This class was not what I was expecting at all. I was expecting a class where I would sit down and learn about the history of technology. I was pleasantly surprised by the way the class was structured and what I got to learn about. I personally do not know a lot about computers or information technology so taking this course was something I was a bit concerend to take since I was not sure what to expect. I found that not only did I learn a lot about the digital past but I also learned about all sorts of software as well as how history has been affected by technology. This course was one I was cautious about taking but now that the semester is over and looking back on it, I am very happy that I took this class.

Today we talked about Two Forms of Compression. One which makes things physically smaller, mp3, and one that effects amplitude, volume. I never really thought about the forms of compression so that was very nice to know what’s going on in my everyday life. I really enjoyed talking about the Imitation Game since it’s a movie I am really wanting to see. I always enjoy talking about things that I am interested in my life outside of the classroom and bringing it in. In truth, I wish that could have been done more.

When we started talking about the range of human hearing I thought that was pretty interesting. The top range is about 20,000 hertz and I could hear not all the way up there but pretty high up. What surpised me was that the higher the hertz got the more it did bother me, but not nearly as much as I thought it would. I actually wasn’t too bothered by it and for some reason, wished I could hear more. After that we talked about Claude Shannon and how he worked with binary and created colored picutres. The way he did that with the ‘yes’ or ‘no’ concept just was amazing to me and really made me understand how binary acutally works. That being said, I still don’t understand it as most others do. The whole idea of disregarding what the information is and instead, you are ‘seeing’ the information is something I hadn’t really thought of before. All in all, this was a great class that made me understand the digital world more.

Today we started talking about funk music. I’m not a huge fan of funk music so I personally was not all that interested in what we were talking about in class. We then looked at funk music and how it has evolved throughout the decades to what it is today. I found funk music very interesting as it grew but still was not a fan of the music as a genre. I was very surprised when I heard the Powerpuff Girls theme song used a funk rhythm. Other than that I was not really all impressed by funk music.

Today we talked mainly about intellectual property, First we talked about patents which I’m familiar with since I’m familiar with the show Shark Tank where patents are talked about all the time. Then we moved onto trademarks and copyright. Talking about these two things made it clearer to me as to what exactly they were and the difference between them. After that we went back to talking about corporations. Corporations have all the legal rights of a person, can sign contracts and can sue and be sued. Growing up with massive corporations all around me I am familiar with them and never really saw them as having the same rights as pepole. However, I haven’t really thought abuot it either. Now knowing that corporations can act as people it makes me more atuned to what they do.

Today’s main topic of discussion was about wikipedia. It first started out after being inspired by Encyclopedia Britanica, which was a huge set of encyclopedias that held all sorts of information. Wikipedia was founded by Richard Stallman who attended Harvard and MIT, was an early hacker and created a free operation system. It was based off of four freedoms that were taken from Franklin D. Roosevelt and basically said that software could never be closed and was allowed to be shared by everyone. And at the core of it copyright was stupid. I thought this was a very interesting statement given how much copyright is used in the modern day. Also that corporations were people in the eyes of the law and therefore sue on the grounds of copyright. i found that very interesting as well. The copyleft movement was then talked about and how nothing could be enclosed. Though there are pros and cons to both I can’t imagine a world without copyright simply because there’s a balance that comes with it; and for copyright to not exist would be odd.

Today we talked about the radio show Lum and Abner. They were orginally a Minstrel show who impersonated hillbillies and did everything the same. They later won a national radio show as the result. I found this really amazing that people actually wanted to listen to people perform Minstrel shows. It continues to blow my mind that people found it socially acceptable as well as entertaining.

After discussing that we talked about different tyoes of music such as blues and folk music. I’ve been exposed to all types of music since I’ve been singing for almost 10 years. It was also interesting to learn about the Quakers since they did not believe in an authority other than God. I found this to be interesting as well and ws impressed that Quakers still existed in the United States. All in all, everything we learned today both amazed and impressed me. Though not both at the same time.

Today we talked about the swing feel vs. the swing beat. I honestly didn’t think there was much difference between the two of them until I actually discussed them. The swing feel is something that is often felt and heard in dance while the swing beat is more prominent. I didn’t really understand why the difference was important to be talking about it class but later realized it’s important to talk about things that are so similar in order to really understand what they are.

We talked about the one beat drop today. This ocurrs mostly on the drum’s beats and I really enjoyed talking about the music. We made our way to talking about how music can be influenced and take it’s tune from many places. For example, Jennifer Lawrence’s ‘On the Floor’ song has a very recognizable tune in the beginning. But that tune was actually from Brazil which was where the song got it. And the Brazilians who used the song actually got it from Bolivia. So this famous song was actually a Bolivain folk song. It amazes me how much a song can change depending on where it orginates and where it ends up.

Today we talked about racial ineqality which I found a interesting topic since we tend to talk about it a lot in class. We mainly talked about how during the Civil War racial inequality was very small. This can be understood given the circumstances of the nation because of the war. as much as there was little racial inequality during this time the pictures taken then were used in propaganda today. For example, a picutre of union soldiers was cropped to make them look like they were part of the confederacy and this was put on a modern website. I found that very interesting and didn’t quite understand it because what good does a picture from the 1800s have any massive effect on a website promoting racial inequality? To me it’s a waste of time.