Presentation topic

In class every student covered a different topic about some part of the virtual world. Whether it be a cool piece of tech, or the types of communities that form online. However I wanted to talk about on topic, and that is AI. Artificial Intelligence is progressing and will soon be a serious issue humanity needs to discuss with ourselves. Personally I am all for AI, I loved the presentation on self-driving cars and I think that that would be a huge improvement not only for the safety of our society, but for the environment as well. One of my favorite parts of the presentation on self-driving cars was the different levels we now have for different types of cars. I hope that we can reach a stage in society where everyone has a level 5 self-driving car, which is a type of car that all you have to do is punch in the destination then sit back and relax. I would be a huge fan of that, but not just because that means I can sit there on reddit the whole drive, it also means I will be safe if I am surrounded by other self-driving cars too.

Artificial Intelligence is such a big change that can have such a positive impact on our society, however like the presenters mentioned there are risks as well. We have to keep in mind the hazards that it could present, and not only that we have to have the technology it takes to get there. Even our fastest super computers probably can't preform all the tasks it takes to for a computer to think on its own like a real human can, we are close to getting there, but not Westworld AI level close. (Hopefully Westworld would never be a real thing in the future too). I loved learning about AI and I am very excited to see how far it will progress over my lifetime.

What makes a Community?

We had a good discussion in my class on what makes a community, and more importantly, how does the virtual world help or hinder this. Often when we think of a community we think of a group of people who come together and are bonded by something. say the location that they live in; or perhaps a church community, or even a group of people who are really passionate about a certain sport. When all these people who have this interest are able to come together and be happy and talk about their common interest and express their passion, then you have a very successful community.

Lets think about this for a second, if I were a person who wanted to be apart of my local community of the town that I live in, I could go talk at my local town hall forum, or perhaps just go talk to my neighbors. If I wanted to participate with my favorite sports team fans I can go watch a game at a bar or at the sporting event. But what if I wanted to be apart of a community of people who are really passionate about cooking, who do I talk with about that? Chefs at a restaurant? Perhaps a simple solution to this is to go online. one of the best parts about the internet is there are tons of places online to get together with people who are passionate about the same thing as you. There are chat rooms and online forums, whole websites dedicated to the things you are interested in!

I think the virtual world and tech really provide a community to everyone about anything. For me, I am able to meet people who share a passion for the same online games I play, and I have made some great friends with strangers because of it. Even if it, say a sports community you are willing to be apart of, you have no idea how big of a community there actually is, until you see how many likes there are on the sports teams facebook page. :)

Dot.com to Dot.bomb

In this blog I wanted to talk about Dot.com to Dot.bomb, don't worry the internet was never turned into an actual explosive. However the phrase Dot.com to Dot.bomb refers to the big changes that occurred when the many companies, our .com's took to the world wide web for success.

In this era of time many changes occurred on the internet, a lot of companies went bust hoping to make a name for themselves on the internet, however a lot of companies found success as well. This was well charted in the financial market at the time, many people were putting stocks into these companies and were hoping to make a profit. Take pets.com for example, this was a company that sold pet supplies for costumers online, the company invested a lot into advertising, even having popular ads during the Superbowl air time. However pets.com eventually failed to make a profit online, and is one of the many companies that failed in this era. On the other hand, have you heard of Amazon? I am sure you have, it is a great company that sells virtually everything online, they now have stores that you can take what you want and walk out all without waiting in line at a cash register. Yeah that Amazon, back then everyone that it would be a failure. Amazon was one a the companies that really prospered thanks to the growth and popularity of the internet.

I was really glad to learn about all this history in my class, it was really interesting to not this important part in the rise of the world wide web and everything people can do on it. As someone who was just a kid in during this time, it never seemed important to me, but I now know just how important it was.

Data Structures

We had Joel Larson attend our class to discuss data structures. Joel Larson gave a simply wonderful speech detailing the rise of data structures, and the many uses it has in our society today. Think of all the movies and tv shows there are on Netflix. How are they stored? If you clicked on one of these movies where does it find the movie? Well all of these movies are stored in a type of database or organized structure that holds all of the information it needs to hold.

Joel Larson told the story of how grocery stores kept track of all the products they bought and sold back in the day. Well now a days that is made so much easier by having a database of all the products in the store. Back then companies would tell stores how much of their product they are going to buy, but now with the ability to keep track of how much of the product is actually sold, there is no need to be forced to buy excess product from the company!

I really enjoyed Joel's presentation, I hope I can eventually take his class on data structures in the future, since I plan on going into Computer Science, and it would be useful for my future career! I love how passionate he was about it, so I am excited to keep learning about the topic as well!

Jobless

Advances in technology have made so many improvements to a majority of careers. However there are a couple of careers that technology hasn't improved, in fact they have created a major job loss. Remember Blockbuster? It was the best place to go and rent movies, however now it is no longer necessary thanks to Netflix and even Amazon video. In an article by the International Business Times, an estimate of 2,800 jobs were lost due to blockbusters fall.

So where did these 2,800 plus people end up going after companies, that were once so fruitful, fall short of competing with tech corporations who are offering a better version of their product? Well who is to really say? It is mostly speculation, but could jobs that were once done in real life be translated so easily to a virtual one? Maybe not so for companies like blockbuster. However, some types of jobs no matter how tech heavy they become, still need the accommodations that only people can offer.

Let's look at types of jobs, like travel agents for example. If you wanted to book a flight or find a hotel, there are many places online to do so, in fact it is common place to do it through an online agency, then through a travel agency now a days.  However, what if I needed to refund my flight and couldn't figure out how to do so online? Who would I call? Why I would try the costumer support line! Think of all the websites, that still offer over the phone costumer support, we would not be anywhere without their help. All the online travel sites, and even Amazon offer this kind of personable support, and what better way to translate to a new job. I think there may have been quite a significant job loss in certain areas, but there are still online services that tailor to the jobs people once held, and we can't forget how important those are.

Three things I wouldn't buy online

I am a big fan for buying things online. I mean think about how convenient it is, I don't have to go out of my way to purchase what I want. I don't have to waste gasoline to drive to the store. More importantly I don't have to spend precious time looking down rows of aisles to find what I want, I just have to type it in once into amazon. However, that being said there I certain things I doubt I would ever buy online.

1. Fresh Produce:
It may be very snobbish of me, but I do not think I could ever buy fresh food online. The main problem lies in the fact that, where ever I purchase it they would have to find some way to package and ship my product to me; which doesn't make it very fresh. I think I would take the trip to the grocery store in order to pick up the groceries I need.

2.  A Car:
A car is one of the biggest investments you can make in your life; There is a serious flaw in your logic if you don't test drive it before you purchase it. I may be a bit biased however because I don't believe in making big monetary purchases online.

3. Big Furniture:
Same as with cars, I think buying things like couches or refrigerators without seeing the product first and testing it, is something I wouldn't do.  

Guest Speaker: Erik Hanberg

In class last week, we had author and self publisher Erik Hanberg come in and speak with us about the struggle and accomplishments of self publishing throughout all the changes of the internet. Erik Hanberg may not be a household name such as J.K Rowling and George R.R Martin, but he has certainly made a name for himself. Erik started publishing his novels in 2010, and has been publishing a book pretty much every year. It was interesting to learn about all the different career opportunities that Erik has had, he is very much a self starter. He even asked to create one of his Universities websites and claims he didn't know how to make a website at the time! He seems to be very confident with how to get your name out there, how to start publishing, producing or promoting your own content. Some of the interesting facts that he mentioned when it came to publishing his novels, were how Amazon impacted self publishing. I never knew this but Amazon promotes books on costumer reviews and does not prioritize books that were published through a corporation. This was a huge impact especially since it was more convenient for some to publish books online then to pay for someone to publish them. It was a pleasure to have Erik come and talk to us in class, I still would love to be able to ask him more questions: such as his opinion on how the internet has made it so convenient for freelancers and this new form of self promoted work. Which I strongly think it has, what about you? Comment below!