User:NicholasReed

Student in CIS 2 at DeAnza Community College. Primary degree is A.S. CNC/Research & Development Machining with a secondary goal of a CAD Certificate.

MID TERM:

My Midterm for CIS 2 was about research into fusion energy, I ended up focusing on different fusion reactors and their technology from different groups since they can be rather different. The companies that I talked about were:


 * http://www.iter.org/
 * http://www.ipp.mpg.de/2285/en
 * http://www.generalfusion.com/

The ITER is an organization that includes 7 countries (more if you count the EU separately). They are constructing their next reactor, which is of a traditional Tokamak design, in France and are currently constructing the facility and acquiring parts for the reactor.

The IPP is a German research group that have recently completed construction of their latest reactor the W-7X. This reactor is not of the traditional design, it is instead of a Stellarator design, with a twisted chamber for holding the plasma. They are currently waiting on approval to begin testing. This one is my personal favorite.

General Fusion is a private company and research group that is looking to create fusion in a way no one has before. They plan to use pistons to compress the material to cause the fusion. They are still in the design, planning, and testing phases of their projects.

I think that fusion has the ability to solve many problems we have today and may have in the future. We can hope that it comes soon.

FINAL PROJECT:

Any link that is listed as "Personal Knowledge" I knew about before the course started, "Researched" I discovered during it.

1. Introductions


 * http://web.archive.org/web/20050401033400/http://www.wbglinks.net/pages/history/ (Course Link, Favorite)
 * I still find this webpage really interesting, I had never seen a timeline of the history of computers and the internet like this one before, and it's certainly never been taught to me before. I actually went out looking for more things like this after and found some more interesting pages with smaller events included in the timeline. I think that this is a very interesting thing to read for anyone vaguely interested in the internet, as it certainly moved me to learn more about some of the events listed in it. On a semi related note, the website that is now archived, today is a German website http://www.wbglinks.net/.
 * http://www.theguardian.com/society/2011/may/21/children-weaker-computers-replace-activity (Discussion Thread)
 * I chose this article about children not getting enough exercise and being weaker because of the shift to indoor activities because I find that many people just blame technology and then don't give it any more thought than that. The problem is just not that simple, and the article mentions this later on when it talks about schools being more afraid of legal action than they used to. I remember another news article I read where CPS took in some kids for being in a park alone because someone had called them. But the parents were quite responsible and knew where they were, on top of that it was a safe neighborhood for the kids to be in (well, except the people that called CPS). There's even a semi-derogatory term for parents that let their kids walk to school alone and the such: "Free-Range Parenting". Its ridiculous and with technology continuing as it is, I think that some serious societal changes will have to happen to change what is happening in both the article above and the one I talked about.
 * http://www.technologyreview.com/view/530566/the-impact-of-the-internet-on-society-a-global-perspective/ (Selected Media)
 * This article is a great, well, introduction to what this course is about. It talks about major changes in recent history that have been related to the internet, showing the reader what can be done with. Looking back at it, it told me to a degree what the class would be about, though at the time I did not realize it. The article it is based of I feel is a bit much (a 13 page pdf), but the rendition done by MIT, besides being a good source, did an excellent job of getting the point of the paper across in a much more readable manner.

2. Privacy and Freedom of Speech


 * https://www.eff.org/ (Personal Knowledge, Favorite)
 * The EFF is a group that attempts to protect the general populace's digital rights (for example privacy, encryption, censorship, copyright) through funding of movements and groups as well as their own legal action against various things. They have been in the news (at least noticeably) ever since the Snowden leaks, but were founded in 1990 and have been starting great discussions about internet rights ever since. The EFF has made me think about what I can do to help with protecting rights, both on the internet and outside of it.


 * https://prism-break.org/en/ (Personal Knowledge)
 * This website collects programs and services that have been tested to help protect against privacy violations as well as provide general security for your data. It includes things from operating systems, all the way down to search engines. I will say that while many of these things are great programs and they do indeed boost security, there is always a trade off, usually for these it is a ease of use one, as well as some requiring a person at the other end to be using the same thing as you. That said I use several of the listed items (DuckDuckGo, HexChat, KeePass, and others).
 * http://www.wired.com/insights/2015/01/privacy-and-security-in-the-internet-age/ (Discussion Thread)
 * I thought that this article was a relatively good intro to how internet security has become an issue as of late and why it is important. It mentions how 90% of the data on the internet was created in the last two years. I checked this fact because it seemed ridiculous, and apparently it's correct, the more scientific article I looked at to confirm it (http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/05/130522085217.htm) also mentioned a program by MicroStrategy called Wisdom, which I found a presentation for here http://www2.microstrategy.com/download/files/social-intelligence/Wisdom_Executive_Presentation.pdf which I found simultaneously super interesting and terrifying. In any case the original article was a great starting point for creating interest in the subject.

3. Intellectual Property


 * http://www.whoishostingthis.com/resources/student-copyright/ (Selected Media)
 * I thought that this was a nice, easy introduction to some of the basic parts of copyright law. It says it is for students, but that part is only mentioned at the end and does not really contain any super interesting information specific to students, so I'll ignore that part. The rest of the article explains in some excellently simple terms what the most common parts of copyright laws mean and do. It also includes some entertaining videos to further explain two of them. I think that this is an article that many people should read to help a greater portion of the populace understand copyright.


 * https://creativecommons.org/ (Personal Knowledge, Favorite)
 * Creative Commons is basically an open source copyright system. It is a collection of premade copyright documents available for free for anyone to use for anything. It is mostly used by websites and online works, but is by no means limited to usage there. Some websites that have included this are Flickr and YouTube. In the future this will continue to gain more traction I feel as more and more work is created and shared, and I think that every creator should know about this.


 * https://torrentfreak.com/youtube-pays-users-legal-bills-to-defend-fair-use-151120/ (Researched)
 * Recently YouTube made an announcement that they would be supporting 4 video owners in their litigation case with up to $1 million for legal fees. This shows a departure in their usual stance of staying out of the DMCA process as much as they can. Unfortunately this does not cover the other, bigger, problem YouTube has, the ContentID system, which despite its good intent, does not work very well yet. That said this is an excellent, if limited, step in the right direction for YouTube. There has also been discussions on weather this will continue, or expand to more users, because at the moment it is paltry compared to the total amount of users, and in addition a small percentage of them get illegitimate DMCA notices, and an even smaller amount go into litigation over them.

4. Crime


 * http://www.itp.net/604576-new-ios-malware-strain-steals-225000-apple-logons (Discussion Thread, Favorite)
 * This article points out a opening for crime that not many people even consider, your phone. It talks about the relatively recent breach of data that occurred with jail-broken apple phones. Login info and payment information among other information was stolen to help make another app that allowed you do download paid apps from the apple store for free. I find that many people just assume that there phone is secure, no matter what you do with it. And this just isn't true, it's similar to how people say that Macs don't get viruses, which in the past was true to an extent, as no malicious programs had been written for them yet. Today they get just as many as any other system (except maybe Linux), dimply due to their popularity, and with so many mobile devices with little to no security they are a prime target now.
 * https://www.malwarebytes.org/ (Personal Knowledge)
 * Malwarebytes is a free antivirus solution that has a fantastic record of catching things that other programs do not. There is also a free version available that includes all of the important features, the paid versions biggest extra is just a scheduler. It is not an active anti virus like Norton or others, so it does not scan incoming files. Either you or the scheduler starts the scan. In addition to the excellent detection rate it also has a low false positive rate. Many people simply use this program with Windows Defender, an ad-blocker, and knowing to surf the internet safely. Some major anti-virus programs can be practically viruses themselves, they can regenerate or simply refuse to be uninstalled, but Malwarebytes is just easy.
 * http://www.securityweek.com/hackers-hit-100-banks-unprecedented-1-billion-cyber-attack-kaspersky-lab (Researched)
 * I included this article because it shows the scale that crime that involves computers or technology can reach. It speaks of a $300 million to $1 billion heist, with no physical inputs, just the internet and networks, despite all security. The failure was, as it often can be, the human factor. Employees were tricked into opening files from an email that then infected their computers, allowing the perpetrators access, even ATMs were targeted. The article is well written and the author seemed to have a good idea of what he was talking about, and I have heard of Kaspersky labs in other cyber-security discussions before. In conclusion, people need to realize that no computer is 100% secure, and is unlikely to ever be so.

5. Employment, Education and Entertainment


 * http://www.lynda.com/ (Personal Knowledge, Favorite)
 * Lynda.com is a subscription service that provides you with thousands of videos that teach a vast array of topics. It may not give you a degree at the end, but you will still know how to do or use the subject you chose to learn. I think this shows a large shift towards informal, online learning, and if not that just online learning. Many people still have a stigma against online learning, thinking that it doesn't teach as well as a regular class, and for some people this may be true. for many though it is a wonderful way to keep yourself learning throughout your life. I my use this service in the future myself for a topic in my field that isn't covered at DeAnza.
 * http://er.educause.edu/articles/2015/8/data-technology-and-the-great-unbundling-of-higher-education (Selected Media)
 * This rather exhaustive article discusses the state of higher education in America, introduces the problems that it has right now and some solutions. There was a lot of things that I did not know about the system as it stands (the farthest I have been is here at DeAnza), and it also raised many questions. Thankfully the article was very good at putting most of those to rest. One that was not however was if high end college are willing to make these changes. If the author is to be believed, they must, and the suggested solutions like "full-stack" sound like great ideas. But they are making money hand over fist but just jacking up prices, because people will pay them, no matter (unfortunately) what that means for their later financial security. I hope that this idea and article get more attention, and that colleges are brought into discussions about it. As the article is nice and all, but the other side of the argument is also good to hear.
 * https://thejournal.com/Articles/2014/02/03/10-Major-Technology-Trends-in-Education.aspx (Researched)
 * I liked this list the article proposes about technology trends in education because it mentioned things that I have seen in my own schooling experiences, even excluding this one. For example, in one of my other current classes we watch videos about metals to explain them much better than could ever be lectured at as. Though with all these great things that technology is doing it does beg the question of how does it hurt, and it does, since at a certain level cheating becomes easier. It can also demonstrate the very low attention span that some students can have, I myself have gotten distracted many times by something else on my computer. I think that everyone needs to know that technology is here to stay in education, and that we must be continue to adapt both our education strategies and what we teach to match it.

6. Mid Term Project - Grand Challenges


 * http://www.ipp.mpg.de/2285/en (Mid Term Project, Favorite)
 * I wanted to bring this project and group up since there was recently a resurgence of interest due to them receiving German approval to go ahead with "first plasma" (http://www.ipp.mpg.de/3985731/w7x_15_2). I am rather interested in fusion in general and wonder if we will achieve it properly in my lifetime. This project (and mid term) really made me realize that I was interested in the technology. Much to my joy, my field of study could lead me to work on it in some capacity someday.
 * http://news.psu.edu/story/351700/2015/04/06/research/sound-separates-cancer-cells-blood-samples (Discussion Thread)
 * Research into cancer treatment is always somewhat interesting to me but most of those claim to have found a new cure or some such. This article talks about something a little different, separating tumor cells from white blood cells. I found this interesting since it was a less talked about area of cancer research, diagnosis. The process is a large improvement over current centrifugal processes with greatly reduced time and energy costs. This made me wonder about other medical advances that we may not hear about, or get lost in the noise. I feel that those things should be reported on more so people are able to know of the breadth of our advances.
 * http://www.darpa.mil/program/automated-program-analysis-for-cybersecurity (Selected Media)
 * The US military is one of the most, if not the most, advanced militaries on the planet, yet as it stands they are sorely behind in what the public considers relatively basic technology. Mobile computing and applications are just now being brought into the military more quickly, the link above is just part of that. DARPA wants to automate the validation and testing of new apps for the DoD app library, which would speed adoption and help with keeping up with updates to existing ones. This made me think about what apps the military does use. Somewhat unsurprisingly (though I was still disappointed) I couldn't find any info on that, and most articles just talked about how the services are looking to begin using more technology, with some mentioning apps the military would find useful.

7. Evaluating and Controlling Technology


 * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wtt2aSV8wdw (Research, Favorite)
 * I've actually done a fair amount of net neutrality research for other classes and I find it very important to the future of technology (and, well, the internet). The video explains what net neutrality is, so I wont go into that. However I will explain why I personally think that it is important. Its important not just on a rights (on both an individual level and a company level) but it matters to society. If net neutrality had never come to be then the internet, and by extension the technologies that use or were created by it, would never have come to be. Everyone should know about this since it is almost certainly to having an enjoyable experience on the internet. Even though the FCC was successful in their mission to protect net neutrality (naturally ISP's plan to/are suing over it).
 * http://www.technologyreview.com/review/534871/our-fear-of-artificial-intelligence/ (Research)
 * This is another great article by MIT's Technology Review, this time about the popular fear of artificial intelligence. It goes into a fair amount of depth, including multiple sources such as several interviews with influential people in the field on both sides of the argument. It finally concludes with most regular people not needing to worry about it for now, since while advancing, the technology is still not there. I've mentioned this before but learning software is here and it could soon push millions out of jobs and cause the need for a complete rework of the economy. Yet not enough people realize this yet I think and there is not enough discussion on the subject of what happens after AI is introduced and it (for example) goes well.
 * http://www.mckinsey.com/insights/energy_resources_materials/evaluating_the_potential_of_solar_technologies (Research)
 * This article (interactive portion included) evaluates the effectiveness of current and emerging solar technologies. It demonstrates relatively well the benefits and disadvantages of each one in a rather visually pleasing manner. Some of the high end numbers surprised me actually, not because of how low they were but with how high they were. I was under the impression that the best solar tech we had was far under the 25% efficiency that concentrated photo-voltaic technology gets, and while the most common technologies are, it was still impressive. I hope that I am able to find similar articles or the like for other technologies I may research in the future.

8. Risks, Failures and Responsibilities


 * https://steveshank.com/cgi-bin/article.pl?aid=312 (Discussion Thread)
 * Finding reliable information on the internet can be a challenge, especially in areas not truly dedicated to factual accuracy. Wikipedia is fairly good at this, and if an institution refuses to let you use it as a source, it has its own sources you can use. But random blogs and even supposedly reputable news outlets are many times wrong and wont retract statements. This article says things to the same effect and I am inclined to agree with the author, despite the age of the article. Bias and conflict of interest are some things that it does not mention, and I feel that they are one of the things that have come into the limelight since the article was written, however it is difficult to find places that do not exhibit these problems or at least ones that disclose them. Collecting information online can be very hard, and honestly, the much hated Wikipedia is one of the best bets due to it having thousands of editors.
 * http://www.slate.com/blogs/quora/2014/05/07/what_are_some_ethical_issues_in_computer_science_research.html (Research, Favorite)
 * I thought that this was an excellent, short, explanation on what ethics in computer science. Posted on Slate, the question was originally asked on a website called Quora, where as far as I can tell users ask questions and receive answers from other users qualified to answer them. The person that answered brings up some great points that I don't think that many people think of, such as if your software gives an oppressive government information on dissenters, possibly leading to their arrest or death. This is an aspect of computers that that I had not really thought of before, and find interesting because as it stands computers have no consciousness, meaning that the people that are using them must decide what is right and wrong. You could lie in your bed with a laptop and cause either great things or perhaps terrible things to happen across the road, country or even across the world.
 * http://www.databreachtoday.com/news (Research)
 * This page is a feed of news posted by the website which focuses on computer security breaches, as well as their follow ups. What surprised me was the regularity that articles are posted, even if they are not new breaches. I suppose that I should not have been surprised, though it was rather amazing to me still. Recently there seem to have been a fair amount of breaches involving medical insurance companies, which is worrying to say the least. I think that most people do not think about who has their data and how secure it is, but in reality it is very important. A more active role on the part of consumers is needed to push for their data to be secured properly, because IT and computer security on its own does not make a company money, further incentive is needed.

9. Anytime, Anywhere


 * http://marketingland.com/using-geo-location-turn-mobile-traffic-line-gold-80820 (Discussion Thread)
 * This article is both very interesting to me, and makes me hate the advertising industry. The article talks about how your phone's location is being used to direct local advertisements at you though it. There are numerous apps that do this as well but what really gets me about this implementation of the technology is that, as they are even described in the article, the ads always take the form of an infuriating pop-up that covers your screen, cutting you off from whatever you were doing. There is a very good reason ad-blocking browser addons grew 41% globally last year, and that reason is that many ads are utterly obnoxious. I also wonder if this particular strategy is very fair to competitors that may not have the resources to set up such a scheme. In the article, Outback Steakhouse set up a 10 mile radius around each of their competitor's store, which seems intrusive in a way as traditionally advertisements in public places are restricted to areas that can be rented. This would be everywhere, unavoidably, and I'm sure that many businesses may take issue with that.
 * https://www.uber.com/ (Personal Knowledge)
 * Uber is a great example of how the world has shifted to a mobile platform and is continuing to do so. Uber has also been enormously disruptive to the regular taxi industry, many cities with large amounts of them have lobbied against the service, and while some were successful, just as many were not. And Uber is not the only one changing seemingly unchangeable things and, with Instacart, you can get people to do grocery shopping and other errands too. Anytime, anywhere? Most definitely. But i think an important part of that is there being little effort involved too, there are enough services today, education, errand running, deliveries, working from home, and others, that you could live relatively comfortably without ever stepping outside your house. I find this simultaneously awesome and worrying at the same time. It begs the question, "What will we become in the next 30 years?"
 * http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-rise-of-phone-reading-1439398395 (Research, Favorite)
 * Provided you can get past the paywall (if you can't, google the title) this article is about the rising prevalence of people reading books on their phones rather than a tablet, e-reader, or physical medium. It was a very well put together article with many inputs from different sources on their views. There is one side that say that any reading is good, and another, seemingly smaller one that says that it is not good reading on your phone due to the distractions involved with them. Trends show that people are doing it more and more so now publishers are creating advertising centered around the platform and reworking existing books to fit. I think this is a wonderful thing personally, as a kid I used to read quite a lot though after getting into high school there wasn't really enough time, and while I don't yet have a smartphone I have begun to read more in the form of internet articles and other books on my tablet recently. The article mentions that it is unlikely that print will ever truly go out of style, but what has happened to the print industry and even their own article paints a different picture. I myself wonder when print will breath its last breath, and the trees will certainly let out one too, though perhaps out of relief more than anything.

10. Technology Advances, Social Trends


 * http://ourworldindata.org/data/technology-and-infrastructure/moores-law-other-laws-of-exponential-technological-progress/ (Selected Media, Favorite)
 * This page contain several charts that show the trends with advances with technology, one of which is the famous Moore's law. I find these especially interesting because I am somewhat of a computer hardware enthusiast. It's amazing that someone had the vision in 1965 to predict the trend of yearly doubling of transistor density. This and the other charts on the page make me wonder what the future holds for us in terms of computing. Will Moore's law continue to hold up? It seems that every now and then everyone gets scared that it won't continue? Will quantum computing take off, or even work? There's certainly lots of people working on it, and if someone is successful I think that there will be a new revolution in technology.
 * http://www.nowandnext.com/?action=top_trend/list_trends&sectorId=1 (Research)
 * Several of the trends on this list mention technology as the source, or part of the source, of the change it talks about. I was specifically interested in the first one that states that everything is speeding up. I find this especially true in how quickly internet sensations pass. Remember the Ice Bucket Challenge? That was over real fast and many questioned how helpful it was (the Wikipedia article has some information on that part https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_Bucket_Challenge#Impact). Most things I see on the internet seem to be opened and closed in a week at best. Some of the things deserve a longer discussion because they are important topics or events. But in the eyes of the internet it gets swept away for the next thing. I do wonder what this will mean for future discussions and events. Will they get enough time to be appreciated properly? Will some that would normally be at least noticed be totally ignored? I suspect that the trend of the acceleration of our lives will continue for some time into the future.
 * https://agenda.weforum.org/2015/03/top-10-emerging-technologies-of-2015-2/ (Research)
 * This article is a list (there are a lot of articles like that these days aren't there) about some of the technologies that emerged in 2015. The list is relatively inclusive of the range of new technologies that we saw during the year and numbers 3, 5, and 7 I found especially interesting due to their relation to my field of study. As with many of my other links there seems to be little evidence for an upper limit to where technology can go, the real question is if we are ok with where it does go and how it does it. A good example is number 4 on the list in this link, there is a great number of people that think that GMO crops are bad for you or cause other problems. But without them we would need millions more acres to feed the worlds population and we have been doing what GMO's do for centuries though selective breeding. I can only wonder what new technology will appear in the future that will get people even more riled up, though if I think about it, it's likely to be AI.