Lulu Wiki

Lulu.com is an online publishing website that allows you to share your works and ideas with the rest of the world.  The company was founded in 2002 by creator Bob Young.  The site allows you to create books, eBooks, photo books, cook books, and even calendars.  Along with these services, the publisher is able put his or her work on the market for retail, of which they receive 80 percent of the profits.  Currently, Lulu.com publishes over 200,000 works each year.




Photo from:
http://www.lulu.com/blog/2009/05/

The Media "Dark Ages"

The era of the Roman Empire was known as the Classical Era, where much learning and knowledge was gathered and kept.  After Rome collapsed, Europe experienced what scholar Petrarch referred to as the Dark Ages.  A big characteristic of this time period was the lack of literary records that could define the era after the "extinguishing of the light in Rome."  It is a dark period in history because of the grim events associated with the time (plague, smallpox, superstition), and also because of its dark "hole" in what we know because of its lack of documented records.

I wonder how we can relate this to modern times.  Currently, much of our newest information is stored in a digital archive.  Books, maps, and research are all being reallocated into this digital archive.  So if a world event were to happen that could destroy this technology, what would happen to all of this information?  We keep discovering new things about history because cultures and civilizations past have preserved them on a document, wall, or carving in the earth for us to find so many years later.  If we lose the digital, where is the archive?  I think this would be an extreme situation for the internet and technology of our time to be eradicated, but I can't help but wonder "what if?"  Is this how we have preserved our role in history?  Or was the internet our printing press?  Just as the printing press enabled people to publish their works and create new ones, the internet has created a medium in which anyone can publish news, world events, documented histories, thoughts, or a picture of your breakfast.  This has all been achieved in the approximate 550 years since Gutenberg's invention.  Where could we be 500 years from now?  

Brief History of the Media Timeline

The Prehistoric Era  (45,000-3501 B.C.E.)

45,000: In what is now Hungary, a Neanderthal carves on a woolly mammoth tooth.

30,000: In what is now France, Chauvet cave dwellers draw on walls.

20,000: In the Koonalda Cave, Australia, finger drawings on clay walls.

10,000: Notches in bones in Near East presumed to be a lunar calendar.

10,000: Writing on skin. Tattooing instruments found in Europe.

9000: Mesopotamia hunter-gatherers settle down; it is the start of agriculture.

6200: Oldest known map, a town plan from Catal Hyk, Turkey.

4800: In Egypt, evidence of astronomical calendar stones.

4004: Bishop Ussher’s date, accepted by early Protestants, of the creation of the world.

4000: Egyptian pharaohs listen to flutes and harps.

3760: Start of Hebrew calendar.

3500-1 B.C.E.

3000: Egypt develops hieroglyphic writing.

2640: China produces silk. It will serve as a writing surface.

2400: In India, engraved seals identify the writer.

2000: Nine Greek muses, responsible for poetry, history, comedy, song, dance.

1700: The written law code of Hammurabi, in Babylonia, carved on a stone pillar.

1500: Babylonian mathematicians figure out the Pythagorean Theorem.

750: The book of Amos.

710: In the Egyptian city of Memphis, an account of creation carved in stone.

620: Draco gives Athens a written code of laws, "draconian" in its harshness.

530: In Athens, a public library.

500: Chinese scholars write on bamboo with reeds dipped in pigment.

415: Lysistrata, comedy by Aristophanes.

250: In Near East city of Pergamum, parchment is made as a writing surface.

105: In Alexandria, the first college of technology is founded.

13: Some of the finest lyrical poems of the mature Horace appear.

1-1099 C.E.

14: Rome sets up network of relay runners carrying messages 50 miles in a day.

100: In India, Vatsyayana writes of erotic arts, the Kama Sutra.

100: Mayas adorn pyramids with wall mural painting of mythology.

120: Plutarch dies after writing of lives of important Greeks and Romans.

235: Dio Cassius dies. His extant histories cover end of republic, rise of imperial Rome.

386: Singing, including "Hallelujah" hymns, introduced into Christian church.

450: Ink on seals is stamped on paper in China. This is true printing.

595: In India, calculations done with nine numerals and zero, the decimal system.

640: Arab invaders find 300,000 scrolls in Alexandrian library.

740: Moors invade Spain, bringing learning and advanced culture.

800: Government pony express in Charlemagne’s Western Europe.

975: First airmail parcel post: pigeons each carry one cherry to Arab caliph.

1095: First Crusade is marker between Dark Ages and Middle Ages.

1100 C.E.-Printing Press

1100: Gothic Textus script introduced when quill pen is cut at an angle.

1150: Start of 350 years of Middle English.

1155: Oldest known printed map shows western China.

1225: “The Fibonacci series” introduced in his Book of Square Numbers.

1270: Syrian scholar compiles an encyclopedia.

1283: Thailand gets its own alphabet

1300: Wooden type is used in central Asia.

1305: Taxis family begins private postal service in Europe.

1333: Petrarch’s discovery of classical manuscripts helps bring on the Renaissance.

1378: In England, the Great Schism; Lollards say lay people can interpret the Bible.

1395: Improved version of the Wyclif Bible is completed.

1400: From Florence comes the Italic script, a flowing handwriting.

1430: Block-printed books published in Holland, Germany.

1436: Leone Alberti writes first book on painting to consider both theory and technique.

1446: The simplifed Korean phonetic alphabet, hangul, with 11 vowels, 28 consonants.

1451: Gutenberg’s press prints an old German poem.

Bibliography:

1. Operations: Story Time presentation and handout

2.  Group 1 Presentation

3.  My blog

4.  University of Minnesota research project