It’s the first week back at school after winter break and the busy schedule of balancing sports, school and other activities has already begun. During the two weeks off we were tasked with reading a book called Little Brother, written by Cory Doctorow. This book was the first part of our New Unit called Disruption, which is based around the question ‘How has technology acted as a disruption with its creation throughout history?’
During the time I read Little Brother I actually really enjoyed it, although it might not have been my first pick off the shelf. This fictional story was about the impact technology has on the world It was set in San Francisco where Marcus, a 17 year old boy was the narrator. An unthinkable thing happens when suddenly the story takes a turn, as the Bay Bridge is blown up by terrorists and everyone is in a panic. The DHS or Department of Homeland Security take Marcus and his friends in for questioning in a prison-like location, where he is interrogated and tortured. He is later released but without one of his friend’s, Darryl and has to vow to not tell anyone about what happened. Throughout the rest of the book Marcus uses his technology and coding skills to shut down the DHS and save Darryl from the prison. There is a lot more that happens during this book but that was just a quick summary of Little Brother and some of the important parts of the story.
After reading this book I immediately connected the programming in the books to my brothers, as for Christmas they received a beginner computer programming kit called Raspberry Pi. This for me, made me think of the power of technology from how just starting off with programming a small game can lead to programming a whole computer and in the Marcus’ case in the book programming XNET in the Xbox and saving San Francisco.
Since finishing this book, one of our first assignments back was researching about one of the things from a list of things that were mentioned in the book. These things were mentioned in the book but are also in real life such as coding, Treasure Island, or yippies. Many of these topics had to do with technology as that was a big part of the book. I decided to research about Treasure Island as it seemed like a pretty interesting topic that was mentioned in the book quite a few times.
Treasure Island
Treasure Island was built by the Army Corps of Engineers in 1936-1937 near the Yerba Buena Island and paid for by the federal government. Some say that the name Treasure Island might have come from some suspected gold in the soil of the island. The Island was built beneath the middle of the San Francisco Bay Bridge in 1939, originally for the Golden Gate International Exposition. The Exposition was a world fair held between 1939 and 1940 to celebrate the two newly opened bridges, the Golden Gate bridge and Oakland Bay Bridge. The birth of the Transpacific Air Passenger Service with the arrival of the Pan Am clipper, was also an achievement that was celebrated at the Fair.
Pan Am Clipper
In the book the Little Brother, Treasure Island is mentioned multiple times throughout chapters 15-21 as an abandoned army base which is partially true. Although it wasn’t abandoned in real life, instead it was leased out by the City of San Francisco. The military hanger buildings were transformed into sound stages and used for multiple famous movies including Matrix and Parent Trap. During the Second World War, in 1941, the US Navy took over the Island making it one of the major training and educating centres. When the war ended in 1945, aviation had changed and the Pan Am Clipper was no longer in use. As well, the Island never became the originally planned airport it was supposed to be after the world fair.
In 1947, when the Cold War started the Island was then used for training, supply and an embarkation station for the US military. Many personnel trained on the island then went on to support the military in countries like Vietnam, Korea and the Persian Gulf. In 1975, the Treasure Island museum was created to tell the historical story of the Island as well as bring tourists to Treasure Island and the San Francisco Bay Bridge Area and is planned to reopen to full operation with development plans in process.
After doing the research about Treasure Island, it has given me more of a visual of what it looks like and its history. When I looked back on where it was mentioned in the book I picture in more depth what is being described and the impact the bombing of the Bay Bridge had on Treasure Island in the story.
Treasure Island has definitely shaped the identity of not only San Francisco but also California, being the world fair grounds in 1939, a military base for the US Navy and military and is now in the stages of sustainable redevelopment. With these redevelopment plans deemed as one of only 19 climate positive projects worldwide by the Clinton Climate. On top of that, Treasure Island is also only the 17th to be awarded the LEED-ND platinum certificate, which is the highest designation for a green sustainable development. So also Treasure Island hasn’t really acted as a disruption which is the theme of the unit but instead it has helped make the world a greener place. Reducing the amount of disruption of global warming and climate change to our planet.