It's been quite some time since I made a blog post, and a lot of things has happened since then, both in my academic / teaching and work life. And I must say, QUITE a lot has really happened. We're currently entering the third week of the second trimester of my teaching and already I'm filled with work and things to do that I barely manage to make blog posts lately. Or maybe it's just my procrastination coupled with a natural desire for playing games more than working seriously that keeps me from making blog posts nowadays. Oh well, got to change that soon LOL.
As I said, we are almost at the third week of the trimester and it's a lifting, if not almost common, experience to be teaching the same class twice in a row in the same day at consecutive periods. Yes, I once again man the decks on AC81 both BEFORE and AFTER lunch, with two monumental subjects that I consider quite the challenge to teach and also learn. While I try my best to incorporate what we have been doing in the past term to them on this new trimester, I am faced with several challenges as to how to properly execute them, resource-wise. It's sad to note that there are several limitations to technology that even I cannot mend in an instant.
Which reminds me, I had engaged myself with my usual hobby of watching the movies and after watching Eagle Eye, I had several thoughts regarding the full power of information and technology if there is to say, an entity existing that holds the absolute union of both worlds. To those who might not have watched this exciting techno-driven movie, better hold back on the reading as I lament on this cool stuff.
The movie has this certain computer system named ARIA, a secret project by the US government to spy on imminent threats to the government, from terrorism to crime to everyday activities of almost every single entity that can carry electronic and wireless signals. This device can practically tap into any device that its power can reach (the only ones not being those without batteries, power, or any form of outside interaction) and use it as a means to gather information (i.e, tapping into the security cameras of a convenience store to gain vision of that area or perhaps controlling the traffic lights to orchestrate a harmonious flow of traffic).
Then again, when the system gets opposed by human interventions, as the usual case SHOULD be, the absoluteness of this system takes it to the point that it has to eliminate its human master and instate a new one, as supposedly dictated by it's "programming" (it being given the programming of how the US government chain of command should work and how it should act when the chain of command has been maimed). Its intelligence reaches a tremendous point that it actually manages to hatch a scheme that could eliminate the heads of the US government and reinstate a new one, all while blackmailing under cover of patriotism, two innocent civilians who somehow were "activated" by this computer while tapping into their phones and using their private information or loved ones as hostages to its evil plot.
While the movie holds more juice than what I have described above (which I will recommend for watching), it makes you wonder about how IT and computers are progressing nowadays and the usual "what-if" question of how the future would look like if software and hardware became more and more complex, or even "human-like". Would it also end up like ARIA, fulfilling its programming directives to the very letter even if it meant ignoring its master or user, or would it eventually take control over humanity with its absoluteness and drive us into that futuristic hell that is often portrayed in other movies? Whatever happens today is dictated by what people do in the present, and I hope we don't go that far.
With that I take my leave, goodnight everyone :D
~Sir Dave~
Once a gamer, always will be a gamer
As I said, we are almost at the third week of the trimester and it's a lifting, if not almost common, experience to be teaching the same class twice in a row in the same day at consecutive periods. Yes, I once again man the decks on AC81 both BEFORE and AFTER lunch, with two monumental subjects that I consider quite the challenge to teach and also learn. While I try my best to incorporate what we have been doing in the past term to them on this new trimester, I am faced with several challenges as to how to properly execute them, resource-wise. It's sad to note that there are several limitations to technology that even I cannot mend in an instant.
Which reminds me, I had engaged myself with my usual hobby of watching the movies and after watching Eagle Eye, I had several thoughts regarding the full power of information and technology if there is to say, an entity existing that holds the absolute union of both worlds. To those who might not have watched this exciting techno-driven movie, better hold back on the reading as I lament on this cool stuff.
The movie has this certain computer system named ARIA, a secret project by the US government to spy on imminent threats to the government, from terrorism to crime to everyday activities of almost every single entity that can carry electronic and wireless signals. This device can practically tap into any device that its power can reach (the only ones not being those without batteries, power, or any form of outside interaction) and use it as a means to gather information (i.e, tapping into the security cameras of a convenience store to gain vision of that area or perhaps controlling the traffic lights to orchestrate a harmonious flow of traffic).
Then again, when the system gets opposed by human interventions, as the usual case SHOULD be, the absoluteness of this system takes it to the point that it has to eliminate its human master and instate a new one, as supposedly dictated by it's "programming" (it being given the programming of how the US government chain of command should work and how it should act when the chain of command has been maimed). Its intelligence reaches a tremendous point that it actually manages to hatch a scheme that could eliminate the heads of the US government and reinstate a new one, all while blackmailing under cover of patriotism, two innocent civilians who somehow were "activated" by this computer while tapping into their phones and using their private information or loved ones as hostages to its evil plot.
While the movie holds more juice than what I have described above (which I will recommend for watching), it makes you wonder about how IT and computers are progressing nowadays and the usual "what-if" question of how the future would look like if software and hardware became more and more complex, or even "human-like". Would it also end up like ARIA, fulfilling its programming directives to the very letter even if it meant ignoring its master or user, or would it eventually take control over humanity with its absoluteness and drive us into that futuristic hell that is often portrayed in other movies? Whatever happens today is dictated by what people do in the present, and I hope we don't go that far.
With that I take my leave, goodnight everyone :D
~Sir Dave~
Once a gamer, always will be a gamer
No comments:
Post a Comment