Click on the following links. Please note these will open in a new window.

Video Links

• Video 1: “The Medium is the Message” lecture by Marshall McLuhan: The dialogue gets more poignant as time goes on and the more questions are asked. We have the great privilege of looking back at his words now in the light of an entirely new medium; the Internet. Bear in mind he said all of this before the Internet was a medium that existed.

• Video 2: “Why people are buying cartoon cats on the blockchain”: Every time you send something on the Internet, it’s a copy. But using new technology, can we make digital goods that are . . . rare? That’s the question behind CryptoKitties, a new game to buy, breed, and sell digital cats on the blockchain. These cats are more like real-world collectibles like beanie babies or baseball cards than they are to cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin or Ethereum.

• Video 3: “Who Invented the Internet? And Why?” by Kurzgesagt: Who was the genius who came up with all of that? The Internet is such a crucial tool in our daily lives today that we hardly remember that it hasn’t been here forever. But yeah, it is actually not that old. We still have fuzzy memories about the time before the first thing in the morning was to check e-mail and browse our favorite blogs and YouTube channels. Well, let’s explore how the Internet came into existence and why.

Web Resources

• Web 1: The Internet, Explained: Walkthrough of what the Internet is.

• Web 2: Who Runs the Internet?: A detailed explanation on workings behind the Internet.

Audio Links

• Audio 1: Radiolab, The Ceremony: A group of people came together in an undisclosed location to launch a new currency. It’s an undertaking that involves some of the most elaborate security and cryptography ever done (so we’ve been told). And math. Lots of math. It was all going great until, in the middle of it, something started to behave a little . . . strangely.

• Audio 2: Radiolab, Eye in the Sky: An update on Ross McNutt and his superpower--he can zoom in on everyday life, then rewind and fast-forward to solve crimes in a shutter-flash. But should he?