre-history of the internet though, as the internet itself over the last 20-ish years has been an evolution in itself. I remember dial-up, 5 minutes for a page to load, crappy block text websites created by everyone with the most basic handle of html. It was hard to find reliable information. Before Wikipedia, you'd have to cruise around places like geocites where hopefully a teacher or professor had made a page about what you wanted to learn about. Then came the more reputable sources that consolidated the internet and wiped out alot of the personals pages. Even how the internet is used is in a huge state of flux. I think that's more interesting. But, I must admit, as an information age child, it's somewhat fascinating how the world got along without the internet, without emails, without cellphones. Especially from a business perspective, business has gone from never having enough data to constantly being inundated with unnecessary information. It's a different side of the same coin, finding only the information you want and it's a problem in my own life as well. Frankly, I'm excited to see where the internet goes in the next 50 years.

Andrew

For your consideration:

http://xkcd.com/148/

http://xkcd.com/181/

"Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go." -T.S. Eliot

History of the Internet

I just watched the YouTube video on the History of the Internet and the strangest part of it all is that none of the "history" is truly that old. It's just crazy how the scare of nuclear war forced people to be creative in how to connect to one another in order to communicate has ended up being what it is today. When I watch how simple the internet started with batch processing it makes me appreciate that technology has advanced to allow me to watch this TouTube video wirelessly on my laptop while I play Words with Friends versus my dad on my phone.

Can you even imagine world without the internet and computers anymore? I can't wait to see what it turns into in the next 54 years.