What They Are and Why People Blog--Journal/Blog Entry #5

    This Monday we discussed the purpose of blog. People blog for many different purpose. Mainly, they wish to share their idea to other people. Moreover, writing on the blog could help them analyze their idea and think more critically. As each student of this course were assigned to create a blog, we are certainly have our own idea of how blogging relate to what we have learned in class.
 
    Each week, the professor will ask us to write a blog post that's relevant to the topic we had discussed in the class. As we are writing the post, we either have to do some research about the topic or watch a video about the argument.  I have written three blog posts for the class. And I think this is a very effective way of learning purpose. By writing blog, we not only refresh our memory about we have heard in class, also we could analyze our own idea behind the topic.  We had to gather more information on the internet and came up our own conclusion on topic. Regardless of right or wrong, we are able to bring out a thoughtful idea with some solid evident. In addition, we can share our own idea to the classmates. So, we are learning collectively without speaking in the class or being at a same place. It is definitely more convenience and easier. However, I would not choose to blog if i weren't require to do so simply because I don't think some one would read my post. However, after I have more knowledge to my computer science major, I would consider create a blog about how to programming and share my own technic on writing program. I think it will help me to develop my idea in my career.
 
   As it shows, I think blog is also very effective in every aspect of our social life. Like people argue the internet is destroying English language, because too many people use shorten words in online communication. Yet, writing blog it is very formal way to share something in our life. We tend to use formal grammar and correct words to describe even a very small event in our life. Also we don't put random thoughts on the blog. For example, if I would write a blog to share something about my major, I wouldn't write something that I have no knowledge of or something very short, because it will not be convincing and can't help me thinking critically.

   The popular blog that I find more interesting to me is the Slash Gear. it a blog focus on all kinds of tech gadgets we use. From cat exercise wheels to cars and phones, he review all kinds of cool stuffs that consumers might like. His twitter has more than 36K's followers. I think this blog is very effective. The blog owner try out all the products and recommend it to people with very strong knowledge and evidence. So, that we have more knowledge when we buy them. thus, we could avoid going to the trap in the advertisement. I don't think I could write a blog like this, because it requires a lot passion and time to maintain a such blog. Thus, I yet have the knowledge to do a throughfull review that can share out to many people

Some blog posts in SlashGear

"Connected, but Alone?"--Journal/Blog Entry #3

    This week, we watched a very interesting Ted-Talk. Sherry Turkle (The Specker) brought out some very profound questions about how technologies have changed our life and our relationships in a bad way. She mentioned that although those online communications are a better way to learning our self and to improving our life, we spent too much time on connecting instead of having a true relationship with peoples. These ideas are so novel since we so used to technologies, we tend not to thinking what these technologies leading us to. In fact, according to a survey, 64% of the American adults have at least one smartphone(Pew Research Center). As one of regularly internet user, I believe there are some trues in this speech while a little of them are overstated.

    I believe in face-to-face communication as what Sherry Turkle believe, even through i use internet in a daily basis and I text a lot.  When I was a child, the internet hadn't been very practical in our region. Me and my friends were always play together, even when we played video games. I think spending time with friends talking to them is essential to a friendship. While some people might argue that sending text is also a way to communicate, the problem is that you cannot understand the feeling through text. Some one might send you a text saying that he is happy but he is in stress. You have not idea of which moon of the person who is in the another end of the self phone. If you don't understand he/she feeling, building a strong relationship is utterly impossible.

    However, nowadays, technologies has changed the traditional way of building relationship. A picture in the speech is a prefect illustration of this contemporary phenomenon. Turkle took a photo of her dangerous and her dangerous's friends watching their phone while they were together. "They were being together while not being" Turkle stated. This is the side effect which internet has brought us to. This phenomenon is so practical in my country that people cannot have a party without asking everyone to giving up their self phone because everyone will be busy on their screen instead of talking. As Turle stated, they just want to customize their life and only listen to the things that interested to they. I think this is the thing which people need to change. People need to listen to others even if they don't agree or they feel bored because this is the only way to understand someone. Choosing not to listen is not only disrespectful, and it will make people choose not to listen to you. "You aren't trying to understand me, why should I?" This is how the misunderstanding start.

Phones were collected in a dine

   Nonetheless，after all the counter examples of internet, I don't think internet will destroy our life. There are a lot of people believe in face-to-face communication, like me. We also need to see the bright side of internet. For example, I have a relative who was coming to The U.S. to study. He used internet to find all his schoolmate even before his class started. Some of them became his roommate before he rented an apartment. Lastly, They became very close as friend. Internet is not the sin. it's how we use it. If you could balance your life and your online life, connecting will only helps you, not harts you.

Questions of War Games--Journal/Blog Entry #2

   We had watched a interesting movie on the Monday which called War Games.  Although it has a very science-fiction story, it revealed a lot of problems regarding to the internet and computer at that time which is still relevant today.  Especially today, people are more and more aware that internet security and internet privacy are very important, since almost half of the world is using the internet.  However, no matter how good we are at defense, people always find a way to get around the defense or even destroy it.  Lets discuss what are the differences and similarities between today's world and War Games world.

   

   Nowadays, we don't use phone calls to connect to the internet any more.  Instead, most of us use cable internet access and digital subscribe lines.  The cable internet access use the line which originally designed to connect television signal.  Basically,  we can connect to the internet via a modem which connected with a television cable.  The digital subscribe line is different.  It uses telephone line which is similar to dial-up connection, but without occupying the phone connection.  It means people only need one telephone line for both internet connection and telephone use.  I use digital subscribe line at home.  Although there are many more methods to conned to the internet, such as FTTH, BPL, etc., the most common wire connections we are using are those two.  We also use Wi-fi and 4G for wireless connection.

   

    The giant computer, WOPR, in the movie is called supercomputer.  It exists in many countries around the world. They were designed to process an enormous amount of information which normal computers have no capability to do so.  The information they process a day requires a personal computer running endlessly for decades to solve.  It's a powerful tool which can be used in terms of research, military purpose, decryption, and more.

Tianhe-2, The most powerful supercomputer, designed by National University of Defense Technology, China.

 

    In the movie, it seems like WOPR could communicate with people like a human.  We have developed a way allowing a computer to study the human's way of thinking and learning.  It is called artificial neural network.  This technology was inspired by the way nervous work in our brain. Computers which use this technology are able to drive a car, to judge an article, to identify a particular photograph.  This technology has been applied in many fields, like google search engine, email spam filtering, etc..

    

    However, hacking into a computer is not as easy as in the movie. David was able to see the password of school server in the drawer of his school office. Yet, we are smarter now.  We don't put passwords around to let people to find out.  Hackers often use Trojan Horse or system weak point to hack into a computer system.  Trojan Horse is a software that serves like a back door.  If your computer downloaded it in the system, it will automatically install and run quietly, without notifying you.  It will recall all the passwords you entry and sent it to the hacker.  Also, back door hacking is also possible.  Many manufacturers of computer left a back door in the hard drive for maintaining purpose.  Like BIOS backdoor password allows other people to bypass your BIOS password.  Even system has back door.  In addition, social engineering is used by hacker to get information from people they want to hack.  A Hacker can use this information to guess target's password. 

  

   As we can see, as technology developed, we achieved many things that we thought that we unable to achieve.  Some of ideas in the movie were purely a fiction.  However, we face the same problem as before.  How to keep our information safe and protected is still a question for all of us.