Andrew's Internet History Blog

The Feltron Annual reports were very interesting to me, albeit kind of frustrating at the same time. The interesting part of the reports were the abundance of information that they held within, ranging from significant events in Felton’s life to very minor details. The amount of information available in the reports was boundless. The problem I had with the reports was basically exactly what I found interesting about it. The amount of information tended to clog the pages to the point that it was hard to really get a handle on each piece of information. However, the different medias used to convey all the information were entertaining to look at and study, and with a more conservative approach rather than a very liberal spraying of graphs and charts the report would have been excellently concise and informative, but all in all it seemed to try and show off a little too much what ways it could convey the information it had.

What I found most interesting about today’s reading, “The Differences Slavery Made: A Close Analysis of Two American Communities”, was the early on introduction of arguments and viewpoints that suggested after all was said and done, slavery was to some degree a necessity for America to continue. I can’t say I completely agree with this but it is nonetheless an interesting notion. I certainly don’t like that slavery occupied such a long part of our history, and in a lot of ways still defines us to this day. But, when one thinks about the timeline where slavery had not existed in America, a very common historical outcome to think about, it’s interesting to consider the negative effects that such a timeline would have had on America. Would it have seriously harmed America’s overall progression and advancement? Would it have seriously damaged America’s economy? Would certain technologies not have come about without slavery? These and others like them are all very interesting questions to think about and that is why I found the early part of this article so very interesting.

In the modern age a lot of what we do is tied to the internet. We pay our bills online, keep in contact with family and work online, and use the internet as a huge social media for ourselves. The fact is: the Internet has control over us, whether we want to admit that or not. But, it’s scary to think that something that has control over so much of our lives can be broken so easily.

When reading the 2 articles about passwords and security there were a lot of questions that popped in my head. Obviously, internet security is simply a rough fought game of building the next best mouse trap, and subsequently building the next best way to break said mouse trap. The scary thing learned from the articles is not the ratio of passwords to accounts and how many passwords are used again and again, but how non-inventive these passwords really are. I can say for myself that I have at least 20 accounts for various websites out there ranging from financial to leisure, and that I reuse my passwords often, but I can at least say my passwords are on the harder side to crack based on GMU’s guide to password security. I remember hearing about bank account PINs a few days ago and hearing something very startling. The 3 PINs of: 0000, 1111, and 1234 make up roughly 20% of all bank account PINs in America. That’s a horrifying thought when you figure with probabilities you have a solid 20% chance to break into any bank account you may be trying to hack. However, the problem with strong vs. weak passwords is the challenge of remembering them. Security sites give you advice to use pneumonics with punctuation and numbers mixed in, but with the average person having so many accounts, it’s just impossible to remember them all. Remembering 2 to 4 isn’t a huge deal, but then you’re still dealing with the problem of overusing your passwords. A fix you could say is to write them down to remember them, but that’s not exactly safe either. The conclusion I’ve come to with password security is that no matter what you do, you’re not going to be safe, you can only pray and hope that you’re not the next hacking victim.

Cohen and Rosenzweig’s “Digital History” talks about copyrights and how they’re used, abused, and all other aspects of the copyright laws that exist today. To our generation this is a completely relevant concept as our generation grew up with the internet, and subsequently, were around for and the most exposed to the introduction of music pirating. The outbreak of pirating caused a great deal of turmoil for music artists, especially those struggling to get by. The fact of the matter in the recent past was that with the introduction of the digital age and thus digital music, what was the point of going to the store and paying $10 to $20 for a CD when with one click of a button you could get the same thing for nothing?

However, through all of this, I found it especially intriguing when considering the video about the “Amen Break”, a 6 second drum loop introduced in a 1969 song but subsequently used in widespread fashion for many years afterwards. When I first heard the loop, I recognized it immediately, and while I can not pinpoint specifics songs that use the Amen Break, I nonetheless know that there are many out there that use it. This got me to thinking about subliminal advertising in regards to music samples and music loops. Clearly one can attach some sort of meaning to a mere 6 second loop of a drum solo, as is done with the Amen Break, but can that be used somehow to subliminally advertise for oneself? That is to say, if another music sample is formally linked to a certain song and/or musician, can that loop be used in other songs and provoke thoughts of the original song, thus advertising in subliminal fashion for that song and artist?

The Wikipedia article I chose to judge is centered around my topic regarding MMORPGs. The article covers a lot of information about one such game known as Star Wars: The Old Republic (abbreviated SWTOR). I have a good amount of experience with the game itself as I played it for a little over half a year. However, the purpose of highlighting such an article is not so much for the game itself, but the information about such a game. To start off with, here is a link to the newest version of the article: .

After reviewing the latest version of the article and looking through some of the early on revisions of the article as well as the article’s creation back in 2008, it was very interesting thinking about the development of information available for the game. When a new MMORPG is announced there is almost always next to no information available about the game besides the title (and that sometimes isn’t even given) and a couple key facts. The most interesting thing when viewing a Wikipedia article about an MMORPG, is sifting through which information was actually released by the game’s developers, and which information is just added or elaborated on by random users. Therein lies the struggle between the validity of information. Nonetheless, the demand for information on a new and upcoming MMORPG is very high, as gamers want to know every little detail about the game, and to see the information evolve and be released over time is quite an interesting happenstance.

When reading the article about evaluating web sites I found myself really thinking about the concept of “currency” as detailed by the author of the article. The author introduces this concept outright by defining it and explaining its importance by stating, “The currency or regularity of updating information is vital for some types information and less so for others.” I find this concept very interesting and absolutely true, as many websites need to constantly update themselves not only to maintain factual accuracy but also to maintain their viewers as any article invested in the accuracy and reliability of their information finds great importance in the amount of people that use their website.

However, what I found really interesting was applying the currency concept to the most obvious example of such a concept, Wikipedia, and analyzing the process of currency. The video by Jon Udell was quite interesting in highlighting the revision process that takes place with each and every Wikipedia page. The most interesting part of the video, when considering the concept of currency, is observing when someone revises a page and inputs false information (whether intentionally or unintentionally) and the aftermath of such an occurrence. It was entertaining to see the speed at which such information is not only taken out, but also corrected, and its really puts into perspective the amount of people that could certainly be viewing even the most obscure of Wikipedia articles.

I am an avid and passionate gamer, I can not deny that fact. So, my idea here is to come up with a research topic centralized around gaming, specifically online computer gaming.

1.) How did the breakout of MMORPGs (Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games) impact the world at large and is that impact still holding true today?

2.) How did the introduction of articles about MMORPGs impact the games themselves?

3.) MMORPGs soared with the introduction of World of Warcraft, but there were many MMOs that preceded WoW; How did those games help to shape WoW and MMORPGs themselves?

This is the heading……I hope.

I’m told that this blog post can be about anything, so I think I’ll talk about the fact that this is the first time I’m using HTML on WordPress. Not surprisingly, this is more difficult to do than I thought it would be. I kind of wonder about the benefits of using HTML in the first place, though with the Internet at my disposal I’m sure I can find the answer to that question with a simple click of a button. Nonetheless I find the use of HTML fairly interesting, as what I’m used to on WordPress is just simply typing out a blog and posting it.

My WordPress Experience

Believe it or not I’ve done some article writing for the Internet. Specifically, I’ve published articles for a gaming website known as Lagwar. Here’s a link to one of the articles:

Accompanying it is a picture from the article:

I wrote articles about:

• Games in general.
• Certain aspects of games including gameplay and graphics.
• Innovations that games had within them.

But, I don’t have a whole lot of experience with tweaking the appearance of a blog.

I’ve only done the following really:

1. Color
2. Theme
3. Time Settings

Regardless, I hope this experiment with HTML works out well, I know I’ve been previewing it the entire time to see if I made any mistakes =).