My History with Digits

I'll preface by repeating something I once read: "hypocrisy is a tribute that vice pays to virtue." If so, maybe blogging is the tribute that vanity pays to public expression. As few would find my strengths in any of those things, I beg indulgence and patience in this my first(!) blog.

Describe my history with digitization? Okay, easy enough. For the purposes of this exercise, Quinn defines digitization as, “...the process of taking things that are accessible in the physical world, like writings on paper, pictures on film, sounds on a radio, video from a television, and making them accessible in the digital...”. It is a definition mindfully tailored for this assignment, which is both accessible and simple without being simplistic. And I would be bereft to think of one better. But phrased like that, it becomes complex to survey my history with digitization. Not so easy after all.

To me this definition hinges on two factors: conversion and access. Digitization is the act of converting or shifting one format into another and then, more significantly, making the object accessible. When did I start doing this? Just considering this question perplexes my memory. Disposable simplifications and absurd aimless abstractions aside (though, what else are blogs for) I'm not sure I can determine a point in my life when I wasn’t digitizing or being digitized. Even if I focus literally on binary to bolder type situations, a history is difficult to describe.

For the purpose of the exercise, I'm guessing a I should address the question with a measurable benchmark. Okay, so, in High School I built a computer. I did it to play games. Back then you could build a fast computer at a third of the price of what you could buy prebuilt. It was an agonizing experience and one I didn't actually enjoy all that much. After all, it was an means to an end: the games. Unfortunately, having the determination to throw some keyed parts together, after hours of trial and error, (I blame legos) gave people the mistaken impression that I was a “computer guy.” And from that point forward, I have been working with computers on a technical level. Many of the issues people would enlist me for related to scanning or format conversion. I've done a fair share scanning solely in the pursuit of teaching. I love computers now. And not just for games or spell check. 

Though, this is merely the “college application” version of my digital experience. As a snapshot, it is blurry and trite and wants elaboration.

My earliest memories involve all sorts of now lost “computers” like the family PC, my NES or my awesome Casio digital watch. I'm guessing this experience is common for anyone under 35. I can still hear my speak n' spell rewarding my clumsy finger presses with its charming electronic drone. Maybe some cynic would argue that this has nothing to do with digitization. After all, there wasn't an output—a converted object that is accessible and interactive. I would reply, in a self-couscous, half-ironic yet defiant tone, that I was the output.

Time with these machines shaped my behavior, personality and understanding of how the world sometimes worked. How it SHOULD work. The physical and the digital were interwoven in the tapestry of my life. They still are. The ability to draw a line of demarcation between them, to be able to say “this is digital and this is physical” is a model that I adopted to better communicate with adults. I firmly believe that few things now are pure and untainted by a digital-physical seepage. I know because I am a product of this interdependency.

I believe that computer networks are re-socializing society. My young self's naive notions of the natural interlocking features of the digital and physical worlds are playing out very dramatically now. Both in the possible dusk of the internet “as-we-know-it” and the dawn of a new “digital” library. The carbon paper to compressed file, paper to petabyte, (etc) type of digitization is an integral part of this ecosystem.