Exploring the Internet

1. Exploring the Internet 91.113-021 Instructor: Michael Krolak

2. Tonight • The Internet and Your World • Display audio and video • Creating an Image maps

3. Class Announcements • Scavenger Hunt has been posted.

4. Blog of the Week here is no doubt in my mind that the United States came to be what it is today because of the hard work and unwilling drive of our founding members. I know this because I am up to date with American history. But the question I ask now is, how are our american lives going to be translated into history years down the road? I see my generation of Americans becoming fat and happy, and by this I mean that a huge percentage of the working class America are all focused on extrinsic goals (pay, free time, and benefits) rather than wanting to be motivated by working better and reaching full potential as our founding fathers were. These men had beliefs in wanting to make a free land for people to escape their tyrannical and unfair governments. Our fathers succeded in this and not only did they succeed, but they also created the most powerful, rich and looked upon country in the world. Now the U.S. is no longer the top manufacturing countries in the world mainly because our workforce is too smart and paid to high. Wouldn't you think that a country made up of exploiting pieces of other countries all over the world would want to give back to the nations that have helped us develop into what we are? NO why? Because of greed, filthy immoral greed. For instance I work in the Umass Lowell computer labs; a job where I can do all of my homework and whatever the hell else I want to if I so choose, and my pay is higher than 50% of the the average workers across the world. My pay is higher than most people that actually create tangible products. That fact bothers me because I dont do shit while people bust their asses to make the clothing that I am wearing right now and get paid less than me.

5. Blog O the Week (cont.) “What I propose is that our country starts to give back, screw our economy lets help the economies that we have taken advantage of to get us on the top. Wouldn't you think that would be a better long term goal than to use up all our resources until we have to create war with some other country to exploit their resources. Why don't we focus on spreading a better standard of living to places that we know need help. I know this is an astronomical task but, try looking outside of your fantasy world and start focusing on the greatest good for the greatest number of people. There is going to be a time when the U.S. is not on top and all those who have worked hard to overcome the nation will shit on us just as we have shit on them, and I cant blame these people. Because when this happens all of us Americans will be so wrapped up in our fantasy worlds that we will just lay down and die, because we are so fat and happy with the way things are. I love this country but I feel that being on top presents many more responsibilities than we are handling right now. After seeing the power of blogs, I think I am now willing to make a commitment to helping enforce my ideas and collaborating rather than sitting back and just bitching like the countless others among us. START EXERCIZING AMERICA “

6. Follow Up from Last Class “CNN is the sixteenth member of the U.N. Security Council,” said Madeleine Albright ruefully. Its decisions about what to cover have enormous consequences for international diplomacy, she said. The political terror and human rights abuses of Sudan and Angola were not on television, so they were largely ignored. Somalia was on television, however, and that prompted a faster, more dramatic U.S. response.” Source: http://www.carleton.ca/cifp/docs/netpolitik.pdf

7. Maps.Google.com

8. What is Globalization? globalization n. 1. The growing interdependence of countries worldwide through the increasing volume and variety of cross-border transactions in goods and services and of international capital flows, and also through the more rapid and widespread diffusion of technology 2. The rapid integration of economies worldwide through trade, financial flows, technology spillovers, and cross-cultural currents Source: http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/WEOMAY/chapter1.pdf & http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/WEOMAY/chapter3.pdf

9. Agricultural Age (? – 1760)

10. Columbus was looking for a faster trade route to India when he “discovered” America. Global Trade Routes (1500)

11. Industrial age (1760 – 1970) • First Industrial revolution 1760 – 1870. • Second Industrial Revolution 1870 – 1970. • Rise of the nation state • Inventions such as the steam engine and railroads decreased transportation time and costs

12. Globalization’s Impact on Costs “It cost 177.5 pence to ship a quarter (eight bushels) of wheat from Chicago to Liverpool in 1868; by 1902, that same shipment would cost barely one fourth of that (46.5 pence). International trade rose dramatically, helped by these falling transport cost as well as tariff reductions. These factors combined to even out many price differences: in 1870, for example, wheat was 58% more expensive in Liverpool than Chicago, but by 1895 the gap had narrowed to only 18%.” Source: http://www.imf.org/external/np/speeches/2004/060204.htm

13. Realpolitik • The term was coined by Otto von Bismark to mean, the politics of reality, or the practical. The theory holds that one should use foreign affairs to advance practical needs, rather than religious or cultural alliances. • Also considered to be the pursuit of nationalist interests over principals or ethics.

14. Barriers of Trade • Tariffs - An added cost when you bring a good across a border • Non-tariff barriers to trade • State subsidies, procurement, trading, ownership • National regulations on health, safety, employment • Quotas

15. The Berlin Wall At the same time, final victory in the Cold War and the first major U.S. foreign policy victory of the Information Age coincided as the Soviet Union and its satellites began to crumble. While there were several sources of pressure leading to these collapses, it is now widely acknowledged that an important one was that it became impossible to continue to operate a closed society in a world economy in which competitiveness was increasingly predicated on access to information and information technologies. It may well be that as history looks back on this period, it will also note that recognition of the requirement that a nation be plugged into the world and open to information flows was what led Deng Xiaoping to begin the concurrent process of opening China. Source: Cyberpolitik: David Rothkopf, in “Cyberpolitik: The Changing Nature of Power in the Information Age” (Journal of International Affairs 51, no. 2 [spring 1998]: 325–59)

16. North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) • Effective January 1st, 1994 • End of tariffs between the countries of North America. • Concerns were that • Poverty would increase in Mexico • Jobs would be lost in US and Canada • US would stop building branch plants in Canada

17. What is Outsourcing? 1. The delegation of non-core operations or jobs from internal production to an external entity (such as a subcontractor) that specializes in that operation. 2. A business decision that can be made for quality or financial reasons. A subset of the term (offshoring) also implies transferring jobs to another country, either by hiring local subcontractors or building a facility in an area where labor is cheap. Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outsourcing

18. Where are they Off-shoring?

19. TOP 20 COUNTRIES WITH HIGHEST NUMBER OF INTERNET USERS Source: http://www.internetworldstats.com/

20. CyberPolitik “Today, those pillars of power are being shaken by tectonic shifts that are transforming the very nature of global society. Nation states are facing new rivals for power and influence on the global stage. Power itself is being redistributed, taking new forms and new characteristics. The rules of the game in international relations are changing and the origins of an extraordinary number of those changes can be traced to the Information Revolution.” “The actors are no longer just states, and raw power can be countered or fortified by information power. The mighty will continue to prevail, but the sources, instruments and measures of that might are dramatically changed. ” Source: Cyberpolitik: David Rothkopf, in “Cyberpolitik: The Changing Nature of Power in the Information Age” (Journal of International Affairs 51, no. 2 [spring 1998]: 325–59)

21. The Virus of Freedom “Today, the marriage of computers and telecommunications has ushered in the Information Age, which is as different from the Industrial Age as that period was from the Agricultural Age. Information technology has demolished time and distance. Instead of validating Orwell's vision of Big Brother watching the citizen, the third revolution enables the citizen to watch Big Brother. And so the virus of freedom, for which there is no antidote, is spread by electronic networks to the four corners of the earth.” Source: “Bits, bytes, and diplomacy”Walter Wriston(Foreign Affairs, Sept-Oct 1997 v76 n5 p172(11)

22. Is Freedom Coming to the Middle East? Source: http://www.internetworldstats.com/

23. What is the Digital Divide? digital divide n. 1. A social issue referring to the differing amount of information between those who have access to the Internet (especially broadband access) and those who do not. The term became popular among concerned parties, such as scholars, policy makers, and advocacy groups, in the late 1990s Also referred to as the digital split Source: http://www.websters-online-dictionary.org/definition/DIGITAL+DIVIDE

24. International Internet Traffic Source: http://www.internettrafficreport.com

25. Sec. Albright’s Story In the midst of her travels as Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright decided to venture off the standard diplomatic tour and visit the local market in Bakhara, Uzbekistan. “For all intents and purposes it could have been in the 15th century,” she recalled. “It was a big camel market, with rugs that looked liked they had been hanging there for a long time. Dust and all that.” “I decided that I would go to what I thought was one of the more exotic shops, where they were selling spices of different kinds. As the guy was describing all these spices and making little paper cones to put them in, I asked him to tell me what spices would go with what foods. And he said, ‘Great, but just let me give you my e-mail address and we can stay in touch.’ ” Source: http://www.carleton.ca/cifp/docs/netpolitik.pdf

26. Implications of the Digital Divide The United Nations Development Report warned that the gains in productivity produced by the new technology may widen differences in economic growth between the most affluent nations and those that lack the skills, resources and infrastructure to invest in the information society: “The network society is creating parallel communications systems: one for those with income, education and literally connections, giving plentiful information at low cost and high speed; the other for those without connections, blocked by high barriers of time, cost and uncertainty and dependent upon outdated information.” (UNDP 1999: 63). Echoing these concerns, UNESCO emphasizes that the North-South divide may be exacerbated in a situation where most of the world’s population lacks basic access to a telephone, let alone a computer (UNESCO 1998). Source: http://ksghome.harvard.edu/~pnorris/acrobat/psa2000dig.pdf