Week Fifteen Writing Assignment

As mentioned in class and through slides it is clear that we are living in a time of rapid change. The changes are are going through may be taken for granted, as most people are not even aware of all that we have compared to what we had, or didn't have even tracing back to ten years ago. At this rate, it is said through prediction that within the next thirty years even more advances in robotics, genetic engineering, and nanoscale technology, combined with current changes due to the internet, will fundamentally reshape our world. 

Ray Kurzweil, thinks this is a good thing, it will lead to utopia, as he believes that diseases can be cured through technology, along with the prevention of aging, and we will be able to create a world of leisure and creativity. He believes that we can be confident of continued exponential growth in technologies for the foreseeable future. Ray thinks that by the year of 2009, computers will disappear. When I first read that statement I thought he meant that technology was going to end, but it is in fact the exact opposite. He thinks that computers will be transformed and displays will be in our retinas by devices of glasses or contact lenses. The high resolution displays will provide a virtual reality for us, as "going into a website" will actually be entering into a virtual reality, at least from a visual and audio point of view. All electronics will be so small that they will be embedded so invisibly into our glasses and apparel. Ray also thinks that we will live a long time, he feels the human life span is another exponential trend. 

Bill Joy, the cofounder to Sun Microsystems has a different view than Ray. He feels unbridled technology is dangerous and is he sees it as the neo-luddite point of view, trying to do something without anticipating the consequences. He mentioned in his article that computer scientists succeed in developing intelligent machines that can do things better than humans can. In result, all the work will soon be done by these highly organized systems of machines and it is said that no human effort will be necessary. The machines will either make all of their own decisions without human oversight, or human control over the machines could possibly be retained.

So who is right regarding this issue? I think I would have to lean towards the second article, as it seems more realistic and natural. And yes, Billy Joy is involved with computers however he is realizing that this may not lead to such a good thing. Thinking about the next 30 years, and after reading Ray's article, it seems like he has figured pretty much every thing out. Is this the way we want the world to be? I always envied people who lived a long life in result of living a healthy lifestyle, and personally, having my mother as a role model of living this healthy life, I don't want to watch other people get to live as long as her just because of technology. I feel that we should live, evolve, and die naturally, depending on the way we live our lives and the nature allows us to. Relating back to the past technological revolutions, that helped save humanity, times have changed and so has technology. Ray's article discusses how in the 18th century, we added a few days every year to human longevity, and that has increased to weeks, and now almost a half a year, every year. With new revolutions, it is said that we will be adding more than a year every year within ten years, and we will get to experience the remarkable century ahead. Sure, that would be cool but it doesn't seem realistic. I feel as though we are turning into robots, and with these computers being inserted into our glasses and lenses and even clothing, it seems as though we are! Personally I am scared to see what will happen next, I feel that are society is becoming dependent on technology which is not a good thing. Just last night our power went out on campus and all I could hear were girls screaming. When I lost my cell phone last semester a girl asked me how I could possibly live without it. We don't need technology to survive, it just helps us out, but we shouldn't be pushing it so far that it will soon be taking over our lives. 

Week 13 Writing Assignment

Alan Turing proposed a thought experiment to determine whether a computer is intelligent. This was also known as the "imitation game." He wanted to distinguish whether or not computers could think, having their own intelligence. The turing test is based on external awareness, and as we saw in class, professor would ask the computer a question and it would come up with an answer. He mentioned that it is like a concept in psychology where to help formulate  a new question the computer would turn it around and gather information from the question asked, then spit out a new answer. This concept is simple and easy to understand and administer. The only problems with this is that people can be fooled and depending on the question and how much sophistication it has will alter the solutions. What needs to be done is the understanding of how the human brain works. Also, it needs to make programs do specific tasks that require intelligence when performed by humans. Some other skills that the computer needs to pass the turing test are having to have a large memory, self awareness and even emotion. Computers will have to be able to identify different situations, and deal with problem solving issues. Computers need to have complex motor coordination, vivid language, vision face and object recognition, and be able to deal with learning and complex reasoning. With all this computers will be able to pass the turing test.

Week 12 Writing Assignment

After reading the article, seeing the documentary and watching the video at the Priceton site, I have acknowledged the specific concerns that people have about the Diebold voting machines. In researching Diebold voting machines, it is clear that they are vulnerable to extremely serious attacks. Any attacker that gets physical access to a machine, will only take them a minute to get a hold of the removable memory card which could lead to installing a malicious code. This leads to stealing votes, modifying records, logs, and counters. When watching the video we saw how in Florida, Al Gores votes were counted backwards, which resulted in a Negative number. Computers are supposed to protect the people so the theory of what happened is that it was rigged, as the problem couldn't possibly have just been from the computer naturally. They found a second memory card, which came from an unauthorized source. The reason why these Diebold machines are not being considered secure is for the fact that certain individuals are illegally hacking into the system and messing with the votes. The video introduced us to Bev Harris, who is trying to put a stop to all this madness. She explained how the votes are stored on memory cards which are taken to a master computer, which reads them and declares a winner. However the problem is that we cannot see it counting so we are unsure if the counting is being done correctly. Their are many attributes towards writing software and just one person could change hundreds of thousands of votes, but these companies keep it a secret so all outsiders are prohibited in seeing how it works. Attackers could steal malicious codes that spreads automatically and silently from machine to machine during the election activities, being a virus.  If I were placed in charge of monitoring elections in California, I would recommend to ensure the process was as far as possible by choosing to go back to the way it was before electronic voting took place. Hopefully in the future electronic voting could again be the new way to vote, but until all the flaws are figured out and it is secure enough, paper ballots seem to be the best bet. "Electronic voting machines are a hacker's dream," as the article states, so the paper ballot system, being untechnical could possibly be the more verifiable way that Americans will proudly be aware that their votes are being counted accurately. 

Mashup Assignment

1. For me, I enjoy listening to music a lot, and I am a very visual person so being able to view music videos while I listen is fascinating to me. I found a website after searching under music that allows me to type in whatever artist I would like listen to, and gives me all of the available music videos to watch. After either typing an artist through the search engine or clicking one of the tags, their is a direct link to watching these videos on you tube or listening to the songs from at last. So, Lastfm. and YouTube are the sites that are mashed up with I love Music Video and the link is http://www.ilovemusicvideo.net/. I am glad I found this website so now I will have no problem searching for whatever music video I wish to view.
2. I definitely enjoyed going back to the housing maps page we viewed in class, on http://www.housingmaps.com/ because for me, I will be soon be searching for an apartment within the next year and this website seems like the most simple way to do so. Craigs List and Google maps are mashed up with this. I feel this is a great way to view apartments, and get the overall layout of where it is and what it is near. Finding an apartment in San Francisco seems quite difficult but with the help of housing maps I think my search will be a lot less stressful and a better experience.
3. I found a mashup site that refers to the subway station in Boston, http://www.thrall.net/maps/mbta.html that is mashed up with Boston, Tagging, and Transit. This website is very useful seeing as I live south of Boston, but have no idea how to get around that city. Boston is a lot more confusing that San Francisco but with this website I can probably find my way around now. It gives links to choosing whatever line on The T one will need such as the green line or the red line, and the map can either be in map form, satellite form, or hybrid. Their is also a link on the site that says post to del.icio.us - which as I remember from class we can add bookmarks to that site and view from any computer. This website will definitely be helpful for me in the future.
   

Digital Divide Writing Assignment

Digital Divide can be a potential problem in the following areas; education, health, government , entertainment and work. I will describe some of these problems. As far as education goes, technology is improving and more schools are becoming more involved with the computer world. This seems like a good idea, but one thing that needs to be considered, is aside from managing the budget for the new computers, training for teachers or anyone that will be using these computers needs to be considered in with the budget so they can be trained to integrate technology. Aside from that, problems that can arise are a dependence on the computer when dealing with writing. I know for myself, I have become dependent on word's spell check, where if I spell something wrong I don't even attempt to fix it, but rather right click and let spell check show me the right way to spell it. I also feel that when students are always on the computer, interaction with others is down and being social and interacting is crucial towards growing up, because in the work life,  you always have to deal with other people and so education is a good time to work on communication skills, and those are at a minimum when always on the computer. Problems also arise when dealing with the government and health as well. Although their are a lot of things you can now do online, like file for unemployment or taxes, take driving lessons, process health forms, not everyone has access to computers, let alone to get on the internet, so this can be a major problem for those unaccessible to the web. For entertainment, what happened to the times where we used to watch shows on television? Now, everything is online, which is convenient for some, but again not everyone as a computer with internet access. Television is loosing its overall views as people don't even rush home to watch their favorite shows as they can just catch it online later. Lastly, in the work field, a lot of problems arise. For one thing, stores could potentially loose business as now everything is being put online. I work for a clothing company, Abercrombie and Fitch, that has opened four other stores, Abercrombie kids, Hollister Co., Ruehl No. 924, and Gilly Hicks. Ruehl opened a few years ago and they held the clothes off the internet for about 2 years to get buyers to come to the store and see the atmosphere. At first this made me upset because I wanted to see the clothes when the store opened and their were only 13 stores in the country, none of which were close to my home, however when I came out to San Francisco and went to the store out here, it was way more exciting to go into this new store and not have any idea of what the clothes or store was going to be like. Now that more stores have opened, they have put clothes online for buyers to view and purchase on the web. Another problem in the work area is that adults, in the older generations are down right computer illiterate. My generation is not because we have grown up with it, so it is simple and easy to us, but for our parents generation, it is all new. It is sort of like learning a new language, the younger you are the easier it is to comprehend and understand. Technology will continue to increase and hopefully it will be useful for our society. 

Week Eight Writing Assignment

I will admit, I have illegally downloaded a large amount of music. It all started around middle school when Napster was popular. My brother and I would download music on our families computer and we were not aware that it was even a bad thing. After Napster was shut down, new illegal downloading programs became available, such as Kazaa, Bearshare and Limewire. The premises from A Better Way Forward article states, "Killing Napster only spawned more decentralized networks. Most evidence suggest that file sharing is at least as popular today as it was before the lawsuits began." 

My personal ethics regarding file sharing is that it is so normal and common to me, I feel it is okay. I do however understand that file sharing is wrong and is taking away profit from artists who work hard at their job and could potentially be loosing money. But the way I see it, in order to get music around, just like the news or any means of communication, the music has to be bounced around and shared through people. I myself love when friends introduce me to new music, especially since they know what kind of person I am so they know what genre and styles of music I will be interested in.  People are lazy in society and do not always go out looking for new bands and music to listen to, but rather wait and get introduced to it by someone else. Although sharing music with friends can help promote the bands and lead to branching the music off to more people, it "robs the people who created the music of compensation" - stated in the RIAA article. It sort of has a domino affect, as when the record companies are deprived, employees loose their jobs, artists get taken off rosters, and fewer bands are able to be signed. In the long run this is not going to help the music industry. 

In comparing shoplifting a CD from a store and downloading free music on the internet, I feel the two differ on many accounts. As the RIAA article states, "When you go online and download songs without permission, you are stealing. 

The illegal downloading o music if just as wrong as shoplifting from a local convenience store - and the impact on those who create music and bring it to fans is equally devastating."  First of all, it is not our fault that someone made these illegal downloading programs available to anyone who wants it, and it is hard to resist the temptation when frankly it is basically like people standing outside of these music stores and handing it to us, free of charge. I do not see it on the same terms as walking into a music store and physically stealing the CD, however I am aware that it is wrong, but not enough people are aware of this so they do it anyway. 

Whether or not the artist is popular or struggling, I feel that downloading their music and sharing it with others is making the artist or band bigger. However after reading the article on RIAA I did not realize that more than just the artist's are affected by this. Sound engineers and technicians to warehouse workers and record store clerks are all affected as well. Piracy deprives the music industry of the resources that help develop new talent. 

I recently began to DJ at our schools radio station and I have been playing local bands from my home town, along with local bands around this area to promote their music and make them more popular. I tend to mention their my-space URL so that people can check them out and see what they sound like, in hopes of then buying their CD at a store or on Itunes. 

For people who wish to buy CD's and would like to try it out, their are many websites that allow sampling of music, without illegal download. Take for example my-space, which actually lets you listen to entire songs that have been accessible legally by the artist themselves, or someone who works for the artist. Some are even downloadable. I think that when people say they are going to test out a song, it will lead to "testing" out more and more songs, unable to resist the temptations into downloading all free music. But is it the individuals who are downloading this free music to blame? I feel that although it is wrong, it's not like these people were the ones who created these programs, and for that matter they would never be tempted to get this music for free because it would not be accessible. 

I am not going to lie and say I will never download music illegally again, but after reading these articles, I now am aware of how many people this is hurting. I am interested working in the music industry myself, so I feel that I am just harming my own future by downloading free music. I hope that someday, all illegal downloading of music will be shut down so I will no longer be tempted to download. 

Week Seven Writing Assignment

Over the years the media has changed dramatically and one way of looking at it is its change from analog to digital. Nowadays, it is very easy to produce music, movies, and artwork from home rather than from renting out a studio or buying expensive programs. In remembering in class, you told a story about your file sharing in high school, recording friends music off of cassette tapes. Relating to now, the same concept works, however it is way easier and faster. Instead of manually copying it, as all we need to do is connect online and send through computers. This modern way of file sharing has a lot of pros; easier, faster, and without the purchases of CD's or tapes people are saving money. 

One thing that came to mind when thinking about movies and how they have changed through digital processing is that the quality has gotten a lot better. Aside from having a plasma TV, one can receive great quality from specific DVD's themselves from just being modern and great quality. Recently I watched 101 Dalmatians, which is animated, however compared to something like Lilo & Stitch, the animation quality is a lot different. I almost would like to say that I like the quality in 101 Dalmatians better, as it looks more drawn rather than just full out animated from a computer. With sound, I feel it is hard for us to distinguish sound now from sound a few decades back as more people are buying televisions with surround sound or just high quality speakers which makes the sound more realistic. I'm sure if someone who hadn't watched a film for 30 years would be amazed at the difference in sound, but since we have gradually been listening as it has changed, it is hard to notice. 

In thinking about the music I have, I think about what my life was like before I got Itunes. I had a lot of CD's that took up a lot of space. Once getting Itunes, I burned all of my CD's onto my computer so it would be quicker and faster to find certain songs. I enjoy having all of my music in front of me on one page however I do believe there is a downside to this. Before I had itunes I would listen to certain CD's in my room or in my car. I can remember the first time I came to california in the rental car all we listened to was my Yellowcard CD, so now whenever I listen to that CD it reminds me of that time when I came here. When listening to CD's even after I had itunes, I would make mixes then listen to them through a CD player or a car and still be aware of exactly what song would play next. When I first started listening to my iPod I would play it on shuffle and having so many songs it would get annoying because before I would only listen to a specific genre or album at the same time. Considering I have over 3000 songs it is rare that a song of the same artist or album would play in a row. One thing I have discovered that can solve my problem is that on itunes we can make playlists so what I do is make playlists then when I'm driving or just listening to music I will put on a specific playlist depending on my mood. I enjoy having all my music together on this library however I realize that I do not give each song its equal respect. Their is even a portion of songs I have never played all the way through - or even played at all. 

I feel I have a strong relationship with media. I enjoy playing on Garage band - a program on macs where you can create your own songs with a variety of beats to choose from, which also lets you import sections from your itunes library too. This application is fun to play around with and lets me understand how music is made in the studios. I appreciate the technology we have today and feel it is good for our society.