max-tech-writing-blog

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@adamhochberger @state-of-being-happy-and-health

Struggles in STEM podcast (link is here)

@max-tech-writing @state-of-being-happy-and-health

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Your poem is the best! Thank you for writing such a fun creative piece for this assignment. Dr. Reid for sure deals with many ethical dilemmas at work, which relates to our course discussion about professional ethics. Although the ethical dilemmas he faces are probably more extreme and dramatic than ethical dilemmas that any of us will contend with in our careers, it’s still relatable and he has to make decisions that balance his personal values with work expectations.

Dr. Spencer Reid

In the television show, Criminal Minds, Dr. Spencer Reid plays a Supervisory Special Agent with the BAU. Dr. Reid is a socially awkward, genius. He is able to remember key historical facts and details that help his team analyze symbolic clues. For example, in “Aftermath”, Reid seems to be the only team member who notices Elle’s odd behavior, and confronts her; he gets her to open up to him but it does not stop her from spiraling out of control. Dr. Reid’s life and career is far from normal. From his action packed career to his mentally ill mother, Reid has very eventful days. This is a poem written from Dr. Reid’s perspective:

My name is Dr. Spencer Reid,

I do good deeds for those in need.

I am very intelligent, have three Ph.D.’s,

you probably didn’t know that about me.

But my life is quite unusual,

The crime senses I see are very visual.

I analyze the crime scene and people’s mind,

Sometimes the unsub has DNA and clues that they leave behind.

I enjoy reading all types of books,

They help me catch the crooks.

As you can tell my career is far from normal,

My personal life is even more abnormal.

I can be awkward at times,

I have trouble fitting in with the society norms oftentimes.

My mother is schizophrenic,

I am worried because I was told it is genetic.

I want to help her get better,

There are many medications that I have to get her.

The medication doesn’t seem to help her at all,

Thinking of her condition makes me sad and want to bawl.

All in all my life may not be perfect,

But I would never trade it.

A Supervisory Special Agent has many ethical rules that they must follow. Ethical dilemmas is an issue in the professional field that we have discussed. Dr. Reid and his team have been in numerous ethical dilemmas throughout the seasons. It is important to deal with ethical dilemmas in a professional way.  

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Peter Gibbons from Office Space (1999)

I chose the character of Peter Gibbons from the 1999 film Office Space. In the movie, he is a programmer at the fictional tech company, Initech. At his job he goes through thousands of lines of code, usually for banks, and converts dates from six digit dates (YYMMDD) to eight digit dates (YYYYMMDD) in anticipation of the new millennium. His job is very monotonous and the central conflict in the movie is that he hates his job and blames it for all of the problems in his life. Office Space is perhaps not the most positive example of the field that I want to go into, but it is famous for poking fun at a lot of real aspects of the office environment for programmers and engineers, and also shows examples of technical documents.

A large portion of the movie takes place in the workplace, and several scenes center on technical documents, such as memos and TPS reports. In the beginning of the movie, Peter shows up to work after having forgotten to include a cover sheet for his latest TPS report. In the following few scenes, Peter grows increasingly agitated as he is approached by several different supervisors who all ask him if he received the memo about including cover sheets with TPS reports. Peter even has a few props of memos and a blank cover sheet for a TPS report in his cubicle.

I have filled out a TPS cover sheet that is a recreation of the prop seen in the movie, because it is a fun example of a technical document from popular culture. I filled in responses that were humorous and appropriate for the character, although Countrywide Financial could have been a real customer for Initech if the company really existed in 1999. Additionally, Peter could have been using COBOL as the programming language, which was used for six digit dates for a long time before the switch to eight digit dates.

It was interesting watching Office Space again today, because I recognized more of the technical documents on set from class. I chose Peter as my character because Office Space relates directly to the course topic.

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I agree that there is way too much focus on weight loss as opposed to general health. After watching my parents try to lose weight again and again, I think for a lot of people that permanent weight loss just is not a feasible solution, and that instead of wasting time pushing for weight loss, sometimes doctors should explore other options. Sometimes doctors can even dismiss serious health problems for fat patients as being the result of obesity, which can be dangerous for the patient. Losing weight is not a cure-all, and should not be treated as such. In fact, there is evidence that rapid weight loss, and gaining and losing weight over time, could have significant negative consequences on cardiovascular health.

Dieting vs. Weight Loss

If you have ever watched the Food Network channel on television you have heard about all of the different weight loss, diet, and exercise options that will help you lose weight. These topics are also in almost every women’s magazine and in a lot of national newspapers. Each one has a different way for you to slim your waist or drop a few dress sizes for a low one-time payment. However, none of these reports or advertisements ever talk about ensuring you are dieting healthy, they are only concerned with weight loss.

We should be making sure that people are healthy and eating the right foods instead of being worried about their waist size or weight. If a person has a healthy blood sugar, blood pressure, and cholesterol, then they should consider themselves a healthy person regardless of their weight. People should be advised to avoid eating foods like unprocessed foods, natural grains that are unrefined, and low amounts of sugar. People should be encouraged to eat foods like fruits, lots of vegetables, and whole foods.

The focus of dieting needs to be shifted from weight loss to health. Dieting should be an activity that is done to ensure one’s health, not to be done in order to drop a few pounds. Also, most of the time, if person diets by eating health and does not limit their calories, the person will also drop some weight as a result. Overall, health should be the major consideration when considering a diet, not how much weight they could lose doing it.

I believe weight loss and dieting is very overreported in the field of medicine and health. They issue I saw in most new reports is that the focus around dieting is weight loss, when I believe the focus should be health. My story counteracts this issue by stating the issue and explaining that health should be the major focus instead. I also explains how weight loss can be a result of dieting for health.

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This is such an important issue that does not get enough attention in the news. The health care system and health insurance industry takes advantage of people who do not have the time or resources to advocate for themselves. The unnecessary tests are inefficient and contribute to the corruption of health care.

MRIs Scamming the Not-so Sick

How many times have you been referred to receive an MRI in your life? You may have been in a mild car accident once and went to the doctor for some slight neck pain and they immediately tell you to get an MRI scan, even though you most likely just have slight ship lash. Though the invention of the MRI has saved thousands of lives, it has also filled the pockets of doctors who prescribe their patients to use it. This can easily lead to a bias in doctors who want to make a little cash with patients that have nothing wrong with them. 

 Back in 1990, the Government Accountability Office found that Florida doctors ordered 3x as many MRIs, 2x as many CTs and 5x as many ultrasounds if they owed a piece of imaging service. Even though Congress has been attempting to cut down on these self-refferals, claiming they promote doctors to order unnecessary test and inflate health care costs, yet there are loopholes. Doctors are still able to refer patients to scanners/MRIs in their own building, and since time-shares are allowed, doctors are able to send patients during hours they own the machine.

 Looking at doctors who do not have any skin in the game, patients who they prescribe for an MRI only have 23% outcomes with no abnormalities compared to doctors who do receive profit have 42% patients with no abnormalities. This is an issues that must be made aware to the public as these costs are driving up the cost of healthcare and the bills of patients who may not

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Fewer Women Hold Computing Jobs Now Than In 1985

The number of women in computing jobs is significantly lower now than it was thirty years ago. Gender diversity in some other STEM fields has increased drastically over the past several decades, but computing has lagged behind and even gotten worse. According to this report by the National Center for Women & Information Technology, in 2015 only 25 percent of all computing jobs were held by women, as opposed to 36 percent in 1991. The rates of women of color in computing occupations has stagnated; around 3 percent of black women and 1 percent of Latinas/hispanic women held computing jobs in 2015. The growing gender gap has concerning implications about attitudes toward women, workplace atmospheres, and hiring bias in the tech industry. The problem may lie in the way technology is introduced to younger people, and the way computers tend to be marketed more toward boys than girls.

This graph from NPR’s Planet Money blog shows a peak in enrollment of women in computer science majors around 1985 before a long decline to the present day. The most alarming part of this graph is the stark difference in advancement for women in other professions as compared to women in computer science.

The decline of women programmers is an underreported issue in the computing field. More media attention on this issue would bring more support for organizations that are trying to combat the issue, such as Girls Who Code or Black Girls Code and many others. Media attention on the gender gap would also generate more support and funding for different universities’ initiatives to enroll more women in their computer science and engineering degree programs. A change in culture may also shift the way technology is marketed to children and engage more young girls with computing.

The number of female programmers has declined significantly over the past three decades, but increased media coverage of the gender gap may help level the playing field.

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This meme is very funny and relatable because we have all experienced the drug commercials that feature a smiling, attractive actor walking through a colorful meadow while listing horrible side effect after horrible side effect. I agree that the way that these commercials impart information about risks and possible side effects is misleading and unethical, and that patients should be better informed before making medical choices. People really should not be making medical decisions based off of only information from companies that are just trying to sell their product and do not have people’s best interest at heart.

Are our medications worth it?

I chose to make a meme of the “not sure” guy to represent how people may not be educated about the prescriptions that their doctors prescribe them. In today’s society, whenever we get sick, feel anxiety, can not perform sexually, or have basically any medical issues at all we go to the doctors. Sometimes the doctor will give advice like drink more water or reduce your stress, but other times they will write you a prescription to help fix the problem. Although many times these prescriptions are helpful, this is not always the case.

Regardless of whether a medicine helps a person or not, there are always side effects that come along with them. For example, many common side effects of medications are headache, drowsiness, and irritation. These are side effects common with many medications but are worth the risk to most people because they help us with whatever illness we are taking them for. However, there are other side effects less common like heart attack, stroke, suicidal thoughts, and even death. These side effects are less acceptable to people since they are more serious, but people still decide to take medications that have these risks.

These risks are always made aware to the patient taking them, but I do not believe that they always fully understand what they are agreeing to. I believe that most patients listen to their doctor or the television commercial ramble on about side effects and they say okay when they finally stop talking. I think that this should change in our society because it is dangerous.

Therefore, I chose to make this meme because I wanted to make an image describing how people risk their lives every day by taking medications that may harm them. Additionally, I wanted to show what people should be doing when considering taking a medication. Patients should be wondering if the drug they take is worth the risk they are taking with the side effects.

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I have noticed the same thing about dental hygiene commercials. They tend to greatly exaggerate the importance of their product while also devaluing other oral hygiene practices. The meme is funny because obviously brushing your teeth is more important than just gargling some mouthwash, but the commercials claim the opposite. I agree that this practice is misleading and unethical.

Mouthwash

In the dental industry, there are not really many things to advertise about other than oral hygiene products. Oral hygiene product commercials are always on TV, but I am never really bothered by any of them except for mouthwash commercials.

Mouthwash commercials are very good about placing a high importance on the use of mouthwash. Most of the mouthwash commercials do a great job describing the benefits of using their product, such as enhanced teeth cleaning, removal of bad breath, enamel preservation, protecting against gum disease, and more. All of these benefits of using mouthwash are excellent and should make you want to go out and buy it, but the way in which they describe the enhanced cleaning ability of mouthwash leaves a bad taste in my mouth ;). Many of these commercials say their product is able to remove upwards of 99% of bacteria from your mouth that you missed while brushing. The commercials always make it seem like brushing your teeth is never enough to have good oral hygiene. In some commercials, the companies even go on to say that brushing your teeth only reaches  25% of your mouth and that by using their mouthwash you will be able to clean almost 100% of your mouth. Some commercials do mention the benefits of using mouthwash as a pairing with brushing your teeth rather than brushing alone, but a lot of the commercials just talk about how much better their mouthwash is at cleaning your mouth than brushing.

I chose to use this meme because it is typically used to describe the way in which something should be done and it is easy to understand. I thought this meme was funny because it puts the mouthwash commercials into perspective because the commercials are painting the image that it is impossible to have good oral hygiene without the use of mouthwash.

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Facebook and Targeted Advertising

I used the History channel’s Ancient Aliens meme template because I wanted to draw attention to the way American media and politicians have latched onto Facebook as a scapegoat for the past few years of political disaster. Facebook has received a lot of negative media attention about its targeted advertising and data collection in the past few months. Mark Zuckerberg’s testimony before Congress and the proliferation of media coverage of Facebook’s ad platform’s possible role in the election have shifted perspectives on the ethics and dangers of targeted advertising and data mining. However, most of the focus has been on whether or not Facebook’s ad platform influenced the election, and not on questioning the ethics of how Facebook, Google, and other technology companies have been using their invasive data collection for advertising for years.

Perceptions of Facebook as a company have shifted, but I have not seen many people accusing the technology itself as being the problem. The media coverage of Zuckerberg’s testimony gave off the impression that Facebook was part of some kind of conspiracy undermining the American electoral system. I fail to see how Facebook can effectively moderate its content to prevent false advertising and fake news when it has over two billion active users. All of the controversy over Cambridge Analytica and the election has distracted from the fact that we are constantly surrounded by predatory advertising every time we go online, and that there is little to no regulation over who can collect and exploit vast amounts of personal information from people without their knowledge. Nobody likes ads. So why have aggressive, obnoxious ads become an accepted part of the online experience? The Ancient Aliens meme reflects the absurdity of the perceptions of Facebook, which does not seem to have much control over the way its ad platform is used, as being part of a political conspiracy, while people continue to tolerate massive amounts of predatory ads and privacy invasion as a part of daily life.

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Tuning a Violin

The verb to tune means “to adjust in musical pitch” or “to bring into harmony”. It comes from the Latin word tonus, meaning “tone.” For people who are trying to learn how to play the violin, proper tuning can be one of their biggest challenges. Most beginners will rely on an instructor to tune their instrument at a weekly or monthly lesson, but inconsistent tuning slows down learning and can ingrain bad habits. The following is a guide to tuning for the novice violinist.

Courtesy of GET-TUNED.COM

Tightening and loosening the pegs

The pegs keep the strings tightened. The cloth covered tips of the string go into the tail piece on one side and into a small hole in the smooth cylindrical part of the peg on the other. Turning the peg wraps the string around the smooth cylindrical part of the peg, which creates tension in the string and raises the string’s pitch.

For string instruments, tightening the string raises the pitch, or makes it sharper. Loosening the string lowers its pitch, or makes it flatter. A flat D string needs tightening, while a sharp E string needs to be loosened.

The most challenging part of tuning with pegs is making controlled adjustments without letting the peg slip. A peg slips when it becomes loose enough that the tension in the string is stronger than the force keeping the peg still in its slot, and the string loosens rapidly as the peg spins, unwinding the part of the string wrapped around the long cylindrical part of the peg. Pegs are not screws, so the only way to keep pegs in place is to keep them tightly pressed into their slots. Pegs are slightly tapered, so pressing a peg further into its slot creates a tighter fit and makes it less likely to slip. Think of the pegs like a cork in a bottle. Corks do not twist into place. To keep the cork in place, you press it further into the bottle.

At the same time, the pegs must be loose enough to turn smoothly. The trick is to first turn the peg a small amount in the loosening direction, past your target pitch, while also pulling out and away from the peg box. Maintain a firm grip on the peg. Then, maintain inward pressure while applying torque in the tightening direction until the string is at the desired pitch. If enough inward pressure is applied, by the time the string is tightened to the target pitch the peg will be pushed into its slot far enough to stay stuck.

Courtesy of Amazon.com

This method works for both flat and sharp strings. If the string is too sharp and needs to be loosened, just make sure to loosen the peg to a pitch that is lower than the desired pitch, so that it can be tightened back up to the right tuning.

Tuning the A string

Traditionally, the first string any string player tunes is the A string. The A strings on violins and violas tune to the same frequency, but cellos are an octave below. The violin A string is tuned to a pitch of 440 Hz. Some players may tune to a slightly sharper A, but 440 Hz is used most commonly. There are a few ways to identify whether your A string is flat or sharp, and when it is tuned correctly.

A tuner displays the frequency of a string’s pitch while you bow across the string. Be sure to produce an even, clear sound with steady strokes of the bow. The tuner will indicate whether or not the pitch is too low or too high. Adjust the tuning of the A string using the pegs and play the string again to test its pitch with the tuner. When the tuner indicates that the string is tuned to 440 Hz, you are done tuning the A string.

You can also match your violin’s A string to another violin’s correctly tuned A string. This method is used in chamber music and orchestras to ensure that every instrument is tuned to the same A. First, play your A string while the other person plays their A string. Use steady, long strokes with the bow to produce a clear, even sound. Listen to the two pitches. If your violin sounds flatter than the other violin, tighten the A string, then play it again. If it sounds sharper, loosen the string and keep playing. If the two A strings are not tuned to the same frequency, you will hear an unpleasant warble. This is called dissonance. When you stop hearing dissonance, your A string is tuned.

You can also apply the previous method to tune your A string to the A on a piano, or to a recording or digital sound from online. There are several websites that will play the correct pitches of all of the strings.

The other strings

Courtesy of Violin Student Central

Once your A string is tuned, you can tune the rest of the strings. When the strings are tuned correctly, they are a perfect fifth interval apart in pitch. For example, the D string is a perfect fifth below the A string, while the E string is a perfect fifth above the A string.

To tune the other strings, play the string you want to tune together with an already tuned adjacent string. If you hear dissonance, try tightening and loosening the string until you no longer hear any warbling or unpleasant sounds.

For beginning violinists, learning to tune one's own violin is an invaluable skill that will improve performance and intonation.

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I have also noticed that UF organizations’ Facebook pages are more successful when they create a lot of Facebook events. The event feature on Facebook allows the organization to create eye catching visuals with the cover photo for the event and clearly display information such as the date, location, and time of the event.

UF Exotic Animal Club

Platform: Facebook

Handle: UFExoticAnimalClub

The UF Exotic Animal Club is a great way for students who love animals and wildlife to get involved on campus.  The UF Exotic Animal Club’s Facebook page makes meeting dates/times and other opportunities readily available for students.  The page also uses visuals to grab a reader’s attention and encourages people to get involved in the club.

On the left side of the Facebook page, there are links that direct students to information about the club, its members, photos, events and more.  When you click on the event tab, you can see all the meetings, social events, and service events.  The calendar makes finding event dates incredibly simple.  The club officers will also post reminders about meeting dates in case people forget.  The individual event pages give students information about event times, locations, and a synopsis about what the event is about.  The event summary is short and only gives the information the students need to know about the event so they don’t get bored.  The event pages also include a funny picture to get students interested in going to the event.

The Facebook page has many other ways that students can get involved with the club apart from the events themselves.  There are frequent polls which allow members to choose what event dates and times work best for their schedule.  This increases member participation and helps students feel like they have an impact on the club itself.  There are posts that link students to outside information that might interest them.  For example, one of the club officers made a post about Ellen Degeneres’ Wildlife Fund T-shirts and included a link to the webpage, which would help raise money for the conservation of endangered gorillas.  In addition, the club also allows some students to post their own information if they find something exciting related to exotic animals or even if they have a question about college in general.

The UF Exotic Animal Club’s Facebook page is a great platform to find out more about the club and to get involved.  

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I have also noticed that ACM does a great job with their social media. Their Facebook page conveys a very friendly and open feeling. It updates very frequently and always has information about new events. They create Facebook events for everything so that everyone can easily see the date, time, and location.

Facebook: UF ACM (Association for Computing Machinery) 

Main website: ufacm.xyz/

The University of Florida chapter of the Association of Computing Machinery provides a meaningful outlet for resources that allow people of all backgrounds to learn about and practice programming in a friendly environment.

An environment like the UF ACM club is something that is not often portrayed in the computer science field; a friendly and social space that is accommodating of new learners and willing to answer questions that they have. On their website, there is a tab for special interest groups, or SIGS, that houses different fields that people might have interest in like artificial intelligence or virtual reality, however, most notably, there is a group for first-time programmers at the University of Florida. All of the group links on this section redirect back to corresponding open Facebook groups within the University of Florida page which allows integration between events on Facebook and resources from the website. In tandem, these pages offer a great tool for informing people interested in this field of study that it can be accessible to anyone and that the community is active.

Without the proper integration of Facebook events, the website would be the only location to keep information about upcoming events in the club, which would likely prevent outsiders from knowing any details. The proper usage of Facebook events provides a more friendly means of promoting club information and getting many kinds of people interested in occasions like hack-a-thons, guest speaker presentations, or even learning sessions. This interaction emphasizes the social nature of the club and how important it is for anyone visiting to feel welcome in the atmosphere they provide.

The Association of Computing Machinery chapter is a great example of how social media can emphasize a message through both the words on a page and in the actions they take to provide a welcoming atmosphere to anyone that visits. They offer the perfect balance between having resources for experience people already in the club and information from newcomers who are curious about the computer science field could have for them.

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UF CISE on Twitter: @UFCISE

The UF Computer and Information Science and Engineering Department maintains a twitter account that they use to appeal to their target audience and improve their image.

The UF CISE twitter page appeals to its target audience by retweeting posts from other official UF accounts that are relevant to current and prospective CISE students. For example, its most recent post is a retweet from the UF Admissions twitter page about incoming students. This tweet, like almost every tweet on the page, is accompanied by a colorful image to keep the attention of the target audience.

UF CISE improves their image by using the UF CISE twitter page to post pictures of smiling, happy people at UF CISE events, and by tweeting about the recent successes of faculty and former students. There are numerous tweets about the UF FICS Co-Director Patrick Traynor and his new product, as well as images of students graduating with Computer Science and Engineering degrees.

UF CISE does not publish new tweets every day, but for a university department official twitter page, UF CISE stays relatively fresh with three tweets per week on average. This page would most likely be more effective, however, if it updated more frequently with new posts.

UF CISE also uses their twitter page to counter negative views about the department’s racial diversity and their treatment of people of color. In the past few months they have retweeted several posts from conferences for black engineers and computer programmers that feature UF CISE faculty. UF CISE also has a few tweets from the past week about the first two black women to earn a PhD from the department. Black students are hugely underrepresented in the undergraduate computer science population, so UF CISE is probably trying to reach out to more black students interested in computer science fields.

The UF CISE twitter page does not include a lot of specific information about the department or its programs or events. Instead the department uses the twitter page to build their brand and to attract the attention of current and prospective students.

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Xeriscaping is an interesting solution to a conservation ethics dilemma. This ethical issue can overlap social and conservation ethics, since environmental damage can negatively affect an entire local community.

In the Garden Season 1100 Ep 1108

In the Garden with Bryce Lane is an Emmy award-winning half-hour home horticulture show offering practical tips on how to grow plants and home landscaping techniques. The host, horticulture instructor Bryce Lane, focuses on how to make the home landscape look great without spending a lot of time or money on it. The shows doesn’t show much of the social and personal based ethics but does show the conservative ethics as plants grown use lots of water, soil and fertilizer. And you must decide what plants should be grown.

The main issue is fertilizer use as the plants grown need nutrients but it can be hazardous on the environment so the way nursery’s and gardens are designed to not let it pile up to damage the plant and not flood out and pollute the water ways are important. Some of the few social ethics in horticulture is what to decide to plant, needing to know the climate of the area and whether it can thrive there and the specific look that they want consumers to see when planted. Ensuring the plant will not be invasive is also essential to conservative ethics.

The main wish is to create a balance between art, nature and people. And the people in the show show how important there work is, as well as how much they love doing it. In this episode they talk about xeriscaping - meaning to landscape in a style which requires little to no irrigation. Its a method of growing plants that are drought tolerate and use less water so its good for the environment but still produce a great look. Its a great way at showing how making choices such as what plants you decided to grow can help save water.

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This is an interesting ethical dilemma with tension between personal and social ethics, and between legal and care ethics. If a doctor’s responsibility is to their patient, what happens when the patient’s interests and the law conflict?

House M.D.: “Informed Consent”

In this episode, the titular character is faced with an ethical dilemma. House is assigned a patient: a 70-year old medical researcher who is dying of a mysterious illness. However, the patient, Ezra Powell, is tired of living a life epitomized by hospital visits and treatments and desires euthanasia: a mercy killing to put a patient out of his pain. House’s team believe that there is no room for interpretation for ethics and follow the rule to “do no harm” to the patient. House believes in patient ethics over the responsibilities of the doctor; simply doing no harm means that Powell will continue to suffer a slow and painful death of what is later diagnosed as amyloidosis.

This ethical dilemma is quite difficult to resolve. Helping the patient will help him stay alive, but will not help his condition significantly, which will make him want him to die even more. However, by giving him the euthanasia, the patient is put out of the pain that he has endured for the last ten years. A consequence of doing so is facing legal charges for murder and malpractice. This grey area between helping patients dealing with their pain and ending someone’s life makes this a very difficult ethical dilemma. I believe that euthanasia should not be a crime because it is a choice that a terminal patient makes to end their suffering. It depends on the perspective one has about doctors. While some believe that doctors should not do any harm to the patient, I believe that a doctor’s responsibility is to help the patient however they can. By denying euthanasia, a doctor prolongs a patient’s suffering, doing harm to him which is unethical. However, this option should only be taken if the patient is confirmed to be terminal, such as a stage IV cancer patient.

To prolong suffering is unethical on the doctor’s part, especially if the patient is dying. If a patient is suffering greatly and there is no other option, I believe that euthanasia should be an ethical alternative. 

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Professional Ethics in “USS Callister”

The first episode of season four of Netflix’s Black Mirror, “USS Callister,” portrays software engineers in a workplace setting. The episode centers around issues of workplace sexism and the ethics of commercialized artificial intelligence.

“USS Callister” opens with a scene straight out of a campy, if oddly megalomaniacal, Star Trek rip-off. As these same characters are then shown in a near future office setting, the episode reveals that this Star Trek-inspired universe is instead a disturbing abuse of artificial intelligence technology. The creator of this technology is Robert Daly, an ineffective CTO at a company he co-founded. Daly uses his Star Trek horrorshow to take out his insecurities on AI versions of co-workers who he feels have mistreated him or have refused his sexual advances.

As with most episodes of Black Mirror, the central ethical dilemma involves the potential for a technology to be abused. The show’s overall message is that the artificial intelligence technology, combined with Daly’s company’s virtual reality technology, has a high potential for abuse, and that commercializing the technology would violate a company’s responsibility to the community. While the specific technology that Daly uses to torment simulations of his co-workers is not part of the virtual reality game that his company produces, Daly’s creepy AI version is built on top of the company’s product. It is arguably something that someone else could build themselves and incorporate into the game to start their own personal Star Trek hell.

The episode’s exploration of sexual harassment and sexism achieves thoughtful insight into a field often dominated by men, and explores issues of both personal and social ethics in the workplace. On Nanette’s first day at the company, another female employee named Shania warns her about the CTO’s history of sexual harassment. She also mentions the CEO’s tendency to hit on female employees, something that Nanette experienced shortly before her conversation with Shania. Both sexual harassment issues have no involvement from human resources.

“USS Callister” challenges the audience to consider the ethical consequences of a future technology while also highlighting ethical problems faced by today’s technology companies.

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Brooklyn Nine-Nine

    The simulation is glitching. 😱 Watch the latest #Brooklyn99 now: https://t.co/LG1czKMQ1Z pic.twitter.com/cdfCIOvore

— Brooklyn Nine-Nine (@Brooklyn99FOX)

May 15, 2018

Reality is breaking down on the latest #Brooklyn99. Link in bio to watch now.

A post shared by Brooklyn Nine-Nine (@brooklyn99fox) on May 15, 2018 at 11:07am PDT