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.
Tuesday, December 13, 2016
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. :)
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.
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!
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!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)