Blog Post #6 - EOTO Reaction 

A technology that I learned about was the Invention of the iPhone. I found this to be very interesting, considering most people use iPhone on a daily basis, and a good amount of hours in that day. It sparked my attention when presented because of this. I learned that the iPhone was invented in 2007. This was very interesting to me considering I thought iPhones have been around for a decent amount of time longer. I was aware that they were a more recent invention, but I did not know that they weren't around until I was three years old. This was a shock to me. I learned that the features of the iPhone had an impact on people, and was a technological breakthrough. I also learned about the technological advancements, and how it helped simplify communication. The features of the iPhone were that it had a touch screen, videos, calls, texting ability, music, and internet access, which most other phones do not have. Some negatives I learned about were the fact that cyberbullying became more common after the invention of the iPhone, and since most people have one, there is a lack in face-to-face communication, because people have gotten used to using their phone to communicate instead of meeting in person.

 

 Blog post #5 - Privacy

 An “Electronic tattoo” is very real, and extremely common in affecting people. I have always heard people say “watch what you post, it will always come back to you”, but I never knew the seriousness of it.

How do these issues affect you? Your friends and family?

 This affects everyone who uses social media including me, my family, and my friends. I was unaware for a very long period of time that all of my phone calls were being recorded, without my permission or me even knowing. This is what happens every time we make a phone call, or do quite about anything on our cell phones, whether it is making a phone call, sending a text, or posting on instagram/tik tok. Another example of an “electronic tattoo” is what we choose to put out there. A lot of people have a hard time understanding that once you put something on social media or online, it is there forever. Even if you deleted it, people are able to screenshot it, share it, etc. which can cause permanent damage if it is something that you are not comfortable with being on social media anymore. All of your activity online traces back to you, which is why everyone should be more cautious about what is being put out there.

What should the government be doing about these issues?

I believe that the government should not have access to every single phone call and move we make on our phones, and they should only have access when there is a reason for them to do so. Privacy is important, and something that every person deserves to have. When there is a suspicion, or a crime investigation that is tracked back to someone I believe the government should be able to access information, but only in situations like that. 

What can we do to protect ourselves from invasions of our privacy?

I wish there were more ways to protect ourselves online, but unfortunately there are not many ways for us to prevent the government from listening in on our conversations and watching what we do. Because of this, I feel that it is important that we do as much as we can, as in double checking what you are posting and making sure you are not going to regret it later. Once one person sees it, it can be very hard to take it away and it can follow you for the rest of your life. As of right now being careful is a top priority considering “electronic tattoos” are real.

 Blog Post #4 - EOTO project

For my EOTO project, I studied the VCR, and how it came to be. Charles Ginsburg was the inventor of VCR, and this was the start to a very popular resource. VCR was the first technology that allowed you to watch and be able to record television. It was the most popular to people and very common between the 1990s to the 2000s. It was invented in the 1950s, but until the 1970s it was extremely expensive so not many people were able to afford them or even knew what they were until the price started going down. When it was very expensive so it was rare to have one, some people who did have one would record the television and sell their recordings out of the back of their cars. This became an issue but eventually was resolved and people started to be able to buy their own VCR and VHS devices.

The reason that people loved VCR so much, and was a big breakthrough in technology was because people finally were able to stream television and record what they watched. Before VCR was invented, people basically had no choice on what they could watch, there was not a wide range. Whatever was on the television was what you had to watch. VCR came along and gave more people a variety of what they were able to watch. It also allowed people to be able to buy movies at the store and record television so that they could go back later and re-watch what they watched earlier. The VCR is the machine which plays the tapes. There was a competition between Betamax by Sony and VHS tapes. These are what go inside of the VCR and are played. They were both very popular in the global market at the time. Betamax was very sharp and compact, but VHS was lower priced and you could use longer videos. Because of this VHS ended up winning, and robbing Sony of 40% of its business.

VHS changed how people watched movies and influenced what type of content was produced. This was the rise of direct to video films (movies that are released directly to home video formats, such as DVD or VHS without being released in theaters or on television first.) This led to the uprising in low budget and high creativity productions that had large amounts of people following.

This invention honestly changed our world. Without the discovery of VCR, we would not be where we are today. As of today, VCR is not popular anymore, but instead DVD. The downfall of VCR was in 2003, when DVD was invented. DVD was a better option because of its larger memory space and it was lighter and smaller in size. It was also multifunctional and more advanced. Without VCR we probably would not have led to the invention of the DVD. People were able to enjoy television more ever since the discovery of the VCR, because of its ability to record, and its way of allowing you to watch a greater variety of television and movies.

https://videoconvert.minitool.com/video-converter/vcr-vs-vhs.html#

https://everpresent.com/vcr-history/

https://foreverstudios.com/betamax-vs-vhs/

https://www.lenovo.com/us/outletus/en/glossary/vcr/?orgRef=https%253A%252F%252Fwww.google.com%252F&srsltid=AfmBOoqrzqJDbKqTikcatZTUVW0J0Rp7LyoW-DalMJV7vbguOcb-5qEy

https://www.onotone.com/blogs/modern-designs/the-rise-and-fall-of-vhs-a-journey-through-time?srsltid=AfmBOooGWyiB3JB-f3nWynvHPxd6DPvWECNAdSAnYTAjt5hXIOXVDSwY

https://digitalconverters.co.uk/blog/dvd-popular-vhs

 Blog Post #1-Top Five Sources of News and Information

Fox News. I use Fox news frequently because it is a common channel that is often on my TV at home, and at my house at school. I have always relied on this source of news because it is legit and helps me learn about what is going on in the world without having to do much research. I grew up with it on my television because my parents use this channel as their source of news. It is easy to turn on the television and put on Fox News and be able to know about what is going on in our country and stay up to date. Even if it is on while I am doing stuff around the house I am still able to listen and pick up important information.

The New York Times. Often when I look something up online, an article by the New York Times is one of the first websites to pop up, leading me to click on it, and start to read. This occurs often, and I have found that it is always accurate and tells me the information I was looking for, without making it difficult to understand or going on and on. It is a trusted source of information that I commonly rely on. I know it is legit because of the Newspaper that also comes in the mail. Both ways of reading information is helpful when it is from the New York times.

I also find myself commonly reading information from the Washington Post. Once again, this is a news source that pops up very often when I am searching for information online. I trust this news source because it always gets me the information needed, and I was taught that it is reliable when I was young. I have never stopped using it, and when I look up something and see that there is an article on it from the Washington Post, I am happy to know I will be reading information that I can trust and know is accurate.

Another news source I find to be reliable when looking something up online, is Forbes. I find that often I find myself reading articles on Forbes and finding a lot of accurate information. It is a popular news source, so I know other people have success with it as well.

Another news channel I commonly watch on the television is Newsmax TV. For a long time now, my parents have watched Newsmax, so I have picked up on it through the years while being around the house. I still turn it on sometimes to listen to the news.

Blog Post #3- Eight Values of Free Expression

In the United States of America, we have Eight Values of Free Expression. These eight values are Marketplace of Ideas, Participation in Self-Government, Stable Change, Individual Self-Fulfillment, Check on Governmental Power, Promote Tolerance, Promote Innovation, and Protect Dissent. Each one of these values is extremely important in their own ways. They all have different aspects to why Freedom of Speech is so important, and bring all of the reasons together. While reading through these, I became very interested in the differences of values, and learned how they help our Freedom of Speech come together. A couple specifically stood out to me, and those were Individual Self-Fulfillment, and Protect Dissent.

Individual Self-Fulfillment is important to me because people need free speech in order to be their own person. Everyone has different opinions, and to be able to voice that is what makes each person their own individual. If everyone was forced to say that they believe one thing even if they really did not, everyone would be the same and we would never find what is so special about people. With Freedom of Speech, everyone is able to form their own opinions, and share how they feel. This helps people connect to each other and form special relationships based on similar opinions. I believe that differences in opinion is what makes a good Democracy. People will disagree, and that is okay. People are allowed to speak their thoughts and emotions, and if someone does not agree they have the choice to go their separate ways from that person. When people do agree, they tend to stick together, and form bonds which hold a special place because of similar ways of thinking. I read an article from the University of Virginia, and it stated how usually people do not change their political views, but it does help understand why people think the way they do and why everyone views politics in their own way. Talking to someone and voicing your opinions can make you understand why they believe the way they do. Overcoming political differences is a special situation to me, so Individual Self-Fulfillment especially stood out to me. 

Another Value of Free Expression that I found is important and stuck out to me was Protect Dissent. This is important because even if a person is in a general area where their opinion is very unpopular or they feel like they believe something most people do not, they should still be able to voice their opinion without any consequences. This is a way to open up other understanding to people who believe another way. I think that people holding in what they believe can build up resentment and more violence than if they just speak their mind. No one has to agree with them, but it is important for everyone to understand the reasoning behind peoples opinions. Someone who has a different opinion than everyone around them may get hate for voicing what they believe in, but that is their choice. No one should be forced to keep their mouth shut over something they believe and that is why Protect Dissent is an important value.

 

Blog Post #2 - Supreme Court

I did not know how many cases the Supreme Court gets. Watching this video taught me that they receive more than 100 cases a week, and about 7,000 a year. I had assumed it was well under that, which was a shock when I heard just how much it really is. Although there are quite a lot, the court only ends up accepting about 100 a year due to a lot of them being written arguments trying to persuade this court that a lower court ruling was incorrect.

The most important take-away to me was in the video, when the Justices met, and discussed how you are actually living in the fact that people who wrote the Constitution guide us in solving problems 200 years later. I have never thought about it this way, but this video enlightened me to this fact. Another important take-away is that every petition gets the same individual consideration. 

Something that I learned which completely surprised me, is that in all of American history, there have only been just over 100 Supreme Court Justices, and they all have served around an average of 16 years. This was shocking to me because I thought there were a lot more Supreme Court Justices and had no idea how rare it is to be one.

All together, this video changed the way I thought of the Supreme Court, because I did not have a full understanding of how it worked, or how much work they really do. I am now able to understand more of what exactly happens in the Supreme Court. I learned that newly arrived petitions are sent to the Justices once a week. Each Justice is assisted by Law Clerks and Secretaries, but the Justice is responsible for deciding the case. All of this I was unaware of, so it was informational for me to learn how it works.