Lightbulb: The Unsung Hero of Worldy Modernizaion

Humphry Davy working on the arc lamp

The lightbulb was an incredible development in modernizing the world as we know it. However, the history of the lightbulb and its creation took many twists and turns. 

The first electric light (also called the arc lamp) was created by Humphry Davy in 1802. This original light wasn't the perfect beginning for the lightbulb, yet it's the imperfections of this original model that led to Edison’s improvements and later got him credited with its invention. However, many people played a role in paving the way for Edison to create the first lightbulb, creating an intricate timeline of its development.

After Davy, Warren De La Rue put a coiled platinum filament inside a vacuum tube to create a long-lasting light in 1840, however, this model was far too expensive to continue making. 

Following this, Henry Woodward and Matthew Evans patented the lightbulb in 1878, yet, they had patented the same thing three decades before but made no real advancement.

In 1879, Joseph Wilson Swan enclosed a glass bulb with no air, lead wires, and a light-emitting element made from carbon, but the issue with this model was that the light didn’t last very long.

in 1880, Edison came into the picture. Edison bought Woodward and Evan’s patent, changed the lightbulb filament, and this became the first real commercial model of the lightbulb. 

Next in this timeline, Irving Langmuir created neon lights by filling Edison’s bulb with inert gas in 1913. 

Finally, Isamu Akasaki, Hiroshi Amano, and Shuji Nakamura created the first LED lamp in 1997, which is now the most modernized version of the lightbulb that we use today.

On January 27, 1880, Edison got a patent for what he called his "electric incandescent lamp," another name for what we see as the "classic" lightbulb. However, Edison's patent wasn't a creation, it was an improvement on pre-existing electric lamps that needed improvements to reach their full potential, all of which are previously mentioned in the timeline.  

Edison's take on the lightbulb (where he changed the filament of Woodward and Evan's patented lightbulb) was to make electrical lamps more reliable, safe, and practical. 

The most current application of the light bulb, LEDs, has had a large impact on today's society, LEDs are one of the fastest-growing lighting technologies to date. For instance, LED lighting consumes significantly less power per lumen than any other lighting source, due to this, LEDs contribute the least amount of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, which helps the environment.

The lightbulb had a number of positive aspects that brought improvements to society. LEDs provided bright, steady light for miners and reduced safety risks as a result of their improved design. LEDs were built to be vibration and shock resistant, and they don't release any harmful toxins when they break, this contrasts with fluorescent light bulbs which release small amounts of mercury when broken. LEDs also eliminated heat pollution caused by gas lighting, reduced fire hazards, and allowed miners to better fuel their work, leading to the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. Furthermore, LEDs were important in helping food last in the factories because they allowed it to stay good for months or even years on the shelves. 

LED Marketing Billboard

Another interesting development was that LEDs gave rise to bright billboards and signs that changed the way companies market to potential customers.

In terms of Edison's incandescent lightbulb (the classic model that nearly everyone pictures when they hear the word "lightbulb"), he created this model to come up with a high resistance system that used less electrical power than the arc lamp (created by Davy) so that they could be suitable for homes. However, some of the negative aspects of Edison's lightbulb (which were improved upon by LEDs) are that they have a shorter life span than LED lights and have limited color options. They’re also much more fragile and can break easily, causing them to be a safety hazard for households with pets and young children. 

Eight Values of Free Expression

After reading the eight values of free expression, it's clear that the right to speak openly in our government is an important part of how we live as people. The value that stood out to me the most was the fourth value: Individual Self-Fulfillment (Self-Actualization). This value stood out the most to me because as a teenager, self-expression is a very important part of my identity, without this, I wouldn't be able to figure out for myself what kind of person I want to be in the future.

In my opinion, this value can be easily connected to social media and how people use it to freely show the world who they are through free speech. For me, I use social media to create the outward perception of how I want people to see me, I do this through posting and communicating. I feel like my social media is the best way for me to express myself and in the words of the fourth value, express my, "human dignity, human agency, and autonomy."

Another one of the eight values that stood out to me the most was number eight: Protect Dissent. This value stood out to me the most because I agreed with it the most out of any of the other values. If we the people aren't able to criticize the government, there's no way for us to improve our government and grow as the world is constantly changing. 

Also, if the people aren't able to criticize the government to protect minority views, we could risk giving the government too much power, and democracy could quickly shift and become something very different. 

Being 18 years old and coming up on my first election where I'm able to vote, it's important to me to know that I will always have a voice to criticize the government if I don't agree with something that they're doing. 

Not only this but this value reminds us how important it is to have checks and balances in the government.  For instance, Congress can make laws, but the President can veto those laws. Also, Congress can continue to make laws but the courts can declare those laws unconstitutional. 

Now, having a speech theory that the people can voice their opinions and fight back against the government when they don't agree, that only reinforces that there are checks within the government, and with democracy, like we have in the U.S., the government is not "all-powerful."

Finally, the last value that stood out to me was number 3: Stable Change (Safety Value). This value stood out to me because of the recent tragic event at an elementary school in Nashville, TN.

It's come to my attention that following the school shooting at Haysville West Elementary, parents around the world are sharing the hashtag: #ThisIsNineYearsOld and posting photos of their nine-year-old children, children the same age as the three kids who died in the shooting. The purpose of this hashtag is to show people just how tragic and scary this event was and how we can't be too careful with our children. 

I feel like this terrible event, and more specifically, this hashtag relates to the third value of free expression because people around the world are angry with what's happened and they want to open peoples' eyes to how scary and real school shootings really are. 

Although the value does refer to this sharing of information as "venting," in this case, that's the only part of the value that I feel doesn't line up with this situation because people are publicizing a real, prominent issue in our society, therefore, I wouldn't call that venting simply because I feel like that term can be seen as derogatory. 

Furthermore, having people speak out like this and bring awareness to the worldwide issue of school shootings allows the government to monitor if people are joining together to fight back against this issue or if people are taking this event and using it to fuel more violence. 

This is important because that way, the government can not only allow people to express their concerns for safety in schools and express their condolences for the families suffering right now, but they can also keep an eye on the general public to make sure that people aren't turning an emotional movement into a violent and potentially dangerous revolt. 

The Supreme Court

Prior to our lesson in class, I knew only the basics about the inner workings of the Supreme Court. However, after reading about the Supreme Court on the History Channel, I now know more about how Supreme Court Justices are appointed and some of the notable things previous Supreme Court Justices have been able to accomplish. I also learned more about the checks and balances system and how the Supreme Court can be limited by the other two branches of government. 

Supreme Court Justices are nominated by the President of the United States and either accepted or denied by the U.S. Senate. 

Some of the most notable Supreme Court Justices have been able to influence the power the Supreme Court has by doing things like establishing the power to review and rule law made by Congress by chief justice John Marshall and issuing landmark decisions that have completely changed the way people live today by chief justice Earl Warren. Some of these decisions include banning school segregation, the implication of "the right to remain silent," and the removal of laws against interracial marriages. 

I believe that the most important takeaway point about the Supreme Court is that it has the ability to check the actions of the other two branches of government. This is important because no branch of government should be too powerful, especially the Supreme Court as it already has a lot of prior power. 

If one branch of government were to get too powerful, it could lead to major consequences. Therefore, although the Supreme Court of the United States is the highest federal court in the country and the head of the judicial branch, it's important that the judicial, legislative, and executive branches remain in equal power with one another. 

The most surprising thing that I learned is that the chief justice is required to preside over the impeachment of the President of the United States. This surprises me because the chief justice is someone who is initially nominated by the president and I didn't expect that they would be allowed to be involved in that same president's impeachment. In my mind, I would expect this to lead to some kind of detrimental bias, however, after doing more research I've learned that this isn't actually the case. However, this information was still interesting and for sure unexpected to learn. 

Another surprising thing that I learned from the article on the History Channel is that for more than 100 years after the foundation of the SCOTUS, the justices were required to hold circuit court twice a year in each judicial circuit. At first, I didn't know what this meant, but with some further research, I was able to make more sense of it. 

The core concept of a circuit court is that the Supreme Court justices must travel to different locations to get a better understanding of the cases in those regions. The article also mentioned how tedious and grueling a task this could be due to traveling methods at that time, so naturally, I did more research into this as well.

The Supreme Court had its first meeting in 1790. During this time, the primary form of transportation was by horseback. This proved difficult for the traveling Supreme Court justices because of how far they had to go to attend circuit court. I found this very interesting and I definitely would not have known about this before.

Reading this article didn't necessarily change how I thought about the Supreme Court, however, it did help me gain more insight into the Supreme Court and how it works, and now I feel like I can better respect the processes of the Supreme Court. 

⚠️WARNING⚠️ Digital Privacy Invasion

In many ways, online privacy affects everyone. In today's society, it's uncommon to not have at least one social media site that you use all the time. Not only this, but technology is so common amongst people that it's uncommon to not browse different websites and online platforms every day that could be stealing your personal data whenever you log on. Nowadays, nearly everyone is susceptible to digital privacy invasion. 

In Juan Enriques's Ted Talk about "digital tattoos," I realized how common it is for people to overlook their presence on social media. According to Enriques, social media is like an electronic tattoo because everything you do online sticks with you, eventually, it gets too hard to hide from the consequences and you have to face the recognition of what you've shared online. 

Everyone in my family has at least one form of social media, however, as Professor Smith mentioned in class, it's highly unlikely that any of us read the terms and conditions of those social media sites when we first downloaded them. Something that's difficult to think about is that if we had read the terms and conditions, we might not have been so eager to sign up for those social media services in the first place. Take Twitter as an example, their terms and conditions say that anything posted on Twitter immediately becomes their property. This means, that if anyone were to post a photo on Twitter, it could be used for advertisement or other commercial marketing if Twitter sees fit. This is a huge invasion of privacy as it takes our unplanned photos and uses them for the whole world to see. Yet, the issue isn't in the companies, the issue comes with our generation's lack of awareness when it comes to social media and what we're posting online. 

Naturally, my first thought was that our government can help alleviate the threat of digital privacy invasion as it's becoming a larger issue, however, in some cases, the government is only adding fuel to the flame. According to Catherine Crump's Ted Talk, mass surveillance is allowing local police departments to gather sensitive information about people, such as location, that wasn't previously available to them. This information is then used by the government to gain a detailed portrait of how citizens interact and who we are based on that information. This is incredibly uncomfortable to think about because even when we don't realize it, the things we do in our personal lives could be being used against us. According to Crump, these cameras are all over and people don't even notice them most of the time. 

In addition to this, local police departments can use this surveillance technology to keep a record of every car license plate that passes by them and they keep this data just in case it could be useful. However, license plate readers aren't the only method the police use. They also have access to cell towers that can be used to reveal the locations of hundreds of thousands of people. If this doesn't make people feel unsafe, I don't know what will. 

In my opinion, the government should be stepping in to reduce the amount of tracking power the police have for everyday citizens. It's important to be able to use this kind of technology for criminals and individuals that pose a threat to our safety, but for the average citizen tracking like this can quickly become scary and invasive. It shouldn't be in the minds of the public that we need to be hiding our everyday lives out of fear that it could someday be used against us or as a means that we haven't given our consent. 

From these Ted Talks, Darieth Chisolm's take on digital domestic violence definitely left the largest impact on me. In Darieth's situation, she struggled with an experience she had with her ex-boyfriend who made a website posting nude photos of her and sent the link for the website to her ex-husband. This was incredibly hard to hear because it makes you realize how easily something personal can be exploited online. Although in Darieth's case, the photos were taken without her consent, it doesn't change the serious damage the media can cause. This not only made me sympathize with Darieth, but it also made me realize how easily my life can be turned upside down by anyone who knows how to use the media to their advantage.

In the case of digital domestic violence, I think it's very difficult to prevent this from happening because you're not the one in control, however, I do think there are ways to prevent things like digital privacy invasion and tracking. First, people should be careful where they're sending their information. Not every website that asks for an email and a phone number should actually be trusted. In order to minimize the amount of personal information we're giving out, people just need to be more receptive to what they're sharing and when the right time is to keep personal information to themselves.

 

In a ted Talk by Maria Dubovitskaya, she talks about ways to take back control of your personal data. This is very important in society today because people are more open to sharing their personal information than ever before. 

An interesting project that Dubovitskaya brought up is the European crypto project, PRIME. This project enables people to verify who they are online without sharing their personal information. This is interesting because, on almost every website we log onto, we're giving away personal data without even knowing it. 

Another interesting concept that Dubovitskaya brought up is being carded for alcohol. A lot of times, people don't even question being carded and they just take it as a compliment. What people don't think about is how much extra information they're giving away by showing their personal ID. Even though the person carding only needs to verify your age, you're also giving away your full name, and address, plus the full date and month of your birthday. 

I found it interesting that in her Ted Talk, Dubovitskaya said it’s possible to have an ID that proves someone is over 21 without giving away all of that information above through the use of cryptography. Cryptography is possible through privacy-preserving authentication. There are many services nowadays that allow the administrator and the user to utilize these techniques and verify things like an age without actually revealing their date of birth.

I believe that in order to keep our personal information protected, people should start to use methods like cryptography to only give out the necessary information when showing their ID.

My 5 Favorite News Sources

Before I came to High Point University, I didn't check the news as much as I should have. I never used to watch the news on the TV when my parents had it on and I never went out of my way to check what was happening online. Coming here and deciding that I wanted to be a journalist, I knew my methods had to change. Now as a journalism major, checking the news has become an important part of my everyday life. In one of my journalism courses this semester, everyday when class starts we're required to share a piece of news that we heard or read about during the break since our last class, this exercise has really helped me identify which sites I like to use as news sources and which sources I don't find as reliable.

Although generally all social media is a quick way of getting news, I've found that using social media isn't always the most reliable source for true information. However, I do find that there's one exception in social media when it comes to news, and that's Twitter. Twitter is one of the first news outlets that I go to in the morning when I want to see what's been happening in a timely, concise manner. Twitter is very easy to use in the fact that people spread news with quick little snippets. It usually doesn't take much digging to get to the meat and potatoes of what's been happening. Twitter is also helpful because it not only lets you read Tweets from other people, but you can also share news of your own should you happen to stumble on something. Also, you can comment on news that other people are sharing. Having such a quick-sharing network is very beneficial in a news source because you can access crucial sources of breaking news and be up to date on what's going on whenever you want to be. Other positives aspects of Twitter include its wide range of users, having over 328 million active monthly users, and the fact that you can follow hashtags within posts to bring you to related content that could provide you with more information. The only thing that can be tricky and is very important to watch out for when it comes to Twitter is that you need to be aware of who's posting what. I don't typically trust sources that aren't verified or that aren't following other trustworthy news sources because if they're not, it's hard to tell where they could be getting their information from and if it's reliable. But as long as you're careful with that, Twitter is a quick, easy way to get news on the fly to keep up with the times.

My second best source of news lately, tying into the first statement I made, is my journalism class Reporting and Writing Across. In this class, we're required to share a piece of news every morning that we heard about in the time between our previous class and that morning. Every morning, about five to ten students share their news with the class and this has really helped me stay up to date with current news. Having this outlet for sharing news with each other has also helped me branch out to use other news sites in order to find news that hasn't already been shared. I find myself checking the news everyday before class to make sure I have something to add to the discussion, yet even when I don't find something to share, I still learn a decent amount from my classmates because there's always someone ready to share a story. These small class discussions have helped me broaden the news I hear as not everyone shares news directly related to High Point or our general area in North Carolina. Since the students in the class come from all over the country, many people share news that's impacted their hometowns or areas close to where they grew up. This helps me find news that I wouldn't typically know about and makes me feel like I have more of a grasp on what's happening around the world and not just in the small areas that impact me. 

Sometimes when I have more time in the morning, a typical source of news for me is Google News. In the morning before class, I like to take a minute and look at the news from my computer, however, sometimes I find that I don't have as much time in the morning as I would like. When I do have that time though, Google News is one of my favorite sources because I can scroll through and browse the story headlines to see which ones interest me while also clicking on the ones that draw my eye to get more information. Another thing I like about Google News is that when you access it, you can search up topics, locations, and sources to get specific news. For instance, sometimes I'll look up High Point or Greensboro to see what's been happening in the area around me, whereas other times I'll look up Methuen, MA to see what's been happening in my own town. Google News is a great way to find specific news that lines up with the places and stories that you want to be updated on while also providing a great outlet to get general news as well that you might not have expected to find. Today upon logging onto Google News, I was able to find a range of news stories that caught my attention. In the main bar, there was a news story about a train crash in Greece that killed a minister, and in the side bar I was able to find local news that the Miss NC-USA was recently crowned in High Point. The best part: I found both of these stories within seconds of logging on and I already felt more informed within a minute of being on the site. 

Another favorite news source of mine is CNN. I like CNN when I want to find more worldly news because I feel like they do a good job of covering news from all over. As soon as you log onto the website, in the main top bar, you can see that you have the ability to choose from US, World, Politics, Business, and more. This gives you a good range of topics to choose from and it makes it very easy to find the kind of news that you're looking for or to just browse through the kind of news that interests you. CNN is also really good because they provide a lot of visual elements that make it easy to see the impact of certain stories and how important they are, they typically includes videos or images that draw you in right away. CNN has always been a prominent news source for me because I feel like I've been using it since I was a kid. In middle school, teachers would turn on CNN to give us a small insight as to what was happening around us and I've been using it as a resource ever since. It's formatted very nicely and it's easy to use. Sometimes, it can seem like a lot on screen all at once which is why is isn't my top source of news, but I would not discredit it by any means because it's still a very trustworthy source of news.

My least conventional source of news which, although it isn't the best source, I use very frequently is my family. Being so far away from my home back in Massachusetts, I call my mom and dad on a daily basis to get the scoop on what's been going on there. A lot of times, I'll hear about things that are happening at home from my mom before I'll see it in the news. It's helpful to already have a little bit of background on the news from my mom before I read about it online because it does make it easier to understand. I also find that talking to my family is a good way of getting High Point news. If something is going on down here, my mom is always the first to know about and I'm the first person she calls to tell. I like the system we have and it makes finding out about things very quick and simple. Although it's not the most trustworthy method, my family has always been one of my greatest resources.