Dominique Greer

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Wiki Entry #1: Sir Maurice Vincent Wilkes

Sir Maurice Vincent Wilkes was born in Dudley, Worcestershire, England June 26, 1913. He was a British computer science pioneer who is credited with several important developments in the world of computer programming. In school Maurice was always an intelligent and talented child. He was first introduced to amateur radio by his chemistry teacher and became interested in electronics; studying the subject in his spare time. He studied Mathematics at St. John’s College, Cambridge from 1931-34 and continued his education by earning a Ph.D. in physics on the topic of radio propagation of very long radio waves in the ionosphere in 1936.

Maurice was appointed to a junior faculty position of the University of Cambridge at this time be became involved in the establishment of a computing laboratory. Wilkes was called up for military service during World War II in 1939 and worked in radar and operational research. In 1945 Wilkes was appointed to director of the Cambridge Computer Laboratory where he was able to really begin his legacy in computer programming. In 1946 Wilkes obtained a copy of John von Neumann's prepress description of the EDVAC, a successor to the ENIAC under construction by Presper Eckert and John Mauchly, he decided immediately that the document described the logical design of future computing machines, and that he wanted to be involved in the design and construction of such machines. Following the opportunity to read von Neumann's "First Draft" Wilkes received an invitation to attend a series of lectures on the "Theory and Techniques for Design of Electronic Digital Computers" given at the Moore School of Engineering at the University of Pennsylvania and he jumped at the chance to go. (Lee)

Once in the United States Wilkes was granted the opportunity to meet very influential people in the computer programming world such as Hartee, Howard Aiken, Sam Caldwell, Herman Goldstine, John Mauchly and Presper Eckert all of whom he had discussed the future of computing machines with.(Encyclopedia Britannica) After returning back to Cambridge in October of 1946 Wilkes began working intensively on the Electronic Delay Storage Automatic Calculator (EDSAC), which was the first full-size stored-program computer with funding from the Computer Laboratory and that was successfully running in June of 1940.

Wilkes was very important to the history of the digital age, computer and computing because without some of his inventions, contributions and work the world of computing that we know today, may not be possible. Wilkes is widely known for being an inventor of labels, macros and microprogramming; with David Wheeler and Stanley Gill, the inventor of a programming system based on subroutines. Wilkes was responsible for the construction of EDSAC 2; the first computer to have a micro programmed control unit and it established beyond doubt the viability of microprogramming as a basis for computer design - this in spite of the fact that vacuum tubes were far from ideal for the purpose.(Lee)

Work Cited:

Lee, J. A. "Maurice V. Wilkes." Maurice V. Wilkes. Web. 28 May 2012. <http://ei.cs.vt.edu/~history/Wilkes.html>.

"Sir Maurice Vincent Wilkes (British Computer Scientist)." Encyclopedia Britannica Online. Encyclopedia Britannica. Web. 26 May 2012. <http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/725595/Sir-Maurice-Vincent-Wilkes>.


Wiki Entry #2: Claude Shannon

Claude Elwood Shannon was born in Gaylord, Michigan, on April 30, 1916. He is an American mathematician, electronic engineer, and cryptographer, whose work on technical and engineering problems within the communications industry, laying the groundwork for both the computer industry and telecommunications. Claude is considered as the founding father of electronic communications age and information theory. (Johnson) Although his parents worked in the education and judicial system, his career path was mostly influenced by his grandfather who was an inventor and a farmer. His grandfather invented the washing machine along with many others farming machinery. (Johnson)

Growing up his best subjects were science and mathematics, and at home he constructed such devices as models of planes, a radio-controlled model boat and a wireless telegraph system to a friend's house half a mile away. As an adult he also invented many devices, including rocket-powered flying discs, a motorized pogo stick, and a flame-throwing trumpet for a science exhibition. (Johnson)

In 1932 Claude entered the University of Michigan, where he took a course that introduced him to the works of George Boole. He graduated in 1936 with two bachelor's degrees, one in electrical engineering and one in mathematics. After Shannon noticed the similarity between Boolean algebra and the telephone switching circuits, he applied Boolean algebra to electrical systems at the Massachusetts Institute of technology (MIT) in 1940, where he worked on Vannevar Bush's differential analyzer, an analog computer.(Bell Labs)

Shannon is famous for having founded information theory with one landmark paper published in 1948. But he is also credited with founding both digital computer and digital circuit design theory in 1937, when, as a 21-year-old master's student at MIT, he wrote a thesis demonstrating that electrical application of Boolean algebra could construct and resolve any logical, numerical relationship. Shannon’s role in the history of digital age is so important because without the invention of information theory, the computer that we know of today would not be possible. Without information theory there would have been no invention of zip files, MP3’s or DSL. Coding itself would be different if Shannon had not used his knowledge to solve the issues with the source and the channel. His 1937 master's thesis, A Symbolic Analysis of Relay and Switching Circuits, was published in the 1938 issue of the Transactions of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers. It also earned Shannon the Alfred Noble American Institute of American Engineers Award in 1940.(Wyner) It has been claimed that this was the most important master's thesis of all time.

In 1940, Shannon became a National Research Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey. At Princeton, Shannon had the opportunity to discuss his ideas with influential scientists and mathematicians such as Hermann Weyl and John von Neumann, and even had the occasional encounter with Albert Einstein. Shannon worked freely across disciplines, and began to shape the ideas that would become information theory. (Wyner)

Shannon joined the staff of Bell Telephone Laboratories in 1942, where he formulated a theory explaining the communication of information and worked on the problem of most efficiently transmitting information. The mathematical theory of communication was the climax of Shannon's mathematical and engineering investigations. The concept of entropy was an important feature of Shannon's theory, which he demonstrated to be equivalent to a shortage in the information content (a degree of uncertainty) in a message. (Bell Labs) By 1948, He turned his efforts toward a fundamental understanding of the problem and had evolved a method of expressing information in quantitative form. Shannon went on to publish more papers on communication theory and while the world experienced a great loss with his passing February 24, 2001 at the age of 84, his contribution to computers and communication is irreplaceable.

Work Cited:

Johnson, Shawn. "Claude Shannon." CLAUDE SHANNON. New York University. Web. 01 June 2012. <http://www.nyu.edu/pages/linguistics/courses/v610003/shan.html>.

"Bell Labs: Claude Shannon, Father of Information Theory, Dies at 84." Bell Labs: Claude Shannon, Father of Information Theory, Dies at 84. Alcatel-Lucent. Web. 01 June 2012. <http://www.bell-labs.com/news/2001/february/26/1.html>.

Wyner, Aaron. "The Significance of Shannon's Work." Shannon's Work. 28 June 1997. Web. 01 June 2012. <http://cm.bell-labs.com/cm/ms/what/shannonday/work.html>.


Wiki Entry #3: Tim O'Reilly

Tim O'Reilly was born June 6, 1954 in Country Cork, Ireland and is the founder of O'Reilly Media (formerly O'Reilly & Associates) and a known supporter of the free software, Web 2.0 and open source movements. (Chafkin, Max ) Only six weeks after O’Reilly was born, his parents made the conscious decision to move their family to California. O'Reilly was initially interested in literature upon entering college, yet after graduating from Harvard College in 1975 with a B.A. cum laude in Classics, he became involved in the field of computer user manuals. His honors thesis explored the tension between mysticism and logic in Plato's dialogues. (O’Reilly Bio)

O'Reilly Media, Inc. is thought by many to be the best computer book publisher in the world. Tim O’Reilly defines his company not as a book or online publisher, nor as a conference producer (though the company does all three), but as a technology transfer company, “changing the world by spreading the knowledge of innovators.” (O’Reilly Media) O’Reilly Media is the publisher of the iconic "animal books" for software developers, creator of the first commercial website (GNN), organizer of the summit meeting that gave the open source software movement its name, leader in Gov 2.0 "government as a platform" efforts, and prime instigator of the DIY revolution through its MAKE magazine and Craftzine.com, O'Reilly Media continually concocts new ways to connect people with the information they need.

O'Reilly Media spreads the knowledge of innovators through its books, online services, magazines, research, and conferences. Since 1978, O'Reilly has been a chronicler and catalyst of leading-edge development, honing in on the technology trends that really matter and galvanizing their adoption by amplifying "faint signals" from the alpha geeks who are creating the future. (Chafkin, Max) An active participant in the technology community, the company has a long history of advocacy, meme-making, and evangelism. (O’Reilly Media)

Tim O’Reilly did not make it to be the successful business man that he is today by smiling at the right political and corporate individuals, in 2001, O'Reilly was involved in a dispute with Amazon.com, leading a protest against Amazon's one-click patent and, specifically, Amazon's assertion of that patent against rival barnesandnoble.com. The protest ended with O'Reilly and Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos visiting Washington D.C. to lobby for patent reform. In 1996, O'Reilly fought against a 10-Connection Limit on TCP/IP NT Workstations, writing a letter to the United States Department of Justice, Bill Gates, and CNN, concerned that the Internet is still in its infancy, and that limitations could cripple the technology before it ever has a chance to reach its full potential. (O’Reilly Bio)

O’Reilly and his contributions are very important to the history of digital age; the concept of the internet is about spreading information to people in the fastest possible manner. He believed in the concept of free software and has been awarded for his work in open source advocacy. He continuously works to be the technology transfer company that he dreamt up years ago when starting his company; working to change the world by spreading the knowledge of innovators. The internet would not be the amazing tool that we know today without the work and dedication of Tim O’Reilly.

Work Cited:

"Oreilly.com Tim's Bio." Oreilly.com Tim's Bio. O’Reilly Media, Inc, n.d. Web. 2 June 2012. <http://oreilly.com/oreilly/tim_bio.html>.

Tim O'Reilly - O'Reilly Media." Tim O'Reilly - O'Reilly Media. N.p., n.d. Web. 22 June 2012. <http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/au/27>.

Chafkin, Max. "The Oracle of Silicon Valley." Inc.com. Inc. Magazine, n.d. Web. 22 June 2012. <http://www.inc.com/magazine/20100501/the-oracle-of-silicon-valley.html>.


Wiki Article: Social Media Changed Politics

With the rise of Facebook, YouTube, and the abundance of new technologies, theorists from around the world have proclaimed a new era of Web 2.0, defined by an extremely large amount of interactive participation in media. As the story goes, the Internet has freed people to organize and interact virtually, in ways that transcend distance and time. According to reports taken within the past two years approximately 360,985,492 people around the world has access to the internet and with the help of these social networking sites; has taken the political world by storm. Social media has affected the political world in such a way that it will never be the same. From social networking sites, to newspapers, radio and blogs; social media has given a platform to people around the world for both personal intimacy and public activism.

The concept that the usage of social media has changed the political process in the twenty-first century suddenly struck my attention when reading an article for our course lecture last week. On Jan. 20, Sen. Harry Reid, a Democrat from Nevada, the Senate Majority Leader, postponed a vote slated for this week on the PROTECT IP Act and Rep. Lamar Smith a Republican from Texas, stopped consideration of the Stop Online Piracy Act. PIPA and SOPA are designed to combat piracy and protect intellectual property with a particular focus on IP that can be transmitted over or pirated on the Internet. Key supporters of the bills included the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), which represents record labels and the music industry, and the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), which represents the movie industry and is headed by Christopher Dodd, the former U.S. Senator turned lobbyist. (Washington Post)

The proposed bills would have given law enforcement sweeping powers to shut down entire Internet domains if those domains were deemed to be infringing on copyrights or violating IP strictures. Reid and Alexander pulled back after a tremendous cyberprotest erupted. Phone lines and email inboxes at the U.S. Congress were jammed with messages. The onslaught included nearly 200,000 phone calls, 7 million online signatures, the Google petition, and over 2.4 million tweets via Twitter. Over 1,000 protesters showed up in person, as well. The significance of this event was captured best in the RIAA’s response to the demise of those bills. "It’s a dangerous and troubling development when the platforms that serve as gateways to information intentionally skew the facts to incite their users and arm them with misinformation," said the RIAA in a statement, “it’s very difficult to counter the misinformation when the disseminators also own the platform."

How can one look at this story and be inspired by how a group of people can come together and change the action of a bill that is backed by a group of wealthy and politically empowered group of people. In this case, like many of the ones that we will explore- by the stroke of a keyboard. For one to understand the importance of the impact that social media has on the world of politics we must first take a look at where it all started. In the old days, political disagreements were settled in backroom deals among political party big shots. A few years after he left office in 1969, President Lyndon Johnson was asked by a TV news producer what had changed in American politics since the 1930s when he came to Washington as a young Texas congressman. "You guys," [Johnson replied], without even reflecting. "All you guys in the media. All of politics has changed because of you. You've broken all the [party] machines and the ties between us in the Congress and the city machines.You've given us a new kind of people." A certain disdain passed over his face."Teddy, Tunney.1 They're your creations, your puppets. No machine could ever create a Teddy Kennedy. Only you guys. They're all yours. Your product." (Halberstam, 1979, pp. 15-16)

As majority leader of the Senate in the 1950s, Johnson achieved national fame as master of this brand of insider politics. Yet in the new environment, commonly referred to as Web 2.0 disagreements are fought out in the mass media and settled in the court of public opinion such as a blog site, twitter timeline, or facebook group page. The weapons of combat are press conferences, photo opportunities, news releases, leaks to the press, and “spin.” When the stakes are especially high, TV and radio advertisements are commonly used. Fast forward to today, and we are all connected—all the time. In the United States, there are around 250 million Internet users, over 100 million smartphone users, 133 million Facebook users and over 24 million Twitter users. This ubiquitous access to online devices and social networking channels has had a democratizing effect. Americans are leveraging technology to more fully engage in the political process.

Politics used to be a very controlled and almost theatrical process, with politicians and other political actors appearing in carefully scripted events and the reporting and analysis of those events was also restricted to certain specific media channels: a couple of TV networks, one or two major newspapers, and so on. The same groups of people that are were playing golf together last weekend are now sitting in a large conference room, making the decisions on how to spend our tax dollars and if woman’s health care is more important than education. What the social media has done to these types of situations is allowing people the opportunity to take a stance and have a say so in how decisions are being made in their communities.

During the 2000 presidential campaign, it was John McCain who first tried a radical experiment launching a website to accept political donations. Ten years later, Internet social media completely has changed the political game. Facebook, YouTube and Twitter now can help win a national campaign or end one in an instant. A mentioned before, it only takes a moment for someone to poses a thought and share it with the whole wide world, and that thought strikes a movement that can make or break someone’s political future.

Take the case of George Allen, the former Republican senator from Virginia and one-time presidential hopeful. While campaigning for re-election in 2006, Allen noticed an Indian-American staffer for a political opponent taping him from the audience. Allen told the crowd, "This fellow here, over here with the yellow shirt. Macaca or whatever his name is. He's with my opponent; he's following us around everywhere. “The video showing Allen's use of the racial slur "macaca" quickly went viral, derailing his re-election campaign and quashing his ambitions for higher office. (Amos) More so in today’s society then before, every word you say is being recorded, if not on a camera, then a recorder, if not a recorder then it is being posted on a web that stores everything down to the last semi-colon.

Let’s explore an incident that showed the world just how powerful social networking sites really were. On Nov. 7, 2000, six words transmitted wirelessly late in the evening that foretold an event that forever changed American politics. Campaign manager Donna Brazile sent Al Gore a message on his BlackBerry 850, still relatively new technology that the Bush campaign did not have. That message: “Never surrender. It’s not over yet.” Those six words, sent on a hunch, were later followed by an email from the campaign team with more specific information on the Florida vote count. The presidential nominee of the Democratic Party then withheld his official concession, and the election of 2000 entered the history books as the most contentious yet in modern times. As the chief media advisor for George W. Bush’s campaign, I don’t think I can ever forget the impact of those six words.Though Gore was an early adopter of technology, even he could not foresee the impact of social media on politics today. Back then, the BlackBerry was little more than a two-way pager with a keyboard. Only 54 million U.S. households had a computer; just 44 million had online access. And the words tweet, friend, and follow had altogether different meanings: Facebook was not introduced until 2004, YouTube, 2005, and Twitter, 2006. ( Foreign Affairs)

The Obama victory in the 2008 presidential elections was truly a remarkable feat that set new benchmarks for people who set their sights on impossible goals. The whole excitement surrounding the election definitely brought about changes in American politics politics and this entire experience can definitely lend tips to other governments who are planning to use the same tool that Obama used that contributed considerably towards his victory; social media. Obama had a very simple modus operandi – to use the social media channels in a way that the youth are attracted towards politics and willing g to contribute. While people may have their doubts, it cannot be denied that social media has exponential reach and speed that will boost any campaign be it commercial or political in nature. The most important of political parties is to attract masses and it is this value that social media provides to political parties by aiding them to start from the grass roots. Some might argue that traditional media is a much smarter way to go when it comes to a campaign of that magnitude, but traditional media facilitates one way communication whereby political parties speak and the audience listens. Social media provides two-way communication with a more active audience that leads on to success of the campaign. Individuals have always considered the government to be out of their reach and the 250,000th donor to the Obama campaign received a cash incentives along with the opportunity to speak with the president himself. The lure of this reward encouraged users to be an active facet of Obama’s presidential campaign. (Convonix)

According to Mark MicKinnon, a journalist at a popular blog site, 73 percent of adult Internet users went online to get news or information about the 2010 elections. Some 22 percent used Twitter or social networking sites in the months leading up to the midterms to connect to campaigns or the election itself. And this year, over 1.6 million watched President Obama’s re-election campaign film, “The Road We’ve Traveled,” on YouTube in just five days. This is not just going on in the Us, on January 17, 2001, during the impeachment trial of Philippine President Joseph Estrada, loyalists in the Philippine Congress voted to set aside key evidence against him. Less than two hours after the decision was announced, thousands of Filipinos, angry that their corrupt president might be let off the hook, converged on Epifanio de los Santos Avenue, a major crossroads in Manila. The protest was arranged, in part, by forwarded text messages reading, "Go 2 EDSA. Wear blk." The crowd quickly swelled, and in the next few days, over a million people arrived, choking traffic in downtown Manila. (Foreign Affairs)

The public's ability to coordinate such a massive and rapid response -- close to seven million text messages were sent that week -- so alarmed the country's legislators that they reversed course and allowed the evidence to be presented. Estrada's fate was sealed; by January 20, he was gone. The event marked the first time that social media had helped force out a national leader. Estrada himself blamed "the text-messaging generation" for his downfall.

It's a technology lesson that hasn't been lost on politicians, especially those behind in the polls and low on contributions. The political landscape is rife with examples. Battling well-known Democrat Martha Coakley for Ted Kennedy's Senate seat in Massachusetts earlier this year, the campaign of Republican underdog Scott Brown made extensive use of Ning to enlist local volunteers it dubbed Brown's Brigades. "We organized it based on towns starting with about 10 to 15 local brigades," explains Rob Willington, online director for the campaign. Interested voters joined the groups, engaged by staffer blogs and discussions on issues that concerned them. The campaign then used these members as a digital army to reach voters not on the network. "We didn't have enough money to have our own phone banks, for example, so we uploaded a file to the brigades and said we need help to contact these voters," says Willington. This virtual campaign office freed up staffers from more mundane and time-consuming tasks such as delivering signs. Online volunteers distributed them instead. (Washington Post)

"In the past, you would have needed hundreds of thousands of dollars to build a platform like that," says Ning CEO Jason Rosenthal. Ning charges as little as $2.95 a month. Unlike Facebook, which is free, Ning provides subscribers with a unique domain name and sophisticated website-like features, such as setting specific security and privacy controls, handling credit card donations, and allowing users to write blog posts that then can be promoted on larger services such as LinkedIn, MySpace, Twitter, and even Facebook. Craig Newmark believes this is just the beginning. Best known as the founder of Craigslist, Newmark also uses social media to seek justice for veterans. "I think this decade is pivotal in human history. Power is flowing from people with money and nominal power to people in large numbers unified by a common vision," said Newmark.

John F. Kennedy, a president who had worked as a reporter for the Hearst newspaper, understood the importance of media in the political world. The press said Kennedy once, “is a valuable arm of the Presidency.” It used to be that all politics is local. Now, all politics is viral. The change has been coming for a very long time, and if you look at history close enough you’ll see where people began to take a stance in this political world. Not only Americans, but people all across the world are leveraging technology to more fully engage in the political process.


Work Cited:

AMOS, SARAH. "Social Media Changes Politics in the U.S., Sparks Revolutions Around the World." ABC News. ABC News Network, 22 July 2010. Web. 25 June 2012. <http://abcnews.go.com/WN/youtube-facebook-twitter-social-media-revolutionize-politics/story?id=11230480>.

"Social Media’s Role in Politics." Washington Post. The Washington Post, 01 Feb. 2012. Web. 25 June 2012. <http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/on-innovations/social-medias-role-in-politics/2012/01/25/gIQAQvZgdQ_story.html>.

“The Political Power of Social Media." Foreign Affairs. N.p., n.d. Web. 22 June 2012. <http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/67038/clay-shirky/the-political-power-of-social-media>.