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Blown to Bits Reflections 10/7

Blown to Bits (www.bitsbook.com), Appendix - The Internet as System and Spirit, pp. 301-309, “The Internet as a Communication System,” then answer the following question: It is interesting to think about the foresight (or luck?) that caused initial Internet designers to choose a packet-switched network as the basis for the Internet. What do you think, foresight or luck? -I think that it is good foresight that caused the internet’s creators to choose a packet switched network as the basis for the internet. In order to create the internet successfully, these guys had to be decently smart, and I think that they thought ahead and decided to use a system that could be expanded rapidly. Blown to Bits (www.bitsbook.com), Chapter 3 - Ghosts in the Machine, pp. 91-92, “Data Formats as Public Property,” then answer the following question: What do you think the Internet would be like today if different companies’ network protocols were still competing for adoption for the Internet, ...
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Reflection on Blown to Bits Chapter 1

Koan 1: It’s All Just Bits Koan 2: Perfection Is Normal Koan 6: Nothing Goes Away Koan 7: Bits Move Faster Than Thought Pick one of the above koans and address the following questions: Argue if you agree that it is a "truth" and if it will always be a "truth." How does this koan intersect with your life as a student? I think that Koan 6: Nothing Goes Away is a truth, and will always be a truth. This is because, with computers, there are so many bits and so much space to store them that even if you try to delete or remove something from a computer, it will never truly be gone. When you delete something on a computer, it is not truly “deleted” per se but instead overwired with new data. The original data can still be recovered, and seen easily. Data can be kept forever, unless there are explicit policies to get rid of it. Because of this, I think that there is no true way to remove things completely from databases or computers. This koan intersects with my l...
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Ghost in the Machine reflection (Blown to Bits p. 73-88)

Ghosts in the Machine, pp. 73-80 (What You See Is Not What the Computer Knows), then answer the following questions: Give an example of your own when just knowing what a computer did wasn’t sufficient - you really needed to know how and why it was doing what it was doing as well. -An example of when this happened to me was when I was building my own computer, and I needed to start it and install the operating system onto it. This process was difficult, and I needed knowledge about computers to complete it. Talk about file metadata and how it “fingerprints” a file. Include a discussion of file metadata benefits and challenges. -Metadata includes information such as the name, description, the owner of the computer that created the document, the last time the document was edited, and the last time the document was edited. This information can be useful. However, leaked authorship information can have consequences. If you plagiarize someone else’s work, then use it as your own, the me...
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