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Longish post on the Black Mirror—part two

Now that I have listed the differences between the Grain and the brain, we can analyze them side by side and I’d like to argue that the Grain cannot replace the brain, although it could be a good supplement. The reasons are the Grain leaves little room for human subjectivity, which can lead to unexpected inspirations. Also, the Grain cannot replace the job of brain’s unconsciousness, which is a big part of the organic memory.

  As mentioned in the previous post, while the Grain is extremely precise, organic memory is just a human “scrapbook” subject to new doodles and editions. If we are talking about a memorization contest, that surely the Grain is superior. However, in reality life is not just about recalling or recognizing. Pure inspirations such as creativity also form a big part of human civilizations. Where does creativity come from? The details about creativity are described in my final paper but the main point is simply that the organic memories stored in our brain can be processed together (though we can be totally ignorant of that process going on) to “incubate” something original and new. Yes our brain alters the details of our memories every time we think about it. But it is also this kind of edition, by both consciousness (such as an attitude) and unconsciousness (such as emotion), that creates something beautiful. That is great but we must have these stored in brain in the first place. Unfortunately the Grain is no “mental hatchery” and cannot mimic the wonderful process of human “incubation”.

  The fact that the Grain cannot mimic the unconscious not only obstructs creativity, but it is likely to damage our performance just in every daily task, even the simplest ones like riding a bike or swimming. The reason again lies with the unique composition of our biological brain, that it is composed not only of conscious memory, the ones we can recall and ruminate, but the unconscious memory that stores vast amount of information. The truly marvelous merit of the unconscious is that although we are not “paying attention to it” (like breathing), it functions properly and independently. It does not require our explicit instructions or anything, but it helps us in a significant way. For example, whenever we start biking, our unconscious implicit memory will instruct the muscle groups to move in tune with each other. Do we ever have to think about it? No, because the unconscious does all that for us. Now if we replace organic memory with the Grain. The same task in this scenario will be cumbersome, to say the very least, to complete. We’d have to pull up the “redo”s of when we first learnt to bike and follow what we did in that clip. But it seems we can never master such skills with only Grain. In fact, it is almost impossible to proceed with everyday living if we are forced to be in charge of the various jobs the unconscious previously performs. Moreover, since we have to pay attention to the most trivial yet essential tasks like how to hold a pencil, we can hardly concentrate and productivity will drop to approximate zero.

  I’d like to end with a quote from Nicholas Carr, author of the Shallows who posed the question of whether Google is making us all stupid or not, “the richness of memory is that it exists in time, changing as the body changes”. And that is all happening within the unconscious we don’t even have to worry about. Therefore, the Grain can prove to be an excellent supplement to human memory, but it cannot replace it, because memory is not just “for living”, it is for definition and advancement of mankind.

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Longish post on the Black Mirror—part one

As powerful as the super Grain seems to be, I’d like to sort out the differences between the Grain and human memory and argue that while it could be a useful supplement, it cannot replace human memory per se. The two parts will be discussed in succession.

  The Grain is different from human memory chiefly in two aspects: their composition and precision.

  First off, human memory is made up of several components interacting with each other while each one has a distinct function. They are short-term memory, working memory, and long-term memory. Moreover, long-term memory can be sorted into explicit memory or implicit memory. However, the Grain only mimics one of these—the explicit long-term memory. I do not plan to go into the nitty-gritty of psychological memory theories, but the bottom line about human memory is this: despite the amount of experiences we store in our brain and can recall or recognize, there is a vast portion of human’s memory that is also stored but is controlled by the unconsciousness. In other words, if we can picture Freud’s iceberg analogy of the conscious mind and the unconscious mind, the bulk of the memory is deep under water, out of our conscious reach. In contrast, the Grain, as we can see in the episode, is well within our conscious. Aided by the Grain, the characters in the episode can not only instantly view any fragment and moment of “their entire history”, but they seem to know, to be aware of, all of these memory. In other words, they are able to recall precisely everything, which is not possible for human without a Grain to do about implicit memory. That’s why the Grain resembles human explicit long-term memory above all.

  Next, since we mentioned precision, I think it is very clear from the episode that the Grain stores our “history” without even the finest margin of error. It records and presents precisely what we experienced, what we saw, in a particular moment of our history. In fact, it is this very nature of the Grain that let Liam suspect, check, and confirm his wife’s adultery. Our human memory, on the other hand, is nowhere near that precise. The middle-aged lady Lynn in the episode correctly points out to the crowd that “organic memory is not trustworthy”, in the sense that what we claim to remember could be a total figment of our imagination. Moreover, information stored in the Grain is much harder to alter compared to what stored in our brain. The one and perhaps only one alteration we can apply to the Grain is to delete the “Lot”, or a complete set of memories and nothing else. But our own memory, in contrast, is almost in the total opposite polarity. It can be edited very easily, especially by “leading questions” and our repeated imaginations. A group of psychologists once did a study in which they asked child participants to imagine for a consecutive week that their parents took them out for shopping during last Christmas. A week later when asked what they did last Christmas, sure enough almost every one claims to have done shopping and many described it vividly and in huge detail as if it was real. So compared to the stable Grain which will accompany us “for entire life”, organic memory is a dynamic Photoshop, changing whenever our unconscious decides to interfere.

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Last Long Post! Woot woot.

     In the ever growing internet world, more and more people are coming up with different ways to use the internet. With billions of people in the world, some individuals are taking advantage and creating false accounts on social networks. These false accounts can be used for multiple reasons such as pranking and catfishing. Catfishing is when someone pretends to be someone they are not, in other words creating false identities, on social media. Here is an example of a group of people who took catfishing to a whole other level.

     In the article, police had been looking for a reported lost child, only to find out that he never existed. A woman called the police claiming to be the great-aunt of the kid, stating that she had last seen the child the previous week and believed he had been kidnapped. The police searched for days with no clues, but then after a search on Facebook they realized they were searching for nothing. There were pictures of the boys alleged mother and father, but absolutely no evidence that they were real. In fact, it is believed that the teenage daughter and cousin of the "great-aunt" were the ones who set up the false Facebook account and pirated pictures from other accounts.

     In todays online world, cases like these are becoming more prevalent. The internet is beginning to be used for cynical purposes. While the internet has its benefits, such as allowing people all across the world to acquire any knowledge they want, there are still its downfalls. People are beginning to exploit the cons of the web, and creating more issues for the physical world.

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The Internet of Things

When we consider the fact that the internet itself has only been around for about two decades we should be amazed at the progress and integration of the internet into our lives. Centuries ago it took weeks to to write out meaningful letters and ship them across the country, now it takes seconds to merely send a smiley face.

If we stop for a minute and look around, we see the internet everywhere. In our pockets (cellphones), in our glasses (Google Glass), on our watches (Samsung Galaxy wear). However, we have to consider the negatives of this expansive progression of the internet. Sure the benefits of having the internet integrated onto our toilets might be "amazing" to some, but then where would it stop. Integrated shoes and clothing? Integrated beds? At some point we will realize that the internet is beginning to resemble an invasive species.

Sure the internet is useful, who wouldn't want to order pizza from the refrigerator after it tells you that there is no produce inside. Sure it would be extremely useful if our washing machines would tell us when the wash cycles are done so we do not have to plan our days around cleaning. But, is it really worth it? Do we really need the internet to be facing us everywhere we turn?

I'm not advocating that the internet needs to be halted, but we need to remember how to be able to do things ourselves. When cellphone came out and had the ability to store phone numbers, that "ability" was lost from one generation to the next because it was not needed. With the introduction of the internet, we do not have to memorize every little detail, we can simply look it up online.

At some point in the near future, I'm willing to bet that the internet will be integrated into our brains via a small chip, just as we saw in the Black Mirror episode. At that point, what would life really be like? You wouldn't necessarily have to go to school for as long. You would just need to learn how to read and write. Everything else you could simply look up.   

Sure this may come off as a cynical outlook on the Internet, and most may dismiss it because the internet has undoubtedly made our lives easier. But just because the Internet made our lives easier does not mean we need to dumb down everything else. The internet of things is something that we need to look out for, soon will come the day where we will come to value the answer over the process. Oh wait...

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This video has been trending on Facebook for the past couple of days so chances are, you’ve seen it. If you haven’t though, here’s a quick summary. Basically, Gary Turk believes that our phones prevent us from having meaningful relationships with those around us. By putting our phone down, he argues that we can have experiences and make connections that change our lives for the better. The video shows a man asking a woman for directions, then they start dating, get married, have kids, and grow old together. Gary’s point is that this man may not have met the love of his life if he had a phone in his hands for directions. However, using that same logic, people who meet their soul-mate online would never have that connection if they put their technology down.

I agree with Gary’s point that there is beauty in the world that we miss by looking at our phones. By putting our phones down, we can experience the small yet special moments in life. But there is also beauty in Skyping with family that lives hundreds of miles away. Or maybe the most special moment of your day is when your best friend sends you a Snapchat with a drawing of Spiderman on her face and you reply with a drawing of Ironman (it happened to me!). Technology doesn’t have to draw you apart from those around you, if you use it wisely. Rather, it can bring you closer to people who otherwise might not have a daily presence in your life.

He also compares his childhood experience to the current generation’s. Since today’s generation spends less time in playgrounds or treehouses, he believes they are missing out on an integral part of childhood. I agree that kids should spend time outdoors. It’s healthy and fun. However, just because today’s children also spend more time on technology than their parents doesn’t mean their childhood is worse, just different. Our society is becoming more and more technologically advanced each minute, so it’s only practical that our children need to be proficient with technology because it will have a greater role in their adult lives than ours.

We can’t live in a society that constantly aims to be better and not expect changes in people’s behavior and priorities. Of course, some beliefs should never be lost, such as the importance of spending time with family. But to compare the value of time I spend playing video games with my cousin versus a boy playing on the swings with his friends and to say the former was time “wasted by looking…at some convention” is unfair. Both are different forms of interaction and both have their unique value.

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Long Post on CodeBabes, by Teja

A few days ago, Caroline posted a link about a website called “Codebabes” that uses stripping women to teach men to code. A week ago, I also came across the same link and I had an in-depth conversation with my roommate about this, after which I was left with a lot of questions and concerns.

This may sound horrible, but the first thought that came to my mind was why not a version to teach women to code with stripping men? The computer science world currently has more males than females. Throughout the past few years, people have been advocating for the need of more females in the field. If anything, women should be encouraged to code, not men.

I think this speaks to a larger problem at the root of our society- men are typically labeled as sex-crazy, hormone driven animals while women are the ones with more self-control. An example of this can be seen in the gaming world. Many games have scantily-clad female characters with skinny hips, huge breasts, etc because the idea is that the majority of gamers (which are men) are interested in that.  However, I don’t know of any games that have an equivalent depiction of male characters. Does this mean that only men are interested in sex, not women?

I’m not saying that either gender should be objectified. Again, let me emphasize that I DO NOT think EITHER gender should be objectified. But by only objectifying women, we create this idea that sex is something only men are interested in. If our society truly believes in gender equality, we should create an environment where girls can feel comfortable in their sexuality.

I know this is a weird stance to take on this whole topic and I really hope I’m not offending anyone. However, I feel that people would be less upset if Codebabes was Codebros. To me, that is not gender equality. 

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Long post woot woot!

     So it appears big data is becoming a topic of interest amongst our tumblr. Here is an example of a pregnant woman who is actually trying to avoid big data. This was a social experiment by Janet Vertesi, assistant professor of sociology at Princeton University. Vertesi tried to hide from the Internet the fact that she's pregnant, which is actually a surprisingly difficult task. As you can imagine, a consumer is more likely to purchase stuff if they are expecting a child. Therefore, big data likes to target pregnant woman and match as many ads with them as possible. Vertesi wanted to see if she could avoid being targeted, and made all physical purchases with cash to avoid any information on her credit cards or store-loyalty cards. If she desired something online, she used an Amazon account linked to an email address on a personal server and had all packages delivered to a local locker, as well as making sure to only use Amazon gift cards she bought with cash. To even make sure she was not being traced while browsing, Janet used Tor, an internet privacy tool that prevents corporations from learning your location or browsing habits.

     Just performing all of these actions to avoid being traced is a handful, but what is these efforts are also shot down? Since Vertesi used Amazon gift cards to buy online, she once had her husband attempt to buy $500 worth of these cards for a stroller. However, during the process a notice at the Rite Aid counter said the company had a legal obligation to report excessive transactions to the authorities. Thus, an attempt to buy a stroller online actually turned into flagging people as potential criminals as usually these kind of activities are done for illegal purposes.

     Therefore, it can be quite scary the amount of control big data has. If you wish to avoid being traced, you have to undergo many tasks as Vertesi pointed out. Furthermore, attempting to avoid big data can only go so far as they have implemented safeguards to catch anyone who is trying to go around their tracing. In a way, it is as if we already have a "grain" implemented in our online lives as big data can look into your personal searches in an attempt to control your online shopping. People need to be aware that we are giving corporations personal information that we do not even intend to. Whether it be what artists we like, what topics we tend to search up, or whether if we are expecting a child. The internet is knowing us better than ever before, yet some people may not realize it. It is becoming quite creepy that we are giving away more and more of our information, and we sometimes can not opt out of it. If the acquiring of information continues, imagine what corporations could learn from you by just performing everyday searches. Looking at it from an exaggerated perspective, a grain might as well be implemented that allows companies to see our everyday life habits.

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Sorry, I still never quite figured out how to use Disqus, so this is my response to Zhe's post about the government and big data.

  As an amateur statistician I understand the power that big data holds. The ability to make objective decisions about how to proceed lies in analyzing trends in data and forecasting the future. In fact, many companies are moving to this model; Spotify is one of them. Spotify is a data-driven company by culture but also in their product. Recommended artists, the "Radio" feature, and others all use algorithms to sort through the billions of pieces of data generated by Spotify listeners as they hop from track to track. These algorithms look at what people are listening to determine what artists are related to one another, which allows the program to curate a custom selection of recommended artists for every user based on other users' preferences. 

“ if the public is aware of who the congressman meet with before voting and where his campaign donation money come from, then the forces shaping the decision and the interests of various parties involved would be very clear. “

I completely agree with Zhe that having public records of the actions of congressmen would remove a veil of secrecy and make deceit much less possible within the government. However, and my perception of this may be slightly skewed from watching House of Cards, I understand that the government is practically run secretly and deceptively; having such data available to the public, especially if all released at once, would create  a drastically different culture in government. Perhaps we are not ready for this dramatic shift.

Big data is a powerful thing with massive implications, but perhaps it would be much better suited for private business, as you mention at the end of your post.

open government with big data

Open government in the age of big data

Big data is a powerful tool that can be used to rationalize the current trend and to predict future. The effects of such a powerful tool is deeply felt in every part of the society, and the government is no exception. Now there is already a strong consensus among leaders both inside and outside the current administration that public access to such data should be granted. For example, sunlight foundation, a non-profit organization has been pushing the congress to release all public records since 2006. Also, Obama has made transparency his priority on  his first day in office, urging federal agencies to act “ with a clear presumption: in the face of doubt, openness prevails”.(Economist)

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The Grain & Education

Although a little belated, I wanted to discuss the world we saw in Black Mirror with the amazing Grain. While others have discussed the Grain in terms of its effects on personal relationships, I wanted to discuss what the Grain would mean for education in America, how it could be potentially helpful, and how we aren’t that far from a Grain world anyway.

As young adults trudging through the American education system, we are well aware of its shortcomings. Grades should not be our sole motivators, our GPA should not define us, and we should not choose our major based on what will give us the most money in the future.  Unfortunately, these are pervasive realities that define and have a massive part in shaping our high school and undergraduate experiences.

The ability to preserve every memory perfectly in the Grain should have obvious implications for testing. The Grain world, then, must adapt its testing system, and consequently its entire education system, accordingly. Besides enforcing rules (or laws) that students must keep their Grains off during school hours, I think there is a way to incorporate the Grain in school that may improve education.

I imagine that, in the Grain universe, tests would be less focused on remembering facts, and more focused on applying concepts. Perhaps social science examinations could be geared more toward writing position papers. For engineering, there would be no more need to memorize formulas and theorems verbatim. Exams could be focused on applying these to real-world problems, just as an engineer would do on the job. This sort of examination would exercise the student’s capacity for critical thought, something measures more valuable than their rote memorization skills.

Honestly, we aren’t too far off from this Grain universe. We own devices that can store an enormous amount of information, but we prohibit them in testing environments. I believe it is possible to implement them in a way that is beneficial to students. Along the lines of how we’ve begun to implement iPads in the classroom, technology should be at the forefront of education reform.

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4Chan & Anonymous

When we discussed 4Chan and Anonymous earlier in the year, I felt that there was a lot of the culture and history that we did not get to touch on.

As I had said in the discussion, 4Chan was originally created as a combination of an image and anime based board in early 2003. Christopher Poole or “Moot,” as he is referred to on 4Chan, took quirks from Japanese boards that he visited previously and used them to found and perfect 4Chan.

I tried to explain in the discussion that each board had its own culture and this is undeniably true. Every board has its own written and unwritten rules that govern each board. ‘Moderators’ and ‘Janitors’ keep the board topic, meaning that if a music thread was posted on the sports board, the thread would more than likely be deleted immediately. There are boards that are populated by prepubescent teenagers that act out for attention and there are other boards where more mature people discuss literature, although in a very condescending manner.

Though 4Chan is a community made up a multitude of sub-communities and sub-cultures, usually people come to automatically associate 4Chan with /b/, the random board. That association is because of all the raids and outrageous things that /b/ has done. For example, from what I recall, they were behind #CutForBeiber, where they convinced impressionable teens on twitter to cut their arms in support of Justin Beiber. There are also numerous instances where they ruin people’s lives by tracing a “private” photograph by looking through the EXIF data and Facebook. They have been successful in destroying dozens of lives.

Another huge part of /b/ is what we know as Anonymous. However it was not founded in /b/, not even on 4Chan. In fact, Anonymous was founded on a derivative board of 4Chan—7Chan I believe. On the new website’s insurgency board (/i/), the users banded together and created Anonymous because they felt that their rights were being limited on other websites.

It's very difficult to talk about the entire history of 4Chan without getting too technical about all the drama that lead to each board and decision by Moot. This website: http://tanasinn.info/wiki/Complete_History_of_4chan details perfectly the entire history of 4Chan from the beginning to even events that are happening today. To speak on the culture of each board would take hours. However it can be simply expressed as practically different websites. The board culture on /mu/ (music) and /s4s/ (Shit 4Chan Says) is completely different. I cannot speak on every board's individual culture, they are ever-changing.

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With the death of net neutrality new problems have started to pop-up. ISP's in Europe and North America have been accused of purposely degrading the quality of their internet to cause networks to pay in order to "fix the problem." A similar problem occurred between Netflix and both Comcast and Verizon. We are starting down a very slippery slope. With net neutrality looking like an unlikely possibility who knows what other problems will change the way we experience the internet.

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Oculus Rift is at it again this time helping people experience what lag really feels like. In a study headed by an ISP provider they let participants experience life with lag. The lag was extremely evident in simple chores such as cooking or exercising. The Oculus is an amazing tool that keeps changing the way we perceive life.

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A club at MIT will be conducting an experiment where undergrads will have access to bitcoin. The purpose of the experiment is to keep track and analyze how students will spend and trade bitcoins. According to the proposers of the experiment this will usher in a new era of the currency just how early access of the internet launched it into stardom.

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Google recently announced Project Loon where Google will attempt to bring wireless connectivity to new rural areas all across the globe. The "floating cell towers" will be on weather baloon-type technoogy that ISP's in each country will be able to control and offer internet connectivity at their own rates. This is a remarkable step in bridging the technology lapse that is present throughout the entire world.

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open government with big data

Open government in the age of big data

Big data is a powerful tool that can be used to rationalize the current trend and to predict future. The effects of such a powerful tool is deeply felt in every part of the society, and the government is no exception. Now there is already a strong consensus among leaders both inside and outside the current administration that public access to such data should be granted. For example, sunlight foundation, a non-profit organization has been pushing the congress to release all public records since 2006. Also, Obama has made transparency his priority on  his first day in office, urging federal agencies to act “ with a clear presumption: in the face of doubt, openness prevails”.(Economist)

  Personally I feel this is a great move that will ensure efficient governance by holding officials accountable to their actions by encouraging  scrutiny from both the public and the media. According to sunlight foundation, if the public is aware of who the congressman meet with before voting and where his campaign donation money come from, then the forces shaping the decision and the interests of various parties involved would be very clear. If such data can be processed timely, the press can have ample time to question a bill before it has been voted upon. As such promulgation process of enacting a law is made more transparent. On the other hand, inefficient  allocation of public resources and abuse of power can also be easily detected with automated algorithm to spot anomaly in the government official's decisions.

  In addition, requiring private enterprises to release their data  can help achieve effective regulation at a lower cost. Essentially, by forcing polluting factories to report the pollutant it releases, construction industries to report casualties and even restaurants to publish their hygiene standards, the incentives of those companies(public image) is aligned with government agenda. For example, by requesting compnaies to publish the amount of harmful chemicals companies release, the U.S government was able to reduce such emission by 40% in a decade (Econmist).  

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Baidu china's leading search engine

Baidu is the leading search engine company in China, controlling more than 76% of local market share, and is the second most popular search engine in the world, just after Google, with a global market share of 17%. However, the 17% global market share mainly comes from its control over mainland China. Interestingly, China remains to be the last stronghold against the global reach of Google. However the reasons for Baidu’s dominance in China both includes China’s special political environment and Baidu’s own innovation with regards to China’s local culture.

  Due to the state’s single-handed way of governance and its not-so-pretty track record, there are a lot of political taboos in China which the netizens are eager to know. However exposure of such history, like Tian AnMen square incident in 1984 and various governmental scandals, would only serve to aggravate the tension and hatred that is threatening the stability of the  society, which the government regards as its first priority. So Google’s policy of open access to all information and pressure from users inside the United States runs against the Chinese government’s agenda. Hence the China government views Google with suspicion and finally a series of event in 2010 forced Google to quit China altogether.

  However, there was more to Baidu’s success than mere grace of the China Communist Party. It did have some technological advantage over Google in terms of accuracy and speed of search in Mandarin, and it was not until 2009 that Google finally managed to catch up with Baidu in this area. Secondly, Baidu has released a few innovative products closely tied to the local culture. For example, Baidu tieba is  one of Chinese netizens favorite gathering place for interests driven online communities. It also started to reach out to managers across the country to educate them about the advantage of online advertisement. Hence its success can be attributed both to the special local environment as well as its own creativity and deep understanding of local culture.

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Introduction to Internet tycoons in China, part C Tencent

Tencent is the largest Internet company in China, involving online gaming, social media, instant messaging, e-commerce, searching engines, etc.. Meanwhile, I believe it is the biggest copycat in the world. Like Microsoft who copied Netscape and Google with IE and Bing, its success lies in its ability to copy others fast. Here is part of the long list: QQ—ICQ, TM—MSN, QQGame—Lianzhong,QQVoic—UCTalk, QQ Tang—Paopao Tang, QQ Feiche—Paopaokadingche, CrossFire—CounterStrike, QZone—Naver,Tencent—Sina, Paipai—Taobao, Tencentpay—Alipay, Sousou—Baidu. However, there’s never a shortage of copycat in China and C2C(copy to China) had proven to be one of the most effective business model in China, particularly in Internet industry. How could Tencent eclipsed others and became the biggest copycat? 

The most important reason is that its success on the early stage had built a solid foundation in both resources and user networks. Tencent was among the very earliest companies that dived into the Internet. When the early competitors were all computer geeks who were just satisfied with technological implementation, Tencent had already considered the user experience and marketing. It copied, simplified and perfected the ICQ with QQ to bring online messaging intuitive and convenient to ordinary people, which then returned the company with 500 million users. This huge amount of users gave Tencent an unmatched advantage in surpassing its competitors.