ms 111b final from notebook

According to James Beniger, what historical period experienced a 'crisis of control' due to the growing complexity and speed of information processing straining manual systems?

The 1880s.

What invention from 1889, patented by Herman Hollerith, dramatically increased the speed and volume of large-scale data processing for tasks like the U.S. Census?

The electric punch-card tabulator.

Beniger identifies four distinct and well-developed types of information-processing hardware available by 1890. Name two of them.

Desk-top calculators, digital computers (like Babbage's Analytical Engine), analog computers, and punch-card processors.

According to Beniger, Herman Hollerith's punch-card system was inspired by the 'punch photograph' used on what form of transportation?

Railroad tickets.

What was the primary benefit of Herman Hollerith's punch-card system for the 1890 U.S. Census compared to the 1880 census?

It saved an estimated $5 million and two years of time, despite the census being more extensive.

In the 'Culture of Happy Summary' (1920-1945), what was the growing sense about information that differed from the 19th century's 'thick flow of fact'?

That information was becoming overwhelmingly complex and needed to be condensed or summarized.

What magazine, first published in 1923, exemplified the 'culture of happy summary' by offering a concise and breezy summary of the news for busy people?

Time magazine.

The _____ guides, started in 1935 by the Federal Writers' Project, were designed in opposition to the fact-heavy Baedeker guides and aimed to tell a story with local color and photography.

American Guide

In museum design during the 1920s and 1930s, what new model replaced rows of specimens, aiming to create a compelling, lifelike representation and tell a story?

The diorama.

What was the core argument of Gestalt psychology, which influenced the 'culture of summary'?

That the human mind has a biologically rooted tendency to grasp information simply and elegantly, perceiving wholes as well as parts.

What 1925 book by R. A. Fisher introduced the idea of random representative sampling, contributing to the 'reduction of data'?

Statistical Methods for Research Workers.

According to Cmiel and Peters, what is 'promiscuous knowledge'?

The ongoing negotiation and blurring of the line between elite/expert knowledge and popular knowledge, marked by a simultaneous reliance on and suspicion of expertise.

What key change did activists force the American Psychiatric Association (APA) to make to its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) in 1973?

The removal of homosexuality from the list of mental disorders.

What was the 1973 David Rosenhan study, 'On Being Sane in Insane Places,' widely taken to demonstrate about psychiatric authority?

It suggested that psychiatric diagnosis was unreliable and that institutions could not distinguish the sane from the insane.

What unethical, decades-long study, exposed in 1972, fueled widespread distrust of the medical establishment, particularly within the African American community?

The Tuskegee Syphilis Study, where African American men were denied treatment for syphilis to serve as a control group.

The 1975 Federal Rules of Evidence changed the standard for expert testimony from being 'generally accepted' by the scientific community to what new standard?

The testimony only had to be 'relevant' and 'reliable'.

What was a defining characteristic of the AIDS activist group ACT-UP's strategy in the 1980s?

It combined effective street theater with solid insider knowledge of the scientific and regulatory issues involved.

The controversy surrounding the Smithsonian's proposed _____ exhibition in 1994 is an example of outsiders (veterans' groups) successfully pressuring a knowledge community (professional historians).

Enola Gay

According to Cmiel and Peters, digital culture encourages declining respect for which of Aristotle's three sources of persuasion?

Ethos (the authority or credibility of the speaker).

What 1968 publication by Stewart Brand, a mix of self-help, technofuturism, and user-generated content, foreshadowed the do-it-yourself spirit of cyberculture?

The Whole Earth Catalog.

According to Matthew Kirschenbaum, what ideal was present from the very inception of word processing?

The ideal of perfection, promising flawless efficiency and an electronically perfect final text.

What was a common anxiety among authors and editors regarding the 'perfectly typed' look of early word-processed manuscripts?

That journeyman authors would be tricked into thinking their work was more finished or polished than it really was.

What key difference, as noted by Ivan Flores, did word processing introduce between the act of hitting a key and the printing of information?

It broke the direct mechanical relation, creating a temporal and locative gap between key press and inscription on paper.

Friedrich Kittler argued that with word processing, words stopped being mere signifiers and instead became what?

Executables (a sequence of letters could start the execution of a program).

Who is the best-selling author, nicknamed 'The Word Processor,' known for his prolific output and use of coauthors, who ironically writes his drafts longhand?

James Patterson.

According to Lisa Gitelman, what 1960 invention was not just a new method of reproduction, but was 'invented by users and on the fly' who found myriad new uses for it?

The Xerox 914 photocopier.

In what way did Daniel Ellsberg 'edit' the Pentagon Papers during the photocopying process?

He removed the 'TOP SECRETâ€"Sensitive' classifications from the margins.

Gitelman argues that the name 'the Pentagon Papers' had a specific effect on the document's perceived authorship. What was it?

It suggested the papers sprang from a giant filing cabinet (the Pentagon) rather than from specific, identifiable authors.

What is the term for the folk humor (mock memos, cartoons, etc.) circulated via photocopiers in offices, collected by Alan Dundes and Carl Pagter?

Xerox-lore (or photocopy-lore).

What legal principle was at the center of the 1973 case Williams & Wilkins Co. v. United States, concerning photocopying of scientific articles by the National Library of Medicine?

Fair use.

Gitelman argues that xerography is a way of reading that helps produce _____ as such, within the disciplinary structures of modern bureaucracy.

documents

What was John Lions's 'Commentary on the Sixth Edition UNIX Operating System' famously known as in computer science history?

The most photocopied document in computer science.

According to Gitelman, what key shift in the user's relationship to a document did the transition from mimeograph to xerography represent?

It shifted from a central operator producing many copies to individual users making copies for themselves, personalizing the process.

N. Katherine Hayles uses what term to describe the fluctuating, dynamic interconnections between humans and computational media where meaning-making circulates?

Cognitive assemblages.

How does N. Katherine Hayles define 'cognition' in a way that is not restricted to humans?

As a process of interpreting information in contexts that connect it with meaning.

Hayles identifies a term to describe the era in which computational media have permeated the printing industry, a change that became dominant around the year 2000. What is this term?

Postprint.

What late 19th-century invention, which bankrupted Mark Twain, represented an early vision of moving print production from human craft to a hybrid human-machine assemblage?

The Paige Compositor.

The invention of _____ in the mid-20th century marked an ontological break in book production, shifting the material basis from metal type to light bursts on photographic paper.

phototypesetting

What was the first book to be produced entirely by phototypesetting in 1953?

The Wonderful World of Insects by Albro Gaul.

What key technology did Xerox's DocuTech machine (early 1990s) merge with reprographics to make print-on-demand possible?

Desktop publishing.

In the postprint era, what is the fundamental legal difference between buying a physical print book and purchasing an e-book text?

One buys ownership of the physical book, but only a license to access the content of the e-book.

According to Paul Edwards, the thinkers at the RAND Corporation during the Cold War inhabited a '_____ _____,' where calculations and abstractions mattered more than experience.

closed world

The development of what massive, computerized air defense system in the 1950s exemplified the Cold War 'closed world' discourse?

The SAGE (Semi-Automatic Ground Environment) system.

Who coined the term 'cybernetics,' defining it as 'the scientific study of control and communication in the animal and the machine'?

Norbert Wiener.

What is the core principle of a 'feedback' loop in cybernetics?

It allows a system to modify its own activities by taking into account the effects of those activities.

During WWII, the immense computational needs of what top-secret U.S. project drove the development of early computers like the ENIAC?

The Manhattan Project.

The job title for the (mostly female) workers who performed complex calculations for the military before the invention of automated machines was '_____.'

computer

The Cold War nuclear strategy concept, based on game theory and the assumption of rational actors, that was heavily modeled by computer simulations is known as _____.

Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD).

What did Claude Shannon's master's thesis famously establish a connection between, transforming circuit design into a science?

Boolean logic and electrical switching circuits.

What is the Oxford Dictionary definition of 'bureaucracy'?

A type of organization marked by a clear hierarchy of authority, the existence of written rules of procedure, and staffed by full-time, salaried officials.

According to Karl Marx's early writings, how does the paperwork of bureaucracy refract reality?

The most patent reality appears illusory compared to the official reality depicted in dossiers, which is given the character of the state.

In psychoanalysis, what is a 'parapraxis'?

A minor error in speech or action, such as a slip of the tongue or pen, believed to offer clues to repressed thoughts and desires.

What was Friedrich Nietzsche's famous observation about the relationship between a writer and their tools, cited by Friedrich Kittler?

'Our writing tools are also working on our thoughts'.

According to Kittler's analysis, the typewriter desexualized writing by replacing the 'very male stylus' and the intimacy of handwriting with a standardized, mechanical process, opening the information economy primarily to what labor force?

Female workers (typists).

What three products did E. Remington and Sons, the first commercial manufacturer of typewriters, produce?

Rifles, sewing machines, and typewriters.

What fundamental difference exists between analog and digital signals?

Analog signals are continuous, while digital signals are discrete, broken down into bits (0s and 1s).

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz developed the modern binary notation system after being inspired by correspondence with Jesuits about what ancient Chinese text?

The I Ching (Classic of Changes).

Ada Lovelace, collaborating with Charles Babbage, was the first to recognize that the Analytical Engine had the potential to reason about things other than what?

Numbers.

What is the term for metadata that appears within a text but is not part of the main body, assisting readers in navigation and consumption (e.g., table of contents, index)?

Paratext.

In contrast to paratexts, what is the term for data about a text that may not appear within the text itself and might contain information irrelevant to a reader?

Metadata.

The U.S. Department of Defense's ARPA created ARPANET to address what critical vulnerability of centralized communication networks?

Their vulnerability to a nuclear first strike; a decentralized network could continue to function even if parts were destroyed.

As described by Vannevar Bush in 'As We May Think,' what was the 'memex'?

A conceptual desk-like device for storing and retrieving linked information through associative trails, a precursor to hypertext.

When UC Berkeley students in the Free Speech Movement re-purposed IBM punch cards, what were they 'radically subverting,' according to the lecture slides?

Bibliographic norms and expectations.

The practice of publicly burning what document during the Vietnam War era was an act of denying the state access to both bibliographic and physical bodies?

Draft cards (Selective Service registration cards).

According to Lisa Gitelman, the meaning of a document is not inherent but is a 'mode of recognition instantiated in _____.'

discourse

Copying serves two significant mediating functions. What are they?

Archive (preservation, storage, evidence) and Access (communication, dissemination, openness).

How did the Xerox 914 photocopier alter the labor conditions of copying compared to earlier technologies like the mimeograph?

It decentralized copying, allowing individual users to easily and quickly make copies themselves, which made documents more fluid and accessible.

Why were the 1970s a key period for the rise of 'promiscuous knowledge'?

A series of events and movements (Watergate, Tuskegee Study, feminist critiques) led to a significant decline in public trust and deference to professional and governmental authority.

In the evolution of printing, what machine represented a failed attempt to automate too much cognition at once, whereas the simpler Linotype machine succeeded?

The Paige Compositor.

What is the term for the bibliographic information (e.g., commands, headers, code) required to locate, retrieve, and display documents across computer networks, which is often hidden from the user?

Bibliographic barbed wire.