In the beginning of class we talked about how music is different in today’s time due to the African decent of music. We listened to a couple songs and talked about the different beats and accents in music. This was nothing new to me since I played the violin for years but I thought it was really cool to hear the live performance when everyone was clapping on the wrong accented beat. I hate going to a concert and nobody knows how to clap on the right beat and together, so I can only imagine how the performer felt to hear that in the crowd. After discussing this topic we moved on to talking about minstrel shows. This was an entirely new topic that I was not familiar with. A minstrel show is when white men would dress up in white gloves with black face paint and exaggerated lips. Only white people could attend these comic shows and that makes sense due to the sensitivity of the subject. I personally feel that these minstrel shows are quite strange but I guess it was normal in the beginning of the 19th century when these came about. At the end of class we looked at how minstrel characters exist even in today’s society. Mickey Mouse and Bugs Bunny can both be considered minstrel characters. Mickey has white gloves and black ears and bugs bunny has white gloves and exaggerated lips. Until next class!

I thoroughly enjoyed today’s lecture and it got my mind thinking. When you think about it noise is usually just the background sound that we don’t pay any attention to it’s the sound that is distracting us from what we are doing. As humans we are always looking for signs and “signals” to let us know that its time to do something or somethings happening, etc. The example that Professor O’Malley provided in class really helped me to grasp the signal and noise concept. The example was when we go to ask or mom or parents a question and mom doesn’t give us an answer she just starts to lecture. The question would be a signal and the lecture is noise. It is the difference between what we want to hear and what we don’t want, which would just be noise. I’ve always thought that as people with higher education we shouldn’t think of questions only with a yes or no answer, but like you said in class any problem can be reduced to a yes no question. It just makes everything more simple and is a less complicated way to answer a question. The one thing that I am still having a hard time understanding from class is the concept of information being related to uncertainty and the more uncertainty, the more information. The U and Q example didn’t help me understand this at all either. I guess my brain can’t grasp on to this concept. Overall I really enjoyed the lecture on signal to noise ratio.

Even though we had a short class and discussion today I still thought I wold post a little blurb about what I thought. Well for starters I thought that video about the reality of a firefighters life was just hilarious. It made absolutely no sense for woman to pass out when she saw that there was fire, or for the child to not wake up, and then for the firefighter to be spraying water around randomly. I guess movies back then were just supposed to be on the funny and not realistic side of things. Then we watched a glimpse of the beginning of saving private Ryan and we discussed how movies in today’s time era are not realistic. They are made to pull on the viewers emotions not portray something that is realistic. Technology has shaped us into thinking and transforming our minds to accept these movies. It was pretty cool to see the differences in movies from back in the day to now. I mean I could never sit through a movie with no sound at all. The last few moments of class we began talking about how you cant “own” us like people did indentured servants before the civil war. When you asked the question of “why can’t I own you” the first thing that came into my mind was because it’s against the law…duh. Then you started to challenge us and asked besides that why not. Honestly that is where you lost me and then began to explain the concepts of having two selfs. I’m still pondering on what that statement means to me exactly, but until I know for sure i’m just going to leave this post as it is. Until next time.

Class today was kind of a review on a lot of the basic stuff we all have been taught since we were in elementary school. The beginning of the railroad system and telegraph in 1840. The railroad industry gave hundreds of people jobs when times were tuff. With the creation of the railroad the way of life began to change and it was the beginning of a new era. I’m not gonna lie hearing about the railroad, telegraph, and electric light was slightly boring and it was hard to stay focused. It is always nice to hear about how the world became the way it is today. I did think the image with all of the telephone lines was cool to see! They had so many different lines going in every direction and in todays time we just have one on both sides of the street. The one topic in class that I found very interesting was the discussion about time zones. I guess I had always known that their just wasn’t time zones from the beginning of time, but I never really put much thought into it. If I lived back in the day it would drive me crazy having to rely on the sun to know what time it was. I guess they were just use to it and didn’t know any other way. Even though daylight savings time drives me crazy and takes a couple weeks to adjust, overall it has made life a lot easier. Our history on the world and inventions are incredibly important and I hope that they never stop teaching this in elementary school because every generation needs to know how technology, time, and space came about.

When I signed up to take this class I was just trying to avoid taking IT104. I knew the class was called the digital past but I didn’t have the slightest idea of what exactly we would be covering. We have only had two classes with Professor O’Malley but I can tell that he is going to make this semester intellectually stimulating. I come from the south so when O’Malley started playing old country music on Tuesday I knew I would like his class. I have a little background in reading music, but it has been a few years. I played violin from 5th grade to senior year. The main point of discussion yesterday in class was the concept of compression. I thought it was very cool to hear music from years ago and compare what we heard to some of today’s pop music. In Katy Perry’s Firework song she starts off by singing quietly and then at the chorus she is basically yelling, however; her actual overall volume never changed. Where as we listened to Aretha Franklin’s “Say a little prayer” and her volume changed throughout the highs and lows of the song. I personally have never thought about this when listening to music. I am one to jam out to my music in the car whether it be a sad song or a hyped up song.  I just always thought that the differences in music was a change in generations and the types of songs people sang. Towards the end of class we touch on the idea of the concept of idealism vs. realism, this is what caught my attention the most. I was raised in a christian home and am a baptist, so I guess you could say that i’m a realist. Professor O’Malley said that religious people who believe in something not in this world are classified as a realist.

Sarah White