Module 13

 

Thank you Professor Jensen

 

        I wanted to say I really enjoyed this class, I have learned a lot that I did not know, and the class made me see that the World really is flat and still flattening. When I started to read this book I didn’t understand why he was saying the world is flat when my whole life I have been told it is round and have even seen the globe. Now that the class is about over and we are done with the book I finally understand where Friedman was going with the title. I have learned that our playing field is level which makes it so any nation can compete, because of global telecommunications.

        I have learned a lot reading this book and answering questions for this class. One thing that was an eye opener was knowing about Al Qaeda having a supply chain it’s a mutant worldwide supply chain, it’s not used for profit its purpose is destruction. They are using the tools of collaboration offered by the flat world for war and destruction.

        Learning about the process step by step of how the internet has progressed through the years was really cool for me. There were a lot of things that I never really even thought about like, workflow, Netscape, outsourcing, offshoring, supply chain. I just never thought about how the internet has changed the world and the people in it good and bad.  

       The book The World is Flat it takes a little bit to get into but once you get in to the book it bring things to light that you don’t think about or things you never knew. But I recommend you buy this book and read it for yourself.

       I thought this class was very fun and interesting, I enjoyed the blogging and most of the book. I recommend this class to anyone that is interested in networking or if you are going in to the business world.  

      This class has opened up my eyes to how far we have come, but also opened my eyes to, how the more we progress and become flat the more we allow the evil in the world to destruct.  

       

Model 12

 

 

 Article “Why the future doesn’t need us”

         Researching about GNR, Genetic engineering, Nanotechnology, and Robotics, I can see how joy fears these things destroying the world. Reading about these put fear in to me too I find some of this stuff disturbing, people now days are so into themselves, and are so lazy they always want an easy way out of anything or everything, with that I am a little worried about what is going to happen to humanity.

       Robots joy fears “the creation of a new life form that may escape or control”. I don’t think that there would be any way they could make a machine that can think on its own. To know what a person can do with a computer on the internet scares me, we are far to in to this technology no way of turning back now.

       Genetic engineering when they manually add new DNA to an organism, a direct manipulation of an organism genome using biotechnology. This is crazy, using this in the field of medicine is great I support it all the way, and using it for healthier foods, but I don’t think we should mess with anything that has to do with changing how are babies should look like or how smart it is, we all want a smart and beautiful kid but I don’t think they should mess with what god creates.

       Nanotechnology has the ability to reproduce, the realms of atoms and nanostructures. Nanotechnology is so new that no one knows what is going to come of it. Predictions range from reproducing things like diamonds and food to the world being devoured by self-replicating nanorobots. Scientist engineers are trying to use nano-size wires to create smaller more powerful microprocessors. It said it could have a positive effect on the environment, now that sounds great but the only way to see is to try and what happens if it has the opposite effect on the environment? They don’t really know what could happen.

         All of these technologies offers untold promise the vision of near immortality Kurzweil sees drives us forward; genetic engineering may soon provide treatments, if not outright cures, for most diseases, and that is what everyone wants. Nanotechnology and nanomedicine together can extend our life and improve the quality of our lives. But these technologies can leads to an accumulation of great power and, concomitantly, and great danger to us and the world.

Model 11

 

 

Minority Report

        The movie, Minority Report, is one of my favorite movies, it takes place in the year 2054. They use a lot of computer and network systems in this movie. One of them was an eye scanning system, the government has an ID system that goes around scanning the irises of the people of the community when they are searching for someone the tiny eight legged robot that looked like a spider they sent out to scan the residents to identify who they were relaying the information back to the authorities. In India they have already scanned the iris of 150 million citizens and they use this technology for border agencies control, around the world. So travelers that have their iris scanned can travel in and out of the UK across the US Canadian border without having to using passport.  We also have a system a little like this that is the Chip they put in to animals so find out where they are from and other information on them. I also saw that the military actually has insect robots that they use for recoconnaissance missions. There is also a nonmilitary one too that can detect earthquakes, and can be sent down a volcano and it can detect the heat from a volcano explosion with infrared sensors.   

       They had cars that were voice- activated and drove by itself and drove where you tell it to go and it floated above the ground, it ran using a system called magnetic levitation.  Today the magnetic system is being used in railways across the world, making it so the trains can move at high speeds up to 361 mph. Also self-driving is practically here, Google driverless cars is a project Google is working on the software that powers these cars is called Google Chauffeur, it goes around navigating the city’s and it can drive up to 75 mph.

        In the movie they show home video’s that are a 3D hologram and as you move around the room you can see the 3D hologram image from all different angles. Holograms have been around since the 19 century in the form of images projected on glass called the projector, but viewing 3D images from different angles, called motion parallax, nobody has been able to figure that out.

       The police in the movie had a thing they called a “sick stick” that when they turned it on and touched a person, it made the person lose control of their bowels and/or they start throwing up. In today reality we don’t have something like this that exists. But when I searched about it I was amazed that scientists are working on machines that can impair hearing by beams of sound, and in California police are testing weapons that look like a flashlight but shining the light in the eyes causes’ temporary blindness and disorientation.

      They had personalized billboard ads that tack people by cameras with biometric sensors that could tell who the person was and it could tell what state of mind they were in, like if they were mad or scared or nerves. Right now we don’t have anything like this, but in our world today I think anything is possible and that something like this can’t be that far behind.  

     They had E-paper screens that updated in real time, and on the sides of cereal boxes there was a cartoon animal that was dancing around on it.  In reality today, Korean electronics giant LG, has a flexible plastic e-paper that could come out in the next few years.

Module 10

 “A logic named Joe” a science fiction story by Murray Leinster (1946)

         Is this short story really written in 1946? I had to look it up to see for myself. This is CRAZY!! Just blows my mind. This short story we had to read this week is about a prediction of massively networked personal computers and their drawbacks. This story is one of the first stories to describe something akin to a computer connected to the internet. There is a notion of user identity but I guess the machine believes you won’t lie, it also had “Censor circuits” filter information it will reveal.  In the story the logic performs tasks that computers do all the time today. Today more than a billion people use the internet for everything they need like shopping, reading, navigation, research. 

        I find it fascinating just how close Jenkins (the author) predication came to our now days reality of what we are dealing with.  In this story the “logic” named Joe is kind of like a computer, but the “logic” is made of relay, which relay is a kind of switch they used in the olden days in long distance telegraph circuits as amplifiers. So Joe has a malfunction and it allows it to get access for people to television programs, person to person phone calls and any kind of information you want to know. 

        I think it’s crazy that the author of this story, Will Jenkins, predicted that a machine could provide information how to do things by just typing in the question like sex advice, how to commit murder, how to rob a bank, how to find someone. I read he was also an inventor so no wonder how he understood how much power the computer (machine) would have over our day to day lives.  

     The narrator in the story says “logic’s are all right though, they changed Civilization”. I agree, the internet has changed civilization for good and bad, sometimes I wish we could do what he does in the story and just turn it off and get rid of it, make everything better in the world.

Module 9

       

     The dell company has six factories around the globe, Ireland, China, Brazil, Tennessee, Texas, and Malaysia. As soon as you place your order, whether it is online or by phone, the dell suppliers get a signal based on every component in the laptop you ordered. Dell uses multiple suppliers for the components that go in to the laptop so they always have a backup plan if one supplier doesn’t have the component at that time. It is crazy that Dell has a supply chain that has about four hundred companies in North America, Europe, and Asia. There supply chain and the whole building of the dell laptop processes is ran a lot like Walmart’s.  

     Yes, Al Qaeda has a supply chain it’s a mutant worldwide supply chain, it’s not used for profit   its purpose is destruction. They are using the tools of collaboration offered by the flat world for war and destruction. The US Central command call this underground network the virtual caliphate. Al Qaeda leaders use networks so they can recruit members from “Arab afghan” veterans and radicals around the globe. They use the internet to get to us, and to try and get people to help them with suicide bombings.  It makes me wonder if these acts of terror would be as bad if we didn't have technology, it seems like making the world flat we are making it easier for terrorist or evil to destroy the world.  

      Moving on to a different topic, Oil rich countries today are fifty percent more likely to be ruled by powerful people and twice as likely to break in to civil war than countries without oil. The oil curse – oil wealth makes less economic growth then it should, by creating more problems in the poor states then in the rich ones. And further spread the oil curse by causing companies to drill in poor nations.

This module was mind blowing along with saddening feelings for me. It opened up my eyes to how far we have come, but also opened my eyes to how the more we progress and become flat the more we allow the evil in the world to destruct.  

Module 8

  

         Today there are several University’s that only have school online, fortunate for me since I am a stay at home mom to 5 children and haven’t got the time to take classes up at the campus because my schedule is so busy with kids,  at Weber State I have to take  most of my classes online. Thank goodness for the computer and online classes because I would have never been ever to pass my math classes. So for me my computer is a big part to my education so I can better myself, and get a degree so I can get a better paying job so my family can live comfortable in this world we live in today.

          When I was growing up we didn't use computers that much in school, we used a paper and pen/pencil for assignments, the only time I used the computer for school was not until I was in 9^th grade and it was when I had a report due. But kids now days need to use the computer for almost every class they have, for reports, or to research things they are studying, or having to read articles off of the computer, the crazy thing to me is now teachers even have the kids do math online instead on paper even the math book is online for some schools.

          I am so glad they have computer classes in school that teach kids how to use the computer and how to type, I think how fast the world is flattening, that in grade school it would give the kids an advantage to teach kids how to use the computer and how to use programs, instead of waiting until they are in junior high.   

           The computer has been very helpful to my education, but not only for school.  I am very grateful that I can get on my computer and educate myself on things that come up that I need to know in my daily life, with kids or bugs or anything. It is awesome that I don’t have to go to the library, which takes an hour or longer to do, instead I just get on my computer and look it up takes all of 2 seconds.

       Module 7

    

      It’s been said that Utah has more natural organic resources then any state in the United States.  My dad  told me that in the 60’s, when he was young, Kennecott copper mine made one hundred percent profit on it copper because the trace minerals of gold, silver, and others paid for the entire operation. In relationship to other states than, Utah has a comparative advantage over other states when it comes to minerals. Since Utah is quite arid, states like Wisconsin and Iowa have a comparative advantage when it comes to growing crops.

       Although the above discussion involve states, countries and regions follow the same pattern. One of the main reasons imperial powers colonized was because they were short of natural resources and could not sustain their population’s progressive growing needs. Countries like England had a comparative disadvantage to vast area and resources like the United States. 

      The term self-directed consumers refers to those people who purchase item they specifically want and which they carefully considered and determined they needed and could afford them.  These actions are at variant with the general buying public who are influence and even directed by advertisement, the pressures to conform or to look popular or wealthy, even if they aren't. These people are influenced by the external ideas purporting what they should want, what’s in and the newest and best, even if what they have is efficient.

      Several years ago the Inuit’s of northern Canada were given a satellite light system to bring television to their homes. One of the most popular shows to witch in their villages was Dallas. When sociologist worked with those villages they found people dressing, acting like and talking about the characters on that show as though they all lived in the same Texas town. My personal opinion is that most people in the world are happy and even proud of their culture and country and would be unlikely to leave theirs to accept Americanization. However, many things are introduced to cultures subliminally as happened to the Inuit.