Kudos to Mona Leiter for her top-notch Owl & Ibis – A Confluence of Minds presentation on October 2, 2021. In her “Computers and the Internet: The World They Have Created – Is It Worth It?” Mona was superb in presenting objective information about the history of computers and the Internet, her analysis of its impact including her personal experience, and her point of argumentation in answering her question “Is it worth it?”
What follows is a note from Mona with links to material she presented.
Great job, Mona!
Jim
}:> & ~:)
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NOTE FROM MONA LEITER
Here are some related links to my Owl & Ibis presentation on Computers and the Internet.
1. A video essay about the movie 2010 which was the sequel to the classic 2001. This essay features spoilers. So if you think you might want to watch the movie first go ahead and then this is a great essay about it. This is the movie where Hal the computer has a redemptive story arc. I really love 2010 and own the DVD and have watched it many times. It came out in the mid-1980s and has great visuals and acting (Roy Scheider, John Lithgow, and Helen Mirren lead the cast). For once it is a sci-fi movie of hope and not a dystopia. https://youtu.be/N8CxmraQzBI
2. Here is a video essay on Sneakers. It is a 1992 ensemble comedy heist thriller that truly is one of my all-time favorite movies. I again, have the DVD, but I cannot tell you how many times I have watched this and it never gets old. I love the acting, the story, the music. It is a complete delightful gem. And it came out right before the internet took off. I cannot recommend this movie enough and the video essay is a sampling of what it is all about! (It stars Robert Redford, Sydney Poitier, Dan Ackroyd, Ben Kingsley and more. Everyone brings their A game to this and seem to enjoy working together). https://youtu.be/-9q_UvScmWg
3. Some asked if the Johnny Cash Project I shared about in my presentation was still accepting drawings. It does not look like it but here is the link to read about it and see the music video. https://www.radicalmedia.com/work/the-johnny-cash-project
4. Here is a link to the full music video for the virtual choir of 17,572 singers from 129 countries coming together using our modern technology to do something that could not have been possible 30 years ago. Eric Whitacre’s Virtual Choir 6: Sing Gently https://youtu.be/InULYfJHKI0
5. Here is what I mentioned in my presentation that Abba – my favorite group of all time is back together after 40 years! This video shares the high-tech way they are coming back to us – in a way that will live on. It is truly amazing as they worked with Industrial Light & Magic (the special effects company Star Wars director, George Lucas, started in the 1970s) on this project. I and fans all around the world watched live on September 2, 2021, when this video debuted along with the launching of two brand new songs and the announcement of a full album! Us fans thought they would never record one song again together let alone a whole album! https://youtu.be/OE8aSnhzTfQ
6. A website I must recommend if seeing the images and videos about the internet in its infancy may have made you nostalgic – check out this site: https://archive.org/about/
They have a feature on here call the Wayback Machine. The Wayback Machine is a digital archive of the World Wide Web. It was founded by the Internet Archive, a nonprofit library based in San Francisco, California. Created in 1996 and launched to the public in 2001, it allows the user to go "back in time" and see how websites looked in the past. Its founders, Brewster Kahle and Bruce Gilliat, developed the Wayback Machine to provide "universal access to all knowledge" by preserving archived copies of defunct web pages. Since its creation in 1996, over 613 billion pages have been added to the archive. The service has also sparked controversy over whether creating archived pages without the owner's permission constitutes copyright infringement in certain jurisdictions. [Wikipedia]
7. Here is the website for the company bringing virtual reality to seniors. https://www.rendever.com/
Movies featuring computers and the internet:
The Desk Set (1957)
2001 (1968)
The Computer Who Wore Tennis Shoes (1969)
Tron (1982)
Wargames (1983)
2010 (1984)
Sneakers (1992) - written by the same writers who did Wargames
The Net (1995)
The Matrix (1999)
And just one more thing…. My favorite character of all time is Columbo – so here is Columbo with a computer. It is from a 1975 episode, A Deadly State of Mind with George Hamilton: Columbo and Computer - Stat of Minds - Etat d'esprit – 1975 https://youtu.be/SEPgMhqUuvs
Mona
