How times have changed. The African drums described in the first chapter of The Information had to carry all sorts of extraneous information in order for the meaning to remain clear, and yet now we can communicate by txt, mssng out lttrs in evry othr wrd. In our experiment with the optical telegraph, our group was sending out messages. Here, we approached the system from far too modern a perspective. We abbreviated the message as much as possible, hoping to make the job easier for ourselves and our receivers.
What we had not appreciated was the noise involved in this form of communication. The messages were far from crystal-clear, or accurately received. Many of our symbols were misread, and in fact many of them even had double-meanings that we hadn't picked up on. To avoid this, we should have transmitted different content, thought up to avoid such conflicts in meaning. We should have been more sympathetic to our receivers - it wasn't until we tried their job that we realised how hard it was to read what the telegraph was denoting.
Many of the latest communication technologies - Blackberry Messenger and WhatsApp - now show when your recipient has read your message. There was nothing even remotely close to this with the telegraph. Our receivers resorted to clapping every time they had transcribed one of our letters, which would hardly be possible across the relatively vast distances that the telegraph was designed for. Unless you can rely on others' expertise, there needs to be some proof of receipt, much like BBM or WhatsApp. Many say that's why they prefer these services to SMS - people enjoy knowing they've been heard.
What we had not appreciated was the noise involved in this form of communication. The messages were far from crystal-clear, or accurately received. Many of our symbols were misread, and in fact many of them even had double-meanings that we hadn't picked up on. To avoid this, we should have transmitted different content, thought up to avoid such conflicts in meaning. We should have been more sympathetic to our receivers - it wasn't until we tried their job that we realised how hard it was to read what the telegraph was denoting.
Many of the latest communication technologies - Blackberry Messenger and WhatsApp - now show when your recipient has read your message. There was nothing even remotely close to this with the telegraph. Our receivers resorted to clapping every time they had transcribed one of our letters, which would hardly be possible across the relatively vast distances that the telegraph was designed for. Unless you can rely on others' expertise, there needs to be some proof of receipt, much like BBM or WhatsApp. Many say that's why they prefer these services to SMS - people enjoy knowing they've been heard.
