Technology: It's Always Changing

Rule number 5: There are a lot of cool things happening in technology all the time. There are so many potential subjects I can do my report on it is hard to pick one. Preferably I would like to find an obscure subject that no one has heard about, but a subject like that would be hard to find and equally as hard to study. My answer on the mid-term was robotics, which interests me, and while I will end up looking at it as a potential subject to study, right now I’m strongly thinking about doing a report on quantum computing. There are a few reasons for this. The first being that I have done a little research on it in the past, so I have a basic understanding of the subject. I understand what the theory is and about where the technology is at in its life cycle, so this will make starting on this project a little easier. The second reason is that the technology interests me. They are literally attempting to control atoms as they are from different phases of existence! That sounds like some crazy nonsense a character from a sci-fi movie would say, but it’s true! My third and final reason for choosing quantum computing is because I truly believe that it will be enormously revolutionary invention. This will have as big of an impact as the invention of the traditional computer. If I can teach at least one person in class about this crazy technology, my presentation will be a success.

Journalism: It's Going Down the Drain

Rule number 4: news on the internet is rushed and often not true. The invention of the world wide web has allowed for the instantaneous transmission of information. This is simultaneously amazing and terrible. On one hand specific groups of people can receive live updates on events that impact them heavily. But on the other hand, these stories can often be inaccurate. Journalists have always had the potential to release false information because they’re trying to push out stories as fast as possible. This problem has only increased as the internet has become a more common platform for these journalists. This reminds me of a particularly ridiculous example of journalist incompetence. On November 26, 2016 a single twitter user reported that CNN was currently airing hard-core pornography. Keep in mind that there were no other reports backing up this user’s claim, so it would seem that this is not a credible story. But apparently plenty of news media outlets disagreed because they all made stories about titled things such as “CNN Airs 30 Mins of Hard-Core Porn.”  CNN quickly denied this and since there were other sources confirming it, it was proven to be a hoax. So obviously all the media outlets that reported on it submitted updates informing people of their mistake, right? Wrong. No because of the ability to change articles that already have been published on the internet these journalists just changed the title to things like “CNN Denies Airing 30 mins of Hard-Core Porn” and kept most of the same information within the article. Here is one that is still up: https://variety.com/2016/tv/news/cnn-porn-boston-rcn-cable-operator-1201926702/ . A story like this would never have been published before the world wide web, and if it was a formal redaction would also have been printed. These companies are way to eager to get clicks, and they do not stop to make sure all of the facts are straight before uploading a story.

HTML 1: It's Ugly

Rule number 2: creating websites by hand using HTML 1 is a bad idea. “What?” you say, “Don’t we still use HTML to make websites?”. Of course we do, but we use HTML 5 which has a plethora of advantages over HTML 1. We also have a plethora of programs you can use to make websites rather than hand typing every line of HTML code. Services such as Square Space and Microsoft expressions give you user-friendly interfaces that allow you to make websites that look modern and exciting, rather than outdated and plain. The point is web designers do not sit down and craft websites line by line, they use these easily accessible tools and only look at the HTML code when necessary. But my assignment wasn’t to craft the best looking website, it was to make a website using the mots basic tools provided during the world wide web’s infancy. Luckily, I had experience doing this in the past, so I didn’t come across many challenges, but if I hadn’t this task might have been a pain. I was interested in the <marquee> tag (because I have never heard of this “evil tag”), but unfortunately it didn’t work in browser (which explains why no one told me about it. It’s crazy how ugly the website I made, as well as the ones made in 90's, are compared to the ones we see now. If I saw a website that was made the same way I made mine trying to explain or sell something, I would not take them seriously, but I wouldn’t think like that 20 years ago.

Email: It's Just like Mail

Rule number 1: The system behind email essentially just replicates the system behind regular mail. You might think email is a called that because the result is like that of traditional mail. Just like how an online shopping cart behaves like a regular shopping cart but the system behind it is much more complex than simply putting something in a rolling basket. The modern mail system is just as complex as that of electronic mail. Both email and mail start off by addressing who the message is supposed to reach, then the message is put in either a mail box or sent to your personal router. After that the message is picked up by the mail man (or the system of connections known as the internet) and brought to a mail office (or DNS server). The mail office then figures out where the message is supposed to go, according to the address. The mail office then decide which route would get the message to the recipient the fastest (Either through physical travel or through the system of connections). Once it gets to this other destination close to the recipient, the message gets delivered to the mailbox/ router. From there it is (hopefully) given to the specific person it was intended for. Unlike regular mail that has people who can interpret human intentions, if you mess up an email address it will not be sent to the right place or it will not be sent at all. Luckily email has the advantage of getting immediate feedback if these errors occur. With traditional mail it will take a long time to find out that a message was not sent, and sometimes you will never find out that there was an error.

What do I want out of this class?

The reason I decided to take this course: "Living and Working In a Virtual World", has changed since I first signed up for it. The initial reasons I signed up for this course were all practical; It fit my schedule, it was 3 credits so it  wouldn't overload me, it didn't have any prerequisites, and it was the closest I was gonna get to my major in my first quarter in college. However after spending a couple of days I have a few more reasons for taking this class. In addition to my reasons from a few months ago that I have previously listed, I have also decided that I am going to keep taking this class because: it gives me an opportunity to talk about subjects that interest me with a professor who has witnessed the many changes in the industry that I hope to work in after I graduate, and is pretty entertaining to listen to. I do not expect to learn too many new subjects in this class (besides the occasional news story that I knew nothing about) , this is because I already have learned about the basic history/function of computing and the internet from the various computer science classes that I took in high school. I do hope that I have more solid understanding of the subjects, though. I also hope that I have formed some new opinions about technology and it's affects on society. Oh and most of all I hope I get a 4.0, I really want a 4.0.