The Language of Computer Jargon

The language of computer jargon is single-handedly the most terrifying aspect of learning about computers. Language is such a fundamental aspect to the humanities that we become quite lost and bewildered when there is suddenly a text that we can not decifer. Ferdinand de Saussure describes language as a series of signs that are assigned meaning through culture. Every sign is a union of a signifier (word) and a signified (meaning).
We know that DOG= because we have been trained to recognise its signification as a cute little furry creature. But when I see things like programming code, I see: "*%@#???" We are lost in the proverbial woods being hunted by the mythical ones and zeros. I do not have the language to understand the signifiers.

As I work through W3C's School tutorial on CSS, I realise that this process of signification is still ongoing. That I actually understand some of the terms and can assign them meaning. Having also worked through the RSS tutorial and the HTML tutorial, I am beginning to recognise signs and knowing what they mean. The W3C Schools do an excellent job of de-mystifying some basic computer knowledge. When I think of it, when I first looked at Latin I thought, "*%#????" so it is perfectly normal not to understand what all this computer jargon means and for it to look like something from another planet. This is not an easy process. For example, I tried to make this page a different colour using CSS, and it didn't work. I don't know why it didn't work, and I don't know how to make it work. But I do know that CSS means applying a particular style to HTML to make it look a certain way on the page, which requires somehow linking a "style sheet". Eventually, (I think, I hope) I will figure out how to apply this as I start to grasp more of the lingo.

I think what makes some of the readings so difficult and so intimidating is that they are often scripted in a language that I do not understand, referencing programs and technologies that I am not familiar with. The more I read, obviously, the more versed I shall become in what they are trying to say. I am going to look at it from now on as learning a new language. And while I shall never master computer jargonian, I am hoping to start recognising some of its signifiers and understanding what it is signifying.

Website Review: Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump

Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump, http://www.head-smashed-in.com/. Created and maintained by the Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump Interpretive Centre, Fort Macleod, Alberta. Reviewed September 27-30, 2007.

Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump is an UNESCO World Heritage Site located in Southern Alberta that has been continuously used by Aboriginal peoples for over five thousand years. It is also an ongoing archaeological site and home to the Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump Interpretive Centre. The website as a whole includes information on Blackfoot heritage, archaeology of the site, and the ways people can participate in history through the Interpretive Centre, tipi camping, and educational programs.

The website is well organised with a broad range of engaging topics centred on Aboriginal history and archaeology. An interesting part of the site is the “Blackfoot History” page, which provides broad definitions of the history of the area and its peoples. This part of the site is useful and covers many aspects of Blackfoot life; however, it could be further developed as the information is brief and quite simplistic. The website also provides an interesting look into the archaeological work and research done around the site. The link to “Archaeological Facts” introduces the reader to the purposes and aims of archaeology and the story it has revealed about Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump, its surrounding area, and the people who used to live there. Through the link “Buffalo Tracks,” a fifteen-page archaeological booklet in PDF provides a more in-depth look into the history and ethnography of the buffalo culture. There is also a link to a permanent exhibition at the Centre called “Lost Identities,” which is an ongoing project to name the people and places of thousands of Aboriginal photographs from the Provincial Archives of Alberta. While this is an important reflection of the role of the Centre as a museum and interactive historic site, an online exhibit of the project would have enabled more people to benefit from the findings.

The links are easy to navigate and remain on the left-hand side of the page no matter which page you follow, making it easy to change direction and go to different parts of the site. The “Links” page has an excellent collection of websites broken down by subject that leads to further information about everything from Alberta Tourism, to Native history, to its associated supporters. The connections are clearly labelled and all of the linked websites are active and well-maintained. At the bottom of the homepage, unfortunately, is another copy of the set of links to other historic sites around Southern Alberta. Only one of the links, the “Remington Carriage Museum,” leads to its own site; of the others, two lead to Head-Smashed-In’s own homepage, while the remainder do not link to their own websites.

The style of the website is appealing as the graphics are simple and not too busy, with a uniform background that makes the pages clear and comprehensive. The website uses popular programs, like PDF and Java, which are user-friendly and which most computers are able to run. The resources are largely textual, so while the pages are informative, and the visitor can learn all about Head-Smashed-In and its history, there is not a lot of interactivity on the website itself, but rather it advertises what activities there are available to do on the actual site.

The audience focus is quite broad, as the aim is to attract people to Alberta by getting them interested in both Aboriginal and regional history. The use of simple links, programs, and language makes it intelligible to a wide-range of people. It is not focused towards academia, but it does have many educational aspects. The link to “Educational Programs” opens a PDF document that describes the interactive activities they have available for students from kindergarten to grade twelve, which are designed to follow the latest Alberta Education Social Studies Curriculum. There is also information about the “Sunday Learning Series,” which anyone can participate in. While the page may have limited scholarly interest, it is an excellent source to get the general public and education system interested, engaged, and participating in history.

"Collecting Experiences" Exercise

The assignment is to write a proposal for a project that would collect peoples' memories similar to the websites created by researchers at the Centre for History and New Media , such as the Memory Archive and the Hurricane Katrina website. All of them are dedicated to collecting the personal stories of particular events, places, or activities.

Just for fun, and to see if I can do it, I am writing all of this in HTML.

As I have a personal interest in oral cultures, I would suggest creating a website for the collection of Aboriginal myths, legends, personal stories, all in the language of their people. There are several archives all around the world that have contained within their vaults, recordings of oral interviews with Native peoples over the past 150 years. A communal sharing space of oral tales and testimonies would give voice to a threatened culture, as well as an opprtunity for people to relate and share their family histories, personal tales, and outlook. Oral history, after all, is still history, and new methods of preservation need to be considered just as they are for textual records.

I applaud CHNM's efforts in trying to capture the memory of the people involved in historic events. It is a voice, a reservoir of memory. We may have had to give up the bards of old to change for the future, but the role of collective memory in a society need not be sacrificed. By creating a space for the oral tales of Aboriginals, we can ensure the survival of their culture and their language, though it may be in a medium far from traditional. This does not mean that we don't need the storytellers and the bards, we will always need the human element, but this could be an excellent backup drive.