Comments for The Evolution of Computing and its Impact on History

Comment on RIP Steve Jobs by Randy orton

Randy orton — Tue, 27 Nov 2012 11:05:38 +0000

I wonder why other professionals don’t notice your website much m glad I found this. evolution of computers

Comment on Computers can be hacked and so should life by Kevin

Kevin — Fri, 08 Jun 2012 01:49:29 +0000

They should make a sims about dogs

Comment on Alan Turing’s “Computing Machinery and Intelligence” by Kiri Wagstaff

Kiri Wagstaff — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 19:23:03 +0000

Excellent questions, Sarah. AI is one of the places in Computer Science where a lot of grand philosophy questions arise!

Comment on Class Summary: 11/21/11 by Sarah Fine

Sarah Fine — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 07:59:51 +0000

There has been studies (that I cannot site, unfortunately) done on the way language affect the brain which seems very similar to the way computers affect our brains. In languages where there is no right or left, only compass directions, people that spoke the language had a far more intuitive knowledge of where north was at all times (not unlike you, Prof. Wagstaff). In addition, people who speak languages without certain grammatical tenses (for example, instead of saying “He broke the lamp” –> “the lamp broke”) have a lessened sense of responsibility for the way they personally affect the world.

Comment on Class summary: 11/16 by Sarah Fine

Sarah Fine — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 07:54:28 +0000

I would say that virtual property is every bit as much owned as non-virtual property. Virtual property may be made of bits and data, but with the same token, non-virtual property is just made of molecules. All property is built and bought, although in different ways. Though it may seem strange, I see no real distinction to be made.

Comment on Class Summary: 11/28 by Sarah Fine

Sarah Fine — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 07:50:40 +0000

I was speaking with my roommates about the strangeness of space travel and the weird ways it affects astronauts’ lives. Whereas if you are working overseas from our family/spouse, you can still talk on the phone or Skype everyday. But if you are working on the International Space Station, the delay is so much greater that this kind of communication is very impractical. In these small ways, working in space has so many extra variables that it is astonishing to me that we ever made it up there, let along have people live there for months at a time.

Comment on Class Summary: 11/23 by Sarah Fine

Sarah Fine — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 07:46:01 +0000

It would have been very interesting if the current internet censorship bill vote had occurred during this course. The internet, made to increase the speed of the information traded in the scientific community, is now used primarily for social networking and pirated media. I feel like the expectation of both privacy and ownership has dramatically changed since the introduction of the internet, although I’m not sure it’s truly for the worst. Although cracking can provide far too much information that a user did not wish to provide, the average internet user can control how they’re viewed and what information they give out. To me, it’s all about a change in mindset.

Comment on 11/9 Class Summary: Guest Lecture by Jon Brewster by Sarah Fine

Sarah Fine — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 07:40:56 +0000

I think it’s very interesting that computers, once created for the high-tech high-end niche market has now evolved to the point six-year olds can email their grandparents. I can’t imagine that the pioneers of the computing field could ever has foreseen such uses.

Comment on Alan Turing’s “Computing Machinery and Intelligence” by Sarah Fine

Sarah Fine — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 06:50:28 +0000

In my Religion and Philosophy course, we used Turing as an example of what it means to be human and what human intelligence means. This is explored in the mind/body problem–can human intelligence even be isolated? Could there be a “brain in a box”–a mind without a body? Creating artificial intelligence would definitively prove whether or not it is possible to separate intelligence from the body. Personally I love when science and philosophy intersect.

Comment on Class summary: 11/16 by Kiri Wagstaff

Kiri Wagstaff — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 20:04:01 +0000

There certainly are interesting more questions here. On the subject of pirating an ebook you already purchased in print version, it does seem equivalent to manually transcribing it since the information content is equal. But the labor involved isn’t, so should that matter? (Should you have to pay for the equivalent of the hours it would have taken to transcribe?) On the other hand, if you have an advanced OCR book scanner and can turn your physical book into a digital copy for zero labor, does the answer change?