Facebook's New Suicide Prevention Feature

Life is hard. And no matter how fortunate you are, no matter how much money you make, there will be times in your life that will test your limits, physically, mentally, emotionally, or a combination of all three. Personally, I have gone through such phases in my life. I have had close family pass away, reconsidered my major and what I was and wanted to do with my life, and have gone through periods of mild depression and anxiety. When I was in high school, especially, I felt as though I didn't belong anywhere. I had what they call "friends", but I was always the one left out of the fun and at one point in time they even turned their backs on me for no apparent reason whatsoever. I felt completely invisible and empty. To tell you the truth, the thought of what would happen if I were no longer on this earth did cross my mind. Thankfully, I was able to move past these difficult moments in my life with the help of those who love me, my parents in particular. For some, however, this is not enough. There is no on or off switch they can control to make the depression go away. They are in a hole and no matter how hard they try they cannot get out. You can never truly know what is going on in someone's mind, which is the scariest part. The people behind the internet and today's technology are realizing that, and are graciously doing means necessary to help.

One of the newest additions to features that aid in the mental health of others online comes from Facebook. Facebook is partnering with Now Matters Now, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, Save.org, and Forefront: Innovations in Suicide Prevention in order to help alert Facebook if someone is having thoughts of self harm. As stated by an article by Alexis Kleinman on The Huffington Post,

"If a Facebook friend posts something that you feel indicates he or she could be thinking about self harm, you'll be able to click the little arrow at the top right of the post and click "Report Post." There, you'll be given the options to contact the friend who made the post, contact another friend for support or contact a suicide helpline. . . After that, Facebook will look at the post. If Facebook feels like the post indicates distress, it will contact the person who posted it."

Along with this, Facebook provides options for talking to a friend, a self-care expert, or even simple relaxation techniques. I wholeheartedly agree with this. With our society and its needs shifting to completely digital, how others express themselves is now, more often than not, done by using a digital medium. Also, even though it is a terribly difficult time for the person going through depression and suicidal thoughts, those who love them are going through just as difficult a time. All they want to do is help, and most of the time, they can't figure out what to do or how to go about doing it. This would allow the bystanders an easier way to get their significant others the help they need. Facebook has been supportive of suicide prevention, but this additional step puts Facebook a step above the rest.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/02/25/facebook-suicide-prevention_n_6754106.html

A Memory Affliction

Technology and the internet is changing how our memory works. Information like phone numbers, appointments, and friend’s birthdays has been completely relegated to our phones, via contact lists, calendars, and Facebook. As a little kid I knew my friend’s home phone numbers by heart; I didn’t have a phone to put their numbers in. I could spit out my friend’s birthdays if you asked. Though most appointments were simply written down on a physical calendar. This relegation of memories has always existed; just like how a boss can ask a secretary about upcoming appointments, we trust other people or mediums to remember things for us.

Our phones, and really the entire internet, has become that “Secretary”, meaning we don’t have to remember much of anything. Our phone knows when to wake us up in the morning; it shows us where we have to be, who has contacted us, and, if we tell it to, can even tell us who we need to contact throughout the day. The advantage is clear to the people using it: why should they bother to remember things when their phone can remind them instead? They have no chance of forgetting or missing an appointment; it seems like a win-win: less work, more consistency. There are, of course, a few problems. If your phone becomes unavailable for one reason or another, like if it gets lost, dies, or is broken, you have no chance of getting to anything because you didn’t remember them.

Not only does technology make us lazier with remembering things, the constant distraction of the internet at large rewires our brains, making them move at a faster pace, with less attention to any one task. The result of this, of course, is worsened memories. People who rely on technology have brains that operate slightly differently than those who aren’t; they tend to have more “senior moments,” and forget to common, everyday tasks. This phenomenon goes past the internet and phones; when people go to museums and focus only on taking pictures, they are less able to describe the works of art they looked at. Their brains instead let the camera do the remembering for them.

I can say definitively that I am afflicted by this. I mean look at me, I forgot to submit this by the Tuesday deadline. I have since set a bi-weekly alarm on my phone to remind me to write my blog post, but I can’t help but think the entire situation only proves my point. As much as most of us don’t want to admit it, our minds have been affected by the technology we use. Many ways we use it are beneficial to our everyday lives, but we need to take good care to notice the negative side effects as well. 

The Privacy Problem in a Nutshell

Recently, Google has instituted a plan to ban Blogger users from uploading sexually explicit content on the site.  At first read, I was outraged. I immediately thought about how this is a violation of freedom of speech.  Then, about halfway through the article, a sex blogger made the argument that it was a violation of freedom of speech.  In classic Diana fashion, I had to challenge that idea.  My argument was then “if you don’t like the rules, don’t use Blogger.”  Then, the light bulb went off.  Just because Blogger is a public site, doesn’t mean it is privately owned. It was at that moment that the entire dilemma of the internet made sense in my head.

If someone walks into a church, and starts screaming about how the church is corrupt, my guess is that he will be asked to leave.  The culprit would not be arrested, as THAT would be illegal, but banning that person from the church is commonplace. The same analogy, I hope, can be made to Blogger.  Goggle isn’t saying that you are not allowed to have explicit sex blogs, you just can’t have them on Blogger.  I’m not saying that this is a good course of action, as I assume there is some number of sex blogs on Blogger, but I guess I cannot find Google at fault for this.

The thing I found the most interesting about this article was how I reacted to it.  Being brought up with the internet from an early age, we were taught that everything on the Internet is public. In actuality, everything you post on the internet is made public, but is house privately.  I think because we can go anywhere and access the internet, we forget that websites are companies that have the right to conduct business however they see fit.  Just because a service is free, like Facebook for example, doesn’t meant that it isn’t a private business.  Facebook can ban photos and videos from its site; and I am sure that users have made the freedom of speech argument.  The fact of the matter is that the internet isn’t really a public space.  It’s a space everyone can access, but it is still privately owned.

I think that if more people thought about the internet like this they would understand how and why things get banned.  I just think it is so counter intuitive to think about the internet as a privately owned company. I shouldn’t say the Internet is privately owned, but the websites we use to generate content is privately owned.  It’s just so weird to think about websites like that. Why is it so hard to understand that Blogger and Google are companies? Why are we taught that we should be allowed to do whatever we want on websites?  Why do we believe that “our” page (facebook, twitter, Instagram, blogger, etc.) are actually OURS?

Losing our touch

I'm currently a fourth semester Naval Engineer which means I am in the middle of my first specialized class at Stevens. This class is Introduction to Ship Design and Ship Building. I'm starting to dive into the design process and how it's used in the industry. Conveniently enough, I just finished a homework assignment that ties into this class, Computers & Society. The prompt gave a table of different types of measurements along the hull of a certain vessel and my job was to take those numbers, and draw three views of the boat; front, side, and bottom. This required a lot of time, care, and detail to make sure my sketches were consistent with the measurements given to me. Of course, being the 21st century college student I realized that this would be much simpler with Computer-Aided Design. With the measurements given to me, I could form a 3-Dimensional shape and then the views would be easy enough to produce by looking at the finished product from different angles. Why couldn't that be our homework? I'm sure current ship design and production comes from CAD, so wouldn't doing this on a computer be helpful?

My professor told us when he assigned the work about conversations he's had with professionals in the field, specifically those who work with recent Stevens graduates. He said that most new employees lack pencil and paper skills. They are whizzes when it comes to computers but if there is an issue that needs a drawing by hand, they are clueless. So, my professor said that for a good portion of the class, we will be sticking with pencil and paper to learn and apply the new concepts. Sounds grueling.

I for one am not too thrilled about making drawings all semester that range from 11" x 17" to 6 feet long, These take vast amounts of time, but the concept raises a good point. While computers do make almost everything simpler, they take away from the learning experience. I know I will be more skilled than students elsewhere who predominantly focus on CAD and CAE. It's another quality that I have as an engineer and it made me understand better. Rather than knowing what each measurement brought me in a figure in a computer program, I learned what each measurement and label really means because the computer didn't give the the answer and the right output.

In Computers & Society, we often discuss computers and technology dulling us down as skilled humans and this is a great example of that. I agree we need to learn the fundamentals of what we're doing before we can advance our projects through the assistance of a computer. That way, the computer doesn't do the work for us, it just produces it in a nicer fashion after we understand what all the content means. By neglecting a computer, we do the brunt of the work ourselves and become more creative and knowledgeable rather than a boring employee who just inputs data into a computer program.

To Much Predicting?

            In today's modern society, we use technology to predict things like weather and traffic. But as technology as began to advance, we have started to be able to predict just more then those two. Some hospitals are now predicting when your next trip to the ER will be, we can predict when volcanoes will erupt, and when tsunamis will occur. These are all very useful things to be able to predict, seeing as most of them are involved with a great deal of danger. With socially media, search engines, and other technologies, companies have now began to predict outcomes or scores of the World Cup, English soccer results, NFL games, but most recently the 87^th Academy Awards.

            Two nights ago, Microsoft’s Big successfully predicted best picture (Birdman), best director (Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu: Birdman), best actor (Julianne Moore: Still Alice), best actress (Eddie Redmayne: The Theory of Everything), and the results for supporting actor (J.K. Simmons: Whiplash) and actress (Patricia Arquette: Boyhood) out of the top awards for the 2015 Oscars. Basically, Microsoft successfully predicted 84% of the 24 results with only four incorrect predictions.

            Before the Oscars aired, Microsoft shared its predictions noting that they were “relatively unpredictable,” yet the21 of 24 Oscar winners say otherwise. Last year Bing predicted 19 of 24 winners in 2013.  In comparison, the odds from the Wynn casino weren’t nearly as accurate predicting only 4 of 6 correctly for best picture, best actor, best actress, best supporting actor, best supporting actress, and best director. Microsoft predicted all six accurately.

            Bing’s correct predictions made me think back a few weeks ago to a different article that I read in regards to predictions. In this case, it was a videogame that did all the predicting. Each year for over a decade now, EA Sports and the Madden franchise has simulated the Superbowl. Madden has a pretty solid prediction rate of 8-3. For the 2015 Superbowl, they updated the rosters and simulated the Seahawks/Patriots showdown on Xbox One. (Here is the link for anyone interested https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XAE6XPdLSxw)

            After a strong lead in the first half, the Seahawks get clobbered in the third and fourth quarters as Tom Brady leads the Pats to a 29-24 victory. The game then gives Tom Brady MVP thanks to his 335 yards and 4-touchdown performance. Julian Edelman grabbed 8 catches for 106 yards and Marshawn Lynch ran 118 yards scoring two touchdowns. Seems like a pretty exciting game doesn’t it, but lets see how it stacked up to the real game.  

            Just like in the Superbowl, the game did predict the Pats making a second half comeback for the win and Brady receiving MVP. In the real game, Brady threw for 328 yards and 4 touchdowns, which is only seven yards short of the prediction with 335 yards and 4 touchdowns. The game also predicted Edelman’s winning touchdown and was close in number to other key stats.

            With all of these predictions now coming out, there has been some backlash that has followed. Many people are upset that these predictions are ruining the experience of watching the program for them. What is the point of watching something if you already know what’s going to happen, if it ruins the surprise of it? It is the same concept of you missing your favorite TV show to only have your friend tell you what happens before you get to watch it.  So my question then is,  are we starting to predict to much or is there no such thing?

Mark Cuban on Net Neutrality

In a recent interview Mark Cuban spoke about many controversial tech topics at the Code/Media conference. The self-made billionaire entrepreneur and recent television star is a major player in the tech world mainly because he has most of his money invested there. The interview starts out with Mark's thoughts on YouTube and how he considers it to be a underwhelming asset for Google. Immediately taking a standpoint many people would disagree with, Mark continued to argue that YouTube is not a money making company.

Although Mark admitted to not having access to the numbers to backup his claims, he said about 99% of YouTube videos are uploaded and only seen by friends and family. So what exactly are we compromising in terms of bandwidth to have the YouTube stars which do have many hits which he claims, is purely due to numbers. YouTube tried the subscription thing before and failed, but now they are trying again, still failing. They don't have a clear road-map of where they are going and they are sorta just fumbling around, which one could argue some very profitable fumbling. He also claims that internet video is the ultimate 'a la carte' industry, which seems to be a reoccurring theme of the interview.

The interview then shifts to Marks main point which he tries to get across many times that is "Bits are Bits." No matter what form of video consumption a user chooses, it's all the same. In the end it all comes from the same place and uses are total bandwidth. He claims broadband will never get better because no matter how much we produce it will always be consumed. But Television is just an application specific network, being delivered digitally just like YouTube. Even though Mark doesn't see the profitability and claims they are wasting our bandwidth, he still admits that YouTube is a compliment to traditional media.

Then on to net neutrality, which Mark says "will fuck everything up." There is a place for the government and there are places the government should stay out of, this being one. Although he doesn't really give any evidence of what will go wrong with net neutrality in place, he does make it clear that the thought of the FCC in charge of the internet scares the shit out of him. But the question that was presented was "Shouldn't the government have a regime in place like it did for the telephone service?" To which Mark says no, and that this is nothing more than a demonetization of these major companies. They also mentioned the throttling incident between Netflix and Comcast in 2008 which they ended up working out, "like big companies do."

The interview got a little off topic when someone asked the question everyone wanted to hear, what is it like to be a TV star on the Shark Tank? He said it was great to be able to reach 8 million people live every Friday night and teach them and their children about business. Although it does come with its difficulties, because managing some of the companies is hard, he likes helping entrepreneurs build companies; it's rewarding. He also revealed some fun facts about the show such as most of the pitches are around 2 hours long before being edited down to 10 minutes, and 20% of them don't even make it on the air. Although I do love Shark Tank, Mr. Cuban maybe doesn't always like helping entrepreneurs, considering a lot of times he offers them money to walk away from their company.

Mark manages to switch the conversation back to technology by talking about one of his start up companies that he found, Cyber Dust. One of the interviewers who was clearly responsible for setting up the meeting seemed quite offended at the fact that Mark wanted to message through Cyber Dust instead of email. But Cyber Dust is "very much like the early days of twitter" without the character limit. It is a messaging service built on the foundation of privacy and security. All messages between people are kept private, so he says it discourages trolls because no one gets to see it. Also, nothing you send ever touches a hard drive, so if they get subpoenaed there is nothing to recover; there isn't even server logs, intentionally. Cyber Dust has 2 million downloads with 15% active user base, which makes it's money through offering commerce for thirty seconds at a time.

Mark Cuban seems to be the bad boy of the tech industry constantly taking the controversial stance. Although it is obvious why he is against net neutrality, most likely because he is in favor of big business. But many people have a hard time believing that YouTube isn't profitable. He also ends on high note by bringing up Cyber Dust, which many people in the audience were intrigued in. In a recent interview with President Obama, they discussed encryption which the President said to be in favor of. But at the same time he was cautious to the fact the law enforcement need to do their jobs, and are held responsible to protect us. However, it does not seem like Mark Cuban shares these concerns.

Mark Cuban probably would have been a more relevant speaker at a technology school, but Daymond John is cool too.. If you have any tech questions for Mark, you can find him on Cyber Dust @AskMark

http://recode.net/2015/02/23/mark-cuban-vs-the-world-the-full-codemedia-interview-video/
http://recode.net/2015/02/15/white-house-red-chair-obama-meets-swisher/
https://www.cyberdust.com/

How secure is your OS?

Article            

   Cyber security has become more and more of a widespread topic over the last several decades. People are always trying to find the best way to preserve their secrecy on their home computers, phones, and all other electronic devices. However, ever since Apple came out with their Mac computers, people have been saying, "Macs never get viruses." I was always very doubtful that this was the case. In my article, security experts claim that in the past, Macs were a very small percentage of the total PC population when compared to Linux and Windows machines. Because of this, hackers and people with other nefarious intentions didn't bother to develop malware and viruses when there was so much existing knowledge on the subject for Windows machines .

               However, lately Macs have been gaining a large amount of popularity. Because of this, security professionals are looking more into the exact number of vulnerabilities. A vulnerability is a weakness in code that allows an attacker to reduce a system's information assurance. To my knowledge, what this means is that it tricks the code into thinking it's doing one function while it's actually doing what the attacker wants. In the article I found, professional security experts found that the Mac OSX actually had more vulnerabilities than both Windows and Linux. The increased security vulnerabilities plus the increase in Mac users is an enticing target for hackers. However, more importantly, Apple's iOS is second on the list. The popularity of the iPhone is unparalleled when compared to other smart phones. With so much important information that we keep on phones nowadays, security vulnerabilities could be one of the biggest potential threats we face day-to-day. Just think about it. Maybe you have a banking app, you've signed in to your Amazon and have it set to remember your password, you have your emails automatically sync to your phone's mailbox. Now all that information is available for hackers to pluck at their convenience.

               Even more so than the various OSs, many internet browsers also have vulnerabilities. Surprisingly, two of the most common browsers, Internet Explorer and Google Chrome both have a large amount of vulnerabilities with IE having twice as many as Chrome. Not only does IE have a large amount of vulnerabilities, it has almost 90% of its vulnerabilities as "HIGH" vulnerabilities. This means that they're especially easy to exploit. This means that hackers would be able to obtain information from the browser you use and thus get records of the sites you visit and other information. Things such as "Autfill" options would be easy to obtain. This means passwords, date of birth, credit card info, etc would all be easy pickings.

               As technology advances, so do the inherent risks. Because of this, cyber security is a hot topic more and more. In addition, cyber security is growing as a career path and many schools are offering it as a major. I believe it is almost impossible to create code that has no vulnerabilities or weaknesses, but precautions and advances in IDEs and programming can help to minimize the amounts of vulnerability our day to day technologies use. 

Quantum Computing

Last week, there was an article about physicists making a breakthrough in the world of quantum computing. (The article can be found here: http://motherboard.vice.com/read/physicists-trim-the-noise-from-quantum-computing)

For many, quantum computing seems to be the revolutionary, “next big thing” in the world of computers. The general concept of quantum computing is that it uses quantum-mechanical phenomena, like superposition and entanglement, to store and manipulate data. General computing uses binary digits (bits – 0 or 1) to store information, while quantum computing uses quantum bits (qubits) which can be either “up”, “down”, or any quantum superposition of the two states. Superposition is the quality of quantum particles to be in two positions or states at once. Since these quantum particles are much smaller than electrons and exhibit these strange characteristics, they have the potential to radically change the way we use computers.

A quantum computer with n qubits can be in a superposition of up to 2ⁿ different states, as opposed to a normal computer that can only be in one state at a time. This means that it would take exponentially fewer qubits to hold as much information as it does for standard bits. With quantum computing, you could store virtually infinite amounts of data into a handful of molecules.

This feature of quantum computing also allows for calculations to become nearly instantaneous. In the fields of logistics and distribution, this completely changes how the businesses would run their companies. Telecommunications would become practically hassle free with quantum computing devices connecting people instantly. Many believe that quantum computing, with all of its capabilities, will be able to perfect speech recognition, making service jobs, publishing, and a whole host of other fields either obsolete or entirely different.

Socially, the development of quantum computing will probably follow the path that many advanced technologies have followed: at first being available only to the extremely wealthy who can afford purchasing such powerful technology. Once it becomes available to the general public however many years down the road, the implications become hard to foresee. The possibility of accessing the internet literally anywhere at any time without worrying about data providers charging extra certainly becomes a nice dream. There are so many other factors that could play into the way that our species accepts and adapts to this new technology, it is hard to predict what can happen.

One of the issues of quantum computing is that because of its speedy computing power, many algorithms used to encrypt passwords or confidential data can be hacked with incredible ease. If this sort of power gets into the wrong hands, before cyber security systems can implement new anti-quantum computing measures, the consequences could be devastating. The cyber-attacks of today, resulting in the loss of hundreds of billions of dollars every year, would be miniscule compared to the damage that could be done if most cyber security systems would open to attack by quantum computing powered hackers.

Fortunately, this sort of technology still has a way to go. The most recent update from the article stated that physicists were able to remove the “charge noise” that accompanies the manipulation of qubits. This allows for quantum information to be stored and switched at high speeds with high fidelity. Although this latest development is important to the overall goal of effective and efficient implementation of quantum computing, there are still many obstacles standing in the way before this goal becomes a reality. 

For your health...

I'm a Computer Science major. I love technology.

I was a big talker in the class discussion last week about freemium games or DLC models and certainly have a big interest in new technological innovations. I love thinking about how with each passing month, new tech is entering the lives of the public and changing the way we live. A simple app, Square Cash, has made ordering food and borrowing money from friends so easy. I can send an email to someone and money transfers to their account. I can put a big dinner on my credit card and have everyone at the table just instantly deposit money into my account (instead of taking 10 minutes to figure out how much everyone owes, getting change from the waiter, counting it all out, people not having enough, yada yada yada).

These are things that, yes, of course we could all live without, but having them around makes life so much more convenient. Unfortunately, I'm noticing more and more how these conveniences can be doing long term harm for people.

There is a specific instance regarding someone very close to me. She suffers from and struggles with various mental illnesses including depression and generalized anxiety disorder. These are issues that plague her day to day life, something that I cannot possibly understand fully without walking a day in her shoes, and are things she will have to live with for the rest of her life. I've noticed more and more how much technology plays an part, both positive and negative.

There is an endless supply of helpful information and communities online that offer support and advice for how she (and the millions of other people who struggle just like her) can manage her conditions and live a long, fulfilling, and happy life. On the other hand, the internet offers an escape.

On her particularly bad days, days where getting out of bed is the most daunting task, she turns to social media to escape. She has a hard time talking to me about what's going on and addressing the root cause of her feelings, so she runs (and I can hardly blame her). She runs to Facebook, to Twitter, to Tumblr, to Instagram, to YouTube. Checking her feeds constantly, looking at what other people are doing in their lives so she gets a temporary escape from the problems in hers.

It's not just that she get to see what they are up to day to day, but she gets to see the highlights of their day to day. Nobody is posting about the time they got wasted and humiliated themself and nearly lost their job. Nobody is posting about their financial burden and the stress of paying for their education. Nobody is posting about their own health problems (which everyone could be doing). They are posting a #tbt to a great concert they went to with their friends. They are posting gym selfies about how in shape they are. They are posting romantic dinner dates with their boyfriends. They are posting the highlights of their life.

So when she is at her worst, she escapes and gets to see everyone else at their best, and that only sends the spiral spinning down further.


It is hard for me to suggest not doing that, even though I know running from problems isn't the answer, because I know it would be hard for me not to do the same thing. Everyone needs an escape...sometimes.


What it has done for me is given me an increased appreciation of real life. A trip up to Vermont for a weekend with close friends where there is no cell service forces us to live in and enjoy the present, rather than seeing all the fun other people had 3 weeks ago, or seeing the concert tickets someone else got for 3 weeks in the future.


Anxiety is a worry about the future, depression is a negative reflection on the past (a generalization, but a reasonably accurate one). Technology allows for this to run wild. So as much as I love each and every new development that will allow me to stay connected with my friends hundreds of miles away, I have a growing appreciation for leaving my phone to the side and staying connected with my friends who are sitting in the room with me right now.

Google Made a YouTube App For Kids!

On Monday, February 22, 2015, Google came up with a YouTube app for kids for iOS and Android devices. The app is called YouTube Kids and it is free to use. It blocks all of the videos on the site that are not kid-friendly, and only allow users to watch education videos, kid-friendly music, and cartoons.

I think that this was a great app idea. Good job, Google! This app will help parents feel safe that their children are not stumbling on inappropriate content. Childhood innocence is very important to a lot of people. I think that one of a parent's biggest fears is finding out that his or her child is learning something that they should not be learning at that time. I remember a few months back, some of my younger cousins were watching videos that they should not have been watching. It wasn't pornography or anything like that, but there were a few adult jokes in the video. With this new app, parents won't be having issues like that anymore.

The app is well designed. It looks a lot like the regular YouTube app with a few tweaks to make it look more childlike. The app has four categories for its videos: Shows, Music, Learning and Explore. The app also has an icon shaped like a lock on its lower-right corner. When pressed, the icon leads to a prompt for a pass code to be entered. Once the correct pass code is entered, the parental controls are displayed. They give parents more options on how the app behaves. They can set a timer on the app so that it displays a message after a set amount of time and then closes.

Overall, this was a great idea on Google's part. So far, the few kids that have seen the app love it. Good Guy Google, helping to maintain childhood innocence.

http://www.cnet.com/how-to/get-started-with-youtube-kids/

Supply, Demand and Disappointment

Every so often I am in class and I get bored and want to know what's going on in the world around me. The tech world, that is. So I unlock my iPhone and open up my Mashable app. I usually scroll through it and only open articles that seem interesting to me. Today, while scrolling through my feed on Mashable, I found an article that blew me away. It blew me away because it was about a guy making money off of an idea that I have thought of in the past. Don't you hate when you think of something and then someone with the money, brains, and opportunity at the right time and place thinks of the same idea as you and then makes a jack load of money off of it? Me too. 

Well, this guy, Mike Chen, was working on an app called Bettir, an app to help people track and improve their blood pressure. It was a cool service and all and had backing from Y Combinator, so it was definitely legit. But then, three days ago, Mike decided to take a break from work and start a little side project with a partner. This "little" side project was one that offered a rudimentary on-demand service that let you request whatever you needed -literally, whatever- via text message. What? Yes. Anything you could think of: a bicycle, a large pizza, a new pet, basically anything that was legally attainable. All you had to do was pay a small fee along with the cost of your request, which Mike and his team would charge using Stripe, a mobile payment service. 

Mike always wanted to create this. AND SO DID I. But he had the resources and time and determination to just try it out. So he designed, in like 2 seconds, an all-white landing page that looked like this: 

He sent it out to about 5 to 10 people and the site actually went viral. The first person that texted the number asked for a wrench. A God damn wrench. For his bike. The Magic team worked their magic and were able to set up a local delivery service to send the guy his wrench. After that guy got his wrench, the number of text messages that Magic was receiving topped 10,000 incoming messages on Sunday and had about 18,000 on Monday morning. Magic, within 3 days, expanded their team and abandoned the Bettir app they were working on before. 

This is supply and demand at its finest. The amount of messages that Magic received goes to prove that convenience is highly desired. And that when you think of an idea, you should go for it. Not like I, who thought of this before but never actually put a launch on it. Magic may or may not be the next big thing and it is only 72 hours old. This Mike guy could have been me. 

The Internet and Gender Roles

The media tells we how we should dress, what we should look like, and even how we should act. We see advertisements everywhere, on the television, on the sides of busses, on billboards, and on the internet. It is easy to say that they are unavoidable. We are told that women should be skinny, pretty dainty creatures. We are told that men should be strong, emotionless, providers. For a while these messages were only displayed in the magazines or the newspapers, but now they are popping up on the sides of social media websites. Since advertisements make money for their host websites, I do not think that this will slow down anytime soon. There is so much conversation around gender roles in today’s society. We need to limit or eliminate the types of advertisements that send messages pin holing people. While some people can glance at an ad and be unaffected, but over time those messages seep in. The idea to be skinny goes from a picture of a model to an eating disorder. The idea to be a strong man goes from a body builder to acts of violence. Films such as Miss Representation further discuss this point and even more ways that the media affects social and gender roles.

I feel that the internet has made these issues even worse. Everyone uses the internet, all ages, all genders, and all personalities. The internet is used a work, in school, and for leisure. This gives advertisements multiple and frequent chances to get their message across. It worries me that with the growth and multiple uses of the internet that the messages will worsen. It is important to try and restructure the way we portray genders in the media or else matters will worsen. If we can encourage the youth rather than try to put them in separate boxes I think that the stereotypes and gender roles can change. 

The Best Interface is No Interface

       There's this idea of there being too much technology in the modern world that most people are aware of. Not everyone obviously agrees with this idea, and I can't pinpoint when I first became aware of this idea. But we all kind of know that somewhere in the world someone is ranting on the internet about this matter. Personally, I understood the sentiment but also recognized the progress in quality of life that digital technology offers. That being said, I really enjoyed Golden Krishna's talk at SXSW as he found a way to express frustrations with technology, while keeping in the mind its vast potential. His primary thesis revolves around the phrase, "the best interface is no interface," a statement of his that has now become a book. He finds issue with the endless number of screens, or interfaces in our lives, and with the fact that user interface has become synonymous for user experience for some. To make a product or service better has now become to include a screen to it. This idea perfectly encapsulated the sentiment of too much technology (meaning too many screens) in conjunction with the potential of technology. His focus was on the designing technology that catered to humans and not to computers. He identifies that creative design now has become to add a screen to pretty much everything. From refrigerators to cars and even children's toilets, there are screens and apps to supposedly improve every experience. Obviously, we need to be able to check our twitter feed on the dashboard of our car instead of just focusing on the speed. His ideas follow closely with the ideas value sensitive design. We have to figure out what we value and design technologies to cater to those values. He refers to a statement by Donald Norman who in 1990 said, “The real problem with the interface is that it is an interface. Interfaces get in the way. I don’t want to focus my energies on an interface. I want to focus on the job…I don’t want to think of myself as using a computer, I want to think of myself as doing my job.” For Norman, interfaces seem to take out the value of actually accomplishing the task by creating separations between the user and the task.
        I found myself agreeing with all of Krishna’s points on screen focused design. He broke down how to shift this current route of thinking by focusing on three principles. As I heard more of his speech, the focal point that should be considered in new solutions and creative technologies is to value humans, to value the user and not the computer. For example, he brings up how there are apps to unlock your car door. However, the processes behind using the app caters to how apps in general work instead of actually improving the experience of opening the car door for the user. Does he conclude that the best way to open your car door is to just simply use your keys and call it a day? No, not at all. He points to how Mercedes designed a car that could sense if the car key was nearby and then open the door. This design caters to the user; it uses technology to improve the experience. There’s no extra hassle of dealing with another tool or screen, instead the intuitive design makes it easier to open car doors. The creative solution that technology enables makes the process better, not adding a screen to the process.
         I really enjoyed reading and hearing what Krishna has to say about interfaces and how using less of them can lead to higher rates of returns in many ways for us as users. His idea isn’t revolutionary; he even makes note of that, but this method of conveying what he is passionate about as a designer is extremely accessible to the audience, including people like me who might not take two seconds to consider this design problem that exists today.
Check it out

Another Blog About Technology and Dating

Within the past decade (and especially in the past five years), technology's involvement in the world of romance has become more and more prevalent.  Even within the past four years that I've been at Stevens, there has been an increase in discussion centered around dating/technology in several of my classes.  Often, it is the student(s) informing the professor of the new technologies available, and there is almost always the point in the discussion where the professor asks if we actually use these types of tools (to which there is an overwhelming response of yes followed by a very surprised professor).  However, instead of looking up information about what currently exists, I thought it would be interesting to look up where innovators are looking to take dating technology since there are only so many ways that you can make a dating app unique.  

The article caught my eye was on CNN and was entitled "Future of sex:  No touching involved."  After opening the article, I realized that it was mostly visual and its main content was in the form of a video, but it was too interesting not to include in this blog.  The article was the last part of a 4 part series (each video being about 3 minutes long).  I ended up watching all of the videos to understand the content leading up to the article that I was interested in:  essentially, the first article focused on the interviewer giving basic information about what currently exists in the online dating world (not all that different from what I mentioned earlier about the students explaining dating and technology to the professor), and the middle two articles focused on the business of dating (including interviews with people like the guy who founded Tinder) and how it's changing dating by providing interviews and stories about dates that came about with technology.  

The fourth article (Future of Sex:  No touching involved) focuses on where the notion of dating and technology is projected to expand to.  The future of love's cornerstone is virtual reality in which the user puts on a headset (such as the Oculus Rift or something similar) to engage in a romantic/dating atmosphere that is avatar-based.  Brian Shuster, the CEO of Red Light Center and one of the chief founders of utherverse (http://www.utherverse.net/company.html), explains that you can use the technology to connect with a person thousands of miles away and perform all of the interactions that you could in a real situation.  Platforms like utherverse allow for users to connect in real-life settings (parks, malls, etc) in a virtual world, and these virtual dating grounds will be further enhanced by technologies like Oculus Rift because the hardware brings a new element of sight and touch to what already virtually exists.  

Shuster predicts that advances of this nature will lead to sexual singularity, which is a phenomenon that occurs when people actually prefer to have digital relationships/sexual encounters as opposed to the real-life counterparts.  This is largely attributed to the fact that advances are being made in both virtual reality and the sense-simulation hardware, which Shuster believes will lead to a combination that creates an atmosphere for dating and falling in love that is better than without any technological involvement.  

There are many nay-sayers that specialize in studying the brain that explain that the brain knows the difference between fantasy and reality and that falling in love cannot be accomplished by simply replicating senses and not experiencing them in a real sense.  There need to be certain signals sent to the brain in a relationship that are believed to only be accomplished by real encounters.  

As a first reaction, I automatically agree with the notion that virtual dating can't possibly successfully replace real dating.  It seems like a rendition of The Sims on steroids to me, and while dating apps are popular now, I would imagine that there is a point where it needs to stop.  However, personal feelings aside, there is significant evidence to support the notion that the future of dating as described in the article is not only possible but also probable.  

Like any new product/technology, there is always a group of consumers that are 'ahead of the curve' and indulge in the product before the masses catch on.  I have no doubt that there are enough people in the world to form a community that would use the virtual reality technology and hardware once it is released.  The notion of this technology is so outlandish that I'm sure there will also be those who participate just to 'try it out' out of sheer curiosity, and momentum will only grow from here.  Although I personally am against the idea of ever using something like this, I understand that this is only my opinion and that the notion of technology/dating ending up in a virtual entanglement, although a little scary, is entirely plausible.  

http://money.cnn.com/technology/love-inc/?autoplay=1&playvid=4

Smartphone Integration into Car in Near Future

Electronics have become woven into the fabric of the modern automobile. There are many embedded electronic systems that comprise your dashboard and the blinking lights that you inform you on the status of your vehicle. GPS systems, rear-view cameras and hands-free Bluetooth compatibility are a handful of the technological feats that comprise the electronic automobile ecosystem. Now, the one device that has become ingrained into our society will be integrated into the modern automobile to further develop it: the smartphone.

Yes, the one device that we have been told that it is bad to use when driving (see: texting, talking, changing music, etc.) is the same device that Google and Apple want to make a part of the everyday car. The names of both systems, Android Auto from Google and CarPlay from Apple, vow to incorporate the smartphone's functionality like GPS navigation, music playing and voice communication into the vehicle's main screen. Within the coming weeks and months, car manufactures will deploy vehicles with one or both of the integration systems.

Naturally, the concept of utilizing your smartphone on your car's main screen prompts the question of "is it safe?". Essentially maneuvering a smartphone while driving is anything but safe, but what Google's and Apple's aim is to make the system safer than what most currently do with their smartphones. Google's focus was on what features to include, how to minimize distractions and which features to disable during transit. Of the features they decided to block, streaming video and most social media actions are included. To minimize taking your eyes off of the road, texts can only be sent via voice prompts.

I believe there are two major redeeming qualities here for the "new" modern automobile. One is the move from a closed, manufacturer-implemented dashboard to a more open approach. Integration of your smartphone into the car means no additional cost for the GPS, Bluetooth call feature or voice commands. This is more money in the user's pockets, as well as a more "one-device-fits-all" ideal. It means less of a learning cure for user since there is familiarity with the existing system, improved voice commands with Siri and Google Now and free GPS map updates.

The other is that it is majorly important to address the values of society in the development of a new technological system. This related to our discussion of value-sensitive design (VSD) and the incorporation of values into the design of a system. According to the Transportation Department guidelines, the longest time interval to take your eyes of the road is 2 seconds. Google wants to develop a system that minimizes the amount of time your eyes are taken off the road. The reason for doing so is obvious: to minimize accidents caused by smartphone interactions, either by texting, GPS, voice calls or other factors. The inclusion of safety has propelled the design of this system.

I believe the development of a smartphone integration system is not only a money-saver from an economic perspective, but also a good implement to minimize distractions while driving from a moral and ethical perspective.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/23/technology/rivals-google-and-apple-fight-for-the-dashboard.html?ref=technology

An Optimist Among the Fearful of the Future

What do you fear? Heights? Public Speaking? Clowns? I can tell you that most people fear uncertainty, or things that they cannot comprehend. I think we can all agree that the topic of the future contains the most uncertainty. It is what can happen, will happen, and what hasn't happened. Some people are excited for their future, while others worry. Today we live in a rapidly changing world. Technology is advancing faster than ever before, and while some people are upset that their newest iPhone will be obsolete in a year's time, others are fearful of bigger problems that the future might bring. Recently, The Global Challenge Foundation released a new risk report that lists catastrophes that might end human civilization as we know it. New members this year: artificial intelligence and nanotechnology. Artificial intelligence alone raises many ethical debates. Is an AI human? What if it is smarter than us? If it is, will it just consider us obsolete and kill us all? Will it have a god-complex like Ultron does in the upcoming Avengers film? As per the title of this post says, I am the optimist among those who are afraid. Yes I do acknowledge that there are always risks with any new technology, but I believe that AI's benefits far outweigh the risks. AI will be solving problems we don't even know exist yet. The major problem I see with those who fear any new technology or future outcome is that they assume cultural and social norms will be the same in the future along with the new technology. They always apply the new technology to today's standards. Well if you apply a super-advanced AI to today's society, of course you're going to think that it will consider us obsolete and want to kill us. That is just you recognizing today's problems and the ultimate "answer" to that problem. Take people's fear of robots in the 1950s. Dozens of films were released depicting killer robots running amok terrorizing civilians. Yet today, robots do so many helpful things for us. I think we as a society need to stop thinking about the sudden change new technologies will bring us, and start thinking about the gradual steps we need to take to even get there in the first place. Along they way, ethical questions will be answered, laws set in place, and tests taken to determine the best path for our future. There is no reason to fear new technology until we have broken in its shoes. Take it from an optimist like me who bought the very first iPad: do not fear the future or the uncertain, just embrace the change and hope for the best. 

Article

Ryan Zupfer

You're the Dog Now, Dog

Boston Dynamics, the company responsible for the DARPA-funded BigDog that was recently acquired by Google, has recently released footage of its newest robot, Spot. Spot differs from its predecessors in significant ways. It’s about the size of a large dog (BigDog, ironically enough, was more like a horse or cow) and is electrically-powered, rather than housing an internal combustion engine, thus making it much quieter. 

This newest video was alarming for multiple reasons, not the least of which is the fact that an autonomous robot was roaming freely, lacking even a physical or invisible fence often used to confine dogs, while traffic can be observed in the background. However, the Internet seemed most concerned with an event that occurred early in the video, when the robot was forcefully kicked to demonstrate its ability to recover its balance. Despite a joking disclaimer at the end of the video that “No robots were harmed in the making of this video,” many people felt sympathy towards Spot and expressed concern over his treatment. Most of this concern was tongue-in-cheek, but the fact that so many people mentioned this indicated that it might mark the beginning of a serious social issue. Robot rights, or at least robot welfare, might be in our future.

This left me wondering what line this robot crossed that elicited an anthropomorphic response from people. Every child plays with dolls and stages elaborate plots, often involving deaths, especially among super hero figures, yet little emotional bonds form between the two. I may be sad if my doll breaks, but that stems mostly from its sentimental value- simply treating this object as if it were alive doesn’t make me respond as if it were alive. How similar must an object appear to a human that it causes an emotional response? Numerous types of robots have been created over the past few decades, such as remotely operated robots, industrial production robots, and self-driving cars, but no one cares if I kick a drone.

Previous Boston Dynamics robots such as BigDog, driven via internal combustion, created loud buzzing noises that suggested they had more in common with leaf blowers than animals. Spot, however, though still producing an audible whirring noise, looks and acts like a dog. It can navigate autonomously and respond to sudden environmental changes, effortlessly navigating obstacles such as stairs and hills. It seems as though the critical difference between Spot and other robots is it demonstrates a decision-making ability, or artificial intelligence.

Humans sympathize with some animals, yet not others. No one objects to killing a cow (and some even tip them recreationally) or an insect, but there are laws in place to protect domestic animals such as dogs and cats from abuse. Dolphins, too, are apparently similar enough to humans to be granted the status of “non-human persons” in Chile, Coasta Rica, Hungary, and India. The legal protection of cats and dogs can be explained by the fact that aggressive acts towards these animals often precede aggressive acts towards humans. Living alongside animals, as in the case of pets, often creates emotional ties, which explains why someone might object to the killing of a cat or dog, since they can identify with it. Very few people live alongside dolphins, however, so there must be something more. Perceived intelligence, combined with a corporeal body, is apparently enough to cause people to treat the animal as though it were human.

Robots welfare may very well be a concern in the future. Just as certain types of animal abuse have been made illegal to protect humans, similar laws may eventually protect robots. It’s only a matter of time before people develop emotions towards their robots, as they have with cats and dogs. How much longer until robots and dolphins are on equal grounds?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8YjvHYbZ9w

Our Relationships, Poor Sleep, and a Severed Hand

It is not uncommon for many people to be at a constant arms-reach away from access to the internet in one form or another. Whether it be a computer, laptop, cellphone, and/or smart-watch, we are accustomed to the immediate gratification we receive from being able to search whatever we want whenever we want, to have directions to wherever we want to go, to play games or listen to music when we are bored. This immediate gratification we receive has vast and far reaching implications that extend well beyond its immediate scope. It has transformed the way we maintain relationships with others and the ability for us to inhibit our own actions.

When people spend more time online, they spend less time socializing with others or taking interest in hobbies. The internet, and other forms of digital communication, have altered the way we interact with others. Many studies show that the internet has led to increased social isolation. A large percent of research suggests that the way we use the internet is in fact altering the way we manage and build our relationships. Opposing research suggests that those active in social media are, “more likely to report higher-quality friendships and more friendship-forming behaviors.” Modern technology allows us to improve and maintain relationships. (PsychCentral)

Although the Internet may help build are relationships, the effects of being constantly connected to our friends has negative consequences. In the article linked below, Kylee Heston, a clinical psychologist states that more and more of her patients report having difficulty sleeping through the night because of their constant need to check messages and status updates on their devices. This overstimulates the brain and prevents people from getting a full night of restful sleep. Additionally, Americans spend an average of over 7 hours looking at a screen every day, according to research from a Mayo Clinic. Internet use is becoming so bad for some people that in China, an incident reported on February 2^nd, a teenager severed his hand to cure his internet addiction. Unquestionably an extreme case, the term coined as “internet addiction” is becoming an increasingly greater issue.

Heston article:

http://www.grandforksherald.com/accent/life-style/3678649-it-time-disconnect-your-internet-addiction

Chinese Teenager Article:

http://www.businessinsider.com/teenager-in-china-cut-hand-off-over-internet-addiction-2015-2

PsychCentral Article:

http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2009/05/13/the-internet-helps-teenagers-with-social-relationships/

The Age of Autonomous Cars

Stanford University has set a new milestone in the driverless car effort by racing their programmed car around a race track faster than a race car driver. Engineers raced their car against David Vodden, an amateur class champion, at Thunderhill Raceway Park. After studying the layout of the track and the brain activity of race drivers, they developed a working program which allowed the car to race the track at speeds of over 120 miles per hour. The mathematics behind getting a racecar to maintain traction on the track at high speeds are exactly the same as when a normal driver faces non-standard driving conditions on the highway. The data garnered would directly benefit safety programs that would be required on commercial autonomous cars. The Stanford team studied race drivers in adverse situations to learn how to react to similar situations when the computer is driving. They learned that drivers actually rely on instinct rather than judgment when their cars lost traction and slipped around. By programming their computer to rely on a set response when detecting slippage instead of a stabilization algorithm, the engineers saw a positive effect in the computer navigating the track. Just like a driver, the computer has to quickly decide how to handle a difficult maneuver.

Through all this data acquisition and analysis, the Stanford team got their car to lap the track 0.4 seconds faster than and amateur race driver. This is just another stepping stone in developing the technology behind autonomous cars for commercial use. Things like safety and reliability have to be nearly guaranteed as error-proof before consumers will buy into it. By learning how to get a race car to lap a race track with faster times, the research can easily be translated for the consumer world. Wait another 15 years and I am confident the technology will have matured enough to see the first driverless car in the market.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/science-news/11410261/Driverless-car-beats-racing-driver-for-first-time.html

UPS and the Orion system

An article recently written in the Wall Street Journal called “UPS’s 199-Digit ‘Orion’ Number is real” describes the number of alternatives that a UPS driver can make on their average 120 stop day. With all of these alternatives how is it possible that the driver can make the most efficient delivery route while factoring in the different delivery times, road regulations, and private road shortcuts? The human mind is unable to find the optimal route so the experts at UPS have been trying to solve the problem.

What UPS has come up with is a computer platform called “Orion” which is an algorithm that has taken over 10 years and hundreds of millions of dollars to become beneficial, but not yet perfect to this day. Orion saves UPS only a dollar or two here and there but with 55,000 routes in the US alone the impact is much larger then is sounds. 40% of all routes are using Orion to this day and with e-commerce growing faster than ever, UPS is looking to make Orion used in all vehicles. The company saves an average of seven to eight miles a route per day. Just by reducing one mile a day it can save the company $50 million a year. By 2018 an estimate of 50% of all deliveries will derive from e-commerce purchases. By this time Orion is expected to save the company $300 million to $400 million once the system is fully implemented.

Orion is very beneficial but is not accepted by all UPS drivers and some have logical reasons not to like this innovation. Some of the drivers see this system as an illogical strategy. Orion will create more efficient rural routes a majority of the time but others are forced to drive additional miles on their routes. Sometimes even skip houses in the neighborhood that they are already delivering in. Another driver brings up that Orion requests them to back up more than regular and make more left turns which is a safety hazard that UPS does not condone. UPS does recommend that when drivers are faced with scenarios like this they can refrain from violating safety rules. Drivers have the option to not use Orion if the system does not detect traffic events of if they have some type of valid reasoning.

 I believe that Orion is a great innovation to the delivery system and will only become more efficient. Delivery is becoming more and more common in the everyday household with the advancement and convenience of e-commerce. Some companies that I believe will begin to adapt strategies like those of UPS will be Apple and Google with their mapping applications. I need to do more research on their personal algorithms but I would hope that they have a similar design to Orions. With driver less cars advancing today as well it would be smart to include these technologies for easier and more efficient navigation. I am looking forward to seeing how UPS will adjust Orion to their everyday delivery operations. 

The Latest Operating System! Windows NSA!

I’m not sure whether I should be impressed or scared at how effective the NSA’s spy program is.

Recently, Russian researchers at security agency Kaspersky discovered malware that is hidden in the firmware of hard drives on computers. When the hard drive boots up after turning on the computer, the smart virus is also booted up as part of the process of turning on the computer. When hacking, the firmware is regarded as the second most valuable code on a PC. The virus is able to infect the computer repeatedly due to its location in a computers code. This is such a brilliant technique for spying considering how it has gone unnoticed for so long and the code’s location allows the NSA to bypass security and spy on targets with ease.

I can’t help but be in awe at how this tactic has essentially placed the NSA in a position where they can monitor whoever they want with ease. Previously, I never would have thought that the NSA had an open door into whoever’s computer they choose given that their smart virus was already embedded into the hard drive’s operation. I think this is some really cool technology! Instead of hacking the traditional way with password cracking, denial of service, worms, viruses, IP spoofing, access through source routing, man in the middle attack, server spoofing, or DNS poisoning, the NSA has literally gone down to the core of how a computer works and placed their code into the firmware of hard drives manufactured by companies.

The companies Western Digital, Seagate, Toshiba, IBM, Micro Technology, and Samsung were discovered to have the virus on their drives. According to Kaspersky, this virus could not have been placed in the firmware easily and it would be incredibly difficult with what is public knowledge about the drivers. Western Digital, Seagate, and Micron stated they did not know about the malware, Toshiba and Samsung declined to comment, and IBM did not respond to reporters. I suspect these companies must have cooperated with the government to hand over the source code for their hard drives either knowingly or unknowingly. Western Digital declared that they did not provide any of its source code to the US government. If this is true, it makes me wonder how the NSA was able to place its code on the company’s chips. The technology being used by the NSA is even more impressive after hearing Kaspersky researcher Costin Raiu state that, “There is zero chance that someone could rewrite the [hard drive] operating system using public information.” After reading all this, one can only wonder how exactly does the NSA obtain the proprietary source code for so many different companies' hard drives?

Kaspersky stated they found the virus on some hard drives dating back to 2001. Most of the infected computers were found in countries such as Iran, Russia, Pakistan, Afghanistan, China, Mali, Syria, Yemen, and Algeria. It seems like most of the NSA targets were unstable countries which house terrorists and the others are potential threats or competition to the United States’ interests.

While it’s safe to say that the American public is most likely not being spied on regularly by the NSA, it is comforting to hear from the researchers that the NSA is quite selective when it comes to eavesdropping, stealing files, and taking full remote control over a device.

https://www.yahoo.com/tech/s/russian-researchers-expose-breakthrough-u-spying-program-194217480--sector.html

https://www.yahoo.com/tech/s/one-nsa-most-precious-spying-tools-just-uncovered-115018517.html

Sports and Social Media

Not many people who don't follow sports would know who Zlatan Ibrahimovic is.  To make this short and sweet he is known for his extraordinary ability on the field to score goals and his highly colorful attitude on and off the field.  If you would like to know what I mean go to Youtube and search "Ibrahimovic top 30 quotes" and  I am sure it will be abundantly clear.

Although his eccentric personality would be a great topic to write about that's not as important as what he did this past week.  If you are someone who follows the world's most popular sport, soccer, you would know that this week the star goal scorer tattooed 50 starving people's names on his body to make people aware of an increasingly prominent issue.  World hunger.  He tattooed (temporarily) these people's names onto his body to raise awareness that an astonishing 805 million people are suffering from hunger.

I know what you are thinking, what's the big deal and how does this relate to anything we have been talking about in our class?  I would argue that the media, sports, and social networking apps and websites work somewhat collectively so spread news, ideas, memes, etc.  Using these various methods athletes have an astonishing ability to be able to influence people in the way they behave and think.  For example if people actually look at his page 21,462,015 follow him only on Facebook.  Realistically, if 10% of those people took action and began food drives or donations of even as little as $5.00 each they would provide an astonishing $10,731,007.50 to feed the 805 million people who are starving every day.  That looks and sounds so insignificant but when put in perspective something compared to nothing is always better.

To sum up why I this is worth talking about there are a couple points I would like to touch on.  First I think that people may not be moved to do things simply by seeing their idols doing it.  However, I think that some athletes, musicians, comedians, etc. do hold an image of their own that others try to emulate.  Therefore when they do things for a good cause it drives some people to follow their example and could inevitably lead to change.  Secondly social media, the media, the internet and other sources can provide means to spread information that could change peoples' lives if used responsibly.  I think this inevitably is what we need to decide: how are we to use these means responsibly? or What does it mean to use technology responsibly?