Cyber Bullying Presentation

One of the final presentations that I identified with was the presentation done on cyber bullying.

As a young female who uses the Internet, I am familiar with cyber bullying. I used to broadcast myself in video chat rooms such as Tinychat on a regular basis. Although this was a fun environment outside of the “real” world where I could connect with other people from all over the world, it also unfortunately enabled malicious individuals to target me. A popular strategy that online harassers use is fear. It was a common occurrence to receive messages from strangers threatening to expose me on vulgar websites, claiming to possess explicit content of me. The funny thing was, I knew that they didn’t actually have anything of me, but being an anxious and paranoid teenager, I occasionally had to think “WHAT IF??” I feel for all the victims out there who were successfully taken advantage of. In addition I have been “ddosed” on countless occasions, and that was really frustrating. When your parents are wondering why the wifi keeps crashing you don’t exactly want to tell them “some person in this social chat room that I like to go in keeps attacking us.” Eventually I outgrew my fascination with broadcasting online as well as learned to ignore the perpetual threats of strangers whenever I did decide to go in those kinds of environments.

On the other hand, I personally am not much of a gamer. So I don’t recall being threatened to be “swatted” or “doxxed.” What amuses me so much about the gaming community is the amount of trolls and irresponsible usage of computing knowledge. I just don’t understand why someone would go through all the trouble to send a swat team to another gamer’s house because they said something that offended them… they probably should find some better coping skills.

            Overall, it is difficult to get cyber bullying users arrested. Until laws become stronger regarding cases on the Internet, I think it is best to learn how to avoid unpleasant bullies and harassers if possible.

Communities and Technology

Does technology provide the components and requirements to make successful communities?

A community is defined as “a group of people living in the same place or having a particular characteristic in common” or “a feeling of fellowship with others, as a result of sharing common attitudes, interests, and goals.” Those definitions are also applicable to the online world.

In the case of the first definition, the place people live in would be on the Internet and the different social networking platforms.  As far as sharing common interests and goals, these are evident online in a variety of instances: petitions, groups/pages, forums, gaming, etc.

The Internet enables a significant amount of connectivity between users and provides countless different ways to interact. You can keep in touch with your family and friends as well as meet new people. You can broadcast yourself live and watch others in real time too. You can access educational content online to increase your knowledge, purchase items, discover music, and express support or disapproval by leaving reviews, comments, liking, and following.

On the other hand, you could argue that the online world is incapable of simulating physical interactions. However, you could also argue that it is not true, if you look at in a virtual world sense. For instance, maybe you can love someone you met online, but you cannot marry them or have kids can you? Well, sites such as Second Life do allow such interactions, virtually. Online role-playing is the answer to that component of a community. Obviously, the Internet is a very different place from our actual reality, but it definitely allows for us to build communities.

From Dot.com to Dot.bomb

            The beginning of the Internet (1993) and the beginning of the Web (1994) was a fairly calm time where new companies began their development online. A year later and things started to get exciting during the boom that lasted until 1997 where more companies sprouted up and began their growth and increase of power. 1997-1999 was insanity as the strong companies bought out the weaker companies, adding to their power and decreasing competition. However when 2000 hit, countless companies failed and the stock market took an unfortunate downturn that lasted until 2002. Companies that were not successful had to bankruptcy and lay off their employees. By the end of 2002, the Internet began to rebuild itself and website companies started to crawl back again.

            Basically the start of this electronic industry with the race to gain power was fast and lacking stability, resulting in many short life spans for companies.

            Ironically, a helpful way to illustrate this new period of “dot.com to dot.bomb” is by comparing it to the ancient age of dinosaurs. The competitive companies were like the dinosaurs; the powerful large dinosaurs ate the weaker ones (like how companies bought out others) and showed their dominance in the community/industry. In addition, similarly to how the dinosaurs suffered from a meteor impact, companies suffered from a financial tragedy that caused the extinction of many species in the industry. But after all that was said and done, life still went on. Well, dinosaurs didn’t come back, or at least haven’t yet, but other organisms evolved and persisted through time. The same is true for the Internet realm and the new platforms that have developed and are flourishing in our lives today.

A Visit From Erik Hanberg

Our guest speaker was Erik Hanberg, who started off his lecture by telling us about his beginnings with web design and being a founder of sites such as The Horatio, Exit133.com, Suite 133, and Side x Side.

Erik has also dabbled in writing novels on the side, as well as writing some nonprofit books. In his lecture, he emphasized the struggles of being an author and how your works can be found in our modern electronic lives. Many small authors these days “print on demand” instead of ordering a massive quantity of copies that will pile up in your garage. This is important considering many people will buy novels in the eBook format or on their kindle device rather than a physical paper copy these days. Authors also tend to have to rely on getting good reviews on amazon as well as Amazon’s algorithm to lead more readers to them.

In addition, Erik shared a couple important quotes with the class: “The amount of privacy you have now will be the most you ever have” and “The riches are in the niches.”

Overall, I personally felt like I did not really connect strongly to Erik’s lecture. However, I did recognize the importance of his experiences in the sense that he had to deal with a shift of technology and culture, and adapt in ways to become successful in this newer environment. I primarily derived that from the way he dealt with the changing industry of books and reading, and how he was able to use the new platforms to effectively share his creations with others.

Guest Speaker– Joel Larson: Databases

In class I had the privilege to be lectured by our guest speaker, Joel Larson, on the topic of databases. 

Here is what I learned from him:

·      There are three levels of orderliness of data

1.     Unstructured ex: text

2.     Semi-structured ex: documents

3.     Structured ex: databases

·      The definition of a database is a way to store data in a structured way

·      Databases have many applications such as studying and researching at university, finding library resources, collecting information about credit card purchases, organizing inventory data in stores, etc.

·      One important case that he mentioned during the lecture was about grocery stores. Originally, the suppliers and manufactures controlled the information going both ways and were the deciders of how much of their product a store needed. The stores themselves were unknowing of what quantities of items they sold, which made it difficult to understand customers’ demands. Finally stores were able to keep track with the invention of the national cash register, a register that had a laser to scan barcodes on products. The result was a transfer of power from the manufacturer to the retailer.

Overall, I think I received some important basic understanding about databases. However it seems as though the topic of databases is a complex one in which I would have to intensely study in order to grasp the specific concepts, so I did not have the expectation that I would leave class as an expert on databases.

The creation of databases is truly revolutionary to our lives as they help us find the important information that we are looking for in a sea of data­– whether it being an article, a person, product, or a numerical value.