1980 Tim Berners-Lee writes a notebook program, “Enquire-Within-Upon-Everything,” which allows links to be made between arbitrary nodes. Each node has a title, a type, and a list of bidirectional typed links. Sony Walkman introduced, changing music into a more exclusive/singular experience. IBM licenses DOS from Microsoft. Namco’s Pac-Man hits coin-operated arcades worldwide. Ted Turner’s Cable… Read More »
1971 Ted Hoff invents the microprocessor. First edition of the UNIX operating system released from Bell Labs. (Various varieties of UNIX follow.) Computer engineer Ray Tomlinson sends the first e-mail message and designates “@” as the locator symbol for electronic addresses. 1972 Nolan Bushnell founds Atari and introduces Pong, the first modern commercial video game.… Read More »
1960s Doug Engelbart prototypes an “oNLine System” (NLS) which does browsing among linked documents, editing and email. He invents the mouse for helping perform these tasks. Influenced by Engelbart and Bush, Ted Nelson begins work about a form of non-sequential writing he calls hypertext. Nelson also imagines Xanadu, a global chain of public access “Silver… Read More »
1900s Nickelodeons become popular in the United States. 1901 Guglielmo Marconi perfects a wireless radio system that transmits Morse code over the Atlantic Ocean. 1903 German scientist Arthur Korn invents the fax machine. The Great Train Robbery becomes the first feature film. 1912 David Sarnoff, a Marconi wireless operator in New York, receives the SOS… Read More »
c. 3000 B.C. Chinese entertainers use firelight to project silhouettes of puppets onto a screen. Fundamentally, movies and video representations throughout all future technologies rely on this same principle: casting light onto a flat surface to communicate visually. 165 Egyptian astronomer Ptolemy proves the phenomena of rapidly moving still pictures appearing as one moving image.… Read More »
This syllabus was written in the fall of 2000 for a journalism course taught by former UW-Oshkosh Department of Journalism adjunct faculty member Matthew Stanton. Note that many of the recommend links below now go to dead sites, but are included here for reference back on the coursework of the time. SUMMARY: Spring 2001 instruction… Read More »
From the Wikipedia entry: Memes, analogously to genes, vary in their aptitude to replicate; successful memes remain and spread, whereas unfit ones stall and are forgotten. Thus memes that prove more effective at replicating and surviving are selected in the meme pool. Memes first need retention. The longer a meme stays in its hosts, the… Read More »
Before the word meant putting sarcastic phrases in big white letters over images of animals and people, the definition of a meme — and its study, memetics — held a very different meaning. Explanation from Richard Dawkins, creator of the word: Further details from the Wikipedia entry: A meme is “an idea, behavior, or style… Read More »
From Skeptic June 1997, Vol 5, #2, 43-49, archived on http://www.susanblackmore.co.uk/Articles/skeptic%201997.htm Why not? The basic idea is very simple. If Dawkins is right then everything you have learned by imitation from someone else is a meme. This includes all the words in your vocabulary, the stories you know, the skills and habits you have picked… Read More »