This class focused more on the informational developments of the American military industrial complex.  During and after World War II, basic mechanical and then later electrical mechanisms were developed to assist in the war effort.  Mechanisms such as the firing solution “computers” on battleships and the advanced bomb sights of American B-29s came about out […]

The topic for this class was the phenomenon of cross-training present in American music during the twentieth century.  It was first introduced, as much is in this class, by discussing the minstrel show.  How musicians of all colors in American industry would “put on acts” to reenact the minstrel shows, and how this is the […]

In this meeting we discussed the theory that what you personally interpret from a message is ultimately irrelevant to the actual informational content of the message, in a strictly informational sense. The example of Google was used, Google uses –grams of letter combinations to convey search queries and to compile results, something which I did […]

In this class we discussed America’s “military industrial complex” and how it created the society we live in today.  First coined by President Eisenhower in early 1961 to describe American society’s increasing focus on the buildup of military power during the Cold War.  During this industrial concentration on tools of the military, many important advances […]

In this meeting, the idea of self introduced in the previous class was expanded upon.  Specifically, how the idea of self has changed as societies changed in relation to the public sphere.  The other sense of self that was introduced was the different aspects of a person that manifests in the written word, as opposed […]

This big topic for this class was slavery.  More specifically, “why are we no longer allowed to “own” another human, even through the “owned” person submits themselves to the others service, as in indentured servitude?”  That was an interesting question to pose to the class, most response followed the “slavery is wrong” argument, but then […]

This class, we discussed how the perception and treatment of the natural world changed with the introduction of modernizing ideas and inventions near the turn of the century around the late 1800s.  These technologies included standardization of time, electric light, and telephones. The most notable idea, or technology, was an industrialized process called “scientific management.” […]

In class today, and for the readings, the subject of “sound normalization” came up.  I learned, because I had not heard of this phenomenon before, that in recent musical history the trend has been to modify the pitch and volume of music to a more standardized level.  For instance, if a song containded a piano, […]