In class there was a discussion about the various speeds of Internet throughout the world. The main point that was made discussed the fact that even though the United States had access to Internet before South Korea – South Korea has a far faster and superior Internet network. I can personally attest to that statement as I have lived in South Korea. The South Koreans that I met would often laugh at what us “Americans” thought was fast Internet speeds. In short – we have nothing on “Naver”.

The reason why nations like South Korea have faster Internet speeds over the US is because the US Internet structure was built decades before South Korea built theirs. As such, we move off of a slower system than South Korea. We are starting to rebuild this infrastructure through systems like Verizon Fios. The interesting fact about this is that the Internet is a tangible system with actual hardwire networks and not something invisible.

Consequently, there has been a push for wireless networks known as WiFi to become more assessable. Now, airlines such as American Airlines have provided WiFi services to their customers. This is showing just how effective and necessary Internet has become that even people on planes have the need to access it. However, these advancements do not come without it’s own security concerns. The Internet has become a source for the black-market trade, terrorist networks use the Internet to plan and execute missions and propaganda and finally nations have now established cyber warfare that is a real security concern to national security

Storing data is an issue that was discussed in class and Professor O’Malley used General Meigs issue with it after the civil war and after thought it is still very much an issue today. Consider the amount of information we encounter on a daily basis whether they are photos, videos, articles, papers and various other forms of information that inevitably requires… ahh you got it – storage!

My issue is with storage for my phone – I get notifications daily that I am at the data limit for my iPhone storage. I then proceed to save everything to my laptop, then delete off my iPhone which creates whole new storage issue on my laptop. Recently I have found online storage databases such as dropbox and google-drive – but do I really trust those? Or I have external hard-drives but even those will fill up eventually and the practicality of using 3-4 hard-drives to access your files is a bit tedious. Trust me – I have been there plugging and unplugging devices to find one item.

The results could very well be found in finding ways to make information store in smaller files (but that would have to be done by folks who are way superior in the digital arts than myself). As technology continues to grow at rapid speeds do we have the availability to meet those demands…. Otherwise what is the use if we cannot properly utilize it?

Just plain talking… does that make you feel as the pit of your stomach does during the rapid descent from a distance that would make the clouds cringe…? 😉

Learning about “Courtly” and “Plain” speaking concepts – the former being the indirect approach to conversation where individuals play with words such as in the Shakespearian era and even sometimes I found in Civil War correspondence was playful and entertaining. The latter can be attributed to the now where the attention span of individuals is often said to be less than 30 seconds where conversations are more direct and to the point. Those concepts made me think of certain aspects throughout moments in my life where without consciously thinking about it I witnessed those types of conversations.

It occurred to me that there were several times in conversations where very intelligent individuals expressed topics in a very “courtly” manner. For instance, I was at a dinner with several friends who by chance were all alums from “ivy league” schools. While I was impressed with how the words and the art in which they decided to express their thoughts and ideas – I constantly had to battle my mind to digest what exactly their aim was in the conversation. Should conversations be that “_ _ _ _” difficult? I look back and wonder why did we just dance for five minutes regarding a question that could have been asked, processed and answered within half the time it took to present it. I guess it could be a show of power regarding their education status or maybe this type of conversation was instilled upon them. Then again, maybe I just was not up to par! 😉

And yet on the other side of the spectrum – I have lost all faith in the art of communication with certain people who do not hold the slightest ability to hold a meaningful conversation. Is the ability to hold a conversation (meaning through back and forth dialogue) and the way in which we speak our thoughts two separate issues or tiers of a bigger issue? I don’t know… the “courtly” concept keeps me entertained and is interesting but it can dissuade some people from entering the conversation or even worse — the inevitable fear of “getting lost” or “keeping up” may be an issue. Conversely, the “plain” concept if not careful could be far too bland and definitely will and has (I’m a victim) lead to awkward silences.

I guess awkward silences are good — if you are a reporter. I remember the famous reporter Mike Wallace saying something to the tune of how he would ask questions and then when the interviewees would answer he would then give around 4-5 seconds of silence. He found that often times they would divulge more information due to the awkward silence that ensued. That’s pretty “plain” and direct to me.

Either way — There is room for both in moderation. I even think it would be great if people could flow back and forth between “courtly” and “plain” conversations. Some would call this “wit”…

Thoughts?

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