Remember the days when receiving an email was exciting and getting snail mail was boring? Now that paradigm has been completely reversed, which is deceptive, because much of the snail mail you get nowadays is from your bank somehow inexplicably still sending you paper statements even though you've used online banking for years, or perhaps it's simply addressed to the prior occupants of your apartment.
Communications technology has fundamentally changed our lives, streamlining and simplifying them in many ways, and making them less human and more complex in others. How we communicate, for example via email digests, is this week's theme.
As always, happy Wednesday and happy reading.
This Day in History
1947 - President Harry Truman delivers the first televised presidential speech. At the time, radio was still the dominant communications medium, but that would soon change, as more Americans purchased televisions during the post-war economic boom. For interesting perspective, click the link to see the content of Truman's speech and then imagine the reaction it would get on Twitter today...
2011 - Apple founder Steve Jobs dies. A uniquely talented innovator whose contribution to society and culture is so ubiquitous you may be holding it in your hand right now. RIP.
A Bridge to the World, or Away From It?
We communicate with ease that the world seems a smaller place; it is more accessible to us than to any previous generation. Information at our fingertips. Are we chasing it, or turning away from it (from Medium)? Has bringing everything together made us less likely to seek new information and opposing points of view? Are we building bridges or bubbles? As we democratize media, and hear from more voices, how do we ensure that the information we receive is accurate and pushes our thinking for the better?
Error: Page No Longer Exists
Think of all the websites you've visited over the years. How many of them are still active? All that information so accessible, and yet so frustratingly ephemeral up there in the cloud. How much of it is lost forever, and what could archiving all of it do for future historians (from NYTimes)?
Think of our incomplete view of history, missing so many voices, voices that we can now preserve for posterity, equipping those who follow us to know what we did and why, and trace their own path.
Weaponized Information
In the age of smartphones, we rightly worry about identity theft, something that a generation ago may have seemed an astounding crime, but is now a basic protection included in any bank or credit card agreement. Individually, such an event would be a massive headache, but could our personal information be accumulated as a super weapon to paralyze society? We know that hacking attacks from numerous entities as well as unredacted data dumps by Wikileaks have compromised the personal information of hundreds of thousands of people. In this (shamelessly self-promoted) piece, I ponder a massive, identity-theft cyber-attack that cripples society (from Strategy Bridge).
Onward Came the Trolls
Everyone's favorite part of democratized social-media is the trolling, right? Sometimes the trolls are funny, but online bullying is a real problem with serious consequences (from Bloomberg). Communications technology hasn't only empowered us to share voices and perspectives, it's enabled us to be anonymous assholes. Cyber bullying, like identity theft, can have serious and sad consequences for individuals, but trolling to spread false information distorts the way we see the world and the decisions we make to interact with it. Having access to all the information isn't helpful if we can't distinguish what is true, and what has been made true by the anonymous cacophony of the web.
Waiting on a Sunny Day
Awwwww buddy, why so down? Or wait, are you just asleep? Taking a break from dogs this week to bring you a panda, courtesy of the National Zoo in DC. The entire zoo is fantastic, but the pandas are unique, and very, very cool...even though they don't do very much at all. These fellas definitely have the metabolism of molasses, but they're super cute and interesting even when doing their best rug impersonations.
Will's Weekly Trivia
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IF you choose to answer the question, respond to staton.will@gmail.com with your answer. Please note that by competing you are giving me permission to publish your first name in the trivia leader board each week.
Last Week:
1. What was the influenza virus that struck in 1918 known as? ONE POINT
2. In 2010 there was a flu scare, what was the name of that flu (HINT: named for an animal)? ONE POINT
3. Which ancient Greek healer is one of the founding figures of medicine (HINT: doctor's take an oath named for him)? ONE POINT
Answers:
1. The 1918 flu pandemic was known as Spanish Flu. Medically, Spanish flu was...
2. H1N1 or swine flu, which reappeared as a major scare in 2009-2010.
3. The ancient Greek healer Hippocrates is the namesake for the Hippocratic Oath. His symbol, a snake coiled round a staff, is visible on medical garments.
This Week:
1. Who created the computer that cracked the Nazi Enigma machine? ONE POINT
2. Which form of social media is rapper DJ Khaled famous for using? ONE POINT
3. Which two candidates participated in the first televised presidential debate? ONE POINT
