The Technology Clipboard: Part 2

The Digital Family - Five videos chats with phone conferencing.  This last month my family was able to reconnect from five different locations at the same time.  With five video chats and a telephone conferencing service we were able to connect from Utah to Texas to Indiana and on.  It was good to be able to see my little nieces and nephews, but it still wasn't anything like when we were all physically together a few months prior.


Reflections of Cicero - The problem with Philosophy, is when they find something so amazing, that they cant even live it.

Free Market: Economics of Ideas - In an eloquent dissent in U.S. Supreme Court case, Abrams v. United States (1919), Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. asserted, “the ultimate good . . . is better reached by free trade in ideas—that the best test of truth is the power of the thought to get itself accepted in the competition of the market. . . .”

The Growing Technology Clipboard

Here is a list of things that have been sitting and growing on my clipboard of ideas and concepts that I have wanted to post full topics on but have been unable to find the hours required to a solid report on each of them.  I will have to leave them each with a few details and leave it for future expounding.

I. Social Capital - The influence of technology.  A few years ago I read an amazing book on Social Capital called "Bowling Alone" by Robert Putnam and wrote a full essay on the affects of technology to Social Captial.  He talks about how over time the balance of society has changed and social capital has been affected by changes in technology.  He discusses the phenomenon of how more people go to the bowling alleys but yet less join actual bowling teams or groups.  He takes this and then goes off and talks of a lot of other more political institutions and connections that have undergone change.



II. Apocalipsis - Marco Denevi.  For my Spanish composition class during the summer I read and critically analyzed an article called "Apocalipsis" or Apocalypse by Marco Denevi from Argentina.  He writes of how over time the machines we create will take over all the tasks.  We as humans will no longer have a need to do anything and will become lazy.  And then he goes on to describe how Artificial Intelligence will become so intelligent that it will no longer need us.  And in the end - just like I-Robot - we will be eliminated and technology will rein.


III. New York Times - Can't focus.  A few weeks ago I read a very interesting article in the New York times entitled Attached to Technology and Paying a price.  The article addressed the issues of the connection to the digital world and disconnection to the people who live around us.  Its addresses a family who through there new toys like Ipads and their limitless connection with wireless technology have unlimited connection to the net.  But at the same time they are losing a lot of the basic bonds and connections of having a family.  Its like the story of two roommates sitting back to back or side to side on two computers and sending messages over the computer instead of vocally speaking to the person sitting right next to them.

Economics of Life

Thinking about economics and the changing economic structures throughout time I have enjoyed reading a blog about taking about Economic Principles and applying them to everyday life.  The blog is called "The Sassy She-conomist.

 http://thesassyshe-conomist.blogspot.com/

For example in one of the posts the author talks about one of the principles of economics, scarcity of knowledge and its impact in our decision making.  The author writes about how guys who are engaged should ware rings, because it is an easy but clear way of transferring knowledge.  Because without that simple knowledge it leads to some bad or more so awkward decision making by outside parties... :)

I really enjoy these simple but true application of economic principles that hit a little closer to home that the shift of unimaginable and overwhelmingly large markets

(You make have to email the author for permission to enter the blog.)

3 4 5 and counting ~ Philosophical Transactions

In my recent browsing on the web I stumbled upon what I am pretty sure to be the longest running scientific journal in the west and possibly in the entire world.  I thought the Mormon Tabernacle Choir had a long running with 100 years of recording, but this journal triples them.  For the past 345 years the Royal Society has been producing the scientific journal entitled "Philosophical Transactions."

The Journal Philosophical Transactions continues its original pursuits of disseminating knowledge to the scientific community.  It covers a broad range of all the sciences and in the last century has been divided into two full publications covering all areas of scientific knowledge.

From there site you can get open access to many documents, but some still require an account or purchasing a copy of the original documents.

I would highly recommend this site as a place to look if you are studying the sciences and want to get a perspective from any of the last few centuries.

Does the sole lack of evil make it wholesome?

If something does not have anything bad, does that inherently make it good?

In my recent studies I found an article by a BYU Professor, Travis T Anderson, who hits on the core concept of this blog.  This draws back a week or so to our discussions on humanism, but I found it far to relevant to overlook.  In his essay he brings to light some of the core concepts of finding things which are truly wholesome and virtuous.

Latin America ~ September 2010

BRAZIL: Presidential candidate Dilma Rousseff is well on her way to become Brazil's first female president.  Backing her campaign she has the support of the outgoing leader Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and has opened up a commanding 24-point lead in opinion polls ahead of the October 3 election.  What does this new President mean for Brazil?  Ms Roussef comes from the background of an economist and looks set to bring further economic growth in the coming decade for the B in BRIC.

(New York Times, “Lula's chosen successor opens up huge lead in Brazilian polls.” 15 Sep 2010.)

SANTIAGO, Chile: Chilean President Sebastián Piñera said a massive rescue effort is on track to bring 33 trapped miners out of the ground by the holidays and possibly sooner, and described the men's morale as good, while one rescue drill resumed work after almost a week out of action.

Mr. Piñera also said Chile's economy is on track to grow almost 6% this year adding that some wealthier countries enduring a less-favorable economic outlook were paying the price of having lived beyond their means. He also said that Chile will create 250,000 jobs this year with investment growing by 25%. 

(The Wall Street Journal. “Chile Miners Are on Track for Rescue, President Says” Matt Moffett. September 15, 2010.)

Staying Connected through Google Documents

This last week I had the chance to hear from Sean Watson as he tooled around with Google Documents for the first time.  He shared some great insights from his expedition into this new frontier of online collaboration of documents.  The basic concept behind it all is described in this video...



Afterwards I was able to share with him a few experiences that I have had over the years with google documents.  I was able to share how it has helped me connect both with my family and classmates.

24/7 Alibi

In the BYU MOA a few months ago there was a very interesting exhibit.  The exhibit was a large white screen that had projected upon it a map with marker over the location of an individual.  This person had found himself a few years ago caught with out a solid alibi and was falsely accused of a crime.  Over time he was able to prove his innocence, but only after much difficulty.  Desiring to never be without an alibi again in his life he set up his own personal 24/7 alibi.

The man let the whole world know where he was at at all times.  What he did was pretty simple.  He kept a GPS constantly with him that fed his locational information back to a internet serve.  The server would then constantly display his location at all times to the whole world on an online webpage.  That way at any time he would always have a personal alibi.  He gave up his personal privacy for constant legal protection.  Today, anyone can do the same, but between friends.  I was introduced to this tool this last week by Morgan Wills called Google Latitude.

Playing with Prezi

I had a little fun this last week playing around and learning how to use Prezi.  Over the years I have had fun creating a colage of pictures from some of the best moments of that year.  So I decided to take my old colages and step it up this year with a Prezi presentation.  Although I will likely revamp it at the end of the year, it was fun to play around with and to share with family and friends.

Here it is...

The Mormons are Renaissance Humanist

I had a naissance of understanding of the origins of humanism in the renassance.

I was reading Pico della Mirandola's writings in the "Manifesto of the Renaisance," when I came to find the true origins of humanism.  The early humanist view was that man is what he makes himself to be; but we all know that.  However the original thought was not that man is independent of God, but that God willing he has a heavenly potential.  Mirandola states: "Their concern was to define the human place in God's plan and the relation of the human to the divine; therefore, they centered all their thought on the "human" relation to the divine, and hence called themselves "humanists."

With this view on things, I dare say the LDS church is full of humanists.  For is that not what we too seek -- to understand and improve our relations with God?  Its an interesting way to look at things.  Within the original humanist thought comes foreshadowing statements echoed in Sunday School today.  "Let a holy ambition enter into our souls; let us not be content with mediocrity, but rather strive after the highest and expend all our strength in achieving it." (Mirandola)  Although the words are stated according to the eloquence of the instructor, the message remains the same.

Two new Toys

I decided to go out an explore some of the extensions for Google Chrome and I came across two more toys to add to the toolbox.  The first one is a screen capture add-on called "Webpage Screenshot" and the second is a stumbleupon extension.  They can both be found here.

The Webpage Screenshot is a very simple extension with two major features.

1. One it can create a screenshot of just what you see in a single webpage.  Or the second option is it will scroll through the entire page and make one large screen capture of the entire page.
2. The second function is very nice when you are trying to capture something larger than one page and don't want to have to doodle around with paint all day trying to re-aline the picture.   (However be careful.  If the webpage is really long it will take a minute or two for it to scroll down and capture the entire page!)

Next I was doodling around with stumbleupon.  I would not recommend this for anyone who is ADD and has troubles with wasting hours online doing nearly nothing.  For in its essence, it is designed to keep you occupied.  You select a category and it jumps to a website that it thinks you will enjoy.
(This touches on our conversations with Artificial Intelligence.  It could easily replace the local apartment surfer that goes around trying to waste everyones times.)
Anyhow, the biggest problem with this extension is that it works.  It found something that I enjoyed scanning through that really didn't add much to my life.  I used the Webpage Screenshot extension to document one of my findings...

It gave me a website with a lits of logos and hidden meanings within them.  If you care to let time slip away you can find the website here.

I feel like this only adds to the words of George Macaulay Trevelyan, “[Education] has produced a vast population able to read but unable to distinguish what is worth reading.”
George Macaulay Trevelyan, English Social History: A Survey of Six Centuries, Chaucer to Queen Victoria (London: Longmans, Green and Company, 1942), 582.

Paradigm Shifts

One of the greatest challenges that the progress and advancement of technology brings into the world is that of paradigm shifts.  Paradigms, the frameworks from which we view the world around us, cause us to see a very establish perspective.  We build up so much confidence in our understanding of how the world works that we even filter facts to help prove our understanding.  However, when our paradigms fall short of the full truth, we face the inevitable and rough correction or reconciliation with reality.  An example of such comes from the planetary models.

The world came nothing short of kicking and screaming to finally adapt and change from Aristotle’s view of the solar system to the more correct findings of Copernicus and Galileo.  They held off in defense of all that had been written and even ties to religion.  But over time the truth broke through and the world experienced a slow but sure paradigm shift to a new model.  This process however took lifetimes to fully pass through all the barriers of the social norm.  The advancement of communication however, causes a paradigm shift on paradigm shifts.

Today paradigms can be completely destroyed and modified in a matter of minutes.  A single press conference of cutting edge technology with new performance capabilities can be broadcasted around the world at the rate of a near live stream.  Past capabilities are left behind and the competition changes once more as in an instant the new standard is set.  Technology enables paradigms to shift at an increasingly rapid rate.

Utopia – an ideal society.

In the text “Utopia” Thomas More presents an idealistic society. It’s very interesting to note that one of the refining attributes of this Utopian society is an innate love of learning.

They slowly go about seeking out for knowledge like a sponge reaching out seeping ever so slowly from the world around. They take every little lesson from the past and seek out the inspiration that the very authors once had. And once they catch a vein of intelligence that becomes enlightening unto them, they don’t stop learning. They keep going. They keep seeking and searching for more. They take the forgotten intellectual advancements of the past and put them into practice. In a very specific manner, this perfect society uses technology to promote the spread of quality learning. “Their minds thus filled with a love of learning, they are very ingenious in the discovery of all those arts which are necessary to its promotion.” They take the technological advancement of a new form of press to publish and spread great works of literature to the masses.

A Utopian society uses technology to deliver those things of the most worth to the masses.  Technology can be used to support the spread of the knowledge of the greatest worth.

Inquiry

Can technology and refinement coexist?

We live in a modernized world.  The one constant is that of change and technological advancements.  Every day data is developed and sustained in new systems, changing the way we gather and understand the growing pool of knowledge all around us.  We interact through new mediums and live lives attached to the information highway.  In every waking instant we have multiple modes of connection to immediate entertainment or pleasure. 

But in the simplicity of the systems, are we losing the longer prolonged pleasures?  Does civilization short cut civility for the effortless enjoyment?  “Could our society produce a Newton or a Mozart?” (Douglas L. Callister)  Can a refined society survive the torrent of technology? 

Or on the contrary, does innovation spring from information?  Does the development of new virtual tools link us and reinvigorate connections that otherwise would be impossible?

What role does civilized society perform on the stage of a technological play?