Virtual minds

About a week ago I went to see the movie at the cinema called Transcendence. I found this fantasy movie extremely interesting as it had a stunning idea of what could happen in the future with the way people use new technology and the internet. To expand on the idea of the movie I have to summaries it for you first, so stay with me here.  

               Group of scientists created a way of scanning human’s brain in such a way that they could save one’s entire mind on the hard drive of a computer. One of the scientists gets a deadly disease and about to die in a few months. His wife who is also in the group of researchers decides to scan her husband’s brain in order to save it on numerous computers, that way his body physically will be dead but his mind will still exist in the virtual world on the computer screen. The procedure gets completed successfully and dead scientist keeps living on the screen of lab computers, however his wife takes a step further and uploads mind of her husband on-line. That’s where the most interesting part of the movie begins. A small group of people as well as some scientists do not see human’s mind uploaded on-line as a safe for others. People that are aware of this successful experiment of human’s mind are afraid that it will cause uploaded individual take the entire control over the web. In fact, virtual scientist has used his endless power on the web to hack any system in the world to get money and knowledge to develop extra ordinary advanced technologies.

               Idea of this movie made me think of the future that is ahead of us. What if uploading someone’s mind on the internet will be actually possible? What if human population that has internet access will start living their life on-line? In fact, that will be possible to live forever. This would change the world for ever in terms of communications and human existence. We would need some people physically maintain access to the internet on the planet, however once people can’t continue their life in the physical world they can be uploaded on-line and continue their existence there. Therefore heaven could really exist in eyes of atheists! However, there will be a lot of issues with that as well such as, religious and ethic problems, some people may find uploading peoples’ minds on-line unethical and against the nature that God gives us. Also new regulations and rules on the web would have to be created to keep virtual community under control; people could start abusing power given to them on-line.

               Although, novelty of virtual people is only an idea for a good fantasy movie today, I do not rule out this from an actual existence. I think as long as people are looking for eternal life and a way to get the most from the web, one day, virtual life on-line can take place in our world.

Google is in trouble!

Since 2010 Google was obligated to remove links to the websites and articles that contain people’s irrelevant information by their request. Under certain circumstances people may ask to remove only inaccurate or illegally acquired information posted about them in Google search results. Certain circumstances include that celebrities and political figures are not allowed to demand from Google to put down information about them. The Court of Justice of the European Union ruled that Google must comply with the EU Data Protection Directive even if data occurs in the other countries. This issue raised a lot of topics such as how to determine which data must be taken down, affect on Google’s business as well as European market and cultural differences between European Union and the United States of America. 

Facebook won’t hurt anyone

            Yesterday I was playing soccer with a group of my friends at North Central College. Although, I knew most of the people there were several ones I’ve met for the first time and so did many others in our group. We had a great time playing and all of us went to have a dinner together after the game. In a little while as everyone sat around a long table, ate and chatted all of us started to add each other to our Facebook friend’s lists. As everyone was handing their phone to the once they met for the first time book It’s Complicated by Dana Boyd immediately came up in my head. The author brought the idea of teenagers desperately wanting to be connected to likeminded people and stay social/public by using social networking. Indeed, we all decided to friend each other on Facebook and create our own group so that we can all communicate about the next time we going to play soccer together.  I think using social networks to connect with people in order to meet with them in real life is actually very valuable and convenient. It all took us no longer than ten minutes to create a social network connection via Facebook and it hopefully will lead to many more hours of fun playing soccer outside in the near future. People also posted pictures that were taken on the soccer field right there at the table which gave a good source of conversations and jokes among our group. I was really pleased to see Facebook being used for a good cause, although I know sometimes it’s a big distraction and source of many problems for students. I think as long as you don’t abuse use of Facebook and don’t take it too seriously Facebook won’t hurt anyone. Meaning that if you strictly use social networks for the purpose of communicating with people that otherwise it would be hard to communicate with in order to actually stay in touch and make a plan for meeting in real life, then social networks will only help you to manage your time, activities and connections to other people not hurting your social life outside of the web.      

Got News?

               Why do we trust what is being said on TV news? Well, there are huge TV channels out there where a lot of people work towards conveying message about what is happening in a country and the entire world. We trust people in the news because they seem very knowledgeable and trustworthy about the content they are talking about plus they support their announcements by broadcasting events’ videos and interviewing people participating in the event. However, there is an issue with what we see on the television today. I have an opportunity to see news from two different countries in their original language; the issue I’ve noticed is that news about the same events in the world maybe be told very differently in different countries. By cropping out some parts from a video that has been taken and finding people that will give needed information/opinion news channels’ reporters from all round the world manage to show an issue in the unique perspective. Some people may argue that this is randomness explained by differences in cultures. I think, this is strictly has to deal with politics and how it affects news in order to give people a certain understanding of the issue and making its own propaganda. News being told on television has a huge influence on people’s opinion and attitudes. However, I think today as people become more educated and curious, they start to wonder and want to know more about the world rather than to be content with what major TV channels give them. This could be a reason why people today go on different social media channels such as YouTube where people from all around the world are able to put their content to show the real situation in their country.

Got to help the victim first.

 “I have nobody…I need someone” -Amanda Todd; these words, in my opinion, are the key to a problem solution of the cyber-bullying. Danah Boyd argues that too much of publicity about the cyber bullying and regulations made in order to stop offenders and on-line predators do more harm than good for victims of online bullying. Although, certain actions must be done to stop cyber-bullying, I share Boyd’s opinion on that issue. I think that any drama involving teenagers must be solved in a very delicate way with as little publicity as possible. Public regulations such as “zero tolerance” policy deal with cyber bullying in a very broad manner excluding all of the unique nuances of the issue. Punishment of offenders will stop an offender, but it might not necessarily help the victim. In the example of Amanda Todd’s situation she was doing mistakes and bad decisions on her own that made people to turn away from her very quickly. If school where Amanda studied before she committed suicide was to punish all of the fifty students that were bullying poor fifteen year-old that could make the situation worth. Punishment of significant amount of students because of one person that no one cares about may arouse even larger student body hatred towards the victim. My solution to this problem is working with students and their parent individually. Students that are being bullied have to be assisted first. The key thing is to provide support for the victim and ensure that he or she doesn’t feel all alone facing the rough problems caused by cyber bullying. I believe that there were many more problems in Amanda’s story. From the video I understood that her parents were divorced and she felt very lonely living with her dad. No one helped teenage girl with the problem she couldn’t resolve on her own, her luck of knowledge and experience in this life led to bad decisions and anxiety. I believe that if victim is being assisted to not feel like victim, taught to look at the problem from a different perspective and showed how to make right choices in one’s life there will be less tragic stories like one of Amanda Todd.

Picture: http://www.inspiremalibu.com/anxiety-treatment-center/

"But first, let me take a selfie"

First few chapters of book It’s Complicated by Danah Boyd touched upon the reason teenagers put embarrassing pictures of themselves (or in other words selfies) on the social media. On the one hand, teens worry about their look and persona on-line, but on the other they put content that underminds their look and presentation. I want to expand on that interesting issue by analyzing the existence of ugly selfies on-line. To understand the phenomena of teens’ ugly selfies on the media I’ve looked into the article Why teens can't stop taking 'ugly selfies' by Jessica Bennett in DailyLife on-line magazine. Jessica Bennet argues that ugly selfies rebel against the cult of perfection and model looking in our society established in the last decade. Impact by perfect models on the media is crucial for teenager at the age of 11-14; few minutes of looking are enough to bring teenage girl’s self-esteem down. According to the article women are tired of the perfect and photoshoped faces that have caused so many concerns and worries among the women about their look. Today, women want to reveal reality and authenticity and “Ugly selfie” is the way of “rebounding from perfection fatigue”. I personally think that this is a good and bad tendency. I like the idea of authenticity and natural beauty. Girls and women should stop using Photoshop to make their body look skinnier or face prettier, they really need to start learning about loving their look and beauty that given them from the nature. However, I’m against going to the other side of the spectrum, from one extreme to another, from perfection to ugliness. Why can’t we simply be ourselves?
 

How to market?

Being an intern at the creative agency gives a good inside look at the marketing and advertising process through use of the media. Today besides websites, banners, posters, video commercials, promo events and marketing plans company’s reputation heavily depends on social media such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Vines and Instagram. Social networks and picture/video sharing websites create certain connection between companies. So far I’ve seen a couple different ways of relating product to the customer: show product in use by the client and make product have its own character and personality. To explain these two concepts I want to use examples of the products we advertise at the company I’m currently interning at. For a couple of our clients – Dunking Donuts and Argus (craft beer brewery in downtown Chicago) - we are doing all sorts of Facebook posts and Vine videos. These use of a social media helps to grow popularity of the brands and be closer to consumers. However, we choose a different approach to represent these products to the customer. For Dunking Donuts we make our posts and vines look like they were made by consumers themselves. For example, we make picture of a donut and writing utilities somewhere on the table making it look like some office worker has left it there, shot a quick picture of that and posted it on Facebook during the afternoon coffee break. On the other hand, for Argus, we give its beer a personality and certain character. For instance, bottles of vine are playing with the first snow in the winter or walk downtown Chicago while having a great time being a “Chicago beer that you should be drinking”. These different approaches work well because they target two complete different groups of potential customers and clients. Dunking Donuts is targeted at the office workers or college students that make their hard working days a bit sweeter with a fresh donut and a cup of coffee as they are doing a daily routine, while brutal Argus beer demonstrates a character of the real Chicagoan for people to relax after the long week on a Friday night.