Lessig

A. We were first explained the history of the photograph, with a follow up of how George Eastman, an amateur photographer, figured out how to generalize the photographs more. At first photographs were expensive and difficult to produce, but when Easton developed flexible film and put it on rolls, the “simplicity” of the camera was born. Anyone could now make photos, just “press the button.” Everyone was able to see things in the world that they never would have been able to before, and anyone could capture a moment and expand their creativity because of the Kodak camera. When some people started to argue that the photographs were “taking something from the person,” the idea of having to get permission to take photographs came about. That did not happen and people are still free to take pictures of whatever they want. However, what if this had happened. Our lives would be so much different than they are today, and it’s hard to imagine. It’s not that we just wouldn’t be able to have pictures, but without these pictures many people wouldn’t know what much else of the world looks like. Also, the way the world looks would probably be much different than it does today if not for the socialization of photography.
B. The Just Think! school buses are a new frontier on the education lines. Instead of saying that text, written or read, is the only way to judge someone’s brain power and intellectual abilities, the teachers on these buses and the schools that host them understand that there is much more to education than that. The students are able to “tinker” with technology, and even if they are bad at it in the beginning, it is getting them hands-on experience which is important in this day and age. The awesome technology these days, the freedom to use images and sound as we please, comes from the freedom we maintained with photographs in the beginning. This would never be possible, nor even close to inexpensive enough, to do without the freedom we kept.
C. When 9/11 happened, it was such a tragedy that it’s not surprising that reporters were nervous to report strictly the truth; it was so scary and sad. When big stations like CNN were sending reporters to the field and where the war was taking place, they wanted to be improving the spirits of the people back home. Therefore, the absolute truth was not given to us back in the United States; we got a somewhat sugar-coated version of it, which isn’t what most of us wanted. When the blogs exploded into the action around this time, the truth (or at least much closer to it) was spreading all over the internet. It’s true that when someone reads blogs or things on the internet, they usually only read what they want to read, but at this time what most people wanted was the truth.
D. Free Software or Open-Source Software (FS/OSS) is the newest and largest development of technology and our freedom. Anyone is able to download and “tinker with the code.” This means kids on the Just Think! Buses (or anyone) is able to experiment and use their creativity to make something of their own using these free options. If these freedoms are taken away, as some are afraid they will be, the main creative outlet of the twenty first century could be stripped from our very hands. As the article said, this sort of “tinkering” is just the newer version of the tinkering of the twentieth century, things like working on cars and radios; this is just more technologically advanced, which is exactly what the twenty first century is.