Comp in Society chap 1 in both books and sir slides

Telecommuting

What is telecommuting and how does it affect work?

Working remotely using digital networks, which reduces travel time and allows more flexible work hours.

Hidden cost of digital networks

What is a hidden cost of digital networks?

Hidden cost: the workday can expand when the workplace is always reachable, making it harder to separate work from personal time.

Career Risk with Digital Networks

What is a career risk associated with digital networks?

Career risk: less visible people may receive fewer informal opportunities for progression

Globalization in relation to Telecommuting

How does improved communication relate to globalization?

Improved communication allows companies to sell to a global market and coordinate work across borders

Opportunity in relation to globalization

What opportunities does globalization create for companies?

new markets and allows for distributed collaboration

Risk pertaining to globalization

companies may move jobs away from home countries, shifting costs and insecurity onto workers

A network can________________________________

A network can connect people more efficiently while still producing unequal relationships. Connection is not the same as fairness

Disadvantage of Digital Networks

employers can use IT systems to track calls, keystrokes, websites, and workplace email. This connects directly to the professor’s concerns about labor, surveillance, and unequal power.

The Web: Democratic Infrastructure or an Authoritarian Tool?

How can the Web give ordinary people more opportunities to participate and have a voice? Democratic Possibilities

Networked publishing can lower barriers to participation and let people share ideas, organize, learn, and challenge official narratives. Access to information beyond local institutions; new channels for speech, association and public debate; global collaboration and community formation.

The Web: Democratic Infrastructure or an Authoritarian Tool?

How can the Web’s same ability to connect and distribute information also be used to control people and limit what they can access, say or know?

Authoritarian Possibilities

The same infrastructure can support censorship, surveillance, disinformation, targeted repression and control over what people can see or say. Filtering and blocking; monitoring of communications and identities; manipulation of attention and political narratives.

Technology Does Not Determine Political Outcomes

What determines whether the Web expands or restricts freedom?

Technology does not decide the political outcome by itself. Governance, ownership, design, law and collective action shape whether a network expands or restricts human freedom.

CARICOM - CTU

What was the significance of CARICOM establishing CTU?

CARICOM Heads of Government established the Caribbean Telecommunications Union (CTU) in Nassau, The Bahamas, in 1989 to support regional telecommunications coordination and integration

Caribbean Milestones / Connectivity and Digital Divide

1998

Costa Rica inaugurated the first Intel factory in Central America, shifting the region’s role in the global supply chain.

Caribbean Milestones / Connectivity and Digital Divide

Legal Frameworks

1999 Electronic Transactions Act (Barbados); 2003 Electronic Communications and Transactions Act (Bahamas); 2000s regional adoption of e-commerce and  digital-signature laws

Caribbean Milestones / Connectivity and Digital Divide

What factors affect meaningful digital connectivity int the Caribbean?

Connectivity, Skills, and the Digital Divide: The East Caribbean Fiber System interconnects 14 islands. CARCIP focuses on digital skills, entrepreneurship and job creation. The notes identify affordability, reliability and gender inequality as barriers to meaningful connectivity.

What is the digital divide and what factors contribute to it?

The digital divide is the gap between those who can access and benefit from digital technology and those who can not

Tablet, Tally and External Memory

Why mark information?

Marking information makes it more reliable because it is externalized outside the human mind. This allows the marks to be checked, compared, retrieved, and stored without distortion. It also allows a procedure to be repeated reliably.

Tablet, Tally and External Memory

What were tally marks used for?

Tallies used repeated marks to track objects, events, debts or elapsed days.

Tablet, Tally and External Memory

What were ancient clay tablets used for?

Ancient clay tablets provided durable surfaces for accounting, inventories, calendars and administration

What did ancient water clocks and geared mechanisms represent?

They represented recurring astronomical relationships

What was the Antikythera mechanism used for?

It used gears to calculate the positions of the Sun, Moon and planets and predict eclipses.

How did geared mechanisms represent data?

They transformed one pattern of motion into another, representing data through physical variables.

What are mathematical tables and why were they useful?

They are a form of stored computation that let users look up prepared results instead of calculating from scratch

eg:

Logarithm tables → look up prepared logarithm results

Tables → used for interest, currency conversion and taxes

Who was Al-Khwarizmi and what is he associated with?

A 9th-century Persian scholar whose work helped spread Indian numerals and influenced algebra and algorithms.

What is the golden principle of stepwise problem solving?

Break down the problem into atomic steps, arrange steps in logical sequence, solve each element separately, execute steps in correct order ( BASE)

How did mathematical tables move computational effort?

Work shifted from repeatedly calculating results to creating and verifying the table once.

How can tables influence decisions?

Their categories and assumptions can affect how users interpret information and make decisions.

What is the Internet?

The global network infrastructure of hardware and protocols that connects computers and devices.

What is the World Wide Web?

A service built on the Internet that uses browsers to access linked documents and information.

What is TCP?

Transmission Control Protocol; helps data reach its destination reliably and in the correct order.

What is IP?

Internet Protocol; provides addressing and routing so data can travel between devices and networks.

What is ubiquitous computing?

Computing is embedded throughout daily life and available almost everywhere, such as through smartphones.

How do smartphones demonstrate ubiquitous computing?

They combine computing for communication, navigation, media, and other everyday activities.

What is cloud infrastructure?

Distributed data centers provide storage and processing that users access through networks.

What are AI and machine learning used for?

They infer patterns from data to recognize speech, generate text, and support decisions.

Why do AI and machine-learning tools require ethical oversight?

They raise concerns about privacy, including how personal data is collected, used, and protected.

What are key Caribbean computing milestones?

Early 1960s: universities/foundations; 1989: Caribbean Telecommunications Union and regional integration.

What were Napier's numbered rods used for?

They supported multiplication and division through a range of products.

How did Napier's rods change calculation?

They externalized repetitive arithmetic, while the user still performed the procedure.

How do logarithmic scales help slide rules?

They turn multiplication into addition of distances.

What were slide rules good at, and what was their limitation?

They were fast and powerful for engineers, but results were approximate and required trained interpretation.

What was the Pascaline?

A 17th-century mechanical calculator using interlocking wheels for addition and subtraction.

Why was the Pascaline developed?

Partly to reduce the practical burden of tax calculation and accounting.

What did Leibniz's Stepped Reckoner extend?

Mechanical calculation toward multiplication and division using a stepped drum mechanism.

How did the Jacquard loom use punch cards?

Punch cards encoded a sequence of holes that controlled which threads were raised, creating patterns.

Why is the Jacquard loom an early example of programmability?

It separated the machine mechanism from the pattern/instructions it executed.

How did automation affect labor and control?

Stored and reusable patterns reorganized workers' skills, autonomy, and bargaining power.

What was the Difference Engine?

A fixed-function mechanical calculator designed in the 1820s to automate mathematical tables and reduce human error.

What was the Analytical Engine?

Babbage’s 1830s general-purpose, programmable machine; a conceptual forerunner of the modern computer.

What were the main components of the Analytical Engine?

Mill (arithmetic/logic), Store (memory), input/output, and control flow

What made the Analytical Engine resemble a modern computer?

It included memory, input/output, instructions, loops, and conditional branching.

What did Ada Lovelace contribute?

Her 1843 notes included an algorithm for calculating Bernoulli numbers, intended for execution by the Analytical Engine.

Why were punch cards important?

They separated the machine mechanism from the instructions/pattern it executes, an early idea of programmability.

What was Ada Lovelace’s most profound insight?

A machine could manipulate symbols according to rules, not just perform numerical calculations.

How did Lovelace connect the Analytical Engine to other forms of information?

She realized that music or logic could be encoded, allowing the engine to work with patterns like a loom.

Why did mechanical calculators become valuable in industrial society?

Large organizations needed current, comprehensive, reliable, and affordable information for sales, payroll, inventory, and production.

What was the organizational consequence of mechanical calculation?

Calculation became part of a standardized office workflow, preparing the way for later data-processing systems.

Who was Herman Hollerith and what did he develop?

A punch-card system that automated the processing of large numbers of records.

Why was Hollerith's system important to the 1890 U.S. Census?

It processed millions of records, reducing the task from years to months.

What marked the birth of information systems?

The shift from simple calculation to large-scale data processing for institutional decision-making.

What was the input-process-output of Hollerith's system?

Input: punch cards → Process: tabulator → Output: subtotals.

How did mechanical data processing affect clerical work?

It increased speed and standardized procedures, while contributing to deskilling and gendered restructuring of bookkeeping.

What is Hollerith's connection to IBM?

His tabulating machine company eventually became part of the corporate lineage that formed IBM, helping establish automated data processing in business.

IBM System/360

A major commercial computing milestone associated with a compatible family of computer systems.

How did mechanization affect bookkeeping work?

It increased clerical work for women, while lower wages, occupational segregation, and managerial control reshaped whose expertise was valued.

What problem did cash registers address in department stores?

They provided reliable records across many clerks and transactions while helping prevent inaccurate reporting and embezzlement.

How did a cash register record and monitor transactions?

Printed receipt: customer’s record.
Transaction log: store’s record for checking and reconciliation.
Bell: signaled when the drawer opened.

How did cash registers affect trust and accountability?

They made transactions harder to conceal, increasing trust and accountability while also increasing managerial surveillance.

Why are cash registers considered a milestone in computing/information technology?

They mechanized part of recording and checking transactions.

What is a Turing Machine?

A theoretical model with a tape, read/write head, and rules that defines what can be computed by a procedure.

What was Turing's role in wartime codebreaking?

At Bletchley Park, Turing and colleagues developed the Bombe and contributed to wartime codebreaking.

What was the Turing Test?

The Imitation Game, proposed to evaluate whether a machine could demonstrate intelligent behavior.

How did Turing's work connect theory and practice?

It bridged abstract mathematical logic with practical electronic computation.

What were Colossus, Harvard Mark I, and Zuse's computer?

Colossus: special-purpose electronic codebreaking system. Mark I: large electromechanical calculator.
Zuse's 1938 machine: mechanical binary programmable computer.

What was ENIAC?

A 1945 general-purpose, fully electronic computer developed at the University of Pennsylvania.

What made ENIAC significant?

It used about 18,000 vacuum tubes, was about 1,000× faster than Mark I, and was programmed by manual rewiring.

What characterized first-generation computers?

Vacuum tubes, room-sized systems, high power consumption, intense heat, and low reliability.

How did first-generation computers handle storage, input/output, and processing?

Magnetic drums: primary memory; punched cards/magnetic tape: input/output; batch processing: jobs submitted in batches.

What was batch processing, and what was its limitation?

Jobs were prepared offline and processed in batches; users had no direct interaction, and an error could require hours or days for a rerun.

What is Hollerith’s system an example of?

An institutional data-processing pipeline: input → process → output.

What happens in a data-processing system?

Input: records → Process: sort, count, and calculate → Output: tables, reports, totals, and classifications.

Why are categories in data processing not neutral?

What is recorded, omitted, or how someone is classified can affect how they are treated.

What was UNIVAC I?

A 1951 commercial computer developed by Eckert and Mauchly that expanded computing into government and corporate offices.

Why was UNIVAC important?

Its success showed computers could process complex social data and helped spur IBM's entry into the commercial computer market.

1952 election

UNIVAC correctly predicted Eisenhower's victory on live television, making the computer widely known.

What characterized second-generation computers?

Transistors replaced vacuum tubes, making computers smaller, more reliable, and less power-hungry.

What was the importance of magnetic core memory and magnetic disks?

Core memory provided faster random access; magnetic disks allowed direct access to stored information.

What characterized third-generation computers?

Integrated circuits (ICs) placed multiple components on one chip, making systems smaller, faster, and more reliable.

What was the interactive shift?

Keyboards and screens enabled direct interaction; time-sharing allowed multiple users to share one computer.

What were terminals and minicomputers important for?

Terminals enabled remote access to central computing resources, while minicomputers expanded access to computing.

What did the microprocessor change?

Putting central processing functions on one chip made computers smaller and cheaper, helping create the mass-market computer.

What was the shift in personal computing?

Computing moved from institutional mainframes to individual ownership, with systems like the Altair, Apple II, and IBM PC.

What was the digital divide?

Differences in access to computing caused by resources such as money, electricity, and training.

What did the fourth generation transform the computer into?

From a scarce institutional resource into a ubiquitous personal tool.

What programming languages made programming more productive?

FORTRAN (1957) for science and COBOL (1959) for business; they were more machine-independent than lower-level languages.

Software generation order

Machine Code → Assembly → High-Level Languages → Object-Oriented/GUI → Web & Cloud Apps

how did the microprocessor help enable ubiquitous computing?

The microprocessor helped enable ubiquitous computing because processors became small and inexpensive enough to be embedded in everyday devices.

What was the role of operating systems?

They managed hardware resources and provided a software layer between users and physical hardware.

What did BASIC (1964) change?

It made programming more accessible to students and time-sharing users.

What is time-sharing?

It divided processor time among multiple users, making expensive computers more efficient and affordable to access.