HW 11

1.     If I could get a free robot that only did one thing, it would conquer the world for me. After conquering the world it would announce me as king of the world, and I would rule a peaceful and happy, and fruitful world till the end of time.

2.     See Chris’s blog

3.     I really enjoyed the time-lapse videos, especially the ones that spanned years of a persons life. You really get to see the subtle changes in a person magnified in this manner. 

HW 10

1.     I think that implementing natural text recognition into robotics would be a major step towards ‘mainstreaming’ the robot industry. If a robot were say able to read and comprehend certain tasks that would be the ultimate robot. Instead of having to voice a command every time you needed something done, you could preload a list of commands into the robot, each with a time associated to it.

2.      I feel that for the presentation, since it will be an hour long for ours that we should include a power point somewhere. It would discuss how Neural networks and Fuzzy logic work so that people would have an understanding of what we are doing. Once we had gone over that we would discuss the input and desired output. As well as, discuss the pre-processing of data and delve into the decision process and long-term memory of the neural network. Finally we will want to give a live demonstration of the program with several inputs to show that it is working or not working (depending on the outcome).

3.  See Chris’s Blog 

HW 9

1.    Scientific proof is not attainable due to the unpredictable nature of the world we live in. To say that without a doubt something is scientifically proven is impossible. Essentially the closer you observe something the more you know about it. However, one can never know everything about something due to the observation effect. I think this is an excellent way to bring together religion and science, in hopes to fully understanding the world one day.

2.     See Chris’s Blog

3.    a. The impact of computing on an individual’s privacy is quite scary. Since nearly every person in today’s society is connected to the Internet his or her information is readily available. Especially considering most people are ill informed on how to protect them. Using facebook as an example a novice user might include their cell phone number or their street address in their profile information allowing one with mal-intent to steal the users credit card info or even their social security number.

b.  The impact of computing on an individual’s security is definitely a good impact. With the right knowledge and know how any user can secure their network or computer fairly easily due to the increase of technology.  Firewalls, IP blockers, and anti virus programs all work together to allow a user to securely surf the net.

c.  The impact of computing on the quality of information is rather hard to determine. Seeing as how any Joe Schmoe can create a website and claim it to be credible. This is a double-edged sword. At one edge it allows for useful and relevant information to constantly be updated, on the other hand there is that information that is clearly incorrect and misleading. 

HW 8

1. Being the cynic that I am the first round of predictions for Earth 2100 is pretty much how I see the United states specifically turning out. Of course that is taking into affect that we dont majorly change our way of life as a country.  Due to massive population increases (baby boomers) we are reaping the negative affects from exhausting this worlds resources. Soon enough the west coast will be barren, and most people will migrate towards metropolitan areas. Thus allowing for deadly diseases (black plague) to spread rapidly and reduce the over population. It seems to be a natural way of life. More or less a protection the world has built in to keep it running for billions and billions of years. Instead of mere thousands.

I believe that most imperative change needed to be made to our country is to not continue towards urbanization. We need to embrace our rural roots, and live more off the land than off the fast/easy way of life. For instance in the times before fast food chains became as big as they are I believe the avg family at 3/4s less meat than we do today. Why is that? well because a town had to rely on a farmer to raise its stock then take it to the butcher to prepare. The fast food industry has streamlined this process by mass producing farm stock, and crops. Allowing them to sell food at competitive prices.

If we as a society start to rely less on urbanization, and start living off the land more I think there can be hope to survive for thousands of years as a country rather than a few hundred more.

2. See Chris' blog.

HW 7

1. The spoil sport of prediction that bugs me the most is the 'Butterfly Effect'.  In essence this spoiler says, that "The most unimportant, minuscule motion causes a motion of effects that one day can cause say  a hurricane to occur." In the movie 'Butterfly Effect' the main character was granted the ability to go back in time and change what he did. Alas with every change made a bigger consequence grew. By the time he ended up back in present time his whole life had become a wreck due to all the things he changed from the past.

When predicting things it becomes easier to control certain variables or make it seem as though they are controlled. In essence all you are doing is discounting certain facts that in turns makes your prediction false.

2. See Chris' blog.

3. Our presentation is on Monday December 6.

HW 6

See Chris Biedenbenders blog for this assignment