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Wednesday
Got some members logged in and learnt that others could not. took part in the mystery challenge. and the first years did the literacy and numeracy
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interactive design
This week todd came in and talked to us about interactive design which made for a very interesting and enlightening first half of the lesson with the most interesting part of the lecture being a ted talk in which the speaker discussed humans ability to do various tasks while in different emotional states. When we are happier and in a more relaxed environment we tend to more free and inventive thinking whereas under pressure to succeed anxiety or fear our thinking is far less creative and narrower but we tend to Continue reading “interactive design”
localisation
Internationalisation is a subject I knew nothing about and had never really considered as much of a problem or something to be grateful for. I now know that is both a huge challenge and something to be very grateful. I learned it’s not something you can just run through a translator. Instead it almost seems like a huge amount of bug fixing making Continue reading “localisation”
Copy…. left?
Let’s get straight in to this one. Copying a file is as steven fry said is so fundamentally different from theft that its almost laughable we are still stuck on whether or not its theft. If the object remains it has not been stolen. What should be discussed is how severe is the crime itself. As I clarified if the item Is not stolen what is lost and why is it an issue? Because of the loss of sale. This gets more complicated as we have to consider if the pirate would have bought the product if they didn’t pirate the file /s because if the answer is no then then the copyright holder has lost nothing at all and the pirate has gained something. This of course gets more complicated as you consider the moral implications and what the pirate does with the files after the fact makes this matter far more complicated and really should be dealt with someone a lot smarter than myself maybe a philosopher or something. Personally I don’t pirate anything I can buy legitimately the main issue Is I often don’t have access to it.
Aaron Swartz was quite a few things a revolutionary would be my first word for him though he killed himself after being charged with a massive amount of jail time and a huge fine for copying scholarly information that I believe he was going to share with people all over the world. I feel what he did was fundamentally a good thing any possible doubt on that was quashed by jack andraka and his early pancreatic detection method a discovery which he attributed in part to Aaron. Making a very clear statement about the current state of copy right and how it can be detrimental not just in matters of convenience but detrimental to society as a whole.
internets own boy responses
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Q1: What did he do that got him into trouble?
aaron illegally copied files from MIT’s j’store data base.
Q2: What were the possible motives men tioned in the film for his so called “crime”?
the main two motives mentioned by the film were that he was intending to sell the files for profit.
whereas aaron insisted that he was merely looking at the files to do research on massive wealth of information
Q3: What does each motive imply from a MORAL and LEGAL point of view?
selling the files is legally and morally wrong and is a serious crime that should be punished. but nearly twice the newzealand life sentence and more money than most see in a life time? no.
stealing the files with the intention to distibute but not to profit so that every one can have access to the total of human knowlege. is a different matter yes giving the files away for free is against the law but every person having access to humanity’s progress is a moral highground that most people wouldnt even think of trying to reach. and the law is seriously lagging behind the rapid progression of technology.
stealing the files for personal research should legally at most ban him from mit and charge him for the files taken. and morally should give him a slap on the wrist.
Q4: Why were understanding his motives so important ?
as i outlined above the key difference is either doing an action to better the world around you and the other is for personal gain.
Q4.1: How many charges did this end up giving him?
2 counts of wire fraud and eleven counts of computer fraud and abuse.
Q5: What was wrong with the sopa bill ?
the sopa bill proposed giving corporations the power to shut down websites if any content on their sites violating copy right meaning if some one posts on reddit or you tube with something someone else views as in violation of their copyright they can bring down the site itself with as little as one claim.
Q6: Why did It look like the bill would be impossible to stop from passing?
massive corporate backing and lobbying backing any motion generally assures its passing especially with so many senators supporting its acking
Q7: What were some of the significant factors that helped raise awareness for dismissing the sopa bill?
it was for the most part the users of the internet spreading the word which is heard by internet sites who’s subsequent site blackouts was heard by the american goverment
Q7.1 Whats the important message about this victory to those of us in the “new world”
the most important thing to notice here is that we as a people have the power to affect change. even when every thing should be against us
Q8: “Bringing public access to the public domain” “books are our cultural legacy”. What are these statements have to do with his passion … (37:25)
his passion for books and libraries are an extension of his passion for information and knowlege. “bringing public access to the public domain” talks about how difficult and often expensive it is to bring public domain documents that everyone has the right to view, and making those documents accessable
Q9: What does q8 have to do with Jack Andrakajack andraka created a much needed early test for a variety of cancers most importantly pancreatic cancer which is most often found too late. a breakthrough that will undoubtedly save lives. a breakthrough he actually partially credtied aaron with this discovery. it was a discovery that he made from reasearch files from jstore
Q10: Whats the most important question on this list. Why?
i think its question 9 question nine is absolutely the final word in the argument. when people ask was it right should it be legal is it somethign we should persue in the future? question 9 is the absolute yes if it can save a life without endangering another? then the answer is always yes.
What is real?
What is real has got to be the heaviest and headiest blog subject. Luckily for my panicked mind it quickly went to a more relatable and decidedly less philosophical area quite quickly. The first question to address in this blog is what we consider real and I consider any thing measureable or anything that can be experienced to be real so dreams hallucinations I believe at least in some way are real. That is a pretty general answer which is good because further consideration may hurt my brain.
No in to the more meaty part of the blog the subject of augmented and virtual reality in this case google glass but since that was cancelled and now quite out of date I’ll talk about pros and cons of augmented reality in general first of all the pros and cons first of all I think the biggest problems will be hard ware related things like resolution battery life and latency. Especially the battery life actually I doubt these devices will have a life outside of the home or car if at all with battery life issues. The other major issue will probably be a social one smart phones have already had an enormous social impact but the ability to literally make the world just what you want may pose some strange societal issues. On the plus side laser tag will be that much better and my flat can look good even if I am poor. Hooray. The next point is what does Microsoft hollo lens do that’s different well the biggest thing that hololens is a Microsoft product meaning that not only is it compatible with other Microsoft products. But more importantly that there is a well-known brand actually releasing a usable version of augmented reality. This is important since virtual and augmented reality hasn’t really been seen as anything more than a gimmick or a cool gadget outside of geek circles and main stream adoption may be just around the corner with a company like Microsoft at the helm.
The next point of call is do these technologies have a place outside of games and I think they definitely do in a multitude of ways but the way I’m most interested in would have to be the use of augmented reality for making the mundane interesting. Through the idea of gamification now that sounds like I’m just talking about games but I’m not. I’m talking about adding game like mechanics to non-game environments something that’s being introduced to education more and more recently. People, game developers specifically have gotten very good at finding out what makes us tick and what makes us play. Gamification is more psychology than it is game design and is most apparent in mobile games or MMOs that earn from keeping you interested for longer there are so many tricks to it and one of the most simple is the sense of progression wow does it through larger and larger numbers as you level. What I want from virtual and augmented reality is that applied to what we hate to do. I work in an apple factory and grade thousands of apples a night if there was an overlay for this that counted and rewarded apples graded and gave a sense of progression to such a mundane task I can guarantee you I would be more engaged with my work and the same would be true for most menial tasks house work would be far more interesting and engaging. It think that once virtual reality and augmented reality the amount of gamification in everyday life will explode dramatically. Below are two video’s the first is just a very cool augmented reality idea. The second is a short video that talks about gamification more which is what I’m most excited about for the technology
Treat…uhhh the uh. the effects of colonisation… I think?
OH god here we go the damn treaty of Waitangi not this shit again. If I had a dollar for every time that I heard about the damn Tr… oh well what’s this about china? What does this have to do with the treaty?
Changing tense for now. This is pretty much what I thought about this blog through the first few minutes. This class was really interesting, because it wasn’t about the treaty of Waitangi or at least not primarily it was about if I had to say what it was about I probably couldn’t or at least not one specific thing. The lecture ranged from colonialism, imperialism, global history, the British Empire, and how fundamentally different people are after explaining how humanity was fundamentally the same but also absolutely different he pointed out that newzealand colonial history is damn similar to every other country’s colonial history.
The first question for the blog was where did you get your info on the treaty of Waitangi; research or from word of mouth and media? This was a pretty good question and between Craig’s innovation blog post a few weeks back and marks problem solving blog we have had a double dose of talk about biases in recent weeks. One of the things all the talk about biases has made me realise is that im objectively un-objective and when I take in information now I consider how reasonable it sounds. I don’t actually know very much about the treaty at all just that it’s a huge point of contention and that the maori got a raw deal from the whole thing, but I have never really thought “well they should get all their stuff back” and I couldn’t tell you why, maybe its just idea from my parents but I think most likely I manage to put it in the “not my problem” pile. I don’t know anything about specific problems or details other than what I’ve put down here, and what little I do know is from tv stories.
The second part of this blog is what I think about colonised people being able to run themselves independently. And it’s a great idea in my opinion, if feasible. If this was set up that was 150 years ago in New Zealand when the first colonials arrived then it would be great and I think that conceptually the system is sound. Unfortunately not this late in the game, implementing a system for the Maori to govern themselves at this point just isn’t feasible at least In my opinion. Of course the other side of it is that I have no idea what should be done. At this point what can we do to maintain a people and cultures right to self-govern more than a century down the line? I have no idea, luckily that’s above my pay grade and it’s not my call to make. The only thing this discussion has made me certain of is that I don’t know nearly enough to form a proper opinion, I know little to nothing about what New Zealand deals with in this regard let alone the rest of the world. Especially because they no doubt have a web of treaties agreements and confusion just as complicated as what we have in New Zealand.
Problem solving
It’s a mystery wrapped in a conundrum wrapped in an enigma! Wait never mind is just messy and grammatically lacking. Its Harry’s problem solving blog post! This week mark gave us a lecture on how to solve problems or rather the reason we often find it hard to solve them at all. And the main reason for that is our own biases, or our tendency to prefer or be more inclined towards specific information or ideas. Basically a list of ways we as people fail to be objective. For example there is a common bias called anchoring in which people tend to overstate the importance of certain information that they have on a given subject why do we overvalue certain details? Well often it’s because it’s the first thing they hear on a subject. Another common one is confirmation bias in which we are massively biased toward anything that supports our opinion including searching out supporting arguments whilst ignoring the opposing. Then there are really crazy ones like the backfire effect in which giving someone evidence opposing their stance actually strengthens it. Crazy right who would do that? I would. Not intentionally of course but I do that all the time and after looking at a few biases ive been catching myself at them all the time…or maybe I haven’t and my conformation bias is making me think im biased but really it was my own biases that made me thing I was biased.
The other point mark wanted us to touch on in this post was whether or not we were biased toward details or the big picture. Now this is an interesting question because I have no idea and I’ve never thought of it before. Which may take away my ability to be objective about it. See I think I prefer the idea of being a big picture person over a details person so when asked what type are you my immediate reaction was to say big picture. Now I may be a big picture person OR I could be a details person with a preference to big picture and conformation bias. My brain could be looking for times in the past when I have demonstrated a tendency to big picture. During the lecture mark did the two little dickey birds song and I was so intent on solving the next logic problem I didn’t even notice the sleight of hand problem. When mark said who knows how I did that my first reaction was trying to find the puzzle in what he said. That’s a pretty good example of being a big picture person but its only one data point and unlike a logic puzzle we can’t assume that everything else is perfectly logical and consistent with what information we have. Luckily I’m not a logic puzzle so I’ll go ahead and just say I’m a big picture person.
Mark’s post told us review times when have demonstrated a big picture or detail oriented methodology in the past. But as a mentioned earlier I don’t really recall those times so I took the liberty of checking out some logic puzzles online and after failing a few of them I think I am a bit more or a big picture person. The puzzles I was attempting were beginner (supposedly) and most of them could be solved with noting one or two small things that unravel the whole puzzle in a single step. Which I routinely missed constantly looking for larger patterns and overarching trick questions. In the past when I have solved problems it’s usually a very fast realisation or I don’t get it at all. I can’t break problems in to steps but rather attempt the whole damn thing at once. Which rarely works overall I think the class was interesting and I thoroughly enjoyed it.
harrysnmitblog 