CIS Blog 12 - Technology Company Profile

I chose IO-Interactive, because they are the developers of my favorite game series: Hitman.

They don’t seem to be unique compared to other game developers, except for having the Hitman series. They were independent for 6 years then they were bought out by Eidos Interactive and then Eidos Interactive was bought out by Square Enix. According to the lecture we had in class about video game development, those buyouts sound pretty standard. It would be hard for an independent company to compete funding wise with larger companies. Also, publishers acquiring rights to development companies and their hit series also makes sense financially for the publishers.

I might like to work for this company. Their headquarters is in Denmark. I have never lived outside of the United States, so that could be a good experience. At the same time, there are development companies that have cool locations within the United States. I have never lived in a large city in the U.S. and it would be easier to visit family if I stayed in the U.S.

It sounds like a fun environment. There website says that they eat breakfast together, lunch together, and party together. Also, it is very multicultural with employees from 23 different countries. There are apparently a lot of their kids gathered together for Christmas. I don’t like kids much, so that doesn’t sound very appealing.

Though the setting sounds nice, I would expect many tech companies to have a relaxed and fun office environment. Game development companies should especially cater to people’s fun sides. That should attract the best talent and help people stay creative.

I feel unqualified to work at any really cool, small, well-known development company. I feel like working at a game development company would be a good fit for me, but I have no experience and would expect the competition to be people who have wanted to develop games their whole lives and have massive portfolios of artwork or programming work.

Their development history of the Hitman series started in 2000. That has been their biggest success. Since then, they have developed 4 more Hitman games and branched off into some different titles; Freedom FIghters, Kane and Lynch, and Mini Ninjas. As of now, they are solely in charge of the Hitman series. Not being a fan of their other games, I agree with the decision whether theirs or Square Enix’s to have them focus on the HItman series.

According to their website they employ about 200 people. That seems fairly small to me, so I would expect competition for their jobs to be very high.

Sources:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IO_Interactive

http://www.ioi.dk/jobs/

CIS Blog 11 - Making Meaning: Tubes

Though not as hard to follow as the previous book, “Tubes” was still hard to become interested in, because the topic was not particularly engaging. What the internet has become is very interesting, but how it became that way, not so much. The author and the historical figures that he writes about are all rather dull people. Again, what they contributed to is exciting, but their individual plots are all basically the same as they are all academics.

I am more interested in the non-physical aspects of the internet. So what I don’t like about the book is that its focus is physical and not about how information is relayed or the sociological implications of the internet; how it has transformed communications and made the people of the world more interconnected than ever.

The most interesting aspect to me is how the structure of the internet relates to economics. It’s nice that data hubs can bring job opportunities to cities ranging from physical construction to technical expertise. The infrastructure of the internet has made certain cities richer, which is good for the cities, but also the country’s overall economy.

Another interesting part is how fiber optic tubes are made of glass and that data is transferred through the glass via light. That image of all the cables around the world shooting beams of light back and forth is pretty magical.

Pictures and diagrams would have made the book more engaging. As the author traveled to many locations throughout the book it is somewhat of a travelogue and what travelogue is complete without pictures so that the reader can see what the author saw? I would have liked to have seen the actually damage the squirrel did to his internet. Likewise, diagrams make complex topics more easily understood. I would prefer a concise diagram to lengthy verbiage for any sort of technical explanation.

I don’t think this book would appeal to the average reader, so I wouldn’t recommend it to friends. However, as a textbook it does give a clearer concept of how the internet evolved and what it is, so for classrooms this is an effective book. I think it would also be a good book for someone studying politics or economics as it gives some insight into how the internet is an infrastructure like roads and power lines. It costs money to build it, but like other infrastructure, there is a return on investment.

CIS Blog 10 - Will AI Surpass Human Intelligence?

I do think there will be some form of a singularity, but also think that exactly what it will be cannot be accurately predicted, because there are too many possible variations. Movies often portray a post-singularity world as a dystopia for humans. Movies are made to be dramatic and entertain, so they are biased towards negative predictions. If the singularity causes there to be no distinction between humans and machines, then any sort of rivalry between the two becomes obsolete.

In the wikipedia article, Jaron Lanier makes a good point that embracing the singularity would be “bad politics”. Just because robots could become capable of performing all human jobs, does not mean things will move in that direction. If that would ultimately lead to mass unemployment and economic collapse, what politicians would push that agenda? There is a point at which replacing human resources with artificial intelligence resources would lead to diminishing returns for corporations. There needs to be a lower class or middle class to support the economy. If nobody has any money, who will pay for all the work being done by robots? On the other hand, if robots began to earn wages, a large new market would be created.

As far as when the singularity would occur, I tend to believe the experts, which according to the article has a mean of 2040, but a range of 5 to 100 years. I would not be surprised if it occurred in my lifetime, but with advancements there are often many unforeseen hurdles along the way, so it also wouldn’t surprise me if it doesn’t occur during my lifetime.

As the article suggests, what the future will look like post-singularity may be incomprehensible for current human intelligence. Much greater intelligence may have vastly different goals and desires than humans. As some science fiction suggests, super intelligence may want to wipe out the human race if it sees it as destructive to the planet. At the same time, super intelligence that can re-engineer itself could quickly become capable of surviving in more hostile environments than humans. This means that our concerns for the planet may be of no concern to them. Their energy sources would not come from food and hazards to us, like radiation, may have no effect on their bodies.

Bodies do not even necessarily have to exist. All intelligence could be converted to a digital format. We may choose to put ourselves in the matrix. If that happens, it brings up questions of how we will maintain contact with the world outside of our digital realm and what reality really is. We may already be in a digital world, so putting ourselves into another one just starts to get Inception-y.

CIS Blog 9 - Privacy in an Open Digital World

I personally believe that it is better to have privacy at the expense of security. Though not cyber-security, the TSA is a good example of security going too far. I believe that it is largely a waste of time and money to have the level of security we have prior to boarding a plane. Plane attacks are a very rare occurrence. It seems to me that airport security treats all travelers like criminals. This is a wasted effort. The very few people that actually want to carry out an attack on a plane could still easily find a way to do it. Even if everything is caught during screenings, there can be ample time in the secure zone pre-flight to fashion shivs.

Cameras are everywhere, now. Generally, I think this is a good development and helps with catching criminals. More cameras, less security checkpoints, please.

When we talk about the Internet of Things and the large amounts of data that can be collected about a person, there is an obvious danger to me. That is the IOT in  a state lead by an immoral dictatorship. I mostly trust Google and Amazon with my information. I believe they are companies with good intentions. Yes, they are out to make a profit, but they are also trying to improve individual’s lives. They also are subject to laws which protect consumers. A country like North Korea having the same technological capabilities is another story. Throughout history, tyrannical governments have firmly controlled their citizens with propaganda, threats, and indoctrination. Having the power to minutely control the media that a citizen is exposed to based on data mining is a recipe for suffering. Technology could be used to monitor people 24/7 which could effectively eradicate any hopes of a successful coup against a corrupt government.

For that reason, I am opposed to governments collecting massive information on their citizens without their consent. Personally, I completely agree with what Edward Snowden did and that he did it for the best interest of the American people.

I don’t have the best online security practices. My passwords are not all “password”, but they are all similar to each other and stored together in a location that is only moderately secure. I put my trust in the hands of large companies, like my bank, credit card provider, and Amazon. I assume that they have invested large sums of money into securing their customer databases, but at the same time realize that large companies like Target and Home Depot have had security failures in the past.

There isn’t an instance in which too much security has kept me from doing something online. Things that would require the most security would be illegal. I don’t do illegal things that would require me to pay closer attention to my security.

I think that the worst is still to come in terms of governments violating the privacy and trust of their citizens. Snowden was a warning. It is scary when governments compile huge amounts of data on their citizens. It will be scarier when they figure out what to do with it.

CIS Blog 8 - How Has the Internet Influenced You?

I am 28. The internet was a part of my life for as long as I can remember. It seemed less flashy and more text-based when I think back to when I was a small child.

Pornography has been a large part of the internet for me. I think was about 12 when I discovered porn on the internet and it has certainly evolved. Initially, there were galleries of pictures, then tube sites came along. At first clips were all relatively short, 1 to 5 minutes. Now, of course, there is a virtually unlimited supply of free pornography online, which includes movies that are often 20 minutes to an hour long and are in HD. I have heard that pornography is often the first adopter of new technology and that it has been a part of the success of each successive visual medium from beta, VHS, DVD, to streaming content. I think it may be a big driving force behind the new VR technologies. Porn companies have already started making 3D, virtual reality porn.

At around the same age that I learned about online porn, I self-diagnosed myself with paruresis, which is an inability to pee in public. There are countless variations of this ranging from annoying to debilitating. There is an online support community at paruresis.org and they hold workshops around the country. When I was in middle school, going to one of these workshops seemed like a good idea, but out of the question, because they were usually in large cities and I didn’t have the means for traveling. Eventually, around age 24 I attended a workshop in Chicago. My point is that I think the internet creates niches for people with rare issues or interests. In the past, people probably felt more isolated and unusual, but with the internet it is possible to find like minded people for even the rarest of minds.

The internet has also had a large impact on how I shop. Without the internet I would probably shop a lot less, because going to stores is annoying and I am very irritated by pushy sales people. Malls are one of my least favorite places, because I don’t like crowds. When I was younger and still living with my parents my dad got into Ebay. He bought lots of K-State memorabilia, toy trains, and movies. I took after him in that regard. I buy almost everything, except food and hygiene products, online off of Amazon.

As an introverted person the internet has exposed me to more than I think I would have experienced otherwise, online and offline. Documentaries have shown me unusual cultures that I would never seek out in real life. When the Silkroad was active, that gave me access to drugs that I wouldn’t have access to in any of my real life social encounters. Erowid was also a convenient source for learning about recreational drugs and reading about other’s experiences, good and bad, via the site’s trip reports.

CIS Blog 7 - Topic Research Response

My group to report on was group 4, but I will cover some other groups, as well. They started off strong and entertaining with their first presenter. Asking the difference between cyber security, computer security, and information security was the most memorable to me, because there was no difference. They used Prezi which made their visuals more stimulating. However, many groups used the same Prezi format of transitioning from circle to circle. There was one group which used a different Prezi format, so I appreciated the uniqueness of that. After their first presenter, group 4 fell a few notches in presenter enthusiasm and entertainment value. One thing that they mentioned that I wish they would have gone into greater detail on was that before computers, hackers hacked telephone lines. I would have liked more explanation of how that worked.

Overall, I thought all groups did good, but there were only two that I felt were very professional and polished. For a class of future engineers and future computer scientists I was impressed with everyone’s public speaking given that the personality types associated with those fields don’t lend themselves well to public speaking.

What I found most interesting from the presentations was the work being done with exoskeletons for the disabled and the future of virtual reality. I have a motorcycle and my parents are convinced that it will kill me or paralyze me. It’s nice to see there is progress being made with spinal cord injuries. Just in my life-time, medical technology has gone from no-hope for paralysis victims to the current research that hints that paralysis could one day be a thing of the past. In addition to exoskeletons, repairing damaged spinal cords is becoming more viable with silicon or plastic bridges (source: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-10-01/early-promise-for-neuro-spinal-scaffold-a-new-paralysis-treatment).

I have been following the development of VR closely since I first heard about the Oculus Rift several years ago. I am disappointed that the release date for the consumer version has been repeatedly pushed back and that the original estimated price continues to rise. Having experienced demos with the developer kit, I am very excited for the potential of VR, but also experienced “motion” sickness and lackluster performance of smartphone, Gear-VR style headsets. To me, VR will definitely be the future of gaming and pornography, but it appears to be a rare instance where technology is developing slower than the predicted rate. As Palmer Luckey said recently, “Many people will wait a gen or two to adopt, and that is okay.” (source: http://www.kitguru.net/channel/generaltech/matthew-wilson/palmer-luckey-explains-why-the-oculus-rift-will-be-fairly-expensive/). With Facebook’s backing, VR has a great shot at success, but for now standard gaming and internet browsing seem like the smarter choice to me.

CIS Blog 6 - The Difference between Humans and Computers

I think humans are computers. Considering the standard conception of humans as biological entities and computers as machines, tasks that are easy for one would be hard for the other. Computers have the advantage of not getting bored, but lengthy computational tasks would be boring and exhausting to the majority of humans. If lengthy computational tasks was something people liked doing, they probably wouldn’t have invented computers. Something simple for a human, like walking, can be difficult for a computer, because there are many aspects of walking that are done subconsciously. Humans don’t calculate appropriate stride lengths or appropriate foot positions for uneven terrain. It seems to come natural, but really a lot of subconscious processes are doing these calculations, even if they are calculating an estimate. These subconscious calculations would have to be programmed for a robot/computer to be able to perform them, so walking is more difficult for a robot. It seems likely that the reason it is hard to program is because the instructions are not conscious to humans. They need to consciously reimagine what they naturally do subconsciously.

Yes, I think humans qualify as turing machines under the circumstance that humans lived forever. Just like the simple turing machine that would take very long periods of time to simulate more complex algorithms, humans can also follow any line of logic if given infinite time.

The most obvious instance I can think of where computers have replaced humans is self-checkouts at stores. I am sure there are many more instances where computers have replaced humans, but the much more common theme is computers augmenting humans. This can be seen in nearly every occupation. Desktops are a ubiquitous item in any office environment. Other jobs, like nursing, now use mobile computers, and more and more computers are used in vehicles, so even things like road construction or farming use some form of a computer. I don’t think there is any theoretical instance where a computer could not replace a human at there job, but other social or economic factors may keep this from happening to every job.

Biological systems can be thought of as computers. In my mind there is no point at which something stops being a computer and becomes something else. I think humans and computers function very similarly. It may not seem like it, because the programming for humans is very complex, but I do think it is possible to replicate a human brain.

CIS Blog 5 - Making Meaning: Pattern on the Stone

Reading this book starting out engaging, but I felt like the title belies the complexity of content in the book. After the introduction, the author seemed often to go into complicated details in each chapter, so it wasn’t easy to follow.

The last chapter was a favorite part for me. I enjoyed the author’s theorizing on how artificial intelligence could be created without designing the entire thing, but instead creating components that would organize themselves into an artificial intelligence.

The most interesting thing in the book was the beginning when the author was simply relating how computers are machines for storing and manipulating data and that data is the smallest thing that makes a difference, which allows data to be represented with Boolean logic. That lead to his noting that a computer could be made out of anything as long as there can be interconnected on/off switches that can represent information.

Like I mentioned earlier, what I didn’t like was that I felt the author was not completely successful in simplifying concepts so that they could be clearly understood by a layman or a novice. Related to that, I think the diagrams in the book could have been more engaging and more professionally rendered. Drawings by hand are not necessary and color could have been used in some circumstances to make diagrams clearer and more engaging. I think the author would have benefited from working with a graphic designer for the illustrations. The cover of the book could have been more engaging, as well, which could have been achieved by collaborating with an artist or artists.

The book did help explain things I didn’t know about computers, but not to a greater degree than the class lectures or simple exploration of sites like codecademy. I think the best way to learn anything, but especially math and computers, is to learn by doing. That makes sites like codecademy and khan academy more effective tools to me than any book. Reading about concepts never sticks as well as applying concepts through trial and error.

If I were to suggest learning aids to a friend that wanted to know more about computers, I would suggest they start with interactive websites like the ones previously mentioned before reading this book. The interactivity is much more engaging and I think because it is more engaging, my friend would be more likely to stick with it than if they start out with a book, which can be perceived as boring because it is less interactive.

CIS Blog 4 - Computer Systems in Daily Life

I chose an electromechanical timer as my computer system of daily life. It is something I use everyday for the lights in my house. Youtube has a video of how one works:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xeRLG0CWsic, but this is not like the one I have. Mine has pins for every half hour. You push the pins down for the times you want the current to be on and leave them up for when the current should be off.

According to this wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timer, electromechanical timers were well developed by the 1950s because of their use for aerospace and weapons projects. There doesn’t seem to be a single inventor, though.

I guess timers of various types are similar. For instance, an alarm clock does much the same thing; switching on at the programmed time and off by a manual switch. The time is stored within the alarm clock, so that it doesn’t have to be reset everyday.

Life without any kind of a timer, would be much more difficult. Watches, clocks, and smartphone clocks are all timers because they keep track of time according to a 24 or 48 hour cycle. Everything in standard, modern American culture is relative to time. Classes, work, appointments, and business hours are all set to a specific, recurring time. Without timers it would be difficult to organized large groups of people, because they wouldn’t know the specific time to show up. Other types of timers, like the one I use on my lights or any timer that has a setting for both on and off states, do not seem as necessary to my daily life as timers that simply keep track of time. Without my timer, life would just be more inconvenient and for the same thing to occur it would rely on me remembering to do it every day.

Timers in the form of clocks are very important to our daily technological lives. I know that accurate timing is essential for the correct functioning of GPS. Without accurate time, an accurate location cannot be derived. I look forward to self-driving cars becoming mainstream and that is something that relies on GPS and therefore time technology to work.

Not finding an inventor for on/off timers made me curious about who invented the watch. The inventor of the watch was Peter Henlein (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Henlein). It isn’t certain that he was the first to start making small, portable clocks, but he was one of the first. It is interesting that at the time, clockmaking was a new field that he was able to enter because of his experience as a locksmith.

CIS Blog 3 - Algorithms

I am choosing to describe my nightly routine of getting ready for bed as an algorithm. I think it may not be that hard to program the steps, but programming a robot that could actually do it would be much harder.

Moving in a three-dimensional space would probably be the toughest thing to program. The robot would have to be able to detect obstacles and maneuver around them, because my bedroom isn’t the neatest and there are random objects on the floor. They would also have to have dexterity programmed and built into them that would allow them to handle objects. This would require sensors equivalent to eyes to detect objects, but also touch sensors, so that an appropriate amount of force can be applied to varying objects depending upon their fragility.

Assuming the robot has the basics of movement and senses programmed into it, the robot’s algorithm for my nightly routine could begin with a signal. In myself that would be the levels of chemicals in my brain indicating that I have been awake long enough and sleep would be welcome. There could be an equivalent indicator for the robot, such as a low battery.

Once that indicator has set the process in motion, the robot would begin a sequence of operations like this:

• Go to bathroom
• Turn on light
• Open cabinet
• Remove contact lens case
• Empty contact lens solution into sink
• Insert contacts (I have OrthoK lenses that I wear at night)

-  If the lenses are not comfortable do the following or else continue with main routine:

- Remove lenses

- Rinse lenses in saline solution

- Reinsert lenses

- Repeat until comfortable, then resume main routine

     - Pick up toothbrush

     - Open cabinet

     - Remove toothpaste

     - Unscrew toothpaste lid

     - Put a specified amount of toothpaste onto the toothbrush bristles

     - Screw lid back on toothpaste

     - Place toothpaste in cabinet

     - Close cabinet

     - Brush teeth

- This would have to be a sub-routine that would involve moving the toothbrush in circular         motions, left and right, up and down, while simultaneously moving around the mouth, with these steps repeating for a time like the recommended 2 minutes

     - Rinse mouth with water

     - Rinse toothpaste with water

     - Return toothpaste to toothpaste holder

     - Etc.

I think the seemingly simple task of brushing my teeth is a good demonstration of how there are many steps even for something humans think of as simple. The other things I would do to get ready would have similarly long instructions. Peeing would require a sensor to indicate urgency, then that urgency would have to be evaluated for desire to pee before going to bed. There would be steps for preparing to pee, aiming, steps afterward including flushing the toilet and washing my hands. After washing my hands I would dry my hands. There would be an algorithm for how the robot moves his hands within the towel to dry them and an analysis of the specific level of dryness it is acceptable to stop drying his hands.

There are many more aspects to my routine, each with equivalently long break-downs of how they are done. Doors and light switches are maneuvered, food and drink is prepared and eaten. Smoking devices are prepared and smoken. All of this while taking into account comfort in terms of temperature, body position, bedding position, and the inconvenient positioning of a dog who isn’t good at sharing space. It would certainly be possible to teach a robot this routine and every other routine in my life, but it would require very lengthy and complicated algorithms for even simple routines.

My nighttime routine probably is not the most efficient, because I don’t do the same thing every night or maintain the same order every night, so a lot of thought processes go into decided what to do and when to do it, even though it ends up being roughly the same each night.

    

CIS Blog 2 - Historical Figure in Computing

Alan Turing is the most interesting person to me in the history of computer science at this time. I say at this time, because the history of computer science is very new to me and I am not familiar with many of the people that were involved in it’s history.

He is the most interesting to me, because of the legal case brought against him for being homosexual, the mysterious circumstances surrounding his death, and the confidential nature of his code-decryption work for the British government.

It is only 63 years later and gay marriage is now legal in Britain and the United States. At the time, Turing was charged with a crime just for being homosexual and was required to undergo hormonal treatment to reduce libido, but which actually made him impotent. That seems like such an extreme punishment for something that is not considered a crime today. The black and white nature of laws troubles me. People in more recent times have been sentenced to life in prison for drug offenses. Any law that heavily punishes people for nonviolent crimes is morally unjust to me. I wish these unjust laws would be abolished quicker. Why should it take 60 years to change laws that demonize harmless individuals?

His death is interesting, because he was only 41, and there is speculation about whether it was accidental or a suicide. He achieved a great amount in a relatively short lifetime. His death was due to cyanide poisoning, but an apparatus he had for gold electroplating means he could have inhaled cyanide accidentally or he intentionally ingested it with an apple that was found with him. It is very interesting to me that his mental state at the time will forever remain a mystery; was he profoundly despaired by his legal case and subsequent hormonal treatment or was he just careless with potentially deadly chemicals?

Without studying in detail his work toward deciphering German ciphers during World War II, it seems apparent by his colleagues’ admiration and the length of time some of his papers were kept confidential that he contributed substantially to the war-time decryption efforts. Not being very well versed in math, I find it hard to fathom the mathematical intricacies it would require to break any code that was designed by Germany’s smartest military scientists.

While reading about his decryption work, it surprised me to learn of his athletic prowess. He occasionally ran the 40 miles to London for high-level meetings. I have read a few books by modern-day Ultramarathoners (Dean Karnazes and Pam Reed). Modern day ultramarathons seem to range from 50 - 100 miles, regularly, but they are technically any distance over the standard marathon. I thought ultramarathons were a relatively new development, so I was surprised to learn that their history in England goes back to the Victorian Era (1837 - 1901).

Sources:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Turing#Cryptanalysis

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultramarathon#Europe

CIS Blog 1 - Personal Biography

I was born in Virginia and lived there until I was about six. After that, my family spent a few years in New York and then a few years in Missouri.

We moved to Kansas when I was starting the sixth grade and I have lived in Kansas ever since. I graduated with a B.S. in Life Science from K-State in 2010. After that, getting a job seemed pretty difficult, so I moved back to my hometown and attended community college for two years, earning an A.S. in Sleep Technology.

After graduating again in 2012, it was still very difficult to find a job. I was depressed and felt a large reason I wasn't getting jobs was due to social anxiety and interviewers perceiving me as having no personality. Having free time, I addressed that by starting a youtube channel where I have conversations with other people about our different perspectives of life:
youtube.com/user/undauntedfilms

In about six months I finally got my first job offer, which was for a lab assistant. It became clear early on that almost everyone working there complained about it, hated their coworkers, thought they weren't paid enough, and often made it known that there was no room for advancement.

So, almost right away, I started looking at other career or educational opportunities. First, I was accepted as an engineering undergraduate. Then, I changed direction and was accepted into the TEFL masters program. Again, I wasn't sure and switched to pursuing a masters degree in Food Science. After taking several courses toward this degree, I was not accepting to the program. Starting at square one, I have decided to try to obtain an undergraduate degree in computer science. I have a friend that works in town as a software engineer and he makes over double what I do, so that was a big incentive and he was a big influence in me attempting this career path.

Really I am looking for some career stability and financial security and don't feel that I have found either, yet. Though my education and work experience has been in biological science, I have always considered myself to be an artist. Guitar was a big part of my life from the time I was nine until graduating high school. In high school, I began painting and have painted off and on ever since. For two years, I was my high school's cartoonist for the school newspaper and have started various projects in an attempt to market my art and comics, which led me to develop a few blogs and websites.