Chapters 4,5,6, and 8 discussed several topics on HTML. These chapters talked about navigation links, images, media and audio files, and accessibility websites. All of these are useful in making how to make your .html file. Navigation links are used for different things, like “click here” or downloads. Images include picture elements, which are used to provide multiple image sources for different screen sizes, resolutions, and page designs, while source elements work with the picture element to specify media conditions and provide a list of image files. MP4, WebM, and OGG are different video formats that can be used with the video element. There are different syntax to embed these into the .html file. An accessibility website is a website that is usable to as many people as possible. W3C helps make websites accessible by focusing on four major areas: perceivable, operable, understandable, and robust.

It looks like a lot to take it, right? If you are like me and do not have a lot of practice with coding, learning this can be a bit difficult, especially without practice. I know that it was hard for me to take all of this in when I had no idea what Truong, the host and narrator, was talking about. It helped me to look at Visual Studio Code, the app that I used for my project, as well as to practice. After the how-to project, I also got a better visual idea of her explanations. It is still new to me though, and thankfully Visual Studio Code helps finish a lot of the inputs entered (this is not an advertisement for VS Code). Practice makes perfect though, and she explains it very well.

I thought it was interesting that she brought up accessibility because this is something I never really considered until she talked about it. I also think it is great there are websites like W3C that help guide people on making websites accessible. I have checked the website, and they have strong values for sharing the web with everyone. There should definitely be more websites like W3C and it needs to get the recognition it deserves.

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The workflow is rather odd. Normally, I run into the typical formatting issues in Google Docs or Word. These issues with things like fonts, paragraph spacing, and indentation are all effectively baked into the opening moves in the chess game of creating a new document. I open the document and immediately begin proactively changing these things like a second nature, like the movement of the mouse is hardwired into my muscles the same way the nervous system tells us to breathe (and now you’re thinking about breathing). Once I begin putting the metaphorical pen to the simulated paper, I work with a certain set of expectations regarding what the word processor will and won’t let me do. I may think:

“How can I write this so it plays nice with Word?”

“I should format this another way to avoid this issue.”

Since I have been transposing my work into at HTML document, the entire set of expectations and processes that I have dissolve. Every weird formatting issue, the placement of images, links to sources and more become novel. I begin playing the Googling game in trying to figure out where I went wrong. And that phrase is the precise difference that I’ve taken note of so far. I don’t need to ask how I can adapt to Word or Google Docs; rather, I need to ask how I can get the affordances of HTML to adapt to me.

Harkening back to the Stolley piece, this difference in experience illustrates Stolley’s point about the enabling effect that Lo-Fi technology has in the creative process. Personally, I think that this illustrates the difference between a commodity and a tool quite neatly. Our typical word processors, while certainly being tools, must first be a commodity to the corporation that owns it. This means that the word processor needs to provide some kind of surplus value, or value that exceeds the investment in the word processor’s creation. So, something like Word trends towards consumer dependence and monopolization in its respective market. It utilizes ignorance of complex functionality and perpetuates it through its user interface. It capitalizes on that ignorance so that switching costs begin to arise, as users that may switch programs don’t understand the functions behind the buttons in a manner that directs how the user learns a new set of buttons.

HTML and VS Code don’t quite work this way. HTML doesn’t need to be anything other than its basic use value. It doesn’t need to create switching costs. It’s propagation and development aren’t contingent on its ability to generate surplus value. It actively requires a user to understand bare functionality and how processes work.

Overall, it serves no other purpose than to be improved purely based on its use value as a tool, whereas proprietary software is only improved in its use value as a tool after it has justified its value as a commodity first. Further, proprietary software being a commodity incentivizes a corporation to invest as little as possible into the product. So, even when the use value of a word processor is improved, the improvement is aimed at the minimal effective investment. Because HTML isn’t a commodity, it has to be the best it can be as the only value that matters for HTML is its objective usefulness.

Utilizing HTML has been a challenging but refreshing experience. Using it feels empowering, like its existence is purely tailored towards enabling creation rather than commodifying it. It shouldn’t feel like a tool being just a good tool is a unique experience, but it is. The experience of using HTML pushes me to take Stolley’s advice and further engage with complex Lo-Fi systems. I look forward to seeing what more I can do with HTML, as well as other Lo-Fi tools, as I venture further into future creative endeavors.

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I found Monica Chin’s article “File Not Found” extremely interesting! This is not something that I was aware was a “problem”. I use GoogleDrive for basically everything file based, because I had chromebooks in my middle school and that was the easiest application for us to use and it’s what I learned. I was thrilled to get to organize my folders my class and colors and assignments with GoogleDrive. The folders within folders, or “directory” style of management makes absolute sense to me. 

However, I also understand the laundry basket method. It gets to a certain point in the semester where I can no longer find the 30 seconds required to create a document and put it in its correct folder. It gets put in the general space of the “Dig.Writing.2026” folder to never be actively sorted through again. I just pray that I put a formal enough or clear enough title on my documents so that I can easily search it. 

I think the ability to search has also greatly impacted the understanding and valueof the directory system. In a way of trying to streamline the directory style file management and make it more user-friendly it kind of gave way to “mis-use” of the directory system or cheapening of it. 

Something I’m really glad is brought up about the lack of file management understanding amongst newer generations of students is the fact that they may just be using it in a different way.

I put quotes around “problem” and “mis-use” because I really don’t see this as an extremely alarming issue. At worst I see it as unorganized college students, I don’t see it as an overall failing to internet and file education or a reflection of the laziness of the new generation. I think that with the consideration that we can search for our documents and that oftentimes these systems will have a recently opened or edited tab the need to properly organize our files seems almost obsolete. Why spend those extra 30 seconds to put it in the correct folder? You’ll possibly spend less time just searching for the document by name than opening up folder within folder within folder. The search bar basically solves the same issue as the folder system was designed to fix. I think that students now are just optimizing their time. 

I think it would be interesting to see a perspective on this that frames searching for files as the “new way” to do things. It would be interesting to research and understand the differences in how people use the same systems, because there may be a possibility that these students aren’t “wrong” in how they use the system. There’s a chance that the generation that grew up alongside these systems may have a different and optimized understanding of how to use the internet. Maybe searching for files in a few years and the “laundry basket” method as Chin describes it will be the new standard. 

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How but not ‘why’

“But the issue is likely not that modern students are learning fewer digital skills, but rather that they’re learning different ones,” – Monica Chin

I don’t entirely know where the gap comes from, whether it’s teachers and professors expecting a certain level of understanding or if we all now use certain technology while assuming we don’t need to understand why it works a certain way.

Technology is ever changing and it seems that gaps grow faster than ever. While my brother met his wife on MySpace, I wouldn’t even begin to understand the basic functions of the website; But vice-versa, he has no idea how Instagram works and I’ve been an active user for most of my teen years and young adulthood. One thing I do know that I don’t know is what the back-end of Instagram does. I don’t know why a sticker does what it does, I just know if I click it I can add a song

There is a fundamental misunderstanding between creating the action and what causes the action. But it’s also not that easy to figure out. I already don’t feel like a competent user of most technology, so why would I benefit from digging in to understand how easy-to-use apps function?

Capitalism?

By allowing companies to prioritize comfort and ease, we lose the connection to the act of creation. Half of my high-school era papers no longer exist because I either didn’t know how to save them correctly or opening them on my computer requires twenty minutes of downloading to open them in the same app I created them in.

“It is alarming when software, commercial or otherwise, comes to signify entire digital genres. Compare the number of results in a search engine for PowerPoint best practices versus slideshow best practices. The results suggest that vendor lock-in has as much of a grip on how people talk about production as it does on what actually gets produced.” – Karl Stolley

Kleenex and Goofle, no longer pronouns but common nouns and verbs, mirror the change we see as tech becomes ubiquitous. Though genericide can have negative consequences, what comes before seems to be a monopolization of the space, designating any object within a certain likeness to the name of the most popular version.

What happens when all we know how to do is use PowerPoint? The barrier to entry for any other slide show program seems too heavy, so why leave? Then PowerPoint will lose favor and the next tech will come along, unable to open any other slide show leaving years of work to file death in the buried recesses of your computer File Explorer.

The Gap

My own experience seems particularly limited, though some may share the sentiment. I grew up in the transitional era. My sisters had flip-phones but I got a smart-phone when I turned 13. My family had a computer room but now we all have individual laptops, and most have desktops, too. My mom was one of those that berated the very existence of a smart-phone until thrust upon her by the expectations of the technologically advanced. I did not have my own computer until college. The latest gaming system I used until a few years ago was…a WII. Somehow both tech literate and beyond saving for the most basic of computer skills.

The gap for those of us who were given only the most restricted access to tech is so large. There is already a misunderstanding for newer generations on the basic functions of computers, but it seems utterly insurmountable to some of us. So what does it look like to become one of the few tech competent?

To my dismay, bridging the gap may actually require trying. Learning what I can, where I can. Choosing the technology that is most perennial and attempting to maintain some semblance of understanding in the world of technology as it grows and expands.

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Now this obviously isn’t the end of the world, lots of old works can be uncovered if they are located on your desktop or cloud storage. But when you’re trying to build a portfolio and keep circling the drain in your search, this effort can seem endless and unfulfilling (at least, for me it has).

If your experience is anything like mine, then you can attest to the fact that our files have become a maze.

How could this have happened?

Well one minute, you’re putting together your final draft for your final. Then the next, you keep thinking back to that amazing final that you wrote for “that one class.” Then you’re diving into your files, searching endlessly for this mythic work of art. And finally…you give up. Defeated. Not knowing that you nested that work in a folder titled “School Stuff.” A folder, which strangely was nested under your school OneDrive account rather than your personal one.

True story, by the way.

The only reason I’ve even started to think about my extreme disorganization with school materials was because of Monica Chin’s article “File not found.” I honestly felt a little bit exposed. This hit a little too close to home.

Then I started thinking…did that really even matter? I mean, like the article states, the times are changing. The way we store our data will continue to change. We went from physical to digital and have gotten quite comfortable with it. So why fix what’s not broken? I, myself, have never truly had a problem with finding the files that are the most important to me. And as much as a pain it was to search for something that I would never find, it was a minor inconvenience.

Even so, this article made me reflect on something. Where will these files live on my computer? Did I really even know how to navigate my files? How could I have even lost files that never even moved?

That gave me pause. Because as much as I am on my computer or digital devices in a day, I feel like I should be more organized with my files. More intentional.

That’s where I agree the most with the article. I may not have a hard time navigating it, but it helps to learn a little bit more…antiquated practices. Like one of the interviewed lecturers says in the article:

“‘They use a computer one way, and we use a computer another way,’ Guarin-Zapata emphasizes. ‘That’s where the problem is starting.”‘

We’re changing rapidly. Although our computer knowledge should and will advance, let’s find ways to bring the old with the new.

This nightmare scenario I mentioned above could easily multiply in scale and intensity. So with that, I won’t sit idly by and let my works get lost in the deluge of my files. Even the insignificant seeming ones need a home on your computer.

If it’s important enough to keep, then it’s important enough to find.

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This post is going to be more casual. For the first half, I would like to focus on what stood out to me in the intro through chapter 3 of verified. I really enjoyed the subtle focus on “instant gratification.” The internet is created so we, the consumers, are able to get information as fast as possible and with as little effort as possible. Because of this, as soon as anythings takes even five seconds longer than it usually does, consumers start getting inconveincied. If something isn’t “instant,” we either look at ways to improve (upgrading service, purchasing subscription) or go another route entirely. Internet users/product consumers are conditioned from a young age to not “wait” for anything. When you always have everything you could want at your fingertips, why wait for anything? All these things are why I like the “quick and easy” approad Caulfield and Wineburg take to their fact checking approaches. If you can’t beat them, join them!

The next part in Verified that really stood out to me was a section where the ease at which information gets ingested by consumers can be misconstrued. Even if they don’t mean to, people on the internet can adopt a very “me-first” mindset. Consuming oh-so much information a day can really get people wondering what they “believe.” People will take information they see and align it with their pre-existing values and beliefs, and if it doesn’t match up, they will decide it is false.

The second thing that I wanted to touch on is Markdown! I really enjoy Markdown; I enjoy the ease at which you are able to will formatting into existence. In a way, using Markdown almost seems easier than pressing the “B” button for bold. Having all edits be tied to the keyboard (when most humans who are working with Markdown have extensive typing abilities) seems like a cheat code.

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The online world and its many websites, forums, communities, servers, and so on, has been marketed as one of the greatest places to create and share work with an audience. And online/digital tools are undeniably helpful in some of the tools and posting abilities it gives us. But when’s the last time you used any sort of content making app that didn’t have a pop-up asking you to buy a subscription at some point. And, if it didn’t ask you to buy something, how limiting was the platform on customization? Maybe I’m just on the wrong websites, and admittedly, on websites of my generation; i.e. instagram, google docs, canva, etc. But, why is it that so many popular platforms limit a users ability to customize either by fully omitting customization or blocking it by a paywall? Capitalization! 

Karl Stolley’s, The Lo-Fi Manifesto, explores the freedom in understanding the digital technologies that are almost always working behind the scenes for larger platforms; which is, standards compliant computer language. Stolley explains how learning this technology as users will allow us to build and share our content without a large dependence on a platform to display the content correctly; which it often fails at. As Stolley describes it:

“In many ways, such as non-negotiable dependence on a specific piece of software to view the artifact, software programs are actually steps backward from the comparatively open access that books and other printed matter provide.” 

I’m sure most of us have seen some rendition of this file privatization and sharing dillimea, I cant access your doc im on word, or I dont have adobe so I can only share files this way, etc. etc. And, this experience is likely when using said company’s platforms as well; i dont have an adobe subscription but I need… I dont have a word subscription but my file… There is hope though, even the most prolific companies use standard computer languages to build their platforms; computer languages users can learn and master themselves.

While standards compliant computer language can be limiting in its own ways, it gives users access to typically free and universal software. Standards compliant computer language eliminates the problems of “error: file could not be opened” and gives users equal access to online creation and sharing; once you get over the learning curve, that is. Next time you hear yourself saying, “Instagram ruined my quality” or “I don’t want to pay for adobe” or any rendition of the sorts, take a second to consider how you can harness those same technologies for yourself.

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“Yet far too many of them, and their students, surrender writing and its demand for sophisticated production knowledge to any interface that promises to make an author’s life easier.”

In the early part of my college career, I studied psychology. In psychology, we covered an interesting dichotomy between “types” of learners. On the one hand, we find children who will focus on skill mastery. These types of learners want to achieve high performance by engaging with material and applying it with intention. On the other hand, we find performance-focused children. These are children who, either intelligently or not, understand that performance equates to a positive assessment by an authority. So, these children find ways to get the results that mastery-focused learners get without the hassle of deep engagement. I don’t believe that this dichotomy changes when we begin looking at adults; instead, I think that anyone who can be considered a learner will fall somewhere along a branch of this dichotomy, and it is this dichotomy that separates software solutions and Lo-Fi tech engagement.

The go-to move for software has long been to focus on user experience: easy-to-navigate user interfaces that hide complex functions behind the press of a button. We have to ask ourselves whether this approach by software developers is genuinely accommodating to the end user. On the one hand, we get to create digital works without investing time into learning the raw functions behind functionality. On the other hand, …. well actually, there is no other hand. It seems that this approach works off of the first principle that no one wants to learn how to engage with things like HTML, Markdown, CSS, or deeper tools like Python. While that may be somewhat true, I argue that this is only because the decision to engage wasn’t really in the hands of the end user to begin with.

Let’s think back to when we were kids. Many of us remember our computer labs where we learned to type or use things like PowerPoint. Imagine for a second that we swapped out learning PowerPoint for learning how to create the functions that the PowerPoint UI sums up in just one button. If that were the case, then it wouldn’t seem far-fetched to think that now, as adults, we would be averse to investing time into learning more complex technologies. We never learned to control computation; we learned how to decide between functions that we never had a say in implementing in the first place. The parameters of engaging with computer technology were set by corporations and pedagogical approaches. Stolley points out that this reliance on premade software is quite limiting to digital creation.

“In many ways, such as non-negotiable dependence on a specific piece of software to view the artifact, software programs are actually steps backward from the comparatively open access that books and other printed matter provide.”

Stolley says that what we see in a program like PowerPoint is what we get. The entire point Stolley is making is that, while involving a deep learning process, we have the power to choose what we, as well as an audience, sees in the first place. This exact point is what leads me to my next and most important one: if software decides what we see and what we get, then we are dependent on software in such a way that we cede some ownership of our creativity.

The implication of Stolley’s manifesto is that reliance on software like Word or PowerPoint is, at its core, a dialectic of ownership. Creative control found in using Lo-Fi technology is an important consideration, but creative control equates to the amount of ownership we have in our intellectual expression as a whole. Hidden underneath the performance-focused approach of the contemporary graphical interface lies the intentions of a corporation that creates these platforms. That intention is reliance and, subsequently, control of creations that are not theirs.

Modern software solutions, much like any other technology, contain the relations between social classes. Put simply, the working-class writer who creates in pursuit of an experience and use, who creates out of a need to communicate themselves to the world, has their creation subsumed into the machine of capital accumulation through the creative process’ reliance on software. In addition, the software that enables the writer “thrives on and maintains ignorance and fear”, thus limiting the writer in their ability to create and express themselves. Corporations promise to enable the creative, yet this is only an aesthetic promise. Software “solutions” are only solutions to a problem that the capital class brought into existence: fear and ignorance of technological capability.

Thus, the empowerment or enabling of creative expression in the working class is merely an aesthetic of modern capitalist interest. Software sure seems like a step forward in creative expression when the writer doesn’t consider the intended subordinate position they inhabit as a premise. Hi-Fi technology provides an aesthetic of creative freedom that veils the lack of true progress in creative freedom. This aesthetic blinds the creative to their static position, maintains a level of fear and ignorance, and ensures that the working-class writer stays without traction and without full control of their work. Nothing exemplifies the opposing tensions between the interests of the working class and the interests of the capital class more so than the contemporary ideology displayed in creative software: the aesthetic of progress and the substance of stagnation. Thus, this is the dialectical structure of digital creation.

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The Lo-Fi Manifesto was a more difficult, and maybe even boring read but there were definitely some important concepts within there. From my notes, what seemed to stand out to me the most was that “technologies shouldn’t prioritize ease over expertise.” It feels like so many people want their technology to be quick and easy nowdays, without even thinking about how it could be better and more beneficial. I agree with this statement; I feel it’s more important to create a technology that has better quality over the quantity.  

I really enjoyed the HTML training videos. By accident, I watched more chapters of the videos than was required, but I still found it extremely beneficial. A lot of the things discussed felt like they should be common sense but were things I hadn’t considered or didn’t know were as important as they were. And if I was aware of certain concepts, they were nice refreshers. Overall, I don’t know as much about HTML as I thought I did. I think the training videos were very well organized and extremely helpful.

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You, yes, you are in a media loop. I am too. We all are; until we make a conscious decision to step outside of the loop and gain perspective. And, yes, some are more entrenched into one side of the media than others, but modern day algorithms and data collection make it almost impossible to escape a media bias when consuming content. When we do find genuinely reliable sources on media platforms, interacting with these platforms will enable your algorithm to continue cycling similar content; even if we are interacting with them negatively. In most forms of media whether it be tv, youtube, or instagram, the platform and its creators view engagement as the most important thing and will go at lengths to keep users to stay on the platform. Recycled content is basically inescapable as anything that gets high amounts of views is shown over and over again in a plethora of media.

All of this goes to say, we can perfectly curate our following or reporters to trust list, but we should always be gaining context to an issue. The book, Verified, discusses this issue on pages 111-113, highlighting how knowledge is a moving network, always gaining new perspectives and bits of information from field experts. Often when doing research we turn to someone or something we trust to report the issue at hand back to us, Verified describes the common end goal of this research to be “to summarize the current state of knowledge regarding the issue of certainty… and the issue of consensus” (112). When turning to one person, we are really still seeking out the views of multiple experts and their opinions on the topic, even if we don’t realize it. 

This shows that we cannot always blindly trust the media bubble that is mainstream media platforms. There are lots of reputable reporters out there and they can be amazing starting points for gaining knowledge, but we need to remind ourselves the things they are reporting on are an accumulation of knowledge or opinions provided by different outlets, sometimes experts, sometimes not. It is our job to examine the context of these claims and make sure we understand the pool of knowledge at play on a topic before immediately reacting and taking the chance of spreading misinformation. Remaining ignorant to the biases at play, or ignoring your ability to easily fact-check things is what allows misinformation to flourish; especially when people react (engage with the post) before doing outside research.

“Taking in the full set of results before you click increases the chances you’ll find something reliable rather than clicking away at the first thing that catches your eye.” –Verified (100).

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