User:Sadmafioso

I am a computer science student at De Anza College. I am taking a course called Computers and Internet in Society.

I am designing an XPRIZE to provide clean electricity to the 1.2 billion people in the world who do not have access to electricity. Through my research, I've found that the main roadblock is not technological, we have the tools to achieve this goal. The main problem is politics and influencing our representatives to vote on such a thing.

Introductions
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/530566/the-impact-of-the-internet-on-society-a-global-perspective/ (best)

This is the article that I had looked up for the "Computers and Society" discussion. I think it gives a really good overview of both the positives and negatives that computers have had on society. It does refute the common claim that technology has brought isolation and separation from us, which I wholeheartedly agree with, because I personally feel like I would have had such a difficult childhood, moving around every few years, constantly being the new kid at school, if I wasn't able to use technology to keep up with my old friends.

http://ijcem.in/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Impacts_of_Computers_on_Todays_Society.pdf

This is part of a study that I got from another student's response to the "Computers and Society" discussion. It goes into many different topics such as entertainment and business and describes how computers have affected these aspects of our lives. It also talks about where we would be in these areas if computers had not been invented and integrated into our lives.

Both articles give a good basic overview of the effect of computers and society in different aspects of our lives, but I'll have to give it to the first article.

Privacy and Freedom Of Speech
https://www.rdmag.com/news/2015/10/computer-security-and-privacy-benefits-and-risks-internet-things (best)

Found this article in the "Privacy and Personal Information" discussion. It gives some good examples on how the Internet of Things can be hacked and manipulated, and what steps we need to take in order to protect ourselves further. I agree that while any perceived security risks from some of these devices are far outweighed by the positive affects, we still need to constantly work on increasing our security. As our tech gets better, so do the hackers' tech, so we will be in a never ending war against hackers.

https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2018/07/06/americans-deserve-privacy-protection-from-big-data/Q9IDAN1DfJi2WT8fS7XJkM/story.html

This is the article I used for the same discussion, which goes into detail on the GDPR and why we have been receiving these new privacy policy emails from companies recently. The GDPR in essence makes it so that companies cannot simply assume that they can use your data, they MUST ask. I wonder why this hasn't been implemented in the US yet, but it just goes to show how powerful our data is and how much companies want to use it for their own device.

Intellectual Property
https://fairuse.stanford.edu/overview/fair-use/four-factors/ (best)

This article was from the "Intellectual Property Keywords" discussion. This page goes into full detail on fair use, copyright, and other related topics. This is a great page to begin understanding the basics of these topics. It also has tons of references throughout, opening up the possibility of reading even further detail about the information. I always knew about fair use but didn't know the details, so this is a great page for people in the same boat as me.

https://www.wur.nl/en/article/What-are-Creative-Commons-licenses.htm

This page talks about Creative Commons, the different kinds of licenses, and what you can do with each type. It has a nice infographic that compares the 7 different licenses and the uses of each one. Again, while I knew about Creative Commons and have used such material in the past, I didn't know the different licenses or that there were even different licenses in the first place.

Crime
https://criminal.findlaw.com/criminal-charges/computer-crime.html

This page goes over the different types of "computer crime", such as child pornography and cyberbullying. While these crimes have been around for a long time, the internet gives criminals a new platform to do their business, and gives them a much easier time being anonymous. Though I wonder why this article didn't talk about any other cybercrimes, such as hacking.

https://www.fbi.gov/investigate/cyber (best)

This is the FBI's page on cybercrime, which I found when looking for more information than the previous article, and I found it much more detailed. It talks about how increasingly powerful technology and our lack of knowledge on how to protect ourselves has lead to worse and worse crimes taking place. It also talks about what the FBI has been doing and will do in order to combat these crimes.

Employment, Education, and Entertainment
https://www.edsurge.com/news/2018-05-16-where-are-all-the-faculty-in-the-open-education-movement (best)

This article gives a professor's point of view on open education resources and their benefits. She goes into detail on the obstacles that OER faces and the reasons that more college professors don't advocate for it like she does. As a poor student, it is so amazing when I don't have to drop $200 for a textbook that I'm only going to use for a quarter, and I really appreciate teachers that find ways other than those textbooks to teach.

https://thebestschools.org/magazine/edutainment-gamify-education/

This page talks about ways to combine education and entertainment and make learning fun for kids. I think most people are curious and like to learn new things, but being forced to learn in boring ways makes them shy away from learning more. This is similar to books - I hated reading in high school because I had to read on a schedule, analyze every single passage, and not have fun at all. Now, reading for fun is one of my favorite hobbies because I'm not forced to do it.

Grand Challenges
https://www.ucsusa.org/clean_energy/smart-energy-solutions/increase-renewables/renewable-energy-80-percent-us-electricity.html#.W2zwxNVKiUk

This article talks about the renewable energy solutions that exist and are ready to be put in place to make the title of the article a reality. The main issue is policy, many politicians ignore things like global warming and renewable energy because they are in bed with lobbyists from industries like coal and oil. It is sad that we have the ability to implement renewable energy but we do not because the lobbyists want to make more money.

https://www.devex.com/news/can-off-grid-renewables-close-the-energy-access-gap-92828 (best)

This article talks about how renewable energy solutions are the future for providing energy to those who currently live without it. Instead of adding links to established power grids that run off coal energy, it would be much more beneficial to power them instead with off grid solutions like wind, solar, and hydro. I think this is the solution that would really not only benefit those who don't have electricity, but also the whole world, by slowly making a shift to renewable energies.

Evaluating and Controlling Technology
https://www.wired.co.uk/article/internet-of-things-what-is-explained-iot

This is the article I submitted to the Internet of Things discussion, which explains what the Internet of Things is - the network of connected devices, from your smartphone and computer to a smart TV and your car. It gives a nice explanation of why the IoT exists and its benefits and drawbacks.

https://www.precisionag.com/systems-management/data/how-machine-learning-plus-weather-information-can-help-us-feed-the-world/ (best)

This article talks about how machine learning can be used in many different fields, one of the most important being agriculture. The author believes that it could be the key to providing consistent food for everyone in the world. I think using these technologies to solve important problems such as world hunger is the best use. While we can dream up and create all these cool apps that weren't possible before, there are still people in the world who die of starvation and thirst. We need to use our tech to help them first.

Risks, Failures, and Responsibilities
https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/medical-profession-is-underutilizing-computer-technology/ (best)

Even with our powerful technology, we are not using it to its full potential in the world of medicine. We are still using outdated systems and techniques that don't have to be problems if we used better technology. By utilizing our technology in better ways we could increase efficiency while bringing costs down, and the cost to adopt these new systems would pay for themselves in a very short time.

https://www.online-sciences.com/computer/computers-in-medicine-uses-advantages-and-disadvantages/

While there are countless positives to integrating more technology into medicine, we also have to think about disadvantages, a big one being security and privacy. Another main issue is standardization, what happens when different hospitals are using different systems, or one is using computers at a higher degree than others, will it open the door for more problems?

Anytime, Anywhere
https://www.forbes.com/sites/quora/2017/03/23/the-future-of-massively-open-online-courses-moocs/#67a181226b83

With the popularization of MOOCs (massively open online courses), we are seeing a shift from people depending on regular education opportunities - college - to making more of an effort to learn themselves. I think MOOCs are beneficial but cannot replace traditional college learning, at least until they become more respected and the degrees that can be earned with them hold more value. Personally, while I've never finished a MOOC course, I've tried a few and loved learning at my own pace.

https://www.infoprolearning.com/blog/advantages-and-disadvantages-of-moocs-massive-open-online-courses-for-learning/ (best)

This page goes over the advantages and disadvantages of using MOOCs, and while great in theory, they have a few glaring drawbacks that make it difficult to adopt the MOOC as a integral education resource. For example, there is no real teacher-student relationship or interaction, and it can make it difficult for those who need a bit more personal help. I agree, even with online classes at De Anza I am able to message a professor for help, while those in MOOCs won't be able to.

Technology Advances, Social Trends
https://www.cafonline.org/about-us/blog-home/giving-thought/the-future-of-doing-good/future-imperfect (best)

This article goes over 10 problems that will occur from the use of technology that we will have to deal with in the future. Every new technology we have ever created, while most have been extremely beneficial for us as a society, has led to consequences that we did not realize at first. Who would have thought that using computers could have lead to depersonalization and derealization problems?

https://www.futureforall.org/computers/computers.htm

This page discusses the future of computers, the technologies they will use, and the benefits that will come from them. Our computers right now are built on semiconductors with millions of transistors, each able to display a 0 or 1 in binary. With quantum computing, we could have many more "states" that could mean different things, depending on the superposition and spin on tiny particles. This could make our computers extremely small and yet hundreds of times stronger.