The Internet of Things

The Internet has become a central part of modern life. Long gone are the days of computers being restricted to businesses and the extremely rich. Gone are the days of dial-up connections, and being unable to use your phone when somebody is on the internet. Today, almost every device you own is a computer that can connect to the internet, and the number of “Smart Devices” continues to grow day by day.

A simple example of an IoT “Smart Device” is a modern Cellphone. Although this name has fallen into disuse, the phones we all use now used to be well known as “Smart Phones”, as they featured early versions of IoT technology. Your cellphone can not only send and receive calls and text messages, but now it can also act as a web browser for you to search the internet, it can get on the fly weather forecasts, real time GPS software, and even a remote control for the devices around your house, should you have a suitably functional phone.

The primary purpose of the Internet of Things is to utilize the internet and IT technology to allow ordinary household devices to gather and utilize information that it would otherwise be impossible for the device to possess. Whether it be an umbrella that can tell you when it’s going to rain, a heated driveway that will raise the temperature during snow forecasts to prevent your driveway snowing in, or even an internal heating system inside your house that will turn on when you are within a few minutes of arriving back home, the Internet of Things is designed to meet those needs that you never even realized you had, and reduce the amount of user input required to a bare minimum.

Technologies on the Horizon

Despite most households not possessing many smart devices besides their phones, many IoT devices are already on the market now, and many of them are fully functional. There are many household appliances on the market right now, such as ovens and coffee makers, that allow you to interact with them using your smartphone, and even watch as your food is being prepared via cameras that stream a live video feed right to your phone. There are also smart lighting systems that allow you to turn on and off all the lights in your house, as well as change the brightness and even color, all using your cellphone.

Other technologies that you may have heard about, such as self-driving cars, are currently in the final stages of testing and production as we speak. While they are not on the market quite yet, self-driving cars have been successfully produced and tested by many different companies, and as we speak, a huge commercial battle is being fought by companies such as Tesla and Google over who will manage to provide the first smart car to the consumer market.

Potential Failures

While the Internet of Things primarily aims to provide convenience and utility to the users, there are many potential issues that may arise during the growth of this young technology.

Many of the biggest, brightest minds in the IT and engineering sectors are utterly devoted to the Internet of Things, and are making great strides of progress in developing new technologies. However, I believe that many of them are heavily overambitious. Although the primary selling point of the Internet of Things is the sheer convenience that it provides, I believe that this exact point may be one of the biggest downfalls that the technology faces.

There is an old saying that I am rather fond of.

“Those things that are designed to never break are the hardest things to fix when they do.”

In practice, nothing is foolproof. No matter how well designed, how well build and how well maintained something is, it’ll always break eventually. Everything breaks eventually. As such, with the hands-off approach that most IoT devices seem to be taking and the incredibly advanced technology that supports them, these devices may end up being absolutely impossible for the average consumer to repair, which could have dire consequences.

For example, if your umbrella has a function to predict the weather, and alert you to whether you need to take it with you or not. If your umbrella is so convenient at telling you the weather, most people will become complacent and unlikely to keep track of the weather any other way. Should the umbrella’s weather forecast function break, many people may incorrectly prepare for future weather that day which never actually occurs.

While this was a soft and petty example, similar occurrences could happen with most other IoT devices. Even today, there are many people who will lose all contact with their friends and families should they lose access to their phones, as well as losing the ability to keep track of the time, and a great deal of other features that a cellphone provides.

While personally I am a big supporter of the Internet of Things, I believe that we need to find and strike that fine balance between convenience and user interaction, so that we do not become so heavily reliant on these devices that we cannot operate without them.

sources:
http://www.theinternetofthings.eu/
http://internetofthingsagenda.techtarget.com/definition/Internet-of-Things-IoT
http://www.wired.com/insights/2014/11/the-internet-of-things-bigger/

Ethics

The word Ethics is used to describe human morality and the difference between right and wrong. Also known as Morality, it is a system used by humanity to clearly define whether a choice or course of action is ethically acceptable or not.

I’m sure you’ve all had many personal Ethical choices forced upon you, whether it be due to your religion, your family, the laws of your country or your own personal choices, everybody has a clear definition of what is right and what is wrong.

Ethics are not always black and white however, far from it if anything. The majority of choices we all have to make in life are far from easy, and our choices frequently have consequences no matter what we choose to do.

This is why Ethics are so important. By clearly understanding your actions, the consequences, moral implications and responsibility, we are all in a much better position to make properly informed choices.

My own personal story

I’d like to take this opportunity to talk about a rather painful period of my life, where I faced a great number of difficult ethical choices. This story is rather long and I’m sorry for the text wall, but when I tell this story I like to tell the whole thing, so please get comfortable.

Several years ago, I was living in Westport with my Grandparents. I had practically no income to speak of, as I mostly did volunteer work wherever I could. My Grandparents sold their house in Nelson in order to pay off a great deal of debt that they had accumulated, and moved to Westport for the cheaper cost of living, and to support my older sister who had just given birth to her third child.

While I was staying there, my Grandfather ended up in hospital, as he was extremely sick and we simply didn’t have the money or resources to care for him full time at our home. This left my Grandmother in charge of the house. It was at this time that I noticed that our household still owed a lot of money, and my Grandmother was having trouble keeping on top of it all.

I tried as hard as I could to help out, both around the house and financially whenever I could. However, my Grandmother was too proud to openly accept my help, insisting that I didn’t need to go out of my way and that she’d be able to handle everything. I continued to ask her to let me help, but didn’t press the issue terribly hard.

However, one day I was checking my bank transaction history, and noticed that she had been taking large sums of money from my account every week without asking for my permission. I knew that she still had a lot of debt to keep on top of, so I simply assumed that she really needed that money, and I allowed her to continue stealing from me under the assumption that her need was greater than mine. I didn’t care that she was taking my money, I just wanted to do everything I could to help.

Fast forward a year or so. My Grandmother ended up being sent to a hospital in Christchurch, as she had been diagnosed with cancer. With my Grandfather still in hospital as well, I ended up looking after the house on my own.

Then it started.

After noticing that the home phone had been disconnected, I set it back up, and very quickly started getting angry phone calls from debt collectors, asking for my Grandparents. I also started receiving angry letters from debt collectors, every day, asking for absurdly huge sums of money that my Grandparents apparently still owed.

It turns out that when we moved, despite selling the house to pay for the bills, my Grandparents instead wasted all the money on furniture and other useless appliances and didn’t pay the debt collectors a cent. They had run to Westport to get away from all of it, and I quickly learned that they hadn’t gotten away.

After talking to my Grandmothers friends, I learned that both her own money and the money she had been stealing from me was mostly being used to buy useless things off TradeMe that my Grandmother wanted, and that she wasn’t even paying rent on time. I was paying half of the rent myself, and I wasn’t making enough to pay for it all.

The stress of this situation drove me into depression, and I spent several weeks half starved, trying in vain to keep on top of the financial situation. Eventually however, I got some desperately needed moral support from my family, and was able to make a hard decision to cut myself off from my Grandparents, and stop trying to take responsibility for their mistakes.

Sometimes I still regret what I did. It feels selfish and cruel to just wash my hands of that situation, but I did what I had to do, and ultimately it wasn’t my problem to fix.

The IITP and Ethics in the IT Industry

The Institute of IT Professionals (IITP) contains a code of ethics that is used in the IT industry to ensure professionalism and quality workmanship among NZ based IT specialists. Several of the ethics listed in the IITP Code of Ethics are relevant to my own personal story, even if it had nothing to do with IT.

For example, I allowed my Grandmother to access my money in Good Faith, as I assumed without confrontation that she would use the money she took for a good cause. However, my Grandmother failed to maintain Integrity or Informed Consent in turn, which allowed the situation to get as out of control as it became.

In my own opinion, I believe that Integrity is by far the most important of the tenets in the Code of Ethics. Being able to make a morally correct decision in trying circumstances is much more difficult to do than many people believe, and having the mental strength to stand true to what you believe is right despite clearly knowing that there will be consequences to your actions is truly commendable.

Secondly, Competence is also extremely important. The IT industry is filled with conflicting information, some of which is caused by a difference in opinion, some by sheer bias, and some from plain misinformation. IT has a reputation among the inexperienced for being ridiculously complicated, almost magical knowledge that the majority of people simply cannot understand. Therefore, having a legitimate working knowledge of the industry and how to perform the jobs required of an IT specialist are absolutely necessary, as your employers are rarely going to have the slightest idea of what you’re supposed to be doing.

Lastly, I believe Continuous Development is also extremely important. The IT industry grows at a truly staggeringly fast rate, and anybody who does not make an active effort to stay on top of this fact are liable to be left behind. With the constant arms race that occurs between big developers of technology, new products and systems get released every month. To keep on top of this, many specialists in the IT field schedule regular meetings with other IT specialists to share knowledge and skills learned on the job, as well as attending conventions such as CES and ITx which are held yearly to advertise new products and innovations in the field.

NMIT and IITP

This year, NMIT was accredited by the IITP. This means a lot to both NMIT and future IT students. The IITP credentials are recognized and accepted in 54 countries around the world at the moment, and any BIT student that graduates from NMIT will be able to enter the workforce of any of these countries with credentials and training that will be immediately recognized and respected.

This is also extremely important for NMIT as well, as it is now one of the very few institutions in New Zealand that offers IITP accreditation, it is now one of the foremost learning centers for IT in the country.

The IITP credentials are also used to show that a trained IT is workplace ready, and has all the necessary skills and experience to start a job immediately and perform satisfactorily. This is amazing for new IT graduates, as it allows them to get a proper job that suits their diploma, instead of being turned away due to lack of experience in the field.

In short, the IITP certifications are an amazing positive for IT specialists in New Zealand, and the next few years should see a huge increase in the quality of our technicians.

Sources:
http://iitp.nz/
http://iitp.nz/about/ethics
https://www.nmit.ac.nz/news-article/show/international-job-ticket-for-nmit-graduates

Internationalization

Our world is incredibly vast, and contains a staggeringly large number of different people and cultures within it. Within these different locations, there are many different rules and regional differences that vary wildly from place to place.

 
For example: How often do you think about the date? here in New Zealand, the date is commonly written in the format of “dd/mm/yyyy”, listing the Date, Month and Year respectively in numerical format.

 
However, in the United States the date is written “mm/dd/yyyy”, listing Month, Day and Year in that order. This is something that is important to remember, as it is very easy to mix up these dates. Should an American come to New Zealand and read a date written as 03/10/2016, they would read it as “March 10th, 2016”. When in New Zealand, that date would correctly be read as “The 3rd of October, 2016.” For people who aren’t aware of the differences, this could cause a great deal of problems.

 

Internationalization in Business

When it comes to businesses and organizations, knowing these regional differences can be extremely important. For example, color theory is commonly used in advertising and marketing in order to portray specific emotions and feelings to a targeted group of consumers. The way that this works is that by utilizing specific colors in the design process, you can subliminally influence the thoughts of your viewers, giving them a specific impression of your product.

 
In western countries, the color Red is passionate, impulsive and energetic. It is often used to advertise food products, occasionally sporting goods, and fast vehicles. In South Africa however the color Red is used to represent sadness and mourning, and would be wildly inappropriate for use in advertising for impulse buy products.

 
Cultural differences are also important to keep in mind when coding. For example, not only is the date issue I mentioned earlier a common problem that coders can run into when dealing with foreign markets, there are also many differences in keyboard layouts, text formats and other such things. For example, if your computer is programmed to run Non-Unicode programs in Japanese, it will replace your backslash with a Yen symbol (¥). This can be a huge issue for coders, as the backslash is commonly used in scripts.

 
For small local businesses or government run operations, localization issues are rarely an issue. However, any business that deals with or plans to deal with a foreign market needs to keep these things in mind. Failure to conform to the different requirements of a foreign market can be catastrophic to the success of a business, and performing simple research could save a great deal of time and money.

 

Internationalization in Countries

 

Differences in culture are also important to keep in mind when dealing with foreign people on a more personal level. While language barriers are a commonly known issue that may arise when dealing with people from another nation, more subtle things that people often don’t think about such as body language matter just as much.

 
In most western countries, and even many asian ones, the thumbs up is a common hand gesture used to represent an affirmative, or positive response. However in some nations, the thumbs up means something entirely negative. Differences such as these are extremely common, and differ wildly from culture to culture. As such, it is important to always do your research when you plan to encounter people of a different culture.

 
While most western nations, such as America, The United Kingdom, Oceania and so on are very similar in terms of social requirements and all share a common language, it is generally not as important to worry as much about body language and simple grammar, but even among nations as similar as these ones, there are still things to keep in mind such as date formatting.

 
The key issues come from the much more major differences between Eastern and Western nations. As languages such as Chinese and Japanese are so wildly different from English, the language barrier is much steeper than it otherwise would be between two nations of similar origins. As such, the locale differences between the two nations require even more thought and research than would otherwise be necessary.

Copyleft

Is copying theft?

This is a hotly debated topic which is well known to any active computer user. In the digital age, we now have the ability to replicate data infinitely, and at no cost. Should you copy a digital product, for example a song or movie, and give that digital copy to another person, that person has now obtained a commercial product without paying for it, yet the company that produced that product did not lose anything in the process.

Is it okay to copy files, because nobody is losing anything? Or is it not okay to copy files, because obtaining a product without paying for it is theft?

What most people think.

The vast majority of active computer users have downloaded files from file sharing websites or using torrenting software. Whether it be something as simple as songs or eBooks, or as large as full commercial software and video games, we’re all guilty of illegally downloading something at some point or other. In the eyes of most people, nobody is getting harmed in this process, and many people intend to buy the product at a later date anyway. As such, most people would agree that illegally downloading files is completely harmless and does not deserve any punishment. The businesses who own these products disagree however.

What the Government thinks.

In spite of the large numbers of people illegally downloading and the lack of harm caused by their actions, the laws of most countries still make it perfectly clear that illegally downloading files is illegal. Should a company choose to sell a product, if you obtain that product without paying for it you have committed a crime. While there are exceptions to these rules, the laws put in place to protect against digital piracy are extremely strict in most countries, and the punishments can be extremely severe.

What I think.

In my own opinion, I do believe that obtaining a product without paying for it is theft, whether you can freely obtain a copy of it or not. Should a company, business or individual wish to sell a product for money, they should have every right to do this, and obtaining their product without paying them for it is still theft. However, I also believe that the punishments for digital copying are MUCH too steep. While I do believe that stealing digital copies is still stealing, I also believe that the governments of the world are trying much too hard to stop it, and that their laws are extremely inappropriate.

Copyright

The laws and regulations put in place to govern and protect commercial ownership of a product or products is called Copyright. Copyright laws vary wildly from country to country, but almost everywhere has their own Copyright laws in place. Copyright laws were first introduced in the 18^th Century, and were primarily used to stop authors from copying other books. As Copyright has existed for over 300 years, many people believe that it is no longer suitable for dealing with the changing needs of the modern world. As such, many alternatives have begun to appear, and many of them are now in common use.

Creative Commons

Creative Commons is a license created as an alternative to the rather obstructive nature of Copyright. Should a work be licensed under Copyright, nobody is allowed to obtain, edit or copy that work without the permission of the Copyright holder. With Creative Commons however, the content creator can choose what people are allowed to do with their work when they create the license. Many modern works are created with Creative Commons licenses today, as many people are less concerned with keeping their work to themselves, and more with getting their work out into the public domain, free for people to change and edit as they see fit.

Larry Lessig

Lester Lawrence “Larry” Lessig III is an influential man who helped create Creative Commons in 2001. He has taken part in many talks, rallies and protests against Copyright, and is a strong believer in creative freedom. Some of the causes he has supported include Net Neutrality, Remix Culture and Copyright reform. Larry is also a well-respected lawyer, and is famous for many cases dealing with Copyright law.

Summary

While I believe that the current laws dealing with Copyright and software copying are inadequate, and while I also have my own ideas as to how these issues should be dealt with, my current opinion on the subject is that I should leave it to people who know far more about the subject than I do (such as Larry Lessig), and simply hope that a good result is eventually reached.

 

References:
http://www.copyright.org.nz/
http://creativecommons.org.nz/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_Lessig

Copyright

I’m sure you’ve seen that little © symbol on products or in advertisements, or even heard the word “Copyright” before. But do you know what it actually means? Most people know Copyright as “that fancy word that big businesses like to throw around a lot”, so what is it actually for?

Copyright is a law that is designed to protect legal ownership rights. For example; the Coca Cola company owns the Coca Cola fizzy drink (and many others). This ownership is protected by Copyright. What this means in practice is that it is illegal for anybody other than the Coca Cola to produce and sell the Coca Cola drink.

The law is much more complicated than this in practice, but the general idea is that Copyright is a law that protects ownership.

Digital Copyright

In the modern world, many new products and ideas are being released digitally. Movies, Music and Video Games have all embraced the new digital format, and all of these products can be obtained online quickly and efficiently. However, digital content creates an interesting issue when it comes to copyright.

Unlike with physical media, which requires physical components and resources to produce a product, digital merchandise can be infinitely replicated at absolutely no cost due to the nature digital storage. Because of this, many people have differing opinions on how theft works with digital copyright.

For example; is it really a crime to take a digital copy of something when the original owner loses absolutely nothing? Even though you didn’t pay for the product, the owner doesn’t lose any of their stock and is not inconvenienced in any direct way. Is this still such a bad thing?

Whatever you may think about this issue, copyright law still clearly states that this is illegal. Despite not losing any actual merchandise, the owner of a product or service has a legal right to sell that product or service, and obtaining it without paying for it is still considered theft.

 

Disadvantages

Despite being a well-intentioned law designed to protect people’s legal rights, there are many larger corporations who abuse this system for their own personal gain. For example, under the fair-use terms of copyright, people are legally allowed to use specific forms of media such as movies and video games without the permission of the copyright holder. This applies if the reason for this use is for the purposes of comedy or review. However, despite this law being in place, many producers of these products will make false copyright claims against people utilizing their work for entirely legal reasons.

Nintendo is an example of this. Recently, Nintendo implemented a policy that means that if anybody wishes to show their products in a video or other form of media, the creator of that media has to provide Nintendo with a large portion of the profit they make. Despite review and parody being perfectly legal reasons to utilize Nintendo’s products, they still enforce these rules, and websites such as YouTube will often side with Nintendo when they choose to claim a copyright breach.

Copyright can also be difficult to effectively implement, as there are billions of people on the planet with billions more different creations. It can be incredibly difficult for any individual court to correctly decide who owns what.

An example of this is the term “Ugg”. As anybody who has lived in Australia or New Zealand can tell you, Ugg Boots are a form of boot made from sheepskin, with the fleece facing the inside. In Australia and New Zealand, the word “Ugg” has been used to describe these boots for decades. However, in the United States the word “UGG” is a licensed and copyrighted brand name owned by Deckers Outdoor Corporation.

Many debates, lawsuits and copyright infringement notices have occurred due to this issue. Most Australian and New Zealand citizens argue strongly that the word “Ugg” is a generic term simply used to describe that style of boot, while America recognises Ugg as a huge international brand name.

Resolving these issues is almost impossible, as copyright laws differ quite heavily from country to country. Many big businesses also put an excessive amount of pressure onto businesses and individuals who they claim have breached their copyrights. As a large business is a multimillion dollar organisation, they frequently possess resources that no smaller business or individual could ever hope to compete against. Without major changes in the way our society works, issues with will never truly go away.

 

The Trans-Pacific Partnership

The Trans-Pacific Partnership is an incredibly controversial bill that was proposed to promote trade between nations in the pacific rim. While at a quick glance this bill may seem to be an amazingly good deal, the fine print text is far more disconcerting.

The TPPA is primarily designed to protect the interests of big businesses, to get them to do business in the smaller nations of the pacific. Despite the increase in trade being a great idea, the power that this bill gives to businesses is incredibly dangerous. Under the TPPA, businesses would have a legal right to sue national governments that implement laws that negatively affect the profit margins those companies could obtain.

This is an incredibly bad idea. As the country could stand to risk extremely large sums of money should they lose one of these cases, all of the partnered governments would begin to tiptoe around these businesses in hopes of not aggravating them. This would give those businesses almost free reign to do whatever they want to within our national borders.

Some of the consequences of this would include increases in the costs of most products, especially medicine, impossible competition for any smaller start-up businesses, and most relevant to this blog post, far greater policing of copyright.

Under the TPPA, copyright laws will last 20 years longer, and would be much more firmly enforced. This would have serious consequences on a great number of vital institutions such as libraries or schools, as they would now need to pay much more money just to continue using the materials they already use.

If you don’t want the TPPA bill to be passed into law, head over to itsourfuture.org.nz and look for ways to help fight. No matter your standing on the issue, the TPPA is a terrible business deal for our country, and if we don’t fight it now it may be too late to stop it.

Sources :
New Zealand Copyright Law - http://www.copyright.org.nz/
Nintendo Creators Program - https://r.ncp.nintendo.net/guide/
Ugg Boots - http://www.inta.org/INTABulletin/Pages/TheUGGBootControversy.aspx
The TPPA -  https://www.tpp.mfat.govt.nz/
http://itsourfuture.org.nz/what-is-the-tppa/

What is Real?

With modern technology, the line between what is real and what is fake seems to be getting harder and harder to distinguish. Modern screens and monitors have achieved a pixel density so high that it is almost impossible to distinguish a digital image from a physical image, Digital Music formats have achieved near lossless replications of musicians playing their music right in front of you, and even video games consistently reach new heights on the road to obtaining true photo-realism.

So how do we tell the difference? What is real and what is not?

In my opinion, having been raised on IT technology, I believe that real is whatever you want it to be. I frequently played online games with people from around the world when I was young, spending many hours hanging out and having fun with people from many different countries. These people were very real, they exist physically, they spoke to me and interacted with me, and I considered many of them to be my close friends. Yet, as anybody with family members who aren’t quite up to date with modern technology can relate to, my parents would frequently tell me to “Get off that darn computer, go outside and play with your real friends!”.

So, were my online friends less real than the friends who lived a short distance away from me? I don’t believe so. The memories I have with my online friends are very real, and that’s all that matters in my opinion.

Modern Technology

Today, more and more technologies are being invented which are pushing the boundaries of reality and fiction. We already have devices such as surround sound headphones and Virtual Reality goggles, and there are also devices which should be available to consumers soon such as Augmented Reality and the HoloLens.

The HoloLens is a device which is designed to overlay your field of vision with various holographic images. This can include simple things such as a GPS or a weather forecast, or even complicated full virtual landscapes such as the surface of Mars. Should this device be a success, it could have a great deal of implications on our day to day lives, both positive and negative.

For Example:

Pros:

• The HoloLens would offer information such as the time, directions and weather forecasts right in front of your eyes.
• Business conferences, meetings and even family gatherings could be arranged and held from long distances, but everybody could still be present and visible.
• Timers such as cook times or appointments could be easily displayed at any time, making it much harder to miss an appointment or burn dinner.

Cons:

• You still have to wear a large, bulky device on your face to obtain this information, and the vast majority of consumers aren’t willing to do this (as clearly shown by the constant failure of 3D movies).
• These devices would require a great deal of power to operate, and modern battery technology would be unable to power them for more than a few hours before requiring recharge, making them almost useless for outdoor use.
• Creating a computer of this size capable of rendering so much data this quickly would use incredibly expensive components, putting the HoloLens far outside of the price bracket of the average consumer.

Call me a pessimist or a downer or whatever else, but I personally believe that the creators of the HoloLens are overly ambitious and biased in their projects favour. While the HoloLens would be an incredibly useful device, the technical issues that the developers have to overcome seem to be huge and insurmountable. While my hopes are quite high for the device, my expectations are much lower.

Virtual Reality

The Oculus Rift is a headset device that you wear to see a digital landscape through your own eyes. This technology was primarily created for video games, so that you can see what your character sees and achieve a much more immersive and realistic experience. I don’t believe that is all it can be used for however.

The Oculus Rift essentially allows you to experience somebodies’ life through their eyes. This could have revolutionary uses in the Film and Education industries. For example, imagine your favourite movie. Now imagine if you could watch it again, only entirely through the protagonist’s eyes.

This example shows quite well the uses for the Oculus Rift in modern fiction:

Conclusion

With all of these technologies coming in the near future, many people have raised concerns about the potential consequences they may bring. With Home PCs and Smart Phones being owned by nearly everybody, interpersonal relationships have noticed a steep decline. Many people believe that technologies such as the Oculus Rift and the HoloLens will simply make these problems even worse, and that especially children may lose their ability to perceive the difference between reality and fiction.

While I can see the logic in these conclusions, and actually agree with them for the most part, I personally believe that it doesn’t matter. While communication and interactions with most people now happen online rather than physically, I don’t believe that this is a bad thing. Digital communication allows people to express themselves much more openly and freely than they otherwise would in physical conversations. The anonymity of the Internet has given people the ability to be themselves in a public setting without fear of the social consequences they may suffer as a result of their actions.

In my opinion, technologies such as Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality will help to remove even more of the restrictions and limitations present in physical interactions, and will help people to truly connect with one another on truly equal terms.

This is assuming the technologies don’t fail of course.

We can only hope.

Problem Solving and Bias

The mind is an incredible thing. A human brain is an infinitely powerful processing device, on par with even the most powerful of computers. We all possess the means to perform incredibly complicated logical and mathematical equations, and many individuals have left their name on history for their accomplishments in these fields.

So why do we have trouble finding our keys in the morning, despite them being exactly where they always are?

Why do we forget the birthdays of our friends and loved ones, despite them happening at the same time every single year?

Why do we forget to buy milk from the supermarket, despite that being the reason we went to the supermarket in the first place?

Because humans are stupid.

Despite the power of the human brain, the vast majority of people have narrow-minded view sets and self-imposed restrictions on their ability to use that powerful tool in their real life. Examples include things like racism and sexism, a predetermined thought that people have which then heavily influences every other thought they may have on the subject. This is called “Bias”.

Bias refers to the mental act of allowing one thought or preconception to influence your other thoughts and conclusions. While examples of this in practice in real life are extremely common, I’d like to give you a physical example of my own.

Who cut the Cheese!?

Here is a mental exercise that I am quite fond of. The objective is to take a piece of cheese and correctly cut it so that eight portions remain. While this is a simple task to perform, the objective of the exercise is to cut the cheese into portions with as few slices as possible.

Some of the ground rules for this exercise are as follows:

• You must use a single piece of cheese to start with. The size doesn’t matter, but it must be one single piece.
• You must cut the cheese into eight portions with as few cuts as possible.
• Once you begin cutting the cheese, you cannot move it until you have completed all of your cuts.
• The cheese is intended to be eaten after you cut it, so the portion sizes need to be reasonably sized (no tiny cheese shavings).
• The cheese cannot be broken, only cut.
• (Solution Hint) If you did this to a cake, people would probably kill you.

Here I will provide some white space before giving the answer, so that anybody who wishes to attempt this exercise may do so without risk of me spoiling the answer.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Solutions

First of all, everybody should have been able to answer with four cuts at most. By cutting the cheese like a pizza, four cuts can easily achieve eight pieces of cheese, as all you have to do is cut horizontally, vertically and twice diagonally to split a single piece into eight pieces.

Three cuts can also be easily achieved, all you have to do is stop thinking in two dimensions. The picture I provided is flat, but the cheese you would be working with is not. The way to achieve three cuts is to slice horizontally, vertically, and then slice once more between the top and bottom of the cheese.

Now here’s the tricky one, and I’m sure a lot of you will be annoyed by this. You can correctly answer this riddle with an answer of one. All you’d have to do is get a piece of flat cheese, like the cheap pre-sliced cheddar you can buy in supermarkets, fold it into a zigzag shape, then cut it once straight down the middle.

As anybody would know who has eaten this type of cheese before, the cheese would rip if you tried to actually fold it like in the diagram. But it was mentioned in the rules that the cheese cannot be broken or cut except with a knife cut, so the unique properties of this riddle make this particular solution possible.

Now I know this seems like cheating as I showed a picture of a cheese wheel earlier, but not once did I specify that the cheese you were working with was a cheese wheel. This is a perfect example of human bias at work. After seeing an image of how something is supposed to look, your mind will naturally connect that picture with the item in question, and your thinking will narrow to only provide conclusions inspired by that image.

Small Details vs the Big Picture

Most people’s minds fit into one of two categories. Detail oriented thinkers and big picture oriented thinkers. Detail thinkers are people who are obsessed with getting every little thing right. They’re the kinds of people who would always make sure that they have all the ingredients prepared, measured and cooked to perfection when creating a meal. Big picture thinkers on the other hand focus less on the details, and more on the end results. They are the types of people who would be choosing complimentary drinks and side dishes and setting the atmosphere for dinner.

I am one of the lucky few people who seems to fit right in the middle between these two thinking styles (at least according to all the online tests I could find). This gives me the ability to both plan out a big project, and ensure that all the component details are handled appropriately as well.

In spite of this, I still have biases of my own. For example, I refuse to listen to arguments and debates that are not founded in firm logic. Should a person try to argue a point to me using emotional pleas or idealism instead of logic and realism, I will very quickly shut my brain right down and refuse to even listen to their arguments.

I also have a rather strong bias in regards to video games. I am a PC gamer at heart, and I have bitter feelings towards video game consoles such as the PS4 or Xbox One. The reason for this is because the majority of gaming support is given to the consoles, despite PCs offering far better performance. Most big budget video games of today are designed primarily for consoles first and released on PC later, which often results in a lackluster Console to PC game port.

This is a simple matter of economics. It’s not the fault of console gamers that the PC platform doesn’t get games developed for it as frequently, it’s because there is a significantly larger market on consoles than there is for gamers on PC. This doesn’t stop me from regarding console gamers as lesser than PC gamers. It’s irrational, but this is one of my biases.

The Internet’s Own Boy

The Story of Aaron Swartz

Introduction

The internet is an amazing place, filled with almost any kind of information you can possibly think of. Whenever you want to know anything, all you have to do is press a few keys on a keyboard and that information will be provided to you almost instantly, free of charge.

As a gathering place for information of all kinds, the Internet is an incredibly useful tool. Almost anything, from how to properly cook rice to how to build a fully functional space shuttle, can be learned online from inside your own home.

But what if the owner of this information wants you to pay for it, or wants the information to only be accessible to a select group of people? Many debates have taken place on this topic.

In the digital age, information and data can be replicated infinitely at practically no cost. Movies, Music and Games can easily be obtained online at no cost, should you know where to look. Expensive computer programs such as Microsoft and Adobe software can be downloaded for free. Even entire scientific journals can be read with no cost at all, all thanks to the very nature of the internet.

However, all of these things legally belong to a business or individual who wishes to sell this information. While obtaining data online costs the owner of the information nothing, you are still gaining access to a product which they wish to sell, at no charge.

Is this theft?

Opinions vary wildly on the subject, and I don’t wish to project my own biases into the subject. But I would like to take a moment to talk about a very important figure in the history of the internet.

Aaron Swartz.

 

Aaron Swartz

Aaron Hillel Swartz was a young American man who has done many things for the internet.  He is the founder of an internet activist group named Demand Progress, which is dedicated to protecting internet freedom and promoting online human rights. He also served on the board of a non-profit organization called Change Congress, which is attempting to fight corruption in the United States Congress.

He has achieved a great many other things, but I’ll try to cut it short to keep this article from becoming too long. There is however one other thing he did in his life that I’d like to talk about.

 

JSTOR and MIT

Over a few weeks between 2010 and 2011, Aaron Swartz visited the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and downloaded a large number of academic journals using the digital library software known as JSTOR. Aaron was caught by MIT staff and forced to stop his download and surrender the data. Not long after this event however, Aaron was arrested and charged with multiple crimes, including breaking and entering, information theft and computer fraud.

Near the end of the prosecution, Aaron was facing 13 felony counts, which would result in roughly $1,000,000 in fines and 50 years in prison. At this time, Aaron was offered a plea deal of six months in a low security prison if he pleaded guilty to the charges presented against him, which Aaron refused. Sadly, Aaron Swartz committed suicide on the 11^th of January 2011.

Guerrilla Open Access Manifesto

Aaron Swartz was a very influential activist who believed very strongly in freedom of information. When he downloaded the Academic Journals from MIT, he planned to release them online, so that anybody who wished to read them could do so for free.

In July 2008, Aaron Swartz attended a gathering in Italy held by a non-profit organization known as EIFL, which makes information digitally available to developing countries. At this gathering he released a document he called the “Guerrilla Open Access Manifesto”, a radical document calling for people to freely release information to the public.

This document clearly shows Aaron’s motives and plans for the information he obtained from MIT. While his actions were very obviously illegal, whether his actions were morally correct or not is entirely up for debate.

 

Stop Online Piracy Act

The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) was a bill proposed in the United States to try and fight digital piracy. This bill was very heavily criticized, as many of the laws it was attempting to implement were in violation of other laws and legal rights.

In spite of the questionable nature of the laws SOPA was intended to put into place, it got an absurdly large level of support from a huge number of very rich corporations. In spite of huge opposition to the bill from many online groups, including Aaron Swartz and Demand Progress, the bill was passing unanimously through congress and appeared to be unstoppable.

Many websites, such as Google and Wikipedia, protested the bill by organizing a coordinated service blackout in January 2012 in an attempt to protest against the bill. Wikipedia reported that over 162 million people viewed the website during this protest. Google gathered a petition that contained over 7,000,000 signatures from individuals opposed to SOPA, and included many boycotts against businesses and corporations in support of the bill. Finally, the bill was held back by Senator Ron Wyden, which gave the people of the internet enough time to rally enough support to get the bill thrown out of congress.

This successful defense against SOPA is a critical point in history for the internet, as it shows people that if they stand up together, their voices can and will be heard.

 Jack Andraka

Jack Andraka is a young American scientist who recently invented a revolutionary new way to test for pancreatic cancer. Jack claims to have used freely sourced online medical journals in order to finish his own research, and says that if not for these journals he never would have been able to invent his test.

In regards to Aaron Swartz’s prosecution for the theft of academic journals, Jack Andraka said

“I believe [Swartz’s] actions were mostly justified, the public funded a lot of that research. It shouldn’t be held inaccessible to the public.”

 

Summary

I personally support internet freedom very strongly. I believe that all academic information should be available at no cost to everybody who wishes to access it. As shown with the SOPA bill, I believe that we have the ability to change the world for the better, all we need to do is band together and stand up in opposition of those companies and businesses that hold academic journals and other information behind a paywall.

Feel free to discuss your own opinions in the comments. What are your opinions on industries such as JSTOR charging money for access to academic papers? Do you believe they have a right to charge for this information? I look forward to hearing your opinions.

Innovative Thinking

Introduction

The past few decades have been incredible for innovative technology. The Internet is easily one of the most innovative inventions the human race has ever produced, and it continues to evolve and grow at a breakneck pace.

Cellphones, TVs, household appliances, watches and many other personal devices have now been integrated with computers and given access to the internet. The ease of use and user convenience that the Internet provides is truly unmatched by any other innovation in modern society.

The massive boom in Internet Technology is not without drawbacks however. Despite the convenience and usefulness of all this technology, it tends to be far too expensive for the average consumer to easily afford. Many people buy computers, tablets and cellphones far below their actual needs, simply to avoid the brutal prices that this technology asks for.

I believe that this is going to change. Whether it be in a few years or a few decades, the future of technology seems to be heading into the Cloud.

Cloud Computing

Cloud computing is a revolutionary new technology. Instead of using physical hardware to perform all of the tasks you need an expensive computer to perform, your device instead sends a request through the internet to a collection of hosted hardware, which performs your task then transmits the results back to you.

This technology could revolutionize the IT Industry. For example, one of the many uses of computers is for video games. Video games require a huge amount of processing power, and typically require very expensive computers to efficiently operate. The huge price point on gaming computers has acted as a massive barrier to entry for gamers for many years.

With cloud computing however, all you’d need is a device capable of sending and receiving requests to a cloud hosted device, which would enable gamers to play their games on significantly cheaper hardware.

Road to Success

I honestly believe that cloud computing is going to do very well. History has shown that the people love simplicity and convenience, and most people are more than willing to pay a reasonable fee in order to make their own lives just a little bit easier.

Merely two hundred years ago the human race lived without electricity or efficient plumbing, and everybody had to physically carry food, water and waste to and from their homes. In modern times however, everybody has electricity and running water supplied directly to their homes. Food can be delivered to your door with a simple phone call or internet order. Waste is collected from your house and removed every week. These conveniences make life far easier than it ever used to be.

Today you can even buy music, movies and games online without ever having to leave your house, you simply pay a small fee then download them directly into your phone or computer. All of these services require a fee to be paid, but everybody pays them gladly and without complaint.

Because of these things, I honestly believe that cloud computing will be a great success in the future.

Risk of Failure

Cloud computing is not a guaranteed success however. There are many potential hazards and pitfalls that it will need to overcome before it can ever hope to be a commercial success.

One of the biggest potential issues of cloud computing is ironically its biggest strength. The Internet. cloud computing relies on your internet connection to send and receive information, otherwise it simply will not function. This means that without internet, you no longer have a computer.

Latency will also be an issue with this technology. Computers process information nearly instantly, but a digital request for this process to be performed sent via cloud computing will be infinitely slower. First it has to create the request, then send it through the internet to the host device that will perform the task, which will then generate and send the information that was requested back to the host device. This could potentially create up to a few seconds of wait before any information can be obtained via cloud computing, which is a very long time for a computer.

Another potential risk is the price. This technology is going to be incredibly expensive to develop and set up, so the asking price for cloud computing services is likely to be very steep. The services provided by cloud computing, while extremely convenient, are far from necessary in modern daily life, so many people will choose to avoid it should the price be set too high.

Conclusion

In spite of the potential hurdles that cloud computing will have to overcome, I still believe that it will be a huge success one day. As a computer gamer, I would absolutely love to not have to worry about the quality of my hardware when playing a new game. With cloud computing, hardware restrictions will be a thing of the past, and everybody will be able to play their games the way they were meant to be played.

I may be biased in my opinion on the subject, as most people probably have no need for more computing power in their devices. But in spite of this, I continue to support cloud computing and hope to see it do well in the future.

Sources:

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The Treaty of Waitangi

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The Treaty of Waitangi. I know I know we all hate hearing these words, having been forced on us repeatedly in every school and educational institution we’ve ever attended. But in spite of whatever feelings we may all have on the subject, it remains a fact that the Treaty of Waitangi is easily the most influential document in the history of our country. I’ll be talking about it here, and I’ll do my best to make it as interesting as I possibly can. Wish me luck, I’ll need it.

Origins and Early History

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The Treaty of Waitangi is an incredibly influential, if somewhat controversial document in New Zealand. The Treaty was first signed in 1840 between the British Government and many of the local Maori chiefs. In short, the treaty simply gave the Maori people citizenship in the British Empire, and detailed all of the laws and regulations that came with it.

During the Renaissance (14th to 17th century AD roughly), many of the European nations began expanding their borders massively in a bid to secure land rights and trade before their neighboring rival nations could. This included the discovery and colonization of the Americas in the 1600s, the creation of the East India Company in the 1700s, and the establishment of Hong Kong as a British Colony in the 1840s (almost exactly the same time that the Treaty of Waitangi was signed).

The New Zealand Civil War

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Due to mistranslations (accidental or deliberate, nobody knows) between the English and Maori versions of the Treaty, many legal disputes occurred between the Maori natives and the British settlers over land ownership. The Maori successfully held off the British forces using fortified villages and trenches for many years, abandoning their positions before the British forces could dig in and mount a full offensive. This stalemate didn’t last forever though, as the Maori forces simply didn’t have the social infrastructure required to maintain a sustained war.

Personally I’ve always enjoyed stories of historical warfare, and I believe that the Civil Wars in New Zealand over the Treaty of Waitangi are a perfect example of the incredibly deep and complex nature of warfare. The British forces outnumbered the Maori massively and had a huge technology advantage, yet the Maori still managed to successfully fight the British off through superior tactics and knowledge of the terrain. Yet in spite of all the combat, the war was decided by economic factors completely outside of the fighting. I believe this is one of the most interesting parts of the history of the Treaty, and in spite of almost nothing of note actually happening during the war, I believe that the New Zealand Civil War is extremely interesting as a result of this.

UNDRIP

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In 2007, the UN introduced a document called the “United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples”, also known as UNDRIP. This document was designed to protect the culture, history and legal rights of native cultures who have been colonized by a larger, more dominant culture. UNDRIP passed almost unanimously through the UN, though it was opposed by a few specific nations, including New Zealand.

Many of the articles in the UNDRIP were criticized as being either too vague or not compatible with existing laws. For example, Articles 26, 27 and 28 speak about land rights and land ownership laws. In short, these articles say that indigenous peoples have a right to ownership of any land that they traditionally owned, and are legally obligated to reparations and payment for any land that they believe has been taken from them unfairly. Many land ownership rights obtained under the Treaty of Waitangi are controversial, so these articles raised many concerns over future land disputes in New Zealand.

Personal Reflection

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Personally, I have mixed feelings on this whole ordeal. I believe very strongly in protecting history and cultural heritage, but I also hate splitting people into separate groups (race, gender, age, nationality etc.) as I believe it to be one of the primary causes of racism. In practice, I believe that everybody should be treated exactly the same, given the exact same rights and treatment no matter who you are or who your parents were. While I support the protection of culture and history, I believe that it should stay history.

In modern times, cultural differences are becoming less and less of a concern thanks to the internet. The anonymity and openness of the internet has allowed many people to interact with a huge, broad range of people from all around the world. This has led to a lot of irrational prejudices breaking down, as people learn that in spite of all of our many differences, we’re all connected by our love of internet flame wars and cat videos. The internet is beginning to develop a very strong subculture of its own, which is also starting to leak into real life outside of the internet.

The convenience and openness of the internet is having many effects around the world, both positive and negative. Examples of this are online stores. You can easily find any product you could possibly think of online, and you can very likely purchase it and get it shipped to your door far cheaper than many local small businesses could ever possibly afford. Morbid though it may sound, I believe that this is simply natural cause and effect, and that if people can’t adjust to the social, political and economical changes the world is facing as a result of the internet, then they’ll be left behind and eventually forgotten.

I know I could have done this all far better, and I'm sorry. But I absolutely hate this topic and forcing myself to do this much without just ranting about it was hard enough. Sorry again, and I swear I'll make my next blog post the most interesting shit you've ever read.