EOTO #1 Communication Timeline (Wired and Wireless Telegraph)

The Wired Telegraph

Most People nowadays will use a communication device known as the smart phone. one of the most common smart phones out there is the iphone. there are also other smart phones out their like the absolute BRICK of a phone, The PK18 Smartphone made by Energizer (Its a literal brick).

But how exactly did we get here? Where did it all begin? Well to answer that question we have to take a step back in time to the 1800's. In this presentation I will be talking about the creation of the Wired and Wireless Telegraph. 

Samuel F.B. Morse

Way back in 1832 there was a New York University Professor by the name of Samuel F.B. Morse (Sound Familiar). Morse began working on his machine in 1832 this machine was called the Wireless Telegraph. This machine would send electric signals from one point to another using a wire. During this process he developed a communication language called Morse Code, which was a set of sounds that corresponded with letters in the English alphabet. By 1832 he was ready to present his idea to the U.S. Congress. Now it is worth noting that by this time many other people have claimed to have invented the wired telegraph and the reason why we give credit to Morse is because he was the first one to get political backing on the product. 

In order to send a message from one person to another there had to be a really long wire that went from one persons telegraph device to the other persons device. in 1842, with the help of congress, he build one of these systems from Washington D.C. all the way to Baltimore. And finally on May 2nd 1842 the first message was sent using the Wired Telegraph. 

"What hath God wrought" 

Later when Morse was spreading his invention to the rest of the United States there was a "problem" when communication with people. This was known as the Last Mile Problem. Even if you wanted to talk right to the person your communicating with, it still must go through someone else before it gets to you. Because of the cost, one of these telegraphs wouldn't be in your home, it would be in a building near your house which you would go to and request a message to be sent. Lets put it this way. You live in the great state of New Jersey and you want to send a thank you letter to your Grandma all the way in Florida because she sent you a gift. You would have to write down your thank you note, send it to the telegraph company near you. The telegraph company would then send the message to where it needs to go. That message is then received, re-written on paper and delivered to your grandmas house. Now, although that sounds like a lot of steps and a lot of time, it was still much faster than sending the letter through mail. 

Since Morse's invention the world grew much smaller. the main communication method hadn't changed in many years. It would have taken days or even weeks to get messages written on paper sent out across the U.S. and the world. However ever since the Wireless telegraph a message could be sent from the U.S. to London in minutes. This was also a big change in politics as well. This is beacuse most of their communication methods relyed on paper and pen to send their messages. Political figures would have to plan weeks ahead, now they didn't have to. 

Guglielmo Marconi with the Wireless Telegraph

In order to understand the Wireless Telegraph you need to understand something first. Like most devices nowadays, in order to send information form one location to another you need the electromagnetic spectrum. James Maxwell, A Scottish Physicist was the first to predict and theorize of the existance of the Electromagnetic spectrum. Later a man named Heinrich Hertz, using Maxwells theories, would discover and prove of the electromagnetic spectrums existence. He did this by sending sparks from one side of a room to another. 

Moving into 1895 Guglielmo Marconi began his experiments for the Wireless Telegraph. Marconi is viewed as the father of and credited with inventing the wireless telegraph. in 1895 he filed a patent for his machine which was approved of later in 1897. Of course he used the electromagnetic spectrum to help build his machine. Here is how his invention worked. He would give one person a receiver which was set to a certain frequency. another person had a transmitter set to the same frequency as the receiver. The frequency would move from the transmitter and find its way to the receiver. Marconi then found a way to disrupt this frequency which the receiver detects. Now the human voice could not be transmitted across this system which is why Morse code would still be used. Marconi would go on to create two companies. American Marconi, and British Marconi. Later American Marconi would be renamed to The Radio Corporation of America and British Marconi would turn into General Electric, later renamed to Marconi plc. 

Like the Wired telegraph the Wireless telegraph would continue to allow people to communicate faster with one another. However the Last mile problem would be solved as these devices could be placed directly into ones home. This invention would also put the Wireless Telegraph out of business although Morse code would still be used. 

 

Eight Values of Free Expression

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The first speech theory that I believe is most important is #6 Promote Tolerance. In recent years there have been a lot of people trying to silence each other based on what they believe and say. 

The most common argument that You will see is about Transgender people and other people that don't comply with the standard "Male" or "Female" roles. In addition, its mostly those who are a part of the LGBTQ community that try to "Shut up" people if they disagree with their way of thinking. 

Now I am a firm first and second amendment advocate. Im going to just go right out there and say it. The LGBTQ community isn't tolerant and respectable of others. Personally I believe that Transgenderism is a mental disorder. Its when you try to say that out loud where the Trans community yells and screams at you and doesn't want to listen. They even go as far as to "cancel" you if you try to say it. 

These are not the signs of a tolerant community at all. If we want to live in a society that is tolerant with one another than we need to be able to say what we want to say (as long as its first amendment approved). 

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The second speech theory that I most agree with is #5 Check on Government Power. Recently there have been a lot of evidence of government censorship on both social media sites and news sites. although with news sites its more up the the publisher rather than the government. 

One of the most recent examples is the twitter files. This is where the government influenced the censorship of people who used twitter. overall there is a massive problem with the government violating our amendment rights however not many people know that because they themselves don't know what the government can or cannot do. 

Ways we can fix this issue is for everyone to understand their constitutional rights and those who do know their rights to fight against the government. This will only go so far however, as we have seen in the past and now, the government has no fear in blatantly censoring those who oppose them. Another way we can combat this is by getting new representatives in both congress and the senate. 

All of us have the right to freedom of speech, and no government can take that away from us. if the government takes that right away from us then it basically demolishes all of the other values that are on this list. Without freedom of speech then society as a whole will plummet 

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SCOTUS History Reflection: The Supreme Court

Because this assignment is similar to one I did last semester for our "Talking About Freedom", I have a a decent amount of knowledge of the Supreme Court. However last semester I believe I watched the two videos, so for this assignment I will read the article by the History Channel. It will be interesting to se how the article differs in information from the videos. 

When talking about the Supreme Court, usually we talk about more modern day cases and those from the civil rights era. However not much is said about the early days of the Supreme Court. more specifically how it was organized to how we know today. One of the things that I didn't know about the Supreme Court was the fact that they had their first official meeting on February 2nd 1790. The meeting was initially scheduled for February 1st but was postponed until a day later due to traveling issues. This is one of those pieces of information that serve as a fun fact. What I don't understand however is that for the next 100 years or so the Supreme Court justices had to hold a circuit court twice a year. This was eventually abolished due to traveling issues. The part that I don't understand is if they were having traveling issues constantly over a 100 year period, why wasn't this rule improved to accommodate the issue? This is also one of the surprising things that I learned while reading the article. 

One of the key takeaways that I read was about how members of the Supreme Court are elected. The President has the power to nominate an individual for the position but its the Senate who takes the vote. However there is also a key point of information that I believe is missing. Although the President can nominate an individual, he can also appoint an individual under certain circumstance's. Article 2 section 2 clause 3 of the constitution says that the following.

"The President shall have Power to fill up all Vacancies that may happen during the Recess of the Senate, by granting Commissions which shall expire at the End of their next Session."

This can mean while the senate is in recess the President has the power to appoint a new Justice for a short while. This is called a Recess Appointment .

As stated previously, I already knew a lot of information about the Supreme Court from last semesters class. This would mean that my thoughts on the Supreme Court haven't really changed all that much. However, with the new information that I have learned about Recess Appointments, I would say that has changed my thinking a bit. Not only can the President appoint a justice while the senate is on recess but the person he appoints doesn't need to have any prior knowledge in law. Seems a bit weird in my opinion but I guess thats just how it is.

Top Five Sources of News and Information

With the new technologies and applications we have today, there are a lot of sites and sources you can use to get current news and information. My views of News sources are very different from others in my class and my friends. In my personal opinion its more important to know the truth rather than knowing ones opinion. I have heard a lot of people say "Oh I read news from both Fox and CNN in order to get both sides of the matter" or something similar to that. I however really only read/watch news from sources that speak the truth and give us the truth. That being said, here are my top five sources of News and Information. 

#1: Twitter/X

With Elon Musk's takeover of Twitter in 2022, and renaming it X, he has made many change to the app so that it was more about free speech and expression. X is a app where I could get the headlines of most news information from all of the sources listed below. The main reason why I use X is because I can follow news sources and get the headlines for their articles, without having to go to each website and read through them all. This allows me to click and chose which articles i'm interested in. For example I can scroll past the articles saying "Buried Treasure" (yes this was a headline by Fox) and find the articles that say "Trump wins the state of Maine". Almost all of the news I find on Twitter give quick summary of the article so that I can read it, understand it, and move on. This allows me to consume more news at a faster rate. Another thing that I like about this app is that it has a feature called "Community Notes" which lets the viewer know if there is any misinformation or missing information in a post. Someone on X actually made an account called Community Notes Violating People which is fun to look at from time to time. 

#2: Fox News 

I tune into Fox News mainly to see the world news that is currently happening. World news is mostly the same across all media platforms as there isn't really a way to manipulate the information in one favor. The other news I get from Fox is Political News.  Fox News is known to provide more accurate information about current topics. There are some articles I have read from both Fox and CNN where CNN has severly downgraded the issue and information as it doesn't appeal to their beliefs. Meanwhile Fox releases the the truth and the whole truth. As stated in my opening I have heard people say "Oh I read news from both Fox and CNN in order to get both sides of the matter" or something like that. But in this situation I would much rather the whole truth and explanation rather than hearing ones opinions on it. To me the Truth is more important that ones opinion. 

#3: The Daily Wire 

The Daily wire is more of a conservative/republican news source and I put this on here because it aligns with my beliefs and I think what they have to say is really funny. Im going to say this to start this is not a news source for everyone. some of the things that are said in these articles and shows would be considered bad or could get them "Canceled" as their views do not align with the "World Views". The Daily wire has both news articles, as well as, pod casts. The pod casts are what i listen to most often, some of the more frequent ones are "The Ben Shapiro Show" and the "Matt Walsh Show". The host of "The Ben Shapiro Show", Ben Shapiro, talks more about politics in his podcast as well as world/American News. He talks about new policies the current president or congress is putting into place as well as general news around the world and the U.S. involvement in them. "The Matt Walsh Show" on the other hand talks more about local news, the news you would see on the inside of the newspaper rather than the front page. He also talks about cultural, religious and political issues that are currently taking place. 

#4: ESPN

As someone who is involved in the sports production industry, it is important to know what is happening in the sports industry. ESPN provides live stats from all sports events that are happening that game and in the past. As I am typing this I am streaming the Big South Tournament, HPU vs Radford, through ESPN+. If you are into sports ESPN supplies you with live scores and statistics that can help you follow the game if you aren't there in person. ESPN is also free to use across all platforms. Another reason why I mention ESPN is because all of HPU's D1 athletic events are streamed directly to ESPN+. 

#5: TikTok

Surprisingly there are a lot of different content creators on TikTok who make videos on current events happening around the world/country. One of the people, or rather fish, that I listen to is T. McTrout, from the Bikini Bottom News. Yes this is a real thing and yes it is actually the news fish from SpongeBob. Somehow someone made the fish a TikTok account that shares current events. Unfortunately the account has been banned for an unknown reason. The other news account on TikTok is a user called Dylan Page. Dylan makes short videos in order to give the listener a simplified explanation of current events. He also doesn't pick sides and is a completely unbiased news broadcaster. One of the other things thats nice about this user is that he doesn't just broadcast the big picture news, he also broadcasts smaller, less known news, that may still have an impact on our lives.