Blog Post #5 -Privacy

 Privacy, Online and Off

These issues affect everyone these days.  Computers and technology are extremely scary in what gets saved.  Not only is everything you do and say kept on the web but it gets sold to other companies looking to mine it.  These companies are anything from Facebook to department stores looking to create ads that are better tailored to you so you will buy more.  Today facial recognition is getting more and more advanced to where you can take a picture and a company can tell you not only exactly who is in the photo but also everything about them.  Face.com was a prime example of a company that has the software capable of doing this.  The scary pare gets into when Facebook bought them in 2012.  Would I trust the government with this software?  Possibly, but I would for sure not trust a social media company.  Facial recognition software is something that should be kept at the same level as full-auto rifles.  The public can't have.  The government should crackdown on companies that use these types of overreaching software to keep the United States the free country it was.  Privacy should be right behind the freedom of speech.  Without privacy who are we?  We all might as well move to China where everyone is on display for whoever to see.  How is it constitutional for these companies to be accessing these types of information on my life?  These software have the real ability to be extremely dangerous and ruin someone's life if they haven't already.  How is this constitutional in the United States of America where men and women fight and die for our freedom?

Sources:

WEEK 4, pt. 1: Privacy, Online & Off videos

Blog Post #3 -Eight Values

 I agree with promoting innovation, promoting innovation means that our first amendment, freedom of speech is protected and respected. I think that it is very important for people to speak their minds in an appropriate setting because with this being done, it enables communities of certain groups to express similar interests as well as voice their opinions. By doing so, people can get a better understanding of where certain people stand with certain topics and either avoid future conflicts or be able to discuss them in a civil manner, which is something that I feel as though we greatly lack in today's society. If we carried some of these values today and were able to discuss opposing topics in a civilized manner then I feel as though our nation would not be as divided as it is today. With that being said, people do greatly exercise their first amendment, but not in a way that is well appreciated.  (incomplete)

Blog Post #8 - The Progressive Era

 The Progressive Era

News today in my opinion is awful.  News outlets are running on money from views.  The more viewers they have the better.  This causes them to tailor the information to catch people's eyes and make them watch the nightly news.  This means they are not only going to show shocking stories to get people to watch but they are also going to leave a lot of important stories out.  The Government also tries to cover up and sensor events so the public doesn't know.  These sites are sites that don't have to worry about getting views and instead post the truth about what is really going on.  These are life-changing stories that should make the front page but never seem to make the light of day.  In order to find the truth of what is going on in the world, you have to actively seek it out.  We have to seek out these websites for the strong antiwar voices because we are trying to cover our own butt of why we went in there.  A perfect example is the war in Iraq.  The U.S. said there were Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs) in Iraq's possession.  The U.S. then invades going to war with them only to realize there aren't any.  They don't want to show their mistake so they try and cover it up.  News sources like antiwar.com however are not forced to tell the lies and instead can tell the truth that there never were WMDs there in the first place.  You will never find a source/story like this on mainstream news because again the government is trying to cover it up.

Sources:

https://www.antiwar.com/

Blog Post #10 -AI

Living in the Age of AI

In watching the video about AI it is incredible to see how far we have come in technology.  For starters just the fact that China used to be behind in technology until a few years ago and now they are so far along it's scary.  The AI implementation China has is a little concerning and scary, however.  Privacy is a huge right in the United States and to see a country like that where they give up so much consent is mindblowing to me.  Everything you do as a Chinese citizen is watched and can have a positive or negative impact on your day-to-day life.  Even down to how charged your phone is can decide if you get a loan or not.  Does their technology make sense?  Yes, but to a degree.   I understand taking human emotion out of something like getting a loan to make sure that they qualify but your every step shouldn't be impacting that decision.  There are instances where certain actions may make sense but there is a fine line where those stop making sense and start producing privacy concerns.  At the beginning of the video, they also showed the facial recognition software from the iPhone camera which is also scary because what if they get to the point where they can find anyone anywhere from any camera.  This reminds me of the show Person Of Intrest with the big brother software that could legitimately find anyone anywhere.  This again is overstepping and is scary as a U.S. citizen because what if we are next?  We seem to be getting closer and closer to mimicking China every day.

Sources:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5dZ_lvDgevk

Blog Post #6 Diffusion

Diffusion of Innovations

 In 2017 a company called ByteDance created an app called TikTok.  The soon-to-be viral app started in Asia where there weren’t many pioneers jumping on board.  Pioneers were the first people to discover the app before it ever became anything.  Then the early adapters came along pushing the app to the U.S. where it merged with the companies called Musical.ly.  Musical.ly was an app that had been around but never really took off.  The concept was good just the wrong execution was inflicted.  When TikTok and Musical.ly merged it gave the world this app that was just right for the next social media icon.  Early adopters at this point were middle school kids who started to push it up to their high school friends.  Once high schoolers got a hold of it the early majority began.  This was not only high schoolers but college students as well.  I still remember sitting at a soccer game at my high school as a senior and thinking about how dumb the freshman were for downloading this stupid app.  Once I got to college TikTok was blowing up big time.  This was the tipping point or just past it.  By this point, everyone and their mom had the app.  The late adopters were starting to catch on to how addicting this app actually was.  This is about at the point where we are now in the TikTok trend as everyone has it but there are the typical few who still don't.  My prediction for TikTok is that it is going to start to slowly decline after about a year.  TikTok is one of those apps where you rely on the content.  If people are posting good content then the app will stay alive but if not then comes the laggers.  These are the people who don't even know what TikTok is or how to use it.  

Sources:

https://christinagayton.medium.com/the-origins-of-tiktok-5efa7da4b3e6#:~:text=Also%20in%202016%2C%20Douyin%20was,for%20nearly%20%241%20billion%20dollars.

Blog Post #7 EOTO Tech

EOTO Presentations

Carrier Pigeons was a technology that I learned about during EOTO presentations.  I knew they existed but that was about the extent of my knowledge.  Carrier Pigeons were so cool to me because it was a reliable source of information before there was technology.  I also learned that this information source dated back some 5000 years ago to Egypt which is astonishing to me that people were that advanced all that time ago.  Not only to think about the outlandish ideas but to also be able to actually train a bird to fly to a location.  

I had known that carrier pigeons were used during WW1 but I was unaware to the fact that carrier pigeons are only flying back to their nest.  This means that if I want to send a message from High Point to Greensboro, I have to get a pigeon from Greensboro and then attach my message and let it fly and it will head home to Greensboro.  When I learned this it immediately made sense to me why it was easier to train them than people thought.  

I also learned that even today carrier pigeons can still be the faster mode of transport for information.  I learned this with the test done by the wifi company in South Africa I believe it was.  This again was super shocking to me and got my interest as it seems like something that shouldn't be true was true.  It amazes me that a technology that worked all the way back 5000 years ago was so advanced that it can still be better than technology today.

Sources:

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1Gx6TesPg5S5dSn6jGAlNIEkFaNdxttpcSCiIpmvv7O4/edit?usp=sharing

Blog Post #9 EOTO Terms

EOTO Terms and Concepts

Confirmation bias can be hindering to someone mentally.  Confirmation bias is when someone has a tendency to interpret or only find information that supports their opinion on something.  This can come in any number of different ways but one specific way is looking up evidence about the opinion but only from the side the person is siding with.  Confirmation bias hinders someone's ability to learn and change their mind on a concept.  This is a negative because people then aren't able to evolve their thinking and opinions.  If everyone can't change their opinions then overall as a society the world would not be able to evolve.  

When people encounter confirmation bias in a community nothing can get done.  It is important for people to have conversations and improve off of each other.  Most of the time when we have a conversation with someone we learn something new.  With conversation bias, it is harder to learn something from someone.  With more than one person who runs into confirmation bias then nothing can get done.  How would society even move on and evolve if no one could learn anything from one another?  

Most segments would be affected the same with confirmation bias.  Confirmation bias is something that doesn't happen more or less depending on the type of people, it is simply just a mental thing that can happen to just about anyone.  People who think they are smart/the smartest, deal with confirmation bias a lot more but this doesn’t change the fact that just about anyone can run into this.  If I had to pick one group it would definitely be younger kids as just about all of them (including me) thought they knew everything about everything.  This causes lots of arguments about which car is faster or whatnot with other kids who had confirmation bias too.  

My generation is screwed.  We full-heartedly think we do know the answer to everything and that everyone else doesn't know what they are talking about.  This causes tons of run-ins with confirmation bias in "conversations" if u even call it that at that point.  As stated before with confirmation bias how are people supposed to pruin their ideas and discover better solutions to bigger problems?  What happens when someone thinks they know what they are doing and ends up messing everything up for people just because they wouldn't hear someone else's idea.  Not to get into politics but look at politics these days.  There is no such thing as a civil conversation between a democrat and a republican anymore.  Both sides won't even talk to each other because there is so much confirmation bias it is just stupid.  How are we supposed to run a government where we are operating off of ideas from one side.  Why are we not talking with each other and leaving the confirmation bias at the door so we can find the best solutions out there?  The question was "how might confirmation bias affect you?"; but it should be how might it not.

Sources:

https://stars.library.ucf.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1218&context=honorstheses#:~:text=It%20was%20predicted%20that%20people,high%20in%20neuroticism%20will%20also

Blog Post #4 -Drones

EOTO Com Tech Timeline

When I say the word drone you probably think of the toy quadcopter with a camera on it that people use for fun but also for business.  If I were to say the word drone nine years ago you would have immediately thought of a Predator Drone that the military uses for surveillance and airstrikes.  

When consumer drones started out it was a very new technology that everyone was skeptical about.  As it is not clear who invented modern-day drones, pioneers of drones were the remote control (RC) aircraft hobbyists that would go fly every weekend.  Most hobbyists would fly RC planes or helicopters.  Drones are classified as quadcopters, helicopters, and even octocopters.  These pioneers started out calling drones by these names, based on how many propellers they had, as a way to get away from the big bad drone name.  

Then early adopters came along.  These were the people that were completely new to flying in general.  Early adopters could see the potential to use drones for areal photography and videography but the technology just wasn't there quite yet.  These people however were the ones to start normalizing the name drone, attaching it to something less scary than a Preditor.  At this point in time, companies were finding better ways to integrate cameras onto the drones creating one unified platform instead of keeping the two technologies separate.  

The early majority then hit when the market became flooded with drones.  The early majority were everyone from kids who got a drone for Christmas to retired people looking for something fun to do.  Everyone wanted to get their hands on one.  The technology was integrated with attaching a camera to the bottom but there was so much focus on the camera aspect that they forgot to advance the technology that mattered.  The fly-ability and control of the drone.  The early majority was hit with drones malfunctioning, flying away, or just up too hard to control.  

By the tipping point or the late adopters, the drone industry was not only use to the name drone but had also figured out how to produce a very versatile and put-together package.  Drones at this point had cameras on them that were better than your average consumer camera and were integrated to where there was no problems at all.  This allowed the late adopters to get straight into the drone scene whether it was for recreation or for business.  Several businesses started using drones for jobs or for media promotion.  This lead to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) cracking down on laws and regulations.  At this point in time, the only laws were, a drone has to remain below 400ft in elevation, and that it has to be a mile and a half from any airport.  Several disagreements and lawsuits broke out regarding privacy laws in where people could fly.  

By the time the laggers got to drones the FAA had already put in place several laws determining who can do what and where.  Now that drones and the airspace were all cooperating together drones continued to take off, responsibly this time.  Modern drones have several safety features to ensure that people can fly safely with no training needed.  These safety features include GPS, multidirectional sensors, sonar, and even software that will not only inhibit an operator from flying too close to an airport but will also warn him/her about nearby manned aircraft that might pose a safety risk.  With all of these in place drones were finally mature enough for just about anyone to fly.  

After the FAA laws and regulations, people who wanted to operate a drone where they made a profit from doing so whether it was promotion or money had to get a special Unmanned Arial System pilots license.  This cracked down on the number of people who could produce media from a drone.  Overall however the modern-day consumer drone invention has really benefited the world in more than one way, allowing people to go out and produce new types of media for the world to see.  

Sources:

https://interestingengineering.com/a-brief-history-of-drones-the-remote-controlled-unmanned-aerial-vehicles-uavs

https://www.dronethusiast.com/history-of-drones/