Thursday, March 5, 2020

Week 7 Post

The type of communication I wanted to discuss about was the pigeon carrier that was [discussed] about in section 3 group 4's presentation. This form worked by the person writing a message on a small piece of paper; writing a message that was limited, they would then roll up the message, place it on the foot or back of the pigeon, then send it to its intended location. It talks about how the pigeon was an older form of communicating between people who are far way. The most common people who used this form of communication were the Military or groups that would fight on the battlefield. In the presentation, it was mentioned that this form of communication was used in many battles such as both World Wars, Roman Chariot battles, and other possible Military battles/Wars. It was also stated that this form of communication was faster than many other ways of sending messages. One of the best parts of this form was that it didn't require much to use, just the normal survival resources, water and food. An additional fun fact that was mentioned in this part of the presentation was the hero pigeon named Cher Ami, which didn't need to be mentioned but I found it to be very interesting.        

Week 6 post

For my project, I researched the impact and the history of the Amazon Kindle, which was first released in 2007. There was a major evolution in the creation of the Kindle as it moved from the first Kindle to the most recent Kindle called the Oasis 3, which released in 2019. Many of these key changes pertain to the increase of data, storage space, utilities, and even the survivability of the devices. Some examples of ways it improved is the storage space. One such example of this improvement between the kindle 1 and kindle 2 is in increasing from 250 MB of storage to 2 whole GB, allowing more books to be stored on the devices. There are also areas where more utilities were added such as the there being wireless and Wi-Fi required versions of devices. Additionally, tools such as night mode, which decreases contrast, and red lighting were added. Lastly, when the Kindle Oasis was released, it became waterproof, increasing its ability to survive in watery conditions. Over time, the actions you could take with the Kindle increased, and most of the options were accessible as long as you had an Amazon Prime subscription. It allowed consumers to download movies and access books on the unlimited plan. Eventually, the Kindle became accessible through both the web and on mobile devices such as the iPad and iPhone. As time passed, there were two additions that even got added to their app, allowing data to sync between devices as well as listen to audio books on other devices. Just like the Amazon Kindle has evolved in the past, it will continue to evolve.

Other than the evolution of the Kindle, the existence of it had a pretty significant impact on our society. It became especially useful for the people who preferred to read over doing other activities such as video games or sports. This was because it allowed a person to carry thousands of books in one device anywhere they wanted to go. Although at the present time, this is just another necessity you may need on your phone so you can use it everywhere you go

Get started with the free Kindle app. Image of Kindle app on iPhone, Android phone, iPads, and Android tablets.

Link for Kindle History: https://ebookfriendly.com/timeline-kindle-history/

Week 5 Post

When it comes to websites such as Antiwar.com and The American Conservative website, you wouldn’t hear about them too often. One of the possible reasons we may not hear about them is due to people usually avoiding this subject. Websites that would speak about anti-war wouldn’t really be visited frequently and do not really talk about positive subjects so they are usually not visited. There is even an area on antiwar.com where it deliberately shows how bad a subject war is to talk about. It mentions a possible war between the U.S and China; opinion wise, I don’t feel this would be something I would want to learn about because it would make me feel unsafe. Another reason why I feel people wouldn’t visit this website after looking at the website is because I feel that it is pretty unorganized.  On antiwar.com, everything looks very messy with links all over the homepage; although you would be able to read titles, it would be hard to find a specific subject you would want to search for. An idea that might be able to make it better would be a search option. On the other site, although not as messy, it is still a little tough to find information because you need to search the website quite a bit.However, there is always the possibility that someone could purposely want to find this information. This may be because they are worried about future events, though if someone wants to find this information, I don’t expect them to get a positive outcome.

Picture site: https://www.foxnews.com/us/anti-war-protests-times-square-us-trump-iran-soleimani-killing

Sites:
https://news.antiwar.com/2020/02/20/pentagon-official-us-needs-new-weapons-to-ready-for-war-with-china/
https://antiwar.com/
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/

Week 4 Post

In an article by Laura Hautala, Queenie Wong, it talks about a breach that happened in Facebook's database. The data breach, which was said to have gone missing, contained phone numbers from many different user accounts. Elliott Murray, who was a cybersecurity researcher in the United Kingdom discovered the location of a website that contained the data the seemed to have been scavenged from the breach. What made this incident worse was when a time later, it was stated that more than 220 million people’s Instagram accounts were taken down or their lives were affected in some way because of this missing data. This release of information makes it seem that the rights of the people and their personal privacy is not as safe as implied. What made this incident the most difficult to read were the responses Facebook gave when questioned about the breach. They responded with saying that they knew nothing about this incident and that no breach had taken place. This action of not revealing information about the information leak that affected millions is not ok. If it has to relate to a negative effect on people’s personal lives, along with their privacy, the people should have the right to know information related to it. Facebook should be taking responsibility for being the cause of this incident.

Image result for facebook breaking
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Sources: https://www.cnet.com/news/facebook-user-phone-numbers-still-online/

Week 3 Post

There are 3 branches that make up our system of government: executive (president), legislative (Congress), and the judiciary (Courts). The Supreme Court belongs to the Judicial branch, whose main job is to hear court cases that arise due to the victim believing something went wrong in other courts like false conviction. Many of the cases they review are cases on “Civil Rights, Criminal Procedure, taxes,” and labor law. Usually, when coming to a decision, the video states that it often takes a long time. The key idea they have to pay attention to is whether or not the decisions being made are constitutional or unconstitutional, which is a key factor in deciding courses of action.

During the Dred Scott decision, the supreme court power deteriorated by a large margin as the supreme justice at the time declared they were unable to allow slaves to become citizens. After the civil war, this issue was settled and this court decision, according to the video, was a,  “Great self inflicted wound.” It was after the 14th Amendment was created that the power started to return to the court.

Personally, I feel that, although they are meant to check if bills and other cases/rulings are constitutional, there are many times that they go against this. In the past, there were many different cases that led to laws being passed that were against the amendments and other parts of the constitution. Some cases I read about where this happened are ones such as Kelo v. City of New London or Gonzales v. Raich, which both took place in 2005.