Author: edp316

Scratching the Pokemon Idea, we agreed on making a comic about understanding the common problem of having difficulties with self-expression and misunderstanding. Our comic will start with a black screen which turns into a black and white silhouette of a big city (the current idea is Shanghai). The readers will then take the perspective of a stock person, with no discernable features completely monotone icon of a colorless person. The user will then try to input material and speak when prompted, however, whatever the user will try to type, the output will be indiscernible jibberish and symbols. This will be timed, with the user being left frustrated with nothing to do but wait. There will be other interactions with other characters, that prompt the user to try and respond to the character’s dialogue. If they don’t type in something given the allotted time, they will fail and end up in the end screen (still black and white). If they respond, they will proceed. If they keep responding, the world will get more and more color. If they do respond, the words will become more and more discernable. Through response, the world will become more and more colored, and the end screen will be colorful.

Simple moral of the story: express yourself; try to communicate with others; while you may not initially understand something, if you apply yourself, clarity will come. 

“Long Live the Web”
The Web in its current form, will not be the current form in the future. Like an organism, it is constantly growing, from a variety of sources and regions. In his entry to Scientific America, Tim Berners-Lee outlines the principle foundations of the world wide web, namely: Universality, privacy (no snooping), data accessibility, net neutrality etc. These are all principles and foundations that make the Web navigatable by the average user. In the time elapsed since this article was written, wearable technology is becoming more available, Google, Facebook, and other websites were blocked in China by the Great Firewall, net neutrality in the US was threatened etc. In advances, there are also setbacks. While reading through this article, I can’t help but be a cynic to the idea of being afforded complete and utter freedom on the web, while there exists so much promise for innovation on the web, there also exists great threat. Cyberwarfare, Copyright infringement (which Berners-Lee mentions), the things that occur on the dark-web, these are all possible cons to the immense benefits of the internet, and they needn’t be ignored. In having discussions about what can and cannot be done, we navigate what is socially and even ethically acceptable in the new virtual world created by the web. This cannot be a discussion conducted by ISPs, or governments. Like Berners-Lee points out, we must speak up, and contribute to discussions like this. We must protest when something unfair occurs and be responsible users of the web. The virtual/digital world is quickly becoming increasingly relevant in our everyday lives, it is our duty to make sure it is used correctly.

“The Strange Geopolitics of the International Cloud”
In contrast with the optimistic principles outlined by Berners-Lee in “Long Live the Web”, this article talks about the real world implications of factors that affect the consumption of the Web in different parts of the world. Cold weather, tax rules, data sovereignty laws are all factors that affect the way the web is consumed and what pages/data/info people can visit in various countries. They affect the placement of servers and thus influence the way we consume data (latency is affected by proximity to servers). This is extremely apparent in the daily lives of NYU Shanghai students, considering the fact that we need to use VPNs to access blocked websites in China. Multiple factors that affect how we consume the web are out of our control. Global efforts, on the institutional and individual level, will help navigate how it is used in the future.

Took me a couple tries to understand how to upload this file, but I got it, with the help of a couple friends. What I found interesting about this project as an introduction to code was that it follows the rule of a certain language: it’s logical and it follows certain rules. Rules and logic I hope to grasp by taking this class. I’m interested in learning more.

https://imanas.shanghai.nyu.edu/~edp316/index.html

Written in 1909, E.M. Foster’s The Machine Stops is a dystopic projection of humanity in the distant future. In was an idea borne out of the collective fear of the rapid and visible industrialization that marked by that era—smoke guzzling, bulky, machines. With time those machines became more and more complex, with more levers, a vaster range of applicability and function, no longer limited to the industry, but also to the household. It’s inner workings hidden, and only buttons to send directives for the machine to carry out almost invisibly. Foster’s far projection of this development sees human civilization, living, breathing, existing, and eventually worshiping by way of the machine. In the story of 2 named characters, Vashti and her son, Kuno, demonstrated are two clashing philosophies. Vashti, comforted by her hexagonal room, and all of its functions was completely and utterly comfortable limited to its confines. In the room she felt solace and control, she determined when the lights would turn on, what lectures to listen to, what music she heard, when she would sleep etc. In pressing the buttons her life became regimented. Her son, on the other hand, would see it to not only be mundane, but lifeless and limiting. This manifested itself in his curiosity to leave the room, something only attributed to his character, and forced on Vashti. Kuno felt being confined to the room robbed him of creativity and individuality. Kuno felt that their dependence on the machine stripped them of their control, the central committee even, was not above the machine, for they existed, in his eyes, to ensure the perpetual existence of the machine. As the philosophies clashed throughout the story, the machine while thought to be omnipotent and infinite, came to an unexpected, outside of Kuno’s warning, halt. And in its halt, the galleries of humans collapsed in on each other, killing the “civilization.” However, in Kuno’s estimations, the homeless that lived beyond the machine survived. 

Today this begs the question of survival and reliance. Given how much of our lives are built on technology, and the developing reliance on it for many different ways, at what point do we lose our control over such technology? The story suggests it need not be when artificial intelligence exists. Instead, Foster suggests that our surrendering of control will occur when we completely rely on it. That then begs the question of when do we stop developing technology? Advancements in many ways have increased our standards of living by a great deal. Should we ever stop?