Module 13

Module 13

Over the course of the semester, I learned many new facts and new information about how computers affect the world. From computers changing the way fast-food restaurants do business to how technology is making progress in the area of GNR. I was able to realize that we live in a Digital Society and because we do, we have many privileges that nobody in the history of the world has had before. Globalization for example, has made it so that we can go to the store and buy just about anything at a low price because it was made in a different country and shipped at a low price. All of this is possible thanks to fiber optic cables, the internet, and computers which makes communication between long distances fast and cheap.

I never really put much thought into how computers could change the way businesses did business. For example I didn’t realize that computers could take the jobs away from so many people, I underestimated how much work a computer could do.  Now, when I think about computers I feel like the sky is the limit to their abilities.  I liked Friedman’s example about the fast-food restaurant that was using computers to take orders. I have life experience with this because I worked at a Subway fast-food restaurant, and I can definitely see how computers are changing this type of work. My manager wanted to install new ordering-machines where people could type in what they would like and we would then make it to order.  That would change how Subway does business, especially since the customer has always told the sandwich artist what they wanted face-to-face. If a machine takes the order, then there would be no need for an extra staff member who would have taken orders through the drive-thru.  That would mean that at least one person would be out of the job!  

I learned more about Globalization and the effects it’s having with countries around the world. As technology and communication improve throughout the world, more countries will be able to sell and trade goods and even services like the example of Asian Indians doing America’s taxes. It’s really incredible that through computers businesses can discuss their goals or plans without ever leaving their office let alone the country. With more countries able to compete on a global level, competition increases which means the countries that were in the lead can now fall behind the pack if changes aren’t made. Back to the taxes being done in India, where do all of the American tax accountants go when they are out of the job because people in India are able to do what they do, only at a lesser price? With more and more globalization this is going to happen to not only tax accountants, but other jobs that don’t require face-to-face interaction or a specialization in one area.

Technology has extremely influenced larger and smaller businesses. Because of technology, big companies like Walmart know what stores are selling what items and in turn, Walmart tells its suppliers how many more products to make.  There is less guess and check work and less wasted products that don’t sell. Also, because of technology companies are able to make products faster and know the exact second that items will be ready to ship.  Even Shipping has been revolutionized by technology. Just a scan of a bar code on a box can tell shipping companies the information they need to ship the items to where they need to go. Countries like China, which receives a lot of outsourcing from other countries, can make high quality commodities at a lower price than other countries, and transport those items at a low cost back to the previous countries.  All of this process moves like clock-work.

I learned more about the predictions for the future in GNR. Genetics, nanotechnology, and robotics are fields that are learning rapidly from experiments and the more information that is learned, the more that information can be used to better society or destroy society. As more and more discoveries are found, so the ethical questions about what is right and wrong tend to spring up. As this whole world we live on gets to be more advanced, we also rely more heavily on technology. While relying on technology isn’t necessarily a bad thing, we need to remember that it is a tool that we can use for good or bad. In the end, it’s us humans that make and use the technology and it’s up to us to keep this world good.

This class taught me just how much our society relies on technology and what a big tool it is to use. I appreciate technology because it can help me with many things I would like to accomplish. This has been an informative class. Good luck with finals everyone. 

Module 12

Module 12

Are you scared about the future? After reading this article my mind opened up and thought about what it would be like in 2030 and let me tell you, I did feel a tinge of fear. Think about this for a second, this author -Bill Joy- is writing about the future within 15 years! This is not some unproportioned theory about what it will be like in the year 3000, this is practically now! It’s within our lifetime. These advances will affect us in the near future, and their effects aren’t always positive. What is going to happen in the future, is being formed right now.  Technology is advancing astronomically. GNR or Genetic engineering, Nanotechnology, and Robotics are making huge advancements.  Along with them comes questions about what is ethical and what is unethical and sometimes the answer isn’t clear.  Even up to this point, technology has not always been used for good. In the future, it seems like the more technology advances, the bigger the ethical questions are.  

Let’s focus on Genetic engineering for now. What good can genetic engineering do? Well, lots actually. Golden rice which was infused with Vitamin C has helped prevent malnourishment in developing countries (if the population can be socialized into buying Golden Rice).  Crop’s harvest has increased and the amount of pesticides used has decreased. It’s revolutionized cloning and helped with reproduction. It can create unique species of insects, plants, bacteria, and viruses. It’s useful when making cures for diseases and a whole lot more, but not all results come out for the better. Genetic engineering is capable of making terrible diseases, or what Joy wrote as “white plagues”. White plagues could be used to destroy the population in geographical areas or species with unique traits. Terrorists could potentially make some new kind of bacteria in a lab and use if for mass destruction.  What if that bacteria did something unexpected and killed everybody, instead of the selected few?  It’s difficult to predict every outcome in an experiment, even though there can be many predicted outcomes.  One missed prediction and oops earth’s human population is gone.

Nanotechnology is also very interesting. Nanotechnology is science, engineering, and technology conducted at the nanoscale, which is about 1 to 100 nanometers.  Because scientists can engineer on such a small scale, Joy argues that anything can be made, at a lower price.  The big question here is what about those atomic bombs?  When bigger countries are able to make them and war starts out. Are we all going to die over politics? The whole world will just blow up and boom! No more human life. We’re all gone, thanks to some scientist’s great idea of creating nuclear bombs and some crazy politician’s idea of ending a conflict.

Robotics are also making big changes.  The big question for them in the future is if humans should be able to control them, or should we let them make their own decisions.  If humans govern computers, it is inevitable that there will be problems.  We humans just aren’t as great as we’d like to think we are.  On the other hand, what would happen if we let computers govern themselves?  Could they think through the problem and always come out with the best answer?  What if computers realized just how flawed we humans are and decided to exterminate us? What would happen if computers could do everybody’s job?  The computers could work faster and more efficiently, there would be no need for humans to work.  We’d all be unemployed, and honestly I don’t think our lives would mean much if we didn’t work.  What would we do?  Computers would do research and advance themselves, even scientists would be laid off.   I know these questions posed may sound ridiculous, but at the same time, they don’t seem impossible. I believe it’s worth thinking about, even if it never gets to that point.  Which I really hope it will never get to that point. If it does get to that point (which I am not saying it will) we’d better be ready with some ideas.

I have one comment. While reading the article, any computer that I was on took forever to load, it was really annoying trying to read because it needed to load every few seconds.  Did anybody else have this problem? I thought it was also kind of distracting to have all those ads pop up while trying to read the article.

Module 11

Steve Jobs: One Last Thing

I watched a Steve Jobs documentary called “Steve Jobs: One Last Thing”.  I found it on Netflix and it talked about Steve Jobs’s life and how it impacted not only the computer industry, but also the telephone, the motion picture, and the music industries. Steve jobs left a legend.  His life impacted how we communicate and the technology we use today.

        When Steve was growing up in the Silicon Valley, he lived in a neighborhood that was well-to-do.  There were multiple neighbors whose dads were electrical engineers.  Jobs moved into a new neighborhood and met Bill Fernandez.  Bill then introduced Steve Jobs to a friend named Steve Wozniak.  They all enjoyed building and playing with electrical devices.  Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak became best friends.  It was mentioned that Jobs had the great ideas, and Wozniak had the brains/knowledge to make those ideas a reality.  As they got older, the first of their great ideas was hacking the telephone system.  They made an electronic router kit that could call people around the world through the telephone system for free by making a phone trick the computers into thinking that that phone was a computer.  As they both got older and more experienced with electronics, they decided to build the Apple computer 1.  It wasn’t like a computer we know today.  It didn’t even have a screen.  The Apple Computer 2 was more like a personal computer.  It had a keyboard and screen. The user typed input into the computer and the screen displayed the output of information. Steve’s dream was that the computer would become more personal. He wanted people to be able to not only use the computer for work, but to use it for play.  Jobs really had a dream for computers.  Most computers at that time were huge machines that took up a whole room.  Nobody would have ever thought of putting one in their house.  The Apple 2 was like a box, with a screen, and it was more user-friendly than the first Apple Computer.  

        Wozniak and Jobs built the first apple computer and went to display it in a show. It was a success. They had no clue that their computer would be a big hit, and the idea of selling their computer came to them.  So starting a computer business became their next project. They went to work teaming up with older, more experienced businessmen to help them make a business of their own. Jobs went to speak with Ronald Wayne about a business proposal.  Wayne would have gotten 10% of Apple (which would have been $37 billion dollars today) but, Wayne declined the offer.  Jobs also went to Robert Cringley and he hired him, but when Jobs would only pay Cringley in stock, Cringley declines as well. Looking back today, Cringley and Wayne both missed an opportunity to make a whole ton of money. The Apple Company started off without them, and so it began the empire that we know today.  

        There came a point in the Apple history where Steve Jobs left Apple.  John Sculley demoted him. So Jobs went off and started a new computer business called Next. He also became a part of Pixar -- the motion picture industry.  He did very well for himself there. Pixar grew up and people fell in love with 3-D images on the TV screen. When Apple was on the brink of declaring bankruptcy. Jobs went back and saved the company from running down the toilet.  Bill Gates even helped Apple in it’s time of need.  Now, Apple is a multi-billion dollar company!     

Nobody can pinpoint what made Jobs so successful. Jobs was praised for his style and simplicity, which separates Windows from Apple. The iPad for example, is thin, sleek, stylish and simple.  Will.i.am from the Black Eyed Peas said “here comes a device, that comes with no manual and everybody knows how to use it”.  You don’t need a manual to know how to work an iPad.  That is impressive, considering all the complicated functions it can do for the user. But, not only is the iPad a big hit, but the iPod, iPhone, and iMac are also favorites. Jobs lived by a philosophy that went like this, he said “everything around you that you call life was made up by people no smarter than you and you can change it, you can influence it, you can build your own things that other people can use”. Perhaps his drive was what made him so successful.

        There’s no doubt that Steve Jobs revolutionized technology.  His ideas were genius, and they made him very rich. He lived a unique life, it ended early, when he was only 56 years old. Jobs was diagnosed with cancer. He died October 5, 2011.  Many parts of the world mourned after him. Places like Hong Kong, made signs and shrines with his picture and real apples placed around the sidewalks. Though Jobs is no longer here, technology will keep developing.  The next generation of computer geeks is growing up and who knows what we’ll see in another 20 years.

References:

Steve Jobs: One Last Thing. Dirs. Jonathan Challis, John Coffey and Ian Lynch. Pioneed Productions. 2011. Film.

Module 10 "A Logic Named Joe"

A Logic Named Joe

That was written in 1946? Whoever wrote it really had an imagination about computers.  Especially since computers in the 40’s and 50’s were super different.  Luckily, our society has not gotten to such an extreme point like the one in the story, yet.  Just like in the story, anyone could ask their logics questions they didn’t know the answer to, we too can ask internet search engines questions, and they give us the answers. Unlike Joe’s answers, the answers we get aren’t always true and simple. Search engines just list off websites that have material related to the question. And those websites that pop up are created by people who could or could not be professionals, thus we have to sort through every webpage or website to find what we are really searching for, and when we find it, it’s not a simple step-by-step answer, if we even do find something.

            In this short story it was the computer - Joe - who did most of the thinking.  Joe looked up the information and Joe did the logic to manipulate all the information into a simple answer, even teenagers could understand.  Little kids could counterfeit and find treasure with Joe’s instructions.  Even a drunk could get sober heeding Joe’s solution. Adults wanted to know how to tell if their spouses were faithful to them, and what to do if they weren’t.  Joe could bring up dirt about anybody’s past.  Neighbors could take a peek into the lives of each other and find out each other’s history, the good and the bad.  It’s a small relief to know that our computers definitely cannot think like Joe.  What we can do is Google a person and we might find what social media they use, or even if they have committed some kind of felony and other personal information like phone numbers or addresses.  We analyze the information we get on the internet.  Our computers are just the tool we use to come up with the information.  Besides, not every bit of information on the internet can be analyzed by a human being, that would take days on end.  Joe, on the other hand could look at all the data in the tank and in seconds, come up with a simplified answer, and deliver the message to the user.

Joe was not a bad computer.  Joe did his job the best he could, and he was really good at it too.  In the story, the humans corrupted the system. The problem wasn’t that Joe could get information on anything, the problem was how corrupt the humans got asking Joe to solve their problems. Asking questions on how to rob banks, murder wives, make a ton of money quick, and more!  Like they couldn’t solve their problems on their own.  Maybe they just needed a computer to validate their bad decisions.  Maybe they thought it was OK to do all of those bad things when their Logics told them how to do it.  After all aren’t Logics supposed to help their users and give them the best solutions?  They wanted a quick solution to erase their mistakes, or reward themselves with riches.  Like money could make them happy.  Joe, was actually a miracle!  His abilities were what everyone dreams their computers could be.  Imagine a computer that could do all of that!  If there ever existed a society that was perfectly ethical, Joe could have helped them develop even more and perhaps become the greatest society ever.  But, I don’t know of any society in the history of the world that was ever that ethically good.  Instead, societies use the resources they have for good and bad.  Besides, criminals don’t need a computer to tell them how to commit crimes. They figure it out themselves.  Computers might supply them more ideas or help to create better diabolical plans.  Again, computers are just a tool that could be bad or good. Good and bad have always existed with or without computers.

Another point to be made is the fact that in their story, they couldn’t turn off all the Logics because society had been built on them.  Our society as well, has been built on the foundation of computers.  We can’t just stop using them. That would be like telling a diabetic to stop using insulin. Everything we use daily would stop working-literally.  No more using credit cards at the grocery store, no more going to the doctors and having them bring up your history with a click of a mouse, no more smart phones!  It would be like living on a new planet, where you actually had to write on paper, or go to the library. How inconvenient!  

I see how computers influence each one of us. They are a part of our lives and we take them for granted a lot of the time. Good and bad have come from them, but the computers aren’t the problem, it’s us, the people, who need to check our moral system.

Module 9 Chps. 13-17

We’re finally done reading the Friedman book!  What a relief, I’m stoked to write about something else, other than “The World Is Flat”.  Not that it wasn’t interesting, but there were some pages that I wasn’t exactly thrilled to read.  But in these last chapters of the book, Friedman makes some good points that made me think about the future of the flat world.

To get started with the questions.  How is a Dell Laptop built?  Well, the supply chain is gigantic, and the process is all articulately organized down to minutes.  It starts with the customer’s order.  Dell receives the order and then sends a message to one of its six factories around the world.  The factory, then sends a message to its suppliers of what they need and how much of it they need.  Those suppliers respond and immediately work to fill the order.  The order is filled and sent to a Dell factory where the parts are put together to meet customer’s needs (software and hardware specifications).  When done, the laptop is shipped to the customer. The customer receives the laptop, signs the papers and the process is repeated again with more customers.  Did I mention, that Dell sells 140,000 to 150,000 a day (Friedman 581)?  Making that many computers in a day is no simple feat.  Those laptops have over 30 key components in them and Dell uses multiple suppliers, just in case one a supplier cannot make the count.  Not to mention that those suppliers aren’t always close to each other geographically. Their supply chain is mind-boggling, but it runs like clockwork.

Next question. Does Al-Qaeda have a supply chain?  Friedman argues that it does. He argues that Al-Qaeda advertises and recruits through the internet.  The internet makes it so that even when terrorists are hiding in caves, they can still make a big impact on people through what they choose to post on the internet.  The internet is where they advertise for donations, or recruitments, or just to send a message of fear to others.  They use the flat world technology to destroy the flat world!  Computers, hardware, software, everything in the flat world is just a tool.  And those tools can be used for anything, including making a bunch of money or wreaking world havoc.  I liked a quote from a chapter that said “Democracy is great, but democracy without responsibility is truly frightening” (Friedman 527).  Computers are like our own personal freedom.  We can upload what we’d like.  We all have the same rights to upload what we want, but when we upload irresponsibly, it’s frightening.  Computers can either be a great tool to build good things, or a tool that acts more like a weapon, destroying what others have built up.

Last question.  What is the curse of oil?  Countries who have lots of oil oftentimes struggle to “develop real institutions, property rights, rule of law, independent courts, modern education, foreign trade, foreign investment, freedom of thought, and scientific inquiry to get the most out of their men and women”(Friedman 626).  This is because oil is a big source of money for the government officials in countries such as Venezuela, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, and Iran.  If these countries aren’t taxing the public, they don’t have to tell the public what they are doing with the money.  And the public doesn’t really benefit from the money either.  On the opposite of the spectrum are countries that aren’t oil rich.  These countries need to tax the working men and women for money.  And when they tax the public, the government needs to explain how that money will be used to benefit the people.  Whether it is used towards education, law, etc.  Since the county can’t rely on oil, it needs to be good at producing other things in a competitive way.  There is more motivation to develop the country, because the money doesn’t come out of the ground, it comes through the educated ideas of self-motivated persons.

In summary, the book opened up ideas to me that I had never thought of before relating to technology, especially computers and the internet. I feel both excited and fearful for the future in technology.  It seems to me that technology can be used for good or bad, and since we the users control what we do with it, we should think about what ways we would like to use computers for good.

Module 8

Module 8

As I grew up in the 90’s computers were in my life.  I used them for gaming, surfing the web, homework, and shopping. I continue to use them today. Much of my time spent on the computer is for homework these days.  I also like my social media, and email. If it wasn’t for social media or email, I wouldn’t write as many people as I do. And I would't know how they were doing either.  I was never much of a letter writer, but I will instant message family and friends.  It is much faster than the regular postal service since I can send and receive messages within seconds and the postman delivers within days or weeks. Besides the social aspects of computes, I find computers very helpful as they allow me to create things very fast.  Typing allows me to write fast. I type faster than I write on paper.  I can use PowerPoint, Photoshop, Excel, and many other software applications to create what I want and how I want it with little effort on my part.  I command the computer to do what I want and the computer obeys me.  Since everything is digital, I am able to send what I create with others.  

The internet is also something I take advantage of.  My computer would be a lot less fun without it.  I use the internet for everything. I will never get on my computer without connecting myself to the internet (unless I am just using word documents, but even then I wind up on the internet).  The internet is where everything is at.  I literally have access to information at the stroke of my keyboard. I type what I would like to know and Google or other search engines give me the information I request.  This is very convenient for me, I don’t have to leave my house to go to my local library or search through old newspapers.  I can do a search for the most bizarre things and something is likely to come up. The search is instant! The information doesn’t take long to load, and I can learn quickly.

When it comes to computers in my education, I am all for them. Because sometimes you don’t realize what you have until it’s gone. Just this semester I had a Psychology class where my professor didn’t use any technology. I felt like I was back in elementary school where everything was printed out and I took notes with a pencil and paper! My professor didn’t use power-points or even Canvas! I wanted to point out to my professor that we were living in the year 2015 and that computers are actually quite helpful in education, even though you don’t need a computer to learn. I was quite bored in class because there wasn’t a lot of visual material to look at and I had to listen to the lecture the whole two hours of class. It was difficult to not fall asleep.  I feel more engaged with a PowerPoint, or a video to explain concepts. Since some people learn more with pictures or words and others with noise, technology can do both.

In my senior year of high school all of my math and science classes had smart boards. We didn’t even use old-fashioned whiteboards. We also had a clicker system that we could use to review for tests. A question would show up on the smart boards, we would answer using our clickers and then when everyone had answered the board would show the correct answer and how many people had chosen that answer and how many had chosen the wrong answer. It was awesome because the answers were seen instantly. Teachers could see what concepts needed to be reviewed and the whole class could review together.  It was also stimulating, you had to pay attention because nobody wanted to be that person who didn’t answer the question. Technology is awesome, and even though in my classes we don’t use smartboards, we do use computers and the internet. I also find it interesting that there are degrees that you can get online.  You won’t even need to go to school, because you could learn everything online at your home, using eBooks and the internet.  That’s how much technology has affected education.  And now that there is a teacher deficiency in many schools, I predict that even more kids will use computers towards their education. 

Module 7 Chapters 10-13

Well, we read chapters 10-13 in the Friedman book. And like in the rest of the chapters, Friedman is still explaining the flat world and globalization.  In chapters 10-13 he focuses on what makes some countries succeed and others fail.  He mentions self-directed consumers, and if globalization means Americanization. Let’s begin the analysis.

First question, why are some countries or regions better at doing some things than other countries or regions?  Well, that’s a good question and there really is not just one aspect that makes or breaks the economic success of countries.  Friedman explains “climate, natural resources, and geography all help to explain why some countries are able to make the leap to industrialization and others are not, the key factor is actually a country’s cultural endowments, particularly the degree to which it has internalized the values of hard work, thrift, honesty, patience, and tenacity, as well as the degree to which it is open to change, new technology, and equality for women (Friedman 421).”  It doesn’t matter if the country has a physical advantage, what matters most is the culture.  And the interesting thing is that culture is adjustable.  It can change with time.  It changes as leaders and media adjust and when child-rearing, education, and religion change to new circumstances.  So what is a “good” culture?  A kind of culture that is open-minded.  A culture that doesn’t judge based on race or gender, but that judges on talent and ability. These types of cultures seem to reap the greatest rewards argues Friedman.  Because they are open to change, they are open to new ideas, and new technologies.  They don’t limit the potential of others, and they don’t mind working with people who aren’t similar to them in terms of culture, or skin color, or sex. The results of working with others, actually pays off and countries move up the ladder. For example, countries that don’t limit women to the home have more educated people in the workforce and it doesn’t give the men the idea that they were just born to be entitled to everything.  Men don’t have the competitive edge if they already feel like they are better than every women (Friedman 423).  Friedman also writes that good governance, education, infrastructure, and the ability to glocalize affect the success of countries.  Countries should have the right laws, otherwise they won’t compete well.  They should also have a good education system which teaches students math and science—to better excel with technology discoveries. Also, countries need to have a good transportation system with roads, airports, etc.  I could write more on this, but I’ll keep it as is.

What is a self-directed consumer?  Consumers enjoy the feeling of getting what they want and how they want it. A self-directed consumer gets to “call the shots”.  They set the price and the service they’d like.  The internet makes this easy.  For example, I go online shopping for snowshoes.  I look at the store websites and they offer me check boxes of which brands I’d like to browse or what style I am looking for at what price.  There are more checkboxes for the color and size I’d like them to be.   So instead of feeling overwhelmed with all the available options, I can minimize my search and just look at the snowshoes that interest me, and the search becomes more manageable. I am a self-directed consumer, and anybody else who shops online is also.  Companies want you to tell them what you want, they encourage their buyers to be self-directed.  That’s why those checkboxes exist in the first place.  And these days, it’s easy and simple to shop more directly.  You enter in what you want, the computer process it, and gives you what you asked for.

Last question, does globalization mean Americanization?  Not necessarily.  The argument after the Berlin wall was that America was King of the globalization.  “This worry was not unreasonable, because it was primarily American-based manufacturers and service providers, American brands and American moviemakers, American singers and American entertainers, American clothing designers and American fast-food chains that were in the best position to take advantage of the falling of the walls and flattening of the world” (Friedman 477).  It’s 2015 now, and the world has changed!  It’s not all American any more.  And the internet gives freedom to express one’s culture.  Practically anyone who lives anywhere with internet can upload what they’d like: recipes, podcasts, movies, etc.  They don’t even have to speak English. I agree that culture changes, so maybe more into the future other countries will pick up some American culture, but they won’t lose their own.  What I can maybe predict is more appreciation for culture in the future.  When you see how other people live, you see the good and the bad of their culture, but you respect them more, when you understand them. 

                To conclude, the world globalization isn’t stopping, it is picking up speed.  There is no way we can stop it.  It is neither 100% good nor 100% bad.  But what we should be realizing is how it affects us and what we are going to do about that.