Wood, Graeme. “Prison Without Walls.” Atlantic Magazine. The Atlantic Monthly Group, Sep. 2010. Web. 27 Jan. 2011.
Read this article
Graeme Wood has brought to our attention that convicted criminals are being sent out into the society with one condition, they have to be wearing a device on their leg. This device is also known as BI ExacuTrack AT. This device has a GPS installed and the felon’s parole officer will be able to track them quite easily. Wood mentioned the numbers of how expensive it is to hold prisoners in jail, especially in California. For one prisoner to be held for a year was about $50,000 dollars. This is a ridiculous number. He also mentioned this device would work if the crime rate was really high, but he did some research and he found it being exactly the opposite. He also found that when criminals are let out of prison they normally go right back to prison because they have committed another crime. He had also found in a study that those who are in prison come out more tough than when they went into prison, which makes them more of a threat to the society. That’s why this device is a plus because the person is able to go out into the streets and live their everyday life. This device will save the country lots of money, the outcome will be better than having someone locked up, and the crime rate may in fact get lowered. The prisoner will also meet with his probation officer and attend classes. The probation officer is able to track his parolees and they will be alerted if they go to a certain place they aren’t supposed to be at. They can also watch where they go and memorize their daily schedule. By doing this, the criminal is able to still be with their families, work daily, and have a semi-normal life.
This subject is important to think about because we need to see that sure there may be criminals walking the earth but they are being monitored, whereas, there are criminals walking the earth that aren’t being monitored. Who are we to lock someone up and not let them live a normal life, because they made a bad decision? Those who are in jail because they were at the wrong spot at the wrong time should still have consequences but shouldn’t be held hostage. He points out that people may freak if they see someone wearing an ankle bracelet but that shouldn’t be scary, that should relieve us. This should show that someone is monitoring them. He encourages us to see that prison is this horrible place and people who do wrong should go there but, in reality no one could get something good out of staying in there? He explains that this box may just have to symbolize the criminal’s conscience because they may not be strong enough to have their own. This box shows them that they should be in a far worse place than where they are at now, but they are in the real world doing things they never thought they would be doing because of something they did. This may give them hope and they may learn that there is good in this world, that they may get a second chance.
Thursday, January 27, 2011
Thursday, January 20, 2011
To love computers, or not to love? That is the question.
Quote Response for In the Beginning . . . Was the Command Line, pp. 1-22
New Idea:
"These strings of bytes are commonly called files or (somewhat more hiply) streams." (p.14)
This idea helped me realize that . . .
Computers are as advanced as automobile’s engines. Before I had started reading this book I was very clueless when discussions were brought up about computers. I was raised with a computer in my household, so I’ve always have used computers. But I have never thought about how they worked. I would always stop myself when I started thinking about how car engines worked and I was the same way with computers. When I read this quote, I had started to try and wrap my head around how files and documents were made. This quote goes on and explains how linear string-of-bytes make up all these things which create everything we see on the computer. They make up the images, word documents, websites, spreadsheets, graphs etc. I still don’t fully grasp the reason why we are able to see what we see on the computer, but this quote helps out some of the questions that are going on in my head.
Interpretation:
"For a short time he was extending his body and his senses into a larger realm, and doing things that he couldn't do unassisted." (p.4)
In writing this statement, the author seems to imply that . . .
One who is passionate about something will hold that something very dearly. He/she will not want to upgrade to the next big thing because he/she loves that too much. This quote is in reference to a man who loves his car. Stephenson is explaining the way this man feels about his car. The man knows how to fix the car when the car engine has messed up or the breaks have failed. He knows exactly what to do and he fixes the car and he goes right back to loving the car again. This quote explains how the car may only last a little while but his feeling and touch to the car is putting him on a whole other level. He is living in the moment instead of thinking about what may happen to his car in the future. This may be a way people buy and look at their computers, they may love their old computer and would never want to upgrade, because they have that certain connection with the computer.
Tie-In:
"It ended in July of 1995 when I tried to save a big important file on my Macintosh Powerbook and instead instead of doing so, it annihilated the data so thoroughly that two different disk crash utility programs were unable to find any trace that it had ever existed." (p.18)
Tell a detailed story from your personal experience to explain the TIE-IN:
I was 18 years old and I had started my first year in college. My dad was this technology wiz, so throughout my adolescent years I had the latest technology and was educated on the latest technology, except a hard drive. I would have thought my dad would have told me about a hard drive before heading off to college where just about anything could happen to a computer. I carried my computer everywhere. I brought my computer to the school, the library, my friend’s house and obviously my apartment. My computer was my love. I had everything on my computer from, a book I had started to write, all my pictures from childhood all the way up to my 18th birthday, all my papers I had written and senior letters I had received through e-mails. My life was on this computer. One night I was writing a paper in my room and I had a cup of water next to the computer. Somehow I had knocked the glass over and instead of grabbing my computer out of the way I tried to catch the glass which had spilled all over my keyboard. I flipped out and turned my computer off immediately and did what my father had always told me to do in this situation. I took the laptop apart and dried the computer out. I was never able to retrieve anything from the motherboard. The motherboard had blown and everything was gone. To this day my father would ask, “Why didn’t you save everything on a external hard drive?” And I would always just role my eyes and say, “I had never known there was such a thing.”
New Idea:
"These strings of bytes are commonly called files or (somewhat more hiply) streams." (p.14)
This idea helped me realize that . . .
Computers are as advanced as automobile’s engines. Before I had started reading this book I was very clueless when discussions were brought up about computers. I was raised with a computer in my household, so I’ve always have used computers. But I have never thought about how they worked. I would always stop myself when I started thinking about how car engines worked and I was the same way with computers. When I read this quote, I had started to try and wrap my head around how files and documents were made. This quote goes on and explains how linear string-of-bytes make up all these things which create everything we see on the computer. They make up the images, word documents, websites, spreadsheets, graphs etc. I still don’t fully grasp the reason why we are able to see what we see on the computer, but this quote helps out some of the questions that are going on in my head.
Interpretation:
"For a short time he was extending his body and his senses into a larger realm, and doing things that he couldn't do unassisted." (p.4)
In writing this statement, the author seems to imply that . . .
One who is passionate about something will hold that something very dearly. He/she will not want to upgrade to the next big thing because he/she loves that too much. This quote is in reference to a man who loves his car. Stephenson is explaining the way this man feels about his car. The man knows how to fix the car when the car engine has messed up or the breaks have failed. He knows exactly what to do and he fixes the car and he goes right back to loving the car again. This quote explains how the car may only last a little while but his feeling and touch to the car is putting him on a whole other level. He is living in the moment instead of thinking about what may happen to his car in the future. This may be a way people buy and look at their computers, they may love their old computer and would never want to upgrade, because they have that certain connection with the computer.
Tie-In:
"It ended in July of 1995 when I tried to save a big important file on my Macintosh Powerbook and instead instead of doing so, it annihilated the data so thoroughly that two different disk crash utility programs were unable to find any trace that it had ever existed." (p.18)
Tell a detailed story from your personal experience to explain the TIE-IN:
I was 18 years old and I had started my first year in college. My dad was this technology wiz, so throughout my adolescent years I had the latest technology and was educated on the latest technology, except a hard drive. I would have thought my dad would have told me about a hard drive before heading off to college where just about anything could happen to a computer. I carried my computer everywhere. I brought my computer to the school, the library, my friend’s house and obviously my apartment. My computer was my love. I had everything on my computer from, a book I had started to write, all my pictures from childhood all the way up to my 18th birthday, all my papers I had written and senior letters I had received through e-mails. My life was on this computer. One night I was writing a paper in my room and I had a cup of water next to the computer. Somehow I had knocked the glass over and instead of grabbing my computer out of the way I tried to catch the glass which had spilled all over my keyboard. I flipped out and turned my computer off immediately and did what my father had always told me to do in this situation. I took the laptop apart and dried the computer out. I was never able to retrieve anything from the motherboard. The motherboard had blown and everything was gone. To this day my father would ask, “Why didn’t you save everything on a external hard drive?” And I would always just role my eyes and say, “I had never known there was such a thing.”
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
No More Room in My Head
Carr, Nicholas. "Is Google Making Us Stupid?" The Atlantic. The Atlantic Monthly Group, July/August. 18 Jan. 2011.
Read this article
Nicholas Carr’s article, “Is Google Making Us Stupid”, is supporting the fact that by using Google and by doing most things online these days, we are “losing” our mind. He has made many clear points that when people rely distinctly on the internet, we don’t use all of our brain. He is pointing out that when he reads particular things, he gets sidetracked with other thoughts. He is not staying focused on what he needs to be reading. He went around and read others’ blogs and they have similar views as Carr. They have mentioned that their ways of thinking are changing and when they read, they don’t always remember what they have read. Carr believes that these problems may be caused by the internet making everything so easy, not old age.
The point of view Carr is expressing is important because there are others who are also having this problem. In the article it was said, “That the person is working the hand, but Google was our mind.” And if this is true, this is a scary thought because by the time this generation is in adulthood they will be relying on the internet more than their own mind. This is definitely something to think about because if wise writers and composers are having thinking issues and concentrating problems then think of those who are getting out of their adolescent years in this century. The two men who founded Google have mentioned the fact that Google could be, “Smarter than or at least as smart as the human mind.” Carr is afraid that humans may start acting like robots because of the information they will hold by relying on the internet. He’s leaning towards maybe, life experience to learn about things instead of always running to an internet search engine to get information or just using their head and thinking.
Read this article
Nicholas Carr’s article, “Is Google Making Us Stupid”, is supporting the fact that by using Google and by doing most things online these days, we are “losing” our mind. He has made many clear points that when people rely distinctly on the internet, we don’t use all of our brain. He is pointing out that when he reads particular things, he gets sidetracked with other thoughts. He is not staying focused on what he needs to be reading. He went around and read others’ blogs and they have similar views as Carr. They have mentioned that their ways of thinking are changing and when they read, they don’t always remember what they have read. Carr believes that these problems may be caused by the internet making everything so easy, not old age.
The point of view Carr is expressing is important because there are others who are also having this problem. In the article it was said, “That the person is working the hand, but Google was our mind.” And if this is true, this is a scary thought because by the time this generation is in adulthood they will be relying on the internet more than their own mind. This is definitely something to think about because if wise writers and composers are having thinking issues and concentrating problems then think of those who are getting out of their adolescent years in this century. The two men who founded Google have mentioned the fact that Google could be, “Smarter than or at least as smart as the human mind.” Carr is afraid that humans may start acting like robots because of the information they will hold by relying on the internet. He’s leaning towards maybe, life experience to learn about things instead of always running to an internet search engine to get information or just using their head and thinking.
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