Mini Project 3

Algorithms...

All this algorithm stuff is kinda bizarre I think. It’s weird to think that a code on a computer can control so much…and it’s kinda scary. One of the videos was saying how we do all this work to connect a wire from New York to Chicago so that an algorithm can do something a little faster than another…but to the point that we humans won’t even be able to tell what it did. We just won’t know. How can a mathematical equation control so much? I know that I am stupid about this kinda stuff…like it just kinda blows my mind and it’s hard to think about and understand for me…but I just honestly do not understand.

And it’s one thing to have an algorithm that someone creates to see what movies you like to watch best so it knows which ones to promote to you, but what about the ones that humans don’t create? One of the articles was talking about how all of the sudden all these people got blocked from posting their opinions on facebook, but facebook says that they didn’t do it. It kinda just started happening and they weren’t quite sure how to fix it. And one of the videos was talking about an algorithm in stocks I think where like 9% of something (sorry…I didn’t quite understand the details, I understood it to be money though) just disappeared because of the algorithm and no one knew where it went or why it disappeared. It just did. I liked how Slavin put it…we are writing things that we cannot read…and that’s scary to me.

Tools and Networks

I know that the internet has helped us accomplish a lot...but these two videos (Anderson and Dash) showed me in much more detail what has been and still can be accomplished.
In Anderson, i thought it was really cool how the internet has helped so many industries grow. Even if they are just unusual hobbies that most people wouldn't have social networks for. With the internet, they can. They can connect with both people who have that hobby and ones who just think what is being shown is awesome.Which kinda means that youtube was a site that helped this a lot. I don't honestly know if there were many video sites out there before youtube, but Anderson was saying that millions of hours are spent on youtube today and that in ten years, 90 percent of the info on the internet will come through video. And those millions of hours on youtube are not all just spent looking at stupid stuff...there are informational videos on youtube. With Anderson, i just found it really interesting what a little "light" as he calls it can do when there is a group with desire.
I thought that Dash's video was really interesting too. The whole idea of tools and networks...and not just internet. He said that the printing press helped his grandfather connect to Ghandi. But just the ways that people can learn how to use the tools that they have access to and can change things for society. This was shown in the Anderson video too with the man from (africa?) that was able to use TED talks in his own way and produce food to help hungry families. And now we have tools that can help a high school kid give his idea to someone who may be able to actually do something about it through just a twitter to the whitehouse. Its amazing what someone who some kind of tool and knows how to use it right can produce its own network and go on to accomplish something great.