Watson come here, I need you
This final module teases apart the strands of the foundational technologies that underpin the 20th century revolution in digital communication: the 19th century Victorian internet. We’ll look at the emergence of telegraphy and the first realization that electricity could represent sound and messages. To understand all that, we have to go further back and consider sempahore and other kinds of signalling technologies. We’ll need to consider things like the Jacquard loom and other ways of extending our cognition into physical media… all the way back to cuneiform and the emergence of writing.
Call this… the grab bag.
My original sequence got pre-empted as I got excited and went on digressions and so on. Instead, I’m going to go back through my notes and do a kind of clip-show of the most interesting things I think you should know about but which I haven’t necessarily explored yet. With regard to the readings, I still want you to read these things listed below, but the final precis/memo exercise 4 will be more about making sense from your existing precis/memo notes rather than making another set. It will help you figure out how to study for the Exit Ticket you will do during Exams (ours is December 11 at 14:00, two hours).
Things to Read and Annotate and By When
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Read, by Nov 24 TWO of:
- A Victorian Ecological Disaster: Imperialism, the Telegraph, and Gutta-Percha
- Submarine Telegraph Cables: Business and Politics, 1838-1939
- How the Internet works: Submarine fiber, brains in jars, and coaxial cables
- Jared Mauch didn’t have good broadband—so he built his own fiber ISP
Remember to read like a predator!
Key Dates & Topics
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Nov 24: Mix & Match 1: Jacqard Looms, Weaving, Other Sundry Things we glossed over re the foundations of the Victorian Internet
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Nov 26: Mix & Match 2: Important things we glossed over elsewhere/when but should explore
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Dec 1: The History of the Internet Bracket
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Dec 3: The Complete and Unexpurgated History of the Internet aka the thing we’ll do instead of Precis 4 (and it features Calculating Empires: A Genealogy of Technology and Power Since 1500).
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Dec 5: The Exit Ticket/Exam Reveal And How You Can Use Your Precis Notes To Address It