User:Nickjrowland
Bio
My name is Nick Rowland, I am a student of the CIS 2 class at De Anza college. I am continuing college into a university to gain a bachelors in Electrical Engineering. Currently, I live in Los Angeles.
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Mid-Term
For my mid-term project, I explained the successes and faults of the advances in fusion technology. In the early years the main forerunner was the tokamak, a torus symbol (doughnut shaped) container that would spin hydrogen throughout, until a plasma like heat was attained, resembling that of our own star. Now, a stellarator, which is the same shape, but twisted, is becoming a more viable option.
Advances have increased recently due to supercomputers being used to run simulations of either of the options. This saves time, and effort, before putting in many hours running and tweaking the machine to hit maximum efficiency.
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FINAL PROJECT:
(Favorite Links are labeled)
1. Introductions
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7o35ruCZ6S4&feature=youtu.be (Selected Media)
• I find this perfect for an introduction, as it doesn’t have to say anything at all, it just shows how things have changed since technology has become a central part of our lives. I have never seen this video before, but it got me thinking how, in such a short time, technology has exploded compared to what it used to be like. This led me to find a graph of technological advances from 1900 to 2005 showing when things were popular and what percentage used them, funny to think the telephone was once more popular than electricity! http://cdn.theatlantic.com/static/mt/assets/business/technology%20adoption%20rate%20century.png
• http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20141022-are-we-getting-smarter (Discussion Thread)
• I chose this article that someone posted, as, I feel, describes a big portion of what this class is about. The interactions, upsides, and downsides of the use of technology has on our society. The opening quote, from Aristotle, states;
“This discovery of yours will create forgetfulness in the learners’ souls, because they will not use their memories”
This quote is talking about the use of writing, as then it was a new form of technology, already causing people to be weary about relying too much on technology, and not on our own minds. This resonates with me greatly, as I too feel that technology is being relied upon too much, even now. Though, it has helped propel our society greatly, we must still, at the foremost, rely on ourselves, if we are to learn and succeed.
• http://teachthought.com/uncategorized/20-basic-rules-for-digital-citizenship/ (Selected Media, Favorite)
• This article is a great, as this is like a “10 commandments” that everyone should follow, in order to have a positive, safe and courteous time while using the internet. I understand there are different points of view, and nobody is the same, or perfect for that matter. This, however, allows everyone to have their own say in whatever it is they are talking about, while also discouraging anyone to belittle, mock, or judge someone based on their beliefs. This also addresses the use of grammar, as someone may seriously misinterpret what you’re saying (e.g. were/we’re ; your/you’re)
2. Privacy and Freedom of Speech
• http://www.networkworld.com/article/2164315/lan-wan/4-internet-privacy-laws-you-should-know-about.html (Personal Knowledge)
• This article is about the different laws in place that are protecting our freedom and privacy, while on the internet. Covering the Trans Pacific-Partnership Agreement (TPP), Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA), the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA), and the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA). I felt this was a great resource of information on this topic, as most of these laws didn’t exist in my knowledge bank before this class. I’ve heard of a few of these only recently, but didn’t know they were connected to privacy/internet backgrounds.
• http://www.businessinsider.com/snowden-leaks-timeline-2014-6 (Discussion)
• This article is the epitome of the Freedom of Speech and Privacy topic. Covering the leak by the infamous Edward Snowden, an ex-NSA employee, revealing 1.5 million files covering the breaches of privacy committed by our own government. Wanting to find out what’s happened since exposing all this, I’ve found that the NSA has “supposedly” ended phone data collection. Though, this is now being used to say it caused the recent Paris attacks. http://www.rawstory.com/2015/12/nsa-ends-phone-data-collection-program-exposed-by-edward-snowden/
• https://theintercept.com/2015/07/01/nsas-google-worlds-private-communications/ (Personal Research, Favorite)
• I felt this article was a perfect follow up to the previous article, as the program, XKeyscore, was systematically breaking privacy laws since 2008. Gathering information, such as phone numbers, email addresses, user activity and even logins. From 700 servers around the world, XKeyscore would then package it up and sent back to the NSA, where an operator would search for specific keywords. I felt this site is a must, as this explains, in detail, one of the biggest breaches of privacy our generation has experienced.
3. Intellectual Property
• http://www.123helpme.com/view.asp?id=26994 (Discussion Thread)
• This article covers, in detail, the effects the internet and computers have had on multiple genres of art. Explaining that traditional art will never die, as most attendees at museums, art shows, etc., feel that viewing pieces online doesn’t have the same feel. I felt this article was important, because, as a musician, I never really thought what effect the digital age would have on other forms of expression, other than just music and movies.
• http://www.theguardian.com/music/2013/oct/11/david-byrne-internet-content-world (Selected Media)
• I believe this article is necessary. Music is the industry most effected by the digital age. Copyrights, licenses, creative commons, all this comes up when using music in a project. Now, it seems, that digital streaming is one of the only ways that music can save itself from certain doom, or is it? David Byrne explains why companies like Spotify and now Apple music are ruining the music industry.
• http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/apr/03/how-much-musicians-make-spotify-itunes-youtube (Researched, Favorite)
• This site really shows how much money is made by signed and unsigned artists who allow their works to be streamed online. It is really amazing to think that all these companies who are advertising during these videos end up making more money than the actual artist.
4. Crime
• http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/oct/18/were-all-casualties-holy-war-android-security-apple-john-naughton (Selected Media)
• This article brings to light the cutthroat world of mobile phone sales, and how profit margin is more important than security. Comparing cell phone manufacturing giants Apple, Samsung, Google, LG, etc., this article brings to light the recent study, by Cambridge University, showing the 87% of all Android devices are insecure. This is massive as 81% of all the worlds smartphones run the android software, leaving a massive hole for hackers to infiltrate. This got me curious on what we can do to better secure our phones. Owning an iPhone, I decided to search for that. What i’ve found is 10 great tips on how to better secure your phone, which includes some great ideas. (https://blog.kaspersky.com/iphone-maximum-security-tips/6132/)
• http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/oct/01/experian-hack-t-mobile-credit-checks-personal-information (Research)
• If there was ever a company to hack, Experian would be it. Credit rating companies hold some of our most personal information. Social Security, address, phone number, date of birth and other sensitive info all in one place. This information was compromised on October 1st, 2015. Though, strangely enough, only newly registered T-Mobile users were targeted. I found this quite interesting, as you would feel that a company with that much information would be impenetrable towards a hacker. It made me wonder how someone actually hacks a system. The following link is a great demonstration on how someone is able to penetrate supposedly secure networks. (http://www.cnbc.com/2012/07/06/10-Ways-Companies-Get-Hacked.html)
• http://www.sltrib.com/home/3062676-155/cybersecurity-fears-are-making-us-sailors (Discussion Thread, Favorite)
• In this article, the U.S. naval academy has begun teaching sailors how to navigate by the stars, as they used to for hundreds of years. This was recently set in motion by the Annapolis chapter, due to fears of cybersecurity breaches to the on-board navigation systems in today’s naval fleet. I thoroughly enjoyed this article, as it shows that no matter how bad things can get with compromised information, there is always an “analog” way to do things. It also goes to show that even an ancient way of doing things works because the only way it’ll fail is by personal human error.
5. Employment, Education and Entertainment
• https://www.khanacademy.org (Personal Knowledge, Favorite)
• Khan Academy is one of the only sites I’ve seen out there that offers a vast amount of learning resources for free. I’ve used it countless times when I needed an extra hand with my math and chemistry classes, to gain a different point of view towards a problem. Khan Academy focuses on STEM fields, and offers graduated programs for learning just about anything, from elementary chemistry through to chem 101, and from basic math all the way up to calculus. There are also classes for economics and art, as well as computer science and coding tutorials.
• http://blogs.workday.com/how-technology-can-build-the-bridge-from-education-to-employment/ (Selected Media)
• Workday is a company who strives on bridging the gap between education and employment. Creating an all inclusive application that assists schools, making their jobs, teaching, a lot easier. This is done by streamlining the processes of admissions, curriculum management, academic advising, and financial aid, allowing all of these to be accurately seen in a format that shows where the gaps are, giving schools a better idea on how to fix them.
• http://www.scholastic.com/teachers/article/stem-k-8-engineering (Discussion Thread)
• Scholastic offers a great, in depth, review of why STEM classes are important to our economy. This also relates why it is so important to introduce these ideas to students at a younger age, allowing them to feel comfortable and familiar with them as they grow older. Offering links to different schools that focus on this career pathway, as well as offering ideas on how to introduce the engineer-design process to younger students.
I decided to look up one of these links, that was mentioned earlier, to see what their class suggestions were like. What I found was amazing, over 400 ideas, that have been used in schools, to keep students interested in this field. http://www.edutopia.org/blogs/tag/stem
6. Mid Term Project - Grand Challenges
• http://web.ornl.gov/info/ornlreview/v37_2_04/article05.shtml (Mid Term Project)
• For our midterm engineering challenge, my choice was easy to find, energy from fusion reactions. I always find this interesting as things to do with space, chemistry and science always intrigue me, and this has to do with all of them. This link explains, in detail, why we need to pursue fusion energy if we are to sustain a growing population, as well as produce clean energy. Furthermore, it is shown that most of the work done in the process of streamlining this technology, is in the simulations that are run, which requires vast amounts of computational speed & power. This made sense to me, even though I didn’t know it, as running a lot of simulations before building seems to be the best way to figure something out, so you don’t have to keep tweaking an actual machine, just change the settings in the computer.
• http://lifestraw.com (Selected Media)
• This product caught my eye immediately, as both of my outdoor loving friends have one, and have used it on several emergency occasions. It is also a great and cheap way for people in other countries to filter their water, due to a lack of purification and treatment sites. It also stops letting you drink from it, once the filter has been thoroughly used, which negates any misuse of the product, as this was of a concern to me. Unfortunately, the cheapest version does not eliminate viruses or heavy metals from the water, though, their more advanced models (family and community options) remove all of these things.
• http://www.lockheedmartin.com/us/products/compact-fusion.html (Research, Favorite)
• I was intrigued by this site as I was doing research for my midterm project. As all data I came across was suggesting that the size of the reactor was at the perfect fit for what needed to be accomplished. Lockheed Martin is attempting to make that a myth with their compact fusion reactor. Most reactors take up space the size of a building, as well as take 5 or more years to develop and test. This compact version takes up the space of a large truck, only 3 months to develop, and test in under a year. Led by the skunkworks team, they believe they can achieve efficient fusion in under 5 years.
7. Evaluating and Controlling Technology
• http://www.cnn.com/2014/11/25/living/10-signs-smartphone-addiction-digital-life/ (Research)
• This was a big key point during the topic of Evaluating and Controlling Technology. It is one of the most used pieces of technology now over computers, so it is only fitting to include this article. I found this while researching one of the selected media sources, and was amazed at the percentage of people who would fall under the “addicted” category. Though the 10 signs presented are more of a comical look towards this, the rest of the article contains some interesting numbers and links to other studies.
• http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/jul/27/musk-wozniak-hawking-ban-ai-autonomous-weapons
(Research, Favorite)
• If there was ever a perfect article for this topic, this would be it. Some of the biggest names in science and technology have come together to sign a petition that asks to ban weaponry that contains artificial intelligence. Leading the group is Elon Musk, Stephen Hawking, and Steve Wozniak, all top names in their respective fields. This just goes to show how we know where and how things can get bad when a new technology presents itself, which was part of our topic, evaluation of a technology. This letter serves the purpose of trying to control that technology, so it doesn’t get out of hand.
• http://cs.stanford.edu/people/eroberts/cs201/projects/digital-divide/start.html (Discussion Thread)
• In this study, the digital divide is at the spotlight. Focusing on race, income, age and education, this study, performed from ’97-’98, shows how many people own, and know how to operate a computer, as well as accessing the internet. This really shows how big of an actual gap there is between all these factors, making it more obvious that there are other problems here that result in the gap being so large. I did some more research to find what kind of gaps there are now in 2015. Though, they are smaller, there is still a major gap with income and education spectrums in using the internet. (http://www.pewinternet.org/2015/09/22/digital-divides-2015/?utm_expid=53098246-2.Lly4CFSVQG2lphsg-KopIg.0&utm_referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2F)
8. Risks, Failures and Responsibilities
• http://www.cbsnews.com/news/official-hacked-federal-agency-opm-has-history-of-security-failures/ (Research, Favorite)
• This article covers the multiple hackings and compromised information of the U.S. personnel office, which holds millions of records of government employees. This info includes, social security, address, names, date of birth etc. This comes as the 2nd time the office has been infiltrated, and poses a perfect example at the risks, failures and responsibilities involved with digitalizing such sensitive info.
• http://www.computerworld.com/article/2557944/security0/ethical-issues-for-it-security-professionals.html (Selected Media)
• I thought this article was a great fit, as it addresses the responsibilities faced on IT employees, who hold a lot of power over our security and information these days. This is something that I never thought of, as if all IT employees were indoctrinated with great morals from birth, this article asks questions that need to be asked. Where is the limit on viewing other employees emails, website monitoring, and looking at stored data, all of which have a point that need to be monitored, but when does it cross the line?
• http://www.technologyreview.com/view/526401/laws-and-ethics-cant-keep-pace-with-technology/ (Discussion Thread)
• Touching on ethics and laws of technology, and how lawmakers can’t keep pace, this article presents interesting stories on real world scenarios that involve our digital presence. From refusing loans due to Facebook friends who have bad payment history, to not hiring someone based on an algorithm of social desirability. There are some serious questions in this piece, bringing to light that, no matter what, humans don’t always think of the consequences, and not just for information, that can arise from this new technology.
9. Anytime, Anywhere
• http://www.hongkiat.com/blog/keeping-smartphone-safe/ (Selected Media)
• I felt this article was great, as it addresses the dark side of having everything on our smartphones. It’s scary to think as well how many people don’t know how to do some of these things, or that they are even at risk through these options, such as bluetooth and third party apps. This article gives some pretty solid info on how to protect yourself, and your phone, from being invaded, thus compromising your sensitive information.
• http://www.apple.com/music/ (Discussion Thread)
• This one was another easy choice for me, as I have this service and love it. It gives you seemingly endless music on all your apple devices. Though what is truly great, is it saves space on your phone/computer, due to the service being entirely streaming. You are able to save music for offline use, but more often than not I am around a wi-fi connection, which makes it an endless use. Though, the only downside is the amount of money the artists receive from having their music on this site, which is actually better than spotify, i’ve found through researching the numbers. (http://www.businessinsider.com/apple-is-going-to-start-paying-artists-per-stream-after-launch-2015-6?r=UK&IR=T)
• https://www.google.com/docs/about/ (Research, Favorite)
• I feel google docs encompasses the epitome of “Anytime, Anywhere”. I came to this realization after using it a magnitude of times for school, as I was able to start something at school, and then finish it when I would get home. Where this tech really shines is on group projects, allowing invited guests to edit, leave notes and share on a single document in real time. This has saved countless hours of transferring documents, as well as waiting for someone to edit something and send back. Easily this is one of the best uses of the internet.
10. Technology Advances, Social Trends
• http://www.trustedreviews.com/opinions/10-awesome-things-people-are-doing-with-3d-printers-trustedreviews (Discussion Thread)
• Included in this article are some of the most interesting things that are possible with 3d printing. Medical, musical, edible, and even livable are all things, though seemingly impossible, that have been created using this technology. I think some of the most interesting uses of this technology are in the fields of medicine, where casts and prosthetics have had leaps and bounds, in both efficiency and time of use, due to their quick production, as well as their incorporation of other technology.
• http://www.businessinsider.com/the-world-in-2050-2014-6?op=1 (Selected Media)
• This article takes a look into the future and predicts what will be possible, based on current developments in advancing technology. I feel it’s a great, in depth, piece, which covers a lot of different aspects of our changing world, as well as where it could be in the next forty years. Touching on advancements in medicine, robotics, economy, energy, and transportation, this brings to light a lot of current research that is taking place. I feel, now after reading this, that it is a very exciting time to be alive.
• http://www.sciencealert.com/li-fi-tested-in-the-real-world-for-the-first-time-is-100-times-faster-than-wi-fi/ (Research, Favorite)
• I feel this new technology could really change things. As most of us use wifi now for all our internet uses, li-fi could make things that much faster. Almost a hundred times faster than wifi, li-fi uses visible light to transfer data to and from all our devices. This also opens up the usage of more smart home applications, such as a smart thermostat, lighting, appliances, even utility meters. Another perk to this is the ability to make the connections more secure, as light frequencies cannot penetrate through walls like wireless radio signals can.
