Questions for Weekly Readings and Quiz Response

3 Questions From the Readings: Week 1

1. What does it mean to be a "technocognoscenti"? (Rheingold, Tools for Thought - ch. 1)

2. How would Babbage's Analytical Engine read the punched pasteboard cards? (Rheingold, Tools for Thought - ch. 2)

3. How did Bush conceptualize the "Memex" in 1945?  The idea seems so ahead of its time!  (As We May Think)



 3 Questions: Week 2

1. In Resisting Technology: Regaining a Personal Ecology, What does Agarwal mean by "the reversal of climate exchange"?

2. "Ten corporations worldwide control over 75% of pesticide sales."  Why doesn't Agarwal provide proper citation or footnotes for this type of information?

3. "Starting from the unitary encounter of the Self with the Other, there is, in the dynamic of the encounter, a
sensation of flow (and of a lack of flow)."  (Hopkins, Architectures of Participation)  What does it mean to simultaneously have a sensation of flow and a lack of flow?



Week 2 Quiz

The effectiveness of social media as means of inspiring socio-political change is hit-or-miss at best.  For 

every story of its success in one country, there is a story of its failure in another.  The determining factor seems to be the response of that country's government.  If the government of that country chooses to use 

censorship and/or violence, then that socio-political movement will fail.  In the words of Clay Shirky, The 

main function of social media in its current form is "commerce, social life, or self-distraction" and not inspiringsocio-political change.