Biella Coleman: The Limits of Technological Uses
In the past and for my hacker course, I have taught Paul Ceruzzi’s History of Modern Computing but the book was a little too dry to fly high with first year students but thanks to Joe Reagle’s excellent syllabus on the Impacts of Technology, I read a short but very sweet (and teachable) piece by him entitled An Unforseen Revolution: Computers and Epectations that not only gives a window into the early history of the computer but provides a very nice conceptual entry as to why it is hard for inventors of a new technology, such as the computer, to foresee and fully come to terms with its future uses, full range of capabilities, and utlimately its impact.
Basically the context of invention combined with the training of inventors (which in this case, the first American digital computer, the ENIAC was invented by a physicst and an engineer for mathematical computing) stitches and thus initially limits the vision (and thus use) of the technology largely to its original purpose, while precedding technologies provide the conceptual juice drunk to understand the meaning of new technologlogies. So while today we clearly think of computers as a meta-machine, that can be whatever-machine-in-the-world-we-so-desire (so long as someone programs it to be that machine), in its time, with people so accustomed to machines as having one function, the cultural imagination was stuck. As Ceruzzie humorously conveys, a machine having such general capabilities seemed absurd, like a toaster that could sew buttons on a shirt. But the computer was just such a device; it could do many things its designers never anticipated. p. 126
With the passing of time came new innovations (Ceruzzi identifies new developments in programming as key in this regard) and use in new settings (notably businesses), the stitches were loosened and finally unraveled so that the computer came to take on the meaning it has acquired today.
One perennial topic of inquiry in the field of STS concerns how particular contexts and other factors shape new meanings, visions, and uses, or just limit them, along with unearthing the labor that goes into making new inventions or scientific theories more generally accepted. This is a great little piece to teach incoming students about some of these concerns in STS, and without a lot of heavy-handed anything.
And to make the project of teaching really fun, add this short clip from the Muppets, where Dr. Bunsen Honeydew totally ignores the Very Large Gorilla about to gobble him up because of his blind faith in technology.
days of class survived: 3.5
![[info]](http://stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
![[dialing phone]](http://ximg.scru.org/images/althea1.jpg)
With daring and finesse, they commandeered an IP phone.
![[talking on phone]](http://ximg.scru.org/images/althea2.jpg)
After 45 minutes of trying to add value, they failed to bring it to the
table, since one major oversight was that they lacked any capacity to
generate speech. H las ! cried the one that wasn't translucent at all,
and he did so silently.
![[typing on keyboard]](http://ximg.scru.org/images/althea3.jpg)
Cleverly devising a backup strategem, they rushed to a computer to send some
emails. Unfortunately, Outlook crashed on them six times, and then they
were, like, totally diverted by a fascinating exchange between two guys named
BJ and William. By the time they managed. To send their first email. Which
they typed like this. Because the little guy on the period key. Had a tick.
It was too late.
![[STD transmission]](http://ximg.scru.org/images/althea4.jpg)
Oh, you poor, foolish things! If only you had used free software, she wouldn't
be giving you oral herpes right now.
