Watching the documentary Generation Like left a bad taste in my mouth, and I couldn't quite place why until today. Ceili Lynch and her incessant clicking made me very uneasy. In talking about her love for the Hunger Games she used the word fandom (I like other fandoms and stuff, but not as much as The Hunger Games"). According to the transcript, it's mentioned once and never again. Perhaps this is for the best, because I'm not sure her use of the word was accurate.
A fandom is a group of people who share the same interest. If you like The Hunger Games, you're in The Hunger Games Fandom. If you like Harry Potter, you're in the Harry Potter Fandom. But the idea of fandom goes far beyond proving to everyone else how much you like the thing. A fandom is a community, a place for people to discuss a thing and expand upon it and truly make it their own. Fandoms encourage art and music and stories, cosplay and conventions. They encourage people to be creative about the things they enjoy. Look at the Harry Potter Fandom, actually. They've got a whole genre based on music about the wizarding world. It's called wizard rock. Crazy.
I thought about this today, on 4/20, because it is the ninth anniversary of the release of one of my favorite video games of all time: Mother 3. The game was only ever released in Japan. but it was a sequel, and the second game (Mother 2, or Earthbound as it's known in the States) had a huge cult following. The fandom was upset that they'd never get to see the thrilling conclusion to the trilogy stateside, so they took matters into their own hands and wrote their own localization.
The Mother 3 Fan Translation took two years to complete. It was difficult because the task was twofold: first, they had to actually translate and localize the material. Then, they had to hack that new English script back into the ROM for the game. By late 2008, you could download a patch for that ROM and play it on your computer. Was this legal? No. But it is the only way for English-speaking players to play and understand the game without picking up Japanese.
Why did these people do what they did? They didn't get paid for it, and they're not intending to. They've made it abundantly clear to Nintendo that the patch exists many times, offering their translation to Nintendo free of charge should they ever release a translation stateside, and promising to remove their patch from the internet should that ever happen. They did this because they wanted to share the game with as many people as possible, because they liked it so much that passively enjoying it just was not enough.
I thought about this today, nine years after this game was released. I thought about how online communities based on liking things are about more than just liking those things and clicking on things for so long that your hand starts to hurt. Generation Like is incorrect in that way. The beauty of this generation is that we are in control of what we like. If we see something we don't like about it, we discuss it. At times we can even change it. Sure, we're consumers. We consume a lot. But we don't always do it passively. We are at our best when we do it actively.
Happy 4/20.
Monday, April 20, 2015
Apple Wants to Fight Climate Change!
Apple released its 2015 Environmental Responsibility Report on April 20, which talks about their commitment to reducing the impact that their products and operations have on the environment. They said that they don't want to debate climate change. They want to stop it.
Apple will have to reduce its greenhouse gas emission, cut down on its paper use, and eliminate the toxic substances in their devices, all of which will take a long time. Apple's carbon footprint increased from 2013 to 2014 because it sold more products in 2014. However, Apple is working to make its products less carbon-intensive to produce and use. All of Apple's data centers, retails stores, and corporate offices, as well as 87% of its global facilities are powered by renewable energy. However, the energy used by Apple in the 2014 fiscal year represents only 1% of its overall carbon footprint. 73% of their carbon footprint comes from their greenhouse gas emission. A good thing about Apple's paper use is that, over 80% of the paper and cardboard used in the packaging for its products came from controlled wood sources, certified sustainable managed forests, or recycled materials during the 2014 fiscal year. Apple also announced that it will be buying 36000 acres of forest to supply paper for its packaging. Apple is also trying its best to reduce or eliminate the toxic substances inside its products for the sake of human health and the environment.
Unfortunately, there have been reports of bad working conditions and exhausted workers in a Chinese factory producing Apple products. 30% of Apple's suppliers do not comply with the company's safety standards and 18% fail to comply with standards on hazardous chemical exposure. This is something that Apple should definitely work on. I am glad to see that Apple is so concerned with the environment and how its products are affecting the environment. It seems to me that they are trying their best to damage the environment less. This is a big step forward. However, it also needs to look at the working conditions of its workers and has to comply with safety standards.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/04/20/apple-climate-change_n_7099918.html?utm_hp_ref=technology
Apple will have to reduce its greenhouse gas emission, cut down on its paper use, and eliminate the toxic substances in their devices, all of which will take a long time. Apple's carbon footprint increased from 2013 to 2014 because it sold more products in 2014. However, Apple is working to make its products less carbon-intensive to produce and use. All of Apple's data centers, retails stores, and corporate offices, as well as 87% of its global facilities are powered by renewable energy. However, the energy used by Apple in the 2014 fiscal year represents only 1% of its overall carbon footprint. 73% of their carbon footprint comes from their greenhouse gas emission. A good thing about Apple's paper use is that, over 80% of the paper and cardboard used in the packaging for its products came from controlled wood sources, certified sustainable managed forests, or recycled materials during the 2014 fiscal year. Apple also announced that it will be buying 36000 acres of forest to supply paper for its packaging. Apple is also trying its best to reduce or eliminate the toxic substances inside its products for the sake of human health and the environment.
Unfortunately, there have been reports of bad working conditions and exhausted workers in a Chinese factory producing Apple products. 30% of Apple's suppliers do not comply with the company's safety standards and 18% fail to comply with standards on hazardous chemical exposure. This is something that Apple should definitely work on. I am glad to see that Apple is so concerned with the environment and how its products are affecting the environment. It seems to me that they are trying their best to damage the environment less. This is a big step forward. However, it also needs to look at the working conditions of its workers and has to comply with safety standards.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/04/20/apple-climate-change_n_7099918.html?utm_hp_ref=technology
Google Almost Bought Tesla for $6 Billion in 2013
It was recently
revealed from an upcoming book by Ashlee Vance titled “Elon Musk: Tesla,
SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future” that Tesla’s owner, Elon Musk,
was in negotiations to sell Tesla to Google for $6 billion. For better or
worse, the deal eventually fell through and now, only 2 years later, Tesla is valued
at roughly $25 billion. We hear these stories all the time, with large companies
trying to buy out the little guys. However, every now and then we are surprised
to hear that some companies don’t “sell-out” as they are confident they can
turn their businesses into something more. Just a few examples of this besides
Tesla were when Microsoft and Google tried to buy Facebook in its earlier years
to no avail and more recently with Google offering the creator of Snapchat $3
billion. For both Facebook and Snapchat, things turned out more than alright as
Facebook was quoted to be worth more than $200 billion in 2014 and Snapchat a
cool $10 billion, which is much more than either company was initially offered.
So why don’t we see this more often, why are some companies so quick to hand
over control?
Well that’s a
difficult question to answer, and it depends on countless variables. Disregarding
the smaller companies choices, my personal stance for the bigger companies, is that
large corporate entities such as Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Apple, etc… should not be allowed to buy out smaller
companies if they have reached a certain “value cap,” otherwise I feel they too
closely resemble monopolies. As of 2014, Google and Apple’s net worth were
estimated to be roughly $365 and $599 billion respectively. They are the first companies in history to be
racing towards the $1 trillion value mark and I find it concerning. Earlier
this year, it was discovered that Apple spent huge sums of money to hire the
best battery engineers in the world to help them build their own electric car.
This especially worried Tesla, for they feared if Apple bought their lead
engineers out (along with the other best), then their company would surely be unable
to compete in the electric car market.
While I don’t
discredit large companies for innovation in their core markets, I do think that
making the majority (or at least a hefty sum) of their money from the companies
they acquired is sort of like cheating. I wish there were more David and
Goliath cases where companies like Tesla were able to stick with their gut and
push through tough times without selling out. As such, I see Tesla becoming a
powerhouse in the electric car industry (which is likely to become more and
more popular as time progresses) due to the fact they stayed independent,
versus if they had been acquired by Google and reduced to say a side project. While I don’t doubt Google could make Tesla
even more profitable, I feel that Google especially has more than reached a
peak and should no longer be allowed to purchase smaller entities and instead
focus on its own intellectual property.
References:
Stopping Car Crashes Before They Happen
The articles that inspired this post can be found here:
When people
talk about the future of cars and technology, I hear a lot about the
self-driving car. We’ve all heard about
the ways in which it can improve our lives, and we’ve all heard about some of
the problems inherent in its design that will need to be solved before the
self-driving car sees widespread commercial use. But I’m not here to talk about that. I’m here to talk about another technology being
developed for drivers – a new driving error detection and prevention system. The idea is being worked on by researchers at
Cornell and Stanford, and relies on cars being heavily outfitted with sensors
and cameras. These sensors and cameras will
be located both inside and outside of the car; the ones on the inside will monitor
the driver, while those on the outside will monitor nearby people, vehicles
(namely, other cars), and objects. The
main new idea presented here is what the sensors and cameras monitoring the
driver will actually do: they will
pay attention to any movements made by the driver while he or she is in his or
her seat. Subtle head and body movements
can indicate that a driver is about to turn or change lanes in the next few
seconds. As the sensors on the inside, monitoring
the driver, will be in constant communication with those on the outside, which
watch for nearby traffic, the system should be able to warn drivers if they are
about to do something that will cause an accident, such as merging into a lane
when there is another car approaching from the driver’s blind spot.
It’s still
in the early stages of development, but this system has many benefits to
it. A system that can warn drivers that
they’re making a mistake can certainly curb accidents quite a bit, potentially making
the roads much safer. The potential this
technology has isn’t too difficult to see; what’ll really matter, though, is
execution and effectiveness. If there is
any error at all (which there must be; see Murphy’s Law), and the system doesn’t
always detect the driver’s subtle movements, it might not always be able to
tell when the driver is about to merge or make a turn right into another
car. Granted, the external sensors
should (hopefully) still be able to do their job, and still warn when the
driver is too close to anther object outside of the car; but even once the
technology is fully developed, a lot of revisions will inevitably have to be
made, until the system works close enough to perfection to be considered
reliable.
I can see some things that people
might be uneasy with, however. Namely,
the notion of one’s car being filled to the brim with cameras and sensors. Some people might view this as an invasion of
privacy, especially if footage of the driver’s face is saved. They might not have a whole lot to hide while
behind the wheel (or then again, maybe they do), but I can certainly see people
complaining about it either way.
Development Priorities
I'm an avid user of a couple social media sites, like Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr. Every so often, these websites make a functionality update, and usually I am left scratching my head wondering what on earth made the devs of the website make those decisions. I'm not the most experience when it comes to web development, but I like to think that I usually give devs the benefit of the doubt when they implement new things, but more often than their ideas seem to come out of left field.
For example, it was discovered today (ie, Twitter did not officially announce it but their strange methods of operation are another story) that Twitter is adding a feature for users to receive direct messages from anyone. Considering the nature of Internet users, ie more than willing to dump their opinions on anyone with 9000 times the vitriol than is necessary, I am very curious about what inspired the Twitter devs to implement this feature.
Tumblr is particularly infamous (at least with regards to its user base) for implementing updates that seem useless, while ignoring features that seem to be universally desired. Most of their updates, for example, seem to make pointless rearrangements of their UI, whereas they lack a 'block' feature, which many users want. It is possible that they could have something like this in development, but one would hope that, since so many people are asking for such a feature, the devs could at least say that they're working on something that their users actually want.
Obviously these companies - particularly Tumblr, since its owned by Yahoo - have ulterior goals that they're trying to reach by catering their website. Tumblr, for example, is trying to become similar to Medium, ie a long-form blog website. I find it odd that they're trying to change their functionality so late in the game; Tumblr already has a strong user base that is happy with the website's core functionality, why would they try to change it? They could, of course, be trying to attract new long form blogging users, but then, why wouldn't said users go to Medium, since that website already does what they want? I suppose, though, that "we already have users, let's just sit pretty" is a rather strange business mentality, and stagnation can lead to death in these situations. While these websites try to cater their services for what seem like pointless reasons, I'll just sit here and complain while I continue to use their sites.
For example, it was discovered today (ie, Twitter did not officially announce it but their strange methods of operation are another story) that Twitter is adding a feature for users to receive direct messages from anyone. Considering the nature of Internet users, ie more than willing to dump their opinions on anyone with 9000 times the vitriol than is necessary, I am very curious about what inspired the Twitter devs to implement this feature.
Tumblr is particularly infamous (at least with regards to its user base) for implementing updates that seem useless, while ignoring features that seem to be universally desired. Most of their updates, for example, seem to make pointless rearrangements of their UI, whereas they lack a 'block' feature, which many users want. It is possible that they could have something like this in development, but one would hope that, since so many people are asking for such a feature, the devs could at least say that they're working on something that their users actually want.
Obviously these companies - particularly Tumblr, since its owned by Yahoo - have ulterior goals that they're trying to reach by catering their website. Tumblr, for example, is trying to become similar to Medium, ie a long-form blog website. I find it odd that they're trying to change their functionality so late in the game; Tumblr already has a strong user base that is happy with the website's core functionality, why would they try to change it? They could, of course, be trying to attract new long form blogging users, but then, why wouldn't said users go to Medium, since that website already does what they want? I suppose, though, that "we already have users, let's just sit pretty" is a rather strange business mentality, and stagnation can lead to death in these situations. While these websites try to cater their services for what seem like pointless reasons, I'll just sit here and complain while I continue to use their sites.
Public Approval for Surveillance?
Last
week Daniel Szwarc wrote a blog post about the Stringray cell phone
capture devices, if you have not read it yet I would recommend it
(http://stevenscomputersandsociety.blogspot.com/2015/04/watergate-iireturn-of-tap.html).
His post along with recent class discussion over how much the public
is informed and or gets to vote on the power of the government to
conduct surveillance on the people, is what led me to this post. This
article from Ars Technica
that I saw linked on Reddit caught my eye because it seems that our
opinions in class reflect at least some of the opinions in the rest
of the nation. Basically one of the California state senators is
trying to push through a bill that would require a city or county
government to publicly approve the use of Stingray devices. The
bill even passed the first round of voting it needs to become a law.
This
may seem all well and good, but the bill has some strong opposition.
Local law enforcement as well as some civil liberties groups are
against this bill; although, probably for different reasons. The
article mentions that the civil liberties groups would like to see a
stronger law, one that includes statewide standards on the use of the
Stingray devices and other IMSI catchers like them. (An IMSI is an
International Mobile Subscriber Identity; a number that follows your
cell phone wherever it goes.) Law enforcement was not further
mentioned in the article but my guess is that they are completely
against this law and the idea of regulating these devices in general.
One
of the biggest concerns for me about finding this article is the
comment it received on Reddit. As of writing this there is only one
comment there which says "Laws don't apply to law enforcement,
don't you know?" If they did not apply then there would not be
opposition from law enforcement regarding this bill. They still may
find loopholes and get around the law or even blatantly ignore it but
depending on the scale on which they do so there could be
repercussions for law enforcement. My main problem with this is if
everyone starts to have this attitude toward law and law enforcement
in general than society will eventually give up against government
surveillance.
I
think I would like to see a law like this get passed. I think more
openness about how the government is using these surveillance devices
would be beneficial, but like myself and others have mentioned in
class; when it comes to security there is a tricky balance between
public knowledge and acceptance and secrecy and effectiveness. What I
think would do it for me is for the government to either publicly
prove how effective its surveillance projects are at keeping the
nation safe or to start passing laws like the one mentioned in this
article. I want to know beyond a reasonable doubt that these secret
programs are actually keeping us safe, or I want to have a say in
whether or not they happen.
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/04/new-california-bill-would-require-local-approval-for-stingray-use/
Sunday, April 19, 2015
Public Shaming: Justified or Judgemental?
So before I read this article, I was, for the most part, pretty much OK with repercussions that people have to deal with after saying/doing/posting something stupid and ignorant online. After all, the classic cliche states "you made your bed, now lie in it," so if you do something not particularly tasteful, you should have to deal with whatever happens afterwards, right? Obviously, we all know that using the internet to bully people is immoral, but not many people feel all that sorry for the lady that had the nerve to dress up as a Boston Marathon bombing victim or the guy that had to move to a new city because he was rude to a Chik-Fil-A worker and posted it online. If you were like me and automatically dismissed these people as idiots that pretty much asked for it, then I suggest that you take a few minutes out of your day to check out the article at the bottom of this blog.
The article focuses mainly on how public shaming has morphed based on all of the technology that surrounds the internet: various forms of social media, quick and instant video sharing, and unlimited access to a variety of reports and articles that may or may not be credible. The article outlines instances of people who were caught saying the wrong thing at the wrong time or were recorded doing something that is looked down upon and how the viral effect that the internet created changed these people's lives. Public apologies, which are often viewed by said public as not genuine, mean very little to the companies that fire these individuals, the people that threaten these individuals, and the strangers that shame these individuals.
While there are, of course, repeat offenders that seem to always be saying the wrong thing *Kanye*, most individuals that deal with public shaming have only said or done something stupid (for lack of a better term) once.
To go back to Alicia Ann Lynch's case (the lady who was dumb enough to dress up as a Boston Marathon victim), a case that I consider to involve one of the most tasteless actions that I've read about, I still believe that the public shaming went too far. Yes, she's clearly an idiot, and yes, that was proven not only when she dressed up, not only when she showed up to work in the outfit but also when she posted the photo online; but still, even an idiot of this magnitude doesn't deserve to receive "threats of death, mutilation, and rape." This case is also an excellent representation of how public shaming can entangle innocent people who were not involved, as her parents (who, for all we know, are not idiots) received these same types of threats. While I've used the word 'idiot' probably half a dozen times so far in this article to describe this woman, I can't imagine how someone could actually threaten a person's life over a photo that reveals something that those threatening probably wouldn't even been aware of had it not been for the internet.
There is no doubt that the comments and stories that lead to large-scale public shaming involve poor decisions made by those who said/did whatever the incident in question is, but I do believe, after reading this article and hearing how public shaming has evolved with the use of the internet, that there needs to be some fashion of line drawn about appropriate and inappropriate reactions.
To further prove this point, think of the dumbest and most insensitive thing you've ever said. Did you not mean it? Did you say it when you were angry or when you were absolutely kidding? Did you say it ironically or sarcastically? It doesn't matter. Put it in written words, slap it somewhere on the internet, and prepare yourself for all hell to break loose. Chances are, we've all said or done something that would make us look really really bad if it were put on the internet, and while those publicly shamed aren't entirely undeserving of some of it, it's important to retain some amount of consideration.
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/woman-behind-boston-marathon-bombing-costume-blasts-critics-article-1.1508156
The article focuses mainly on how public shaming has morphed based on all of the technology that surrounds the internet: various forms of social media, quick and instant video sharing, and unlimited access to a variety of reports and articles that may or may not be credible. The article outlines instances of people who were caught saying the wrong thing at the wrong time or were recorded doing something that is looked down upon and how the viral effect that the internet created changed these people's lives. Public apologies, which are often viewed by said public as not genuine, mean very little to the companies that fire these individuals, the people that threaten these individuals, and the strangers that shame these individuals.
While there are, of course, repeat offenders that seem to always be saying the wrong thing *Kanye*, most individuals that deal with public shaming have only said or done something stupid (for lack of a better term) once.
To go back to Alicia Ann Lynch's case (the lady who was dumb enough to dress up as a Boston Marathon victim), a case that I consider to involve one of the most tasteless actions that I've read about, I still believe that the public shaming went too far. Yes, she's clearly an idiot, and yes, that was proven not only when she dressed up, not only when she showed up to work in the outfit but also when she posted the photo online; but still, even an idiot of this magnitude doesn't deserve to receive "threats of death, mutilation, and rape." This case is also an excellent representation of how public shaming can entangle innocent people who were not involved, as her parents (who, for all we know, are not idiots) received these same types of threats. While I've used the word 'idiot' probably half a dozen times so far in this article to describe this woman, I can't imagine how someone could actually threaten a person's life over a photo that reveals something that those threatening probably wouldn't even been aware of had it not been for the internet.
There is no doubt that the comments and stories that lead to large-scale public shaming involve poor decisions made by those who said/did whatever the incident in question is, but I do believe, after reading this article and hearing how public shaming has evolved with the use of the internet, that there needs to be some fashion of line drawn about appropriate and inappropriate reactions.
To further prove this point, think of the dumbest and most insensitive thing you've ever said. Did you not mean it? Did you say it when you were angry or when you were absolutely kidding? Did you say it ironically or sarcastically? It doesn't matter. Put it in written words, slap it somewhere on the internet, and prepare yourself for all hell to break loose. Chances are, we've all said or done something that would make us look really really bad if it were put on the internet, and while those publicly shamed aren't entirely undeserving of some of it, it's important to retain some amount of consideration.
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/woman-behind-boston-marathon-bombing-costume-blasts-critics-article-1.1508156
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