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This is my first post about a project from our trip to California. If you want to read about our trip, that post is attached below.
This post is going to be more about the research two of the projects that we did when i. California. So, our first place we visited in California was San Diego. This was also the place where we made our first project. Before we left we made our own groups, and pitched ideas about places that we wanted to make our project about. Me and my partner Ryan decided to do a podcast about the USS Midway.
The USS Midway was an aircraft carrier, it was the first carrier built after WWII, and it inspired a whole new class of carriers, called the Midway Class. We spent almost a whole day at the museum, which, by the way, is just the ship. That’s how big it is. These boats really are floating colonies, with over 4,000 crew, 90 planes, and 900 feet. That is one of the reasons that Ryan and I wanted to make a project about the Midway, it was so pivotal in the growth of how aircraft carriers looked and were run.
After it was built, it kept changing though. The English had changed their carriers, they angled the deck. This made it easier to land planes and takeoff, so they removed the deck and must on a new one. 6 years she was back in the water, with the same technology as the British, but because they had made this thing an island compared to the other carriers, it was ahead of its competitors.
This is all what jump started our project before we even got there. And, when we got there it just got better. When you make a podcast like this, what can make our break it is the interview(s). And ours made it. When we were at the Midway, there was a little booth set up. At this booth, you could talk to a WWII Veteran! So, of course we had to interview him. That was one of the coolest things that I have ever done, just taking to Ray, and listening to all of the knowledge he had to share with us was ally something special. Also, a WWII Veteran? That makes a podcast interesting, so we were super happy to get an interview with him.
I am super happy that Ryan and I chose the Midway, it was so amazing to see what a real life megastructure can become after its long service in the navy. All of this culminated into our podcast, and because of our experiences, we took that and made a post-war technology informational podcast, if that makes sense. If it doesn’t, then have a listen.
We have been making podcasts all year, it is after all, the focus of this year. But, this one felt different for me. I think that isn’t because in the last podcasts I have made they have been made about something that I already know about, or something that I had to do research about. For this one it is a project about what I learned in a completely new environment then where I normally learn. This made it more enjoyable because I was not just interested in the final product that I would have for produce, but I also enjoyed where I was and what I was doing when I was there. So, in the end this was one of my favorite podcasts to research, record and create.
The final part of this unit was to write and essay, the point of this essay was to answer the question, throughout history, how has technology acted as a disruption? This was a way to cap off our unit, as well as to show our understanding of the idea of Disruption. Thor was written a couple weeks after we returned from California, so we had those experiences also to call upon in our essays.
Earlier in the unit we had read a book by Cory Doctorow called Little Brother. That book sim about teens using technology in the future to fight against injustice. We were to use that as one of your sources for our essay. The other two could be whatever we wanted. I decided to use Apple, Cory Doctorow’s Litt Brother and Undefeated to answer that question. This essay was written over the course of two classes, I spent the first one writing, and the second one revising and proofreading. Below is the essay that I wrote.
Disruption Essay
Adam Gerbrecht
February 28-March 1
What is technology? It is a tool, a tool that helps us in our everyday life. That is what technology companies do, they create products that are supposed to make our everyday easier or more entertaining. Technology has changed our lives in so many miraculous ways, but, throughout history, society will always twist and disrupt technology to build or change a product. This is true in personal technology, startups, and even the world of shoes. When the technology successfully changes us, we always use it to completely change and disrupt again, whether the brands are with us or not.
This even carries to non-fiction books, like Cory Doctorow’s Little Brother. The main character Marcus learns that he is constantly under surveillance from the government unfairly and unnecessarily. So, he takes a video game console, the XBOX Universal, and makes it work for him. Using the technology he was already given in the XBOX, he creates the Xnet. The Xnet is a place in which players use the XBOX Universal to communicate and play, without the government looking over their shoulders. This is just the start. To show their resistance against the government, they organize a concert/protest, through the Xnet. This is to show their resistance and voice against the injustice they feel they are facing. At the protest, the police force responds by pepper spraying the giant mob of children and teens, but then they work the story so it makes it sound like the kids were making the situation unsafe for the public. So, Marcus and his friends use social media to create a second protest, as well as using firsthand footage they post to various platforms to show the kids perspective of what the police was doing. Speaking of journalism, one of Marcus’s many ways of posting updates about the Xnet is his blog. When he still feels that he isn’t getting the justice he deserves, he uses that blog for the greater good. He shows a journalist all of the footage, proof, and interviews on that platform to prove that the government is not doing the right thing at all, and in the end, this is what resolves the main problem of the book. Even in this futuristic world created by Doctorow, he shows that people twist the technology. In Marcus’s case he uses the XBOX along with his new Xnet to publish and share videos created by firsthand witnesses, interviews of witnesses and parents, and more, all to turn around and share back with the world. He took an XBOX, and made it a weapon of justice.
Marcus did not work with XBOX to learn how to code or anything like that. He did it by himself. Some brands do the same as Marcus, learning from each other by watching, but sometimes brands share ideas and technology with each other, for better or for worse. If you do any research about computers, one of the first computers to use a GUI had a very familiar company badge on it. The Apple Macintosh. But, it was not Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak who came up with the user interface idea. That was Xerox. Yes, the printer company. They brought Steve and Steve to see the Xerox PARC. When there, they showed them the Xerox Alto. The Alto was a revolution. To use it, you didn’t have to use code, and dint have to use any prior knowledge, all you needed was understanding of how to type and click. cumpiterhistory.org called it “a radical leap in the evolution of how computers interact with people.” Nobody had done this before, before you had to code your own computer. But, this idea didn’t last long as a child of Xerox only. When Steve Jobs saw the user interface during a tour of Xerox, he decided that the next Apple computers would have this user interface as well. Steve was not a technology wizard, all he had to do was get the people at Apple who were to recreate this technology, put an Apple badge on it, and he sold it. And sell it he did. It is phrased perfectly in an article written on mac-history.net. “Steve stole fire from the gods, and gave it to the people.” Perfect. This need to best each other continued throughout Apple’s history. I could go through and tell you about how the company has done very similar things with their phones, taking things from brands like Samsung. Things like Face ID, the edge to edge screen, and more were Samsung before Apple. But, I could say the same thing about companies copying Apple. It’s not always the consumer that changes the product for the better, sometimes this disruption starts at another company, but I turned around again at another company. That happens so much now, disruption of other technology is almost always a part of new technology.
Returning to the quote about Steve giving fire to the people, sometimes the gods want to work with the people, giving them fire. Allow me to flip the landscape first. Let’s take a turn from computers and technology, to the world of sneakers. Specifically, to Undefeated, a California based brand. It has stores, yes, but what most people don’t know, is that Undefeated started the custom sneaker revolution. A revolution all about reinventing shoes that people love by working with brands directly. Back in 2001, James Bond talked his friend Eddie Cruz into helping him start Undefeated with that exact vision. The vision do disrupt the sneaker designing process. It all started when they took and Air Force 1, a shoe that is no less than an icon, and then worked with a Canadian designer to customize it. This was just the beginning. They continued this until they made a store. A store where they sold these shoes alongside the most desirable shoes that brands made. High Snobiety, a news giant based around fashion said this about the founder, James Bond. “He had the clarity of mind to identify and create a business that simply didn’t exist.” That business they started growing until it became so popular, that brands started to want to work with Undefeated. Since 2001, Undefeated boasts one of the most prestigious portfolios of collaborations. They have worked with Nike, Adidas, Converse, and Vans to create shoes that have all flown off shelves. But it doesn’t stop at shoes. Undefeated also has worked with brands like Bathing Ape, to create collections of clothes that all go for thousands of dollars. Businesses is good for them. When the gods want to give you the fire though, they often want to take it away at some point. Since 2001, all of the sneaker brands I have mentioned have all launched customization platforms, to try and combat Undefeated. The most successful being Nike ID. Launched in 2012, this gave the consumer the power to make their own colors, patterns and materials of their favorite shoes, for a little bit more money. The fire is still burning bright for Undefeated, though. Their collaborations are still flying off of shelves, because of the reputation that they have created. This shows how brands sometimes work with us to create new technologies and ideas, even in a world that most people wouldn’t call ‘technology’.
So, when the people have the power to reinvent and disrupt the technology and the products that they are given, it creates a huge change. This technique has become so popular, that brands have started to work with the people, they almost encourage the disruption. And, if we look back, some of the worlds biggest brands use our technology changing skills to create some of the worlds most well known products. It is all about the big companies, the small consumers, and how they work together, how they oppose each other, and how each side works to benefit everyone. It’s a very complicated connection that some people call change, some call it plagiarism, but I think I know a better word. Disruption.
This essay was good for the same reason that the podcast was. I was writing about places and ideas that I had learned about first hand when in California. And I also included ome topic that necessarily wouldn’t be allowed in an essay, it’s not everyday you write an essay that uses shoes to enforce an argument. Even though I was not happy about writing the essay before we started, he topics and experiences led to a very strong essay and a good experience.
