2nd Week of Class (8/27/2009): Who's In Charge Here

*A note on writing style: It will probably only be my classmates reading this but since this blog is open to the Internet at large I'm going to be writing as if the person reading it is not in the class.

*A second note: I can't seem to comment on my on posts. Anyone else having this problem?

In our first class we talked about computer network protocols. We broke into groups to look up and then discuss different parts of the OSI Model, the TCP/IP Model, and how they differ. Our next class began with a scavenger hunt.

It was much less exhausting than the last scavenger hunt I was in (running around downtown during the summer) because it was online. We all looked up information to answer questions about how the Internet works and who makes it work.

I found this question to be the most difficult:
Aside from the W3C and WaSP, list two entities that help govern the web.

Because really, how do you look that up if you don't already know the names of the groups? It seems kind of like using a dictionary to find out how to spell a word. You have to be pretty close to the answer for that to work. If you don't know that pterodactyl begins with a 'p' you're out of luck.

I mean it's not like you can just ask 'Who is in charge of the Internet'...oh, apparently you can.

Still, it was the only question without an obvious search query and I'm curious as to how people who didn't have an organization or two in mind for the question went about searching for the answer.

We also watched a video called (warning: page plays sound) Warriors of the Net. It explains how information is transmitted over the Internet by showing the journey of one packet of data from one computer to another. The video really does an excellent job too. It doesn't have any techno babble; any technical term it uses it explains and it doesn't use any more technical terms than strictly necessary. It doesn't get bogged down in details or go off on tangents. Most importantly, in my opinion, it doesn't assume that the audience knows anything about this beforehand.

This may sound obvious and unremarkable. You might be thinking, "Shouldn't it do all that if they're explaining something? What's the big deal?" However, it has been my experience that it doesn't always happen that way, especially when it comes to things related to computers or the Internet. If you think I'm exaggerating go to the bookstore and look at all the titles in the computer section that are manuals for specific programs. The Missing Manual series even refers to itself as "The book that should have been in the box". Well, why wasn't in the box?