If I commit to purchasing your book, will you give me extra credit?

Honestly, I am just kidding over the title, only in a perfect world I could talk my professor into easy points for a class. It is highly unethical but, just for a good laugh, I figured I would ask.

At first, I did not know what to think of this class. I got a cheap book, and a fairly easy read about flattening of the world. It came across as if Friedman was on drugs, but then after some thought, and figuring out what he meant by his metaphor, it all made sense. In a way, the world has been shrinking. In a way that with the help of industrialization, new technologies, and globalization, our world has gotten smaller, in a technical sense. We now have ways to connect faster, and easier to other areas of the planet for a relatively low cost.

This class has helped me find a new appreciation for technology, and the world we live in today. I always was a tech nerd, but only with media and entertainment aspects, but now with a more productive view on technology and our world, I have begun to appreciate it even more. Even as I sit here at work, updating this blog while in incognito mode, I am able to finish my final assignment. I don’t have to worry about transferring anything to a flash drive, or email it to my personal email for to ensure I upload this to my blog in a timely matter. Those are the least of my worries, right now as I sit at work, my biggest worry is having a supervisor see what I am doing and write me up for doing something that would be considered a violation of security. Thank you Google Drive for allowing me to open a document, and have it automatically save as I type, very convenient for trying to submit an assignment just before it is due.

Overall, the most that I have learned from this class is Globalization, and how it has affected our life and how we keep in contact with the world. The difference between outsourcing and offshoring were two big things that I had a negative political perspective on, this class had helped for me to better understand the benefits of both, if they are not abused and overdone.

On our last class, one of the most interesting things I could have learned about technology was the 3D printer, and the possibilities it has for our future. The thought of what could come about a 3D printer is something that I am sure at one point would be considered science fiction. With the rapid advancements in technology, what was once thought of as nothing more than a dream, is quickly becoming a reality.

This class came as somewhat of a surprise to me, I 

thought of it as an easy A but realized I learned more that I 

had originally thought. My appreciation of technology is now 

greater.

GNR (no not Guns N Roses)

Module 12
Fearing the takeover of technology, and the existence of human-kind is a debate that surfaces quite often in the history of electronics. Bill Joy, largely being respected in the Computer Industry, argues this and I think it holds merit. Even though this was written in April of the year 2000, at the time I would see some people thinking him as a crazy. Much of his argument seemingly sounds like it came straight from a science fiction film. Reading his article now, his prophecies hold a little truth. I too think at one point in my lifetime, computers will hold knowledge comparable to the human mind, but I am not convinced this as being something to be feared, but more of as an opportunity and reason to learn from what we have created and stay on top of our creations.
A big fear of mine with the rise of technology and the relevance of man, comes down to laziness. Technology and the rapid growth is killing basic functions in the world, and increasing the laziness of humanity. It’s like we are sloth-ing ourselves in the wake of our creations. Instead of studying and learning about something out of a book in a traditional manner, I have a computer in my pocket to work the answer for me, thus killing the necessity to think for myself.
“Our most powerful 21st-century technologies — robotics, genetic engineering, and nanotech — are threatening to make humans an endangered species." GNR, as Bill Joy refers it. Joy talks of genetic engineering in terms or agriculture in raising productivity being able to cut out pesticides.  Genetic engineering will be able to create cures for diseases, and help us all live longer.  The manipulation of genes can bring on problems that Joy talks about. Cloning and stem-cells both raise important ethical issues. Joy also brings up the factor of certain safety issues.  For instance in genetically engineered crops there could be mutations and dangerous side effects.
Nanotechnology would be the study and work of matter on the smallest level.  It is the bottom-up science that is heavily involved in medicines, electronics, energy production, electronics and biomaterials. Joy warns of the incredible and destructive power that this technology holds. While manipulating these atoms on such a small level, one could help in medical situations in rapidly encouraging the re-growth of cells.  Used wrongly this could be detrimental.
Robotics, of course we already see this in today’s manufacturing. I could agree that it has replaced humans in manufacturing and production industries, just not completely.
Overall, I agree to Joy’s thoughts on the relevance of human-kind and machine. Though not completely, maybe it’s because I give man too much credit in the hopes that instead of rolling over and let it happen, humanity will learn from the technology provided and stay on top.

Launching Skynet

Module 11

     For this week’s blog, I am going over the Terminator Series as a whole, and its use of Skynet. To me the premise is completely ridiculous, but somehow plausible in an ever changing technological world. So, I want to compare the idea of machines taking over, time travel, and my theory that Terminator is a prequel to The Matrix (with events in The Matrix taking place very far in the future.)

     At the beginnings of this film, Skynet was an idea. At the time it probably sounded ridiculous but overall I would say that as we progress in technology, it seems eerily plausible. I say that because if you would have told me in 1993 that I would be able to access all of my documents on my computer simply by signing in to a profile. All of this information being stored on the “cloud” and accessible thanks to the Internet. I probably would have asked: “what’s a internet?”

     So with that in mind, it is plausible for machines, or technology to take over our lives, and in a lot of ways on a minimal scale, they already have. To access the world’s information easily is probably the greatest achievement of mankind so far. With the help of our smart devices or increasingly more portable laptop computers, we can access it in the blink of an eye. Data is everywhere, and I would not be surprised universal internet access, without having to pay a monthly bill, will be a reality rather than a dream. Because of these factors of constantly having to check the internet and being connected on any of our devices, is why we our suddenly showing a surrendering of our humanity to technology, but we welcome it with the thought of “Skynet” as being something of a joke, when it probably could happen.

     Now we have had assembly lines and machines running our daily lives for decades now, so how much would it take to have some insane programmer develop a system where the computer system could think for itself, and eventually sees the impurity of man, and make the decision to eradicate human life in order to protect the planet. That to me is the ultimate irony, man comes from earth, machine comes from man, machine destroys man to protect earth.

     Now thinking about how The Matrix is, I noticed a similarity within Terminator and The Matrix. I think, even though it would be by accident, there could be a link. Say The Matrix being so far in the future and being so advanced that it would create a CG environment, only for man to live in a sort of cryo-sleep. So that being the obvious plot, I think that The Matrix shows that humanity lost in the events of Terminator, and the war against Skynet. But of course Neo, leads an uprising to take down the system in The Matrix.

     I say all of this as food for thought, and honestly, I don’t think I am stoned enough to think that deep. So, I am done here. 

Joe Logic

Module 10

This story was an interesting read, though dull at times with the broken words to feel more old or unintelligent I guess. However, if it was written today it would be related with todays technologies.  “Logics” clearly are our modern day computers, while they process data and communicate with the “tank” aka the internet. I also found it funny that when  one individual tries calling his wife, but he then gets redirected to learning how to commit murder. Now, it has been a while since I have had a bad search result in something completely different, but I can truly relate when one of my searches had made a turn for the worse.

  In the story Joe is the malfunctioning yet still working computer that Ducky has.  Joe has a connection with the “tank” (the internet) the building that has all the knowledge.  A logic is connected to the tank to access information.  The problem with Joe is that there is mp discretion.  There isn’t a filter.   Even though it is against the law and wrong to kill someone, he views things from a different perspective.  It is useful information that he has access to.  Why limit that?

I see the problem today with the internet.  There are all kinds of things and information on the internet that are accessible.  As a human being we had discretion and morality.  We can “filter” the information and guide our learning.  We also can filter the information coming from the tank to the logic.  This would be your basic malware program or pop up blocker.  This is also a privacy filter, and content filters.

I suppose even in the outside world today you can find similarities on how computers process information and even how we as humans relay information. Much like in this story we can see similarities of that to todays computers.  Ducky’s wife learns that she is able to get the gossip and information about her neighbors and basically anyone she would want. Today we’d like to think that we are safe on the internet and social networking sites. Just like today’s social networking you can find information on someone you know and that person, including myself, will have a more difficult time blocking that kind of information being shared throughout the internet. I would go as far to even relate that portion of the story to having access to illegal downloads. There are simply too many people in the world sharing information and knowledge through the internet to combat, much like gossiping to a friend or neighbor, that information spreads fast.

So what do we do to stop this spread of stolen information? The question is should we shut the “tank” or internet down? I for one would think that would be a very bad idea, there is just too much information and too much done through the internet these days that it would cause some severe panic, much like in a South Park episode they lose the internet and have to go to California where internet is rationed out in a refugee camp. I doubt it would be that bad but just realizing how intertwined we are with the internet in today’s world I think some mass panic with the economy and several other things would really show up.

Overall, the prophetic tales of Joe computer tend to ring a little true, even down to having a faulty computer and having to turn it in or replace it with the better spec machine, even though such machines specs may not be much better, you may have an older running or virus ridden machine to replace, or you could just restore said machine to good spirits and get a year or two more out of it.

I suppose its time to end this blog, so since I cannot come up with a good closing, I will just end with a quote: “I am thankful the most important key in history was invented. It's not the key to your house, your car, your boat, your safety deposit box, your bike lock or your private community. It's the key to order, sanity, and peace of mind. The key is 'Delete.”---Elayne Boosler

The end is upon us

            

                            Module 9!

        Looks like this is the last of the book, I never thought I would see the day but of course this is the beginning of the last portion of this class. So here it is, the beginning of the end, and let us hope I don’t screw this up.

Building a Dell

            So Mr. Friedman wants to explore the supply chain and everything that it took from the first mineral on a chip-set that created the computer that this book was written on. Did we not already talk about supply chains? I just felt this was a little redundant but I will type away for the sake of keeping an acceptable grade. Friedman’s laptop is a custom built Dell that he had ordered over the phone, requesting custom features that eventually led to the writing of this book. I learned that Dell, at the time, has six factories around the world, Ireland, China, Brazil, Tennessee, Texas, and Malaysia. After Friedman had contacted the sales rep his order was placed through email to the factory in Malaysia and parts were ordered from various supply centers near Malaysia and as you guessed it those supply centers had a supply chain of their own to get materials they needed to make the various parts needed to eventually assemble the computer sitting in Friedman’s lap. To me I find it interesting that even though there are various competitors in the computer manufacture world, they all still work together, example, Friedman’s laptop uses a mother board from Samsung, who of course makes computers of their own, you would think they would try to make a mother board of their own design but as it turns out it is cheaper and more efficient to have that contract with other competitor companies to manufacture their chip-set. I would go into more detail on what parts came from where but I feel like you get the point.

Al-Qaeda Supply Chain?

            I am trying my best to wrap my head around this concept without being too prejudice thanks to my American upbringing, because of course since 9/11 there has been a surge of racism to those of middle-eastern decent. From an outsiders perspective it looks like a third world country so to my belief it seems like their possibilities or likely hood of having a supply chain or knowing what one is would be inferior, lest we not forget though that we do live in a connected world and such people most likely do have access to technology to better connect and communicate with others within their network of globalizing terror. So yes, al-Qaeda does have a similar supply chain to companies that benefit from it like Infosys, but instead of making a product to increase company profits it is used to streamline global murder, terror, and mayhem, but the first rule of fight club is we do not talk about fight club, and the first rule of project mayhem is we do not ask questions, so I will end that thought here.

The curse of oil

            Where there is oil, there is some asshole that sees dollar signs and seizes power in some form to collect profits in his or her own greedy pathetic lives. Friedman mentions something that really had me thinking, of a ruler has control of oil, then he or she could use the money earned to run their country instead of taxing the people, so without taxation why should there be representation, it’s not the people’s money so why is it their business to ask questions as to where the money is spent? Hell, why not keep the people silent, on top of not taxing the people we could keep gas prices lower because we control the world’s oil supply as well. In that kind of world, I probably would not even think to question my government because of how much power they would have, I would be afraid to. So the curse of an oil rich government is the people suffer, if I had control over that kind of money and that country, why should a democracy be in place to decide how my money is spent when it is only my money being spent, thus there is no benefits the people get to take part in, schooling, roads, voting, and so on.

            Well, talking about the book, though I felt some parts were vague there were times it made me think differently about the world and how to perceive it or the society we live in, thanks to Columbus, Steam, the PC, and the Internet, our world is flatter, smaller, and better connected.

You have died of dysentery.

                          Module 8

            I remember my first experience with a personal computer, I had to have been three or four years old and living in San Diego. I was visiting my grandparents and I remember plugging in a true floppy disc and booting up Reader Rabbit from DOS and “.exe” was a phrase that I had become familiar with, of course Reader Rabbit was educational computer game that I had best known other than jumping on shit with my friend Mario.

To my memory we as a family did not have our own PC in our possession until after we had moved to Utah in 1994 and of course it was not until my father had started his own mortgage business that we had owned one finally. My dad bought a used Packard-Bell computer running Windows 3.1 when at the time everyone was running Windows 95 with Windows 98 soon on the horizon, and with the help of our first PC my dad started to manage his own business at home, he had no office other than the computer desk nestled in the corner of our living room and held files of his customers in a milk crate in the trunk of his car.  Whenever my dad was not on the computer, I had my chance to explore, and I eventually was the house computer genius, figured out how to open my own programs and play anything from paint to minesweeper to doom, I was a natural at being tech savvy. I remember my dad managing his accounts and calls from a computer call center that for the life of me I cannot remember the name of, but I do remember terrorizing my baby sitter with the use of such a brilliant program, and the ability to record active phone calls only to replay back to our parents after they made it home from their date night and for them to witness with their ears the heinous words from our very own 14-year old baby sitter. Yeah, my brother and I were little terrors, but it was one of the only times we had gotten along in uniting against a common enemy.

Other than the small home use it was not until my fourth grade year that I had an actual chance to use a computer in a classroom environment, and the first time I had to experience the internet to my memory. We did small research assignments creating some of our first reports and of course practiced typing with Mavis Beacon, but nevertheless I made my was back to the classroom where we had an Apple II and I had the chance to play Oregon Trail on it in my free time. Dysentery was something I had no knowledge about, but I had a feeling that at some point in my life that it would take me too, because on the Oregon Trail, everyone died of dysentery, and with that logic, I would die with the same disease in my life.

At home we did not have much money to afford the monthly fee of internet, or at least my dad was too cheap to pay for something that I could actually get for free with Juno, and deal with that horrendous ad bar that took up a good quarter of the screen. Juno, however, did introduce me to the power of e-mail. I do not think once in my life I experienced e-mail through AOL other than seeing such at a friend’s house, but learning the power of e-mail was pretty cool and something I used frequently to talk to family in California, but not much more than that.

High school and of course college has been the extent of my computer education use. Again mostly with writing papers, and doing research for homework, but I did get a little computer use in my theater tech classes throughout high school and little college which was pretty cool considering having the ability to sync sound boards with lighting effects and other special effects.

Now with college, especially with this class, I have never really understood the importance of this digital age, and realizing how intertwined it is now in my life. Its beginnings well before my life, how it influenced, and still influences my life, and still I will say how excited I am for the future of technology and really to think how much has changed in electronics and technology just in my life or even in the last five years. It is all new and exciting and even before this class I had never desired to set up this blog, but with my electronic quill and ink I am able to jot down my own thoughts for others to read or comment on or just have my own personal diary, I know that a blog may be old news but I really enjoy that, and now thanks to realizing the power of the cloud, I have this, some homework, you-tube, g+, and so on backed up in the vast internet network, and to find the end of it is just unfathomable. Thanks to computers, I did not die of dysentery, and my imagination is endless.

My theory is that Gene Simmons is the true father of Miley Cyrus.

            With a long week of writers block from someone who is far from ever having the sheer insanity, paranoia, insomnia, and occasional chain smoking of a true writer, am now back at it, really pumping out a pile of refuse that one would call a blog (I do not, nor ever will consider myself to have those traits listed above to call myself a writer.) I just had a hard time getting back at it, maybe because of laziness, procrastination, or a hellish work week (with a side of GTA 5) I am giving this blog a mighty dose of bullshit. Thanks for giving this a chance, but seriously, set the bar extremely low this time around.

Why are some countries or regions better at doing some things than other countries or regions?

            I think, and mind you this is personal opinion and thought, that now that with a flattened world, and a level playing field, that more countries have been forced to be more competitive to stay relevant in a large world market. If I had to compare with Friedman’s words and his talks about Mexico, it just makes sense. Look at China, huge world population, and a culture with a severe attention to detail. Compare that to the U.S. we have our own automated culture, electronics and videogames, it is just hard to keep up with those kind of cultures and countries who are in a situation where they have to pay attention to such detail on manufacturing and of course to earn their pay they pump units out faster and more efficient with their large population working for every dollar they can earn. The U.S. has a better business relationship with China rather than Mexico just for that reason. Even if you compare the engineering aspect of India and the large rise of those outsourced jobs, you have to consider that in a flat world, sometimes the more dedicated worker gets the leg up in competition with other countries, and that just comes down to pure dedication, or a culture that strives on that dedication to remain competitive in the rest of the market. So, in retrospect I would say it is just that, some countries just have that edge, with a government, or a culture, or an economy that demands that dedication to stay competitive with other countries.

What are self-directed consumers? Are you a self-directed consumer?        

            A self-directed consumer is someone who does their own research before purchase of product, among other things, that is pretty much it. Yes, I do find myself a self-directed consumer, largely with the help of the internet I have a huge advantage and convenience to access that data at my fingertips. I research on electronics and other technologies that interest me from time to time even if I lack the means to purchase such equipment. Example, I hate my phone, the battery life is horrid and I am pretty sick of charging it up to three times a day. I think it is time for a new phone but I cannot upgrade until the end of my contract in May 2014. So, I explore my options and notice some of the top phones in reader reviews or you tube just to make my choice or at least narrow down choices even though I am not in the position to purchase a phone without contract for somewhere up to $600 dollars, or in some cases more. So, as I look through my options I see that I could purchase a used phone, they are guaranteed but they are fairly dated and I just do not want to run into the same deal with my current phone, plus being a big geek like myself, I have to have the latest and greatest. I did enough research to determine that either I wait to the end of my contract and buy the top product of that time, or I see reports and rumors of the google nexus 5 due to be announced at the end of the month, and I can purchase that phone at the same price as if I was to wait and purchase a quality contract handset device.

Does globalization mean Americanization?

            No, well yes? Seriously I feel like this is a hard question to answer, America is a very large market that just about every country is pushing to stay in business with. Outsourcing, manufacturing, etc. From what I have read, and to my understanding, to distinguish the line between globalization and Americanization is this: you look at how countries are competing to stay relevant in a dominant U.S. market, so with China as an example, they do their American research in order to create products that are relevant to our culture. So I imagine they watch our pop culture and see Miley Cyrus twerking with her tongue out and probably think “WTFuck?” I don’t blame them if they do, in fact I see some of their culture and think the same. But, if they want to stay in our market sometimes it is wise to shrug your shoulders and create a product that the consumer wants. So yes, in a way it can be considered Americanization, but if I was to consider a different country as being a world leader other than the United States, would I call that Arabicization? I say that without trying to make up an offensive word for anyone. But considering the massive growth of Dubai over the last two decades it’s not hard to think that it would be a definite possibility pending political mishaps, and unwinnable wars, that we may not be at the top of the economic food chain, and the deciding factor in Globalization forever.