Module 13

                At the beginning of this semester I was not looking forward to this class at all. I thought that it would just be a huge waste of my time and I wouldn’t learn anything. I thought it would just be read something from a book and write about what you read. At first I thought that Friedman’s book, The World is Flat would be a super boring book. However I was very wrong and I learned a lot from this book. I think it opened up my mind to a lot of things.

 I read the title “The World is Flat” and thought well that’s stupid because it’s obviously not flat. Now after reading the book I’ve realized how right he is. I never would have thought of it that way unless I read this book. When I was younger I always thought that America was the best and had the best everything and nowhere else even compared. Growing up and going through this class helped me realize that there are other foreign countries that are just as advanced if not more advanced in somethings as we are.

A couple weeks ago I got to witness this first hand. I’m an IT developer at a software company called Reading Horizons and one of our employee’s emails was hacked by someone in Russia. After fixing the problem and making sure other people at the company wouldn’t get hacked I looked into people hacking from Russia. Russia actually has a crazy amount of hackers over there. There’s actually people that lived in America that were extremely good at hacking and Russia paid them to move to Russia and work for them. If I would have heard that when I was younger I wouldn’t have believed it.

This class also opened my mind to the artificial intelligence debate that has been going on. Before this class I wasn’t really sure where I stood in the argument. Now I know where I stand, I think that we should stay away from artificial intelligence because while it has a lot of pros to doing it I feel like the cons outweigh the pros. Not including the debate where if we taught them how to adapt by themselves that they would just take over the human race (which is very possible). I think that it would make millions of people lose their jobs and it would only benefit the big business owners and would save the owners a ton of money. Just for the sake of the economy I think we should stay away from artificial intelligence.

I’m actually very happy with the outcome of this class. I went in with my expectations really low and wasn’t expecting anything out of this class but I actually loved this class and got a lot out of it. I’m defiantly going to going to recommend this class to my friends to take.  

Module 12

            In this module we had to read the article “Why the future doesn’t need us” by Bill Joy. I absolutely love the topic of artificial intelligence because I love to see everyone’s outlook at it. I’m actually at a point where I love to hear both sides so much that both sides have such good points I can honestly see it going either way. So that scares me but it also excites me to see where this technology is going.

            In this article he basically says that he’s afraid of computer scientists succeeding in developing intelligent machines that can do better than humans can do. He thinks that if we let them make their own decisions that they could easily come to the conclusion that they could overturn us and become the more dominate species. Another point he has is that if we make them and we have humans control them that there will be some greedy human that will try to take over everything with their machines.

            I think that the author’s fears are very justified. In my opinion artificial intelligence is only going to take over people’s jobs and the unemployment rate will skyrocket. I think that if they don’t make a law about it that some very greedy people won’t care about the unemployment rate just because they will be saving money.

 That’s what worries me the most about all of this. I honestly think that the whole terminator thing with Skynet is very possible and it could happen but I’m looking at it from a simpler point of view because there’s really no way of saying what’s going to happen with all of that. I just think that the one percenter’s are going to try to push so that they can replace all of their employees with artificial intelligence so that they won’t have to pay their employees.

However when I do look at the bigger picture and thinking about if artificial intelligence could take over the world and just wipe out the human population. I think that they could easily do that depending on how far we take it. If we make them so that they can adapt and evolve then I think that they would take over and just totally wipe out the human race.  

Module 11

            I watched the film Wargames for my computer-related film. When I saw that the assignment was to watch a computer-related film I got really excited because a lot of my favorite films fit into this category. At first I didn’t know what to watch because I have so many favorites. I decided on Wargames because it’s one that I haven’t seen in a really long time so I couldn’t remember the whole thing.

            The film Wargames is about a kid that finds a way to hack into the governments military’s main computer. And basically creates an artificial intelligent computer that gets confused into thinking that the real world is a game and almost starts World War Three.

            When I was younger I thought that there’s no possible way that something like this would ever be able to happen. I thought that there wouldn’t be any way for someone to hack into the government’s computers. After years of maturing and learning more about computers I actually think that this is possible. I’ve actually read some books about hacking and I’ve found out that really anything can be hacked if the hacker can just find a way to break in if the creator of the firewall or even have physical access to the computer. I’ve found out that if a hacker has physical access to a computer they can get into it almost every time.

            Artificial intelligence is going to be very big advancement in our society. There are some people that are very afraid of artificial intelligence because they think that they are going to take over the world and somehow kill every human. One person in particular is Stephen Hawking. Stephen Hawking is terrified of artificial intelligence. He thinks that they will become way more advanced than humans and at a much more rapid rate. They’ll be able to re-design themselves before we would even know.

            I personally believe that because there are a lot of people that agree with Stephen Hawking that will push as hard as they can to make it so that there won’t ever be artificial intelligence. I don’t know exactly know where I sit in the argument of artificial intelligence because I can see very great things to come from it however I could see very bad things coming from it. So I guess we’ll see where the future will take us!    

Module 10

          When I first started reading “A Logic Named Joe” I was really confused and had absolutely no idea what he was talking about. It wasn’t until about the third paragraph that I finally decided to Google what logic was that he was talking about. In my search there were so many options that I just ended up getting more confused. So I just decided to finish the reading and see if I would understand after all the reading. Turns out after reading the short story I was still very confused. So I decided to take a break and come back to it after. After coming back to it I realized that the author was just very opened minded about the future and all the possibilities that came with it.

          One thing that I found funny is that he thought that all the information would be stored in buildings. He basically thought that if you could control how you got that information and how useful that would be. What I thought of when he said this was that it’s like a library that has a quicker search to find the information. Which he was pretty close because of search engines like Google. However he was scared that if we had access to that, we would have access to everything. Like there would be no filters and we wouldn’t be able to hide anything. Like just an average person could go and find the government’s deepest darkest secrets just from searching for it.

          Sure you can find out a lot of information on the internet about someone, probably even a creepy amount of information you can’t find out something like the government’s deepest darkest secrets because they have security on it that won’t allow the average person finding it.

          I find this all so crazy that he had pretty good ideas of the technologies that we would have today. I feel like if I was born in the time that this article was published I wouldn’t have had any idea of where technology was going. I have somewhat of an idea of where technology is going now. It’s probably not correct or even remotely correct but I’d like to think that it is.

          

Module 9

In this module we were required to read chapters fourteen through seventeen. In those chapters it talks about Friedman wants to see how his Dell laptop was made so he went to go see how they were made, it also talks about if Al-Qaeda has a supply chain, and lastly it talks about the "curse" of oil. 

Dell laptops are started by when one is ordered and from there, the manufactures get all the parts ordered from the supplier logistics centers. No matter where your Dell system is being built the supplier logistics center is always close by so that they can get started on your system right away. Once they get the parts that they need they use a design that was created in Texas. Their engineers get working on putting the system together.

Of course Al-Qaeda has a supply chain. I don’t think that most people in America realize how advanced they are. I think the majority of Americans think that they are just hiding in the mountains of the Middle East and then come out to attack when they can. They are just as advanced as we are here all because of the “flattening world.” They can access all the same things as we can.

The “curse” of oil is basically that there is so much money to be made from oil that very greedy men get put into power. I feel like the more money you have the greedier you are. Along with all that greed over in the Middle East there isn’t much government so there isn’t taxation on the oil and they just make so much money.

In this module we read chapters fourteen through seventeen talking about how Dell’s supply chain works and how all of their things are made. Also about Al-Qaeda has a supply chain and how they are getting so advanced because of the world flattening. Lastly we learned about the “curse” of oil and how it puts such greedy evil people in charge.

Module 8

            If it wasn’t for computers I honestly do not know where I would be today because I am majoring in NTM so if it wasn’t for computers I probably would not be going to college. I also would not have a job because that’s all my job is based on.

            I have known since I was thirteen that I wanted to work with computers for the rest of my life. Ever since I actually started using them and figuring out how they worked and all the things you could do with them I have wanted to learn more and more about them. I haven’t met another person that has known what they’ve wanted to do for the rest of their life that young and stuck with it.

            However if there weren’t computers my hand writing would probably be a million times better. I’ve never really worked on my hand writing because I’ve always just thought why would I write something down when I can type it at least four times faster? The last time I checked I could type one hundred words a minute on an actual keyboard and about eighty on my laptop.

            I’m an IT Developer for a small company called Reading Horizons. If it wasn’t for computers I would not have a job. My whole job revolves around computers. If I didn’t have computers I probably would be doing construction or some kind of hard labor. I would have just skipped going to college all together and I would have just tried to make as much as I could working hard labor. I’m very grateful that I don’t have to do that because that sounds awful. I absolutely love what I do and I’m so grateful for the opportunity that I’ve gotten from computers.

            Computers are such a big part of my life I use one every day. Some people would hate that because they don’t like sitting and starring at a computer screen all day. However I don’t see myself spending my life any other way. Computers are my passion, if I’m not doing schoolwork or working I’m playing computer games all the time. My life would be exponentially different if it wasn’t for them. There are some downsides to computers but there are just so many upsides from using them.    

Module 6

In this module we had to read chapters five through nine. In those chapters he talked 
about free trade, what skills and personality traits make a “new middler”, and what CQ + PQ > IQ means and why it’s important. I’m going to talk about free trade and explain my opinion on it, I’m also going to talk about the skills and personality traits that make a new middler, lastly I’m going to go in on CQ + PQ > IQ. 
Free Trade is a policy that in international markets that governments do not restrict imports or exports. I personally think that free trade is important. I believe that it is important for people that do not live in the United States. If we didn’t have free trade then a lot of people in other countries would not have a job. However I think that if we didn’t have free trade the United States would be able to help the economy because even though companies would have to spend more money it would be spent in our own economy while with outsourcing the money isn’t going into our economy. If you think that’s a good or bad thing just really depends on what way you look at it.  
The things that describe a “new middler” are they can take something complex and explain it very simple so that the average person will understand it. These people are usually teachers, journalists, managers, writers, producers, and editors. If we didn’t have these people in the world there wouldn’t be any doctors or really profession that involves something complex. Even though the people that do those jobs are very smart if they didn’t have a teacher they wouldn’t understand the complexity of the things they do by themselves. 
The equation CQ + PQ > IQ means curiosity and passion greatly outweigh intelligence. I personally think that is very accurate. If you find someone that is very intelligent but they are very lazy their intelligence really doesn’t do much. However if you have someone who is curious and passionate about what they are doing they will always be a better worker. This is very important because that’s what a lot of employers look for now-a-days. If they feel like you are passionate about it and willing to learn they will take you over the smart lazy person almost every time. 
In this module we read about free trade and learned what it is and why it’s important. We also read about what “the middler” is and why they are important to today’s society. My personal favorite part of this was the CQ + PQ > IQ. That explains that curiosity and passion outweighs intelligence. 

Module 4

            I really lucked out on this week’s module because I work at a software company. So I interviewed my boss; his job title is System Admin. The interview involved questions like what are your responsibilities, what are your hours, and do you like your job. I also researched the job description for what a System Admin is.

            From what I researched I found out that the job description and requirements for a System Admin is, operations and support, maintenance, complex problem solving, discretion latitude decision making, financial and supervisory, and good communication skills. You usually need your bachelor’s degree with a technical major, such as engineering or computer science. 

My boss’ name is Doug he’s honestly the smartest person I’ve ever met in my life. If you have a question to anything he knows the answer and if he doesn’t know then give him a half hour to himself and he will be able to tell you everything about that. I asked him about his responsibilities are for the company. He told me that he makes sure that all the servers are up and running and make sure if they’re running efficiently, he also is working on integrating the old intranet to a new one. He makes sure that all of the orders are put in correctly for our sales team and we are moving locations in the summer so he is trying to find good prices on getting cables and internet deals for the new building. He also does security for everything we have.

Doug’s answer on his hours is mainly whatever he wants but he likes to do 9AM to 6 or 6:30 PM. The reason he  works such long hours is because he works what’s called 9-9’s which means he works nine hours a day and has every other Friday off. The way he can do that without working overtime is because his work week starts halfway through Friday.

            When I asked Doug how he liked his job he told me that he loves the company that he works for because it’s such an awesome company for what we do and how beneficial we are to people that don’t know how to read English. However when it comes down to his actual job he say that it can defiantly can be very stressful at times because management is always breathing down his neck to get this and that done faster but he really loves what he does. 

I feel like Doug does a lot more than your average System Admin. He doesn’t even have his bachelor’s degree. Some of the reason he has the job he has is because he started with Reading Horizons back when he was seventeen as an intern. He’s now twenty-five and even though he technically isn’t qualified because he doesn’t have his degree, I feel like he is qualified for something much more than just a System Admin because of his experience and how smart he is with everything. 

             

            

Module 3

            In this module Friedman talks about more “Flatteners.” In the first part he talks about offshoring and what the difference between offshoring and outsourcing. The second part is about what a supply chain is and what the advantages they have. The last part is about how Google has affected business.

            Offshoring is shifting the location of a service or production to a location abroad (over shores.) For example if you have a company here in Utah and you have someone writing code for you over in India. Offshoring is very similar to outsourcing because they have the same concept. However the difference between the two is that outsourcing can be to someone that just doesn’t work for the company. For example using a contractor do use a job would be considered outsourcing because they are in the same country, yet they are still aren’t employed by the company. 

            Supply chains are a system of organizations, people, activities, information, and resources involved in moving a product or service from supplier to customer. They transform natural resources, raw materials, and components into a finished product that is delivered to the end customer. The way it works with Wal-Mart is when you’re buying things there as soon as the cashier scans it a signal will go off that lets the supplier know that they need  to make more. They like to call it “the Wal-Mart Symphony” in multiple movements with no finale. The supply chain is running at all times and never stops. There is no bigger supply chain than Wal-Mart. They move 2.3 billion in general merchandise a year. There isn’t going to be someone that is going to put Wal-Mart out of business because starting a huge supply chain like that is not easy. The only way that they would go out of business is that the stock market crashed and they had to go under because of it. Even after that it would take a long time for a company to start a big supply chain like that again.

            Google is such a big part of today’s society. They made it possible to find something on the internet without exactly know what you need to do to find it. In the book they used an example of how this guy met a friend and another guy at a restaurant (for a date I’m guessing). He was worried about the guy that they met with so he looked him up on a Google search and found out that he was arrested for a felony assault. So he was able to warn his friend about the guy because of google. Google is the most widely used search engine. I know that at my job alone I use Google at least fifty times a day. I’m sure that my coworkers are in the same boat. It’s almost hard to imagine a world without it especially because of how much I use it in a day.

            In this module Friedman finished off his “Flatteners” talking about offshoring and going into how it’s different from outsourcing. He also talked about how supply chains like Wal-Mart are huge part of today’s society. Lastly was about Google and why that is so important. 

Module 2

This module was about the Flattener number three through number five. Flattener number three was about workflow software and what it is. Flattener number four is about open source software and how it’s important. Flattener is about outsourcing and why it’s so important in today’s society.   

            Work flow software is what helps employees stay on task and keep track of what they need to be doing. It can be very useful so that employers know that their employees are getting their work done and they aren't stealing company time. An example of this would be at my job I work for a small software company called Reading Horizons. We use a work flow software called Pivotal Tracker. It’s very useful because it makes us know exactly what upper management wants and when they want it done by. Usually work flow software is very easy to use and is very beneficial to the company because you can do things like tasks and projects. Before this I imagine that it was really easy for employees that worked in this field it was very easy to steal time from the company.

            Open source software is software that can be freely used by anyone. Usually open source software is made by a lot of people and distributed under licenses that comply with open source. Open source in my opinion is very important because it’s free. Anything that is free now-a-days is very important especially software because usually when a company wants to build a software it takes a lot of hours, people, and can be very costly. With open source software it makes it so that companies don’t have to spend all that money on it. At my work right now I’m actually looking for a good open source time sheet. If I don’t find a good open source one then I’ll have to build it myself and that will cost my company a lot of my hours worked rather than it being free from an open source.

            The definition of outsourcing is to obtain goods or service from an outside or foreign supplier. In the developing world outsourcing is very important because a company can hire someone to come into their office every day and pay them a lot of money, or they can outsource and hire someone that lives in India and pay them close to nothing to do the exact same job. Luckily my work doesn’t out source and we have a full development team in our office. I’m very glad that my work isn’t seeing that the world is flat and outsourcing when they easily could be getting the same product for much cheaper from somewhere else.

            In this module Friedman is still showing us how the world is flattening and just giving us more reasons. With workflow and how it’s keeping employees on task, open source software that is saving companies a lot of money, and outsourcing which is companies hiring people from outside countries to do the same job for much cheaper.

Module 1

               In the first part it talks about how Friedman how the world is becoming flat because of globalization and what the difference between Globalization 1.0 differs from Globalization 2.0 and Globalization 3.0. In the Flattener number one it’s about the New Age of Creativity and the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and why that was so important to him. In the Flattener number two it’s about the New Age of Connectivity and why Netscape going public was so important.

            Globalization 1.0 was from 1492 to about 1800. Globalization 2.0 was from about 1800 to about 2000. Globalization 3.0 is from 2000 to present day. There are some similarities between the three. For example all of them “shrank the world” in a sense that they all made it easier for everyone to trade goods, or just communicate in general. But they are all different from each other. Globalization 1.0 makes the world go from large to medium, Globalization 2.0 makes the world go from medium to small, and Globalization 3.0 makes the world go from small to tiny.

In 1.0 the force driving the global integration was brawn. So basically if you had the money and power you had the head start on being the best. For countries that didn’t have the money they would be way behind the bigger counties. In 2.0 the force of driving the global integration was multinational companies. The industrial Revolution was the main reason that 2.0 started. There were better ways to travel, communicate. In 3.0 the force of driving the global integration was the unique character. As Friedman explains it helped even the playing field to other smaller counties. When I say smaller countries I don’t mean population wise I mean smaller as in technology. In 2000 computers started to become cheaper and more accessible to everyone. Because everyone has computers they all can talk to each other instantly even if they are in a different country or sitting ten feet away from them.     

            The Berlin wall coming down was important because it was a symbol that the cold war was over. To Friedman it was important because it made it possible for the people on the other side of the wall join the economic mainstream instead of them being locked out because of the wall.

            The story of the Netscape is important because the Web broadened the users for the Internet. It made it so that everyone could use it instead of just for computer nerds.  They made it possible to communicate through the internet and so that everyone would want or need a computer if they wanted to move forward in society.

            Friedman showed how the world is actually getting smaller because it’s easy to get something from the United States to China just from over the internet when back before 1492 they didn’t even know that North America even existed. The world just keeps getting smaller and smaller. Who knows where our technology will take us in the future.