Ok, so, analog computers are awesome. This item was able to do so much even when the lack of computer power. I guess it’s been no surprise it was invented for the government for war related problems. I mean, I kinda knew that, but I never really thought about the beginnings to all the amazing technological advances brought on by war. So, I guess, there are still many benefits to war, even with all the killing. Is the trade off worth it? That feels like a loaded question.

Out of all the conversations we had, the most interesting was on transistors, came after the vacuum tube and the audion. I had no knowledge on them, outside of what they were. Even with the discussion in class, it was still hard for me to comprehend.

I would say, in general, I’m pretty smart, but even this is above my knowledge, and yet our species invented this! For something an ubiquitous as a transistor, I felt like I should have had more information on this item!

Fun Fact: the Nobel Prize for Physics was given to the people who invented the transistor. That’s clearly not enough for a product that is still used today, with only minor changes. Yet, how many people could tell you about transistors and the people who invented them? How many people can tell you about the invention of the computer, radio, television? Funny how history works. I mean, how many people know exactly how electricity works. We’ve discussed that but I still feel clueless.

I found it really interesting when we talked about Max Weber. He’s really important in my major, Anthropology. Even though he was a sociologist, they were important for helping create the field of anthropology. While studying him I never go into anything about his thoughts on information management and his thoughts on rationality.

Looking at the common beliefs for civilized societies back in Weber’s time, it’s so surprise that there was this idea that the modern world was rational. It also made sense we we go into how pensions and the like were paid during the times after civil war.

Learning about Montgomery Meigs was amazing. Mainly, I thought the tidbit of information on the Arlington Cemetery creation was the best thing I’ve learned about in history for quite a while. Meigs is the reason we have this amazing cemetery. This man was clearly intelligent. Although, he did make the IQ test for WW1 which was very within it’s time. They also have a tendency to be “easier” to a specific group of people, typically ones from a higher socio-economic group. I digress.

Oh… this book. I’m not the biggest fan of this book. It’s full of anecdotal evidence. If you’re going to start wildly claiming things about our brain, you’re going to need science to back it up. When I google “Are our attentions spans decreasing?” I see a lot of claims, but not actual scientific articles. Well, there was one that mentioned a study by Microsoft, but no one linked to the article and I didn’t see the past study where they would have compared the current attention span to past studies. Did they do past studies due to ADHD or actually decrease due to technology?

I decided to go to Google Scholar and see what sort of scholarly article I could find on attention span and technology. I could have been looking up the wrong thing, but I swear I was having a terrible time trying to find an article on attention span in regards to technology. I spent a good 10 minutes trying to find an article before I gave up. Now, if this was a research paper, I sure would have been pissed at my attempt to find a reliable source for the paper. Though, I’m still annoyed.

While I do believe our attention span could have changed due to technology, our culture has also been changed due to the technology. If our culture makes it ok to focus less, or for a shorter time, we’re going to adapt to that. I wonder how much of it is cultural due to the technology. I would attempt to search that, but I feel like if I cannot find an article on attention span, this was be practically impossible.

Well, while this book wasn’t terrible, I think it focuses too much on attempting to pass of anecdotal evidence as science and puts a lot of blame on technology when it could truly be our culture, or just how our brain chooses the function with a change in informational intake.

On another note. After we discussed in class about mouthing words when we read, I realized I did it. But, I only do that when I’m trying to slow my brain down and to actually understand what I am reading better. Otherwise, I can get suddenly be 10 pages ahead and no idea what I was reading.

The Loudness War. A war I’ve been completely in the dark about! Not going to lie, I laughed to see Miranda Lambert and Christina Aguilera mixed with Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin. But it’s really interesting to see. I mean, I can understand that with hard rock you wouldn’t mind some distortion and loudness, I feel like that a part of the genre. But, for pop and country, why is that needed?

I remember when I bought my first pair of really expensive headphones. Wow, does that give you a better look into the production of music. I remember listening to so many songs and going, “Echo?! Why is there so much echoing in these songs?” It’s the weirdest phenomenon to me, even more so than the loudness war. I get how it can add some nice change and tone to the song, but it’s used so heavily. If you really want to hear it being used, look into Jay-Z’s The Black Album acappella soundtracks.

Also, an issue I can with music is how overproduced it all sounds. I mean, when you go to a concert, it honestly doesn’t sound that great because of all of the changes they make during the production of the song. When you listen to the recording on a CD, or whatever your format choice is, you can hear the changes they’ve made, but also not in a good way. It sounds fake. Don’t get me wrong, I still listen to popular music, but I do get frustrated with it sometimes.

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