A funny look at the unintended consequences of technology

'A funny look at the unintended consequences of technology', by Chuck Nice, is a talk that is part of a TED event. Chuck is a comediant, but this time he talks about a serious issue (or future issue): the consequences of technology.

Sumary

Chuck Nice starts exlaining the consequences of a technology we havenowadays, the social media. When it all was created it was supposed to make us be connected with each other more than ever (Cchuck shows a photo of three girls, side by side, talking through the phone), it was supposed to help us communicate with other people all arround the world (Chuck shows a picture of a subway carriage: everybody is looking to his phone); the conclusion is that we are not more connected with other people, we are just connected to our devices. Then, Chuck talks about other unintended consequences of social media, such as cyber bullying or the problem of dating.

After that, Chuck critisizes autonomous cars, and then we get into the main part of his speech: the AI. He mentions the warnings of Bill Gates, Elon Musk and Stephen Hawking about the AI, and he says 'the creation always despises its creator' (it's the moral of Frankenstein, even if Chuck doesn't say it) . To explain the situation, he asks the public what they think the AI is going to do when it discovers that we are destroying the planet (ther's one thing we can take for granted, that we'll have a problem). He mentions the problem of sexual robots as well. 

Finally he talks about biological engineering, and how it's goiong to change us as humans. It's scary, isn't it? Well, at that point Chuck comes up with a wise conclusion: technology isn't scary, what's scary is what we can do with technology. Chuck ends his talk with this question: 

The true question is, how human are we?

Opinion

Ther's a point I don't like of this talk, because at some point it seems that Chuck is critisizing things, for example autonomous cars, without explaining the positive consequences they can bring to the world. However, he's doing such a necessary task, he's awaring people of the consequences of AI, and we does so in an interesting way: firstly he talks about an example so people can understand that technology has unintended consequences, and then he makes people wonder about the unintended consequences that can have a powerful thing as AI.

Vocabulary

DMV 

Despise

Engineering (it's not a new word, it's just that I never know how to spell it)

Think out

Gap Year (TV series)

In english class we watched the first chapter of a TV serie called Gap Year. Gap Year is a comedy about young boys and girls who are into a gap year, starting in China and travelling through Asia. It tries to capture the feelings of the young people who travels innto an unknown place, specially young people, because young people discovers things about themselves and not just about the world. The series has moments of happiness, of crazyness, of pain and of disperation.

Here there are two reviews of the series: 

Theguardian

Ugh, travellers. As in young people who go off round Asia or South America or wherever, with their Lonely bloody Planet guides, in search of mind-broadening new experiences. Like these people in Gap Year (E4).
I had one once, a gap year – actually about five years – and I hated myself, too, as well as all the other people doing it. But I have often thought that it’s been neglected as a source of comedy. Now Plebs (huge guilty pleasure!) writer Tom Basden is putting that right.

“You’re all into the same shit,” the older, drunker travel writer lady tells Dylan and Sean on the plane to Beijing. Exactly, though some things have changed since my travelling days. There are mobile phones and the internet, so everyone is basically in touch wherever they are.

Some things seem to be the same though, reassuringly – such as travellers are still obsessed with their own bowel movements, literally into the same shit, the consistency and frequency thereof. And ticking stuff off, attractions, experiences. And finding the real India, Vietnam or Bolivia; so it becomes a kind of competition about how far you can get away from other people just like you in search of authenticity. I once spent a night in a filthy hovel on a very untouristy (possibly because of the adjacent oil refinery) island off Venezuela while a burly, rummed-up fisherman attempted to have sex with me. All night. Very real, but also really horrible. And his boat was the only way off the island … Anyway, that’s a different story.

Basden has put together a nice cast of characters. Sean’s an amiable English lad, on a lad’s trip, with his old mate, escaping from the humdrum of his life at home. He’s actually a wheely suitcaser, as opposed to a backpacker, and would be better off in Thailand than China, as the travel writer on the plane said. But Dylan has brought him to Beijing, on false pretences as it happens: he’s stalking his ex (on her “track my run” app, ha, nice touch).

Read more at Theguardian

Chortle

Part of the reason they end up unfamiliar places is because Dylan (Anders Hayward) is going to quite extreme lengths to stalk his ex-girlfriend, dragging his unaware pal Sean (Ade Oyefeso) halfway around the world under false pretences. The pair quickly encounter a couple of girls, May (Alice Lee) and Ashley (Brittney Wilson), and the central characters are set… although there’s a little more fleshing out to be done.

If you didn’t know the people behind Gap Year, E4’s new comedy about students backpacking around East Asia, you might expect a broad parody of some upper-class Tarquin blundering around like a culturally insensitive tornado.

But Tom Basden’s script feels a little more like the genuine experiences of twentysomethings setting out on their first big adventure. The fact it was genuinely shot on location adds a travelogue element, and further underlines the authenticity of the scripts and the largely unknown cast.

If clichés are present, it’s more along the lines of these youngsters vowing to experience the ‘real’ Asia and keep off the beaten track – ‘it’s not a holiday, we're travelling’ they insist – only to find themselves at exactly the same places as everyone else. They get irate at the tourists spoiling their perfect shot of the Great Wall of China, unaware of the irony of being part of the same problem, and substitute missing Glastonbury by attending their own rave.

Read more at Chortle





I absolutely agree with Sam Wollaston, the writer of this page of : silly and puerile, but in a good way. Gap Year is totally not the TV series I could watch at home, because it's just like losing time, you learn nothing new, and all with absurde situations, that couldn't happen in real life. Well, depite of all the bad thing I can tell about it, it has a point. I ca think that watching it is just losing time, but at the same time it's funny. I say that's like losing time because you can have fun doing something more productive than watching Gap Year, but if you just want to relax, it's OK. (I wouldn't do it, but I accept that I'm a bit weird about this thing of losing time like this). The craziness of the serie can get you out of your world for a while, and this is the objective of a TV sries (even if it's sad).

NO LOGO: Cool Hunters

I have to write about a chapter of the book No Logo by Naomi Klein: Cool Hunters - The Legal Stalkers if Youth Culture. It's just  a 4 paragraph writing ( but what 4 paragraphs...). I'll tell my opinion about what I've understood.

It talks about the "Cool Hunters" that catch up the style of some poor people just to sell it  then to the ones who pretend to look rich... (Yes, I don't think those who really have a high social level are paying for the work of the cool hunters). Actually, "cool hunter"is a profession inside the world of fashion, and their objective is to take the poor people style to reply it in new-designed clothes. Meanwhile, the trends will make the people impatient to wear the new clothes with all their soures, like advertising. The result is next: broked jeans and jumpers.



(I tryed to find really broked jeans on google, but all I found were jeans with prefabricated holes)

Well, on the text it just talks about cool hunters looking for the poor-style, but they also look for new ideas on the best neighborhoods.

In my opinion it's not a bad idea looking for new styles in this way, because the really poor people have few clothes, so the ones who want to look "good" are forced to be original doing the best they can. But about what the big trends do... It's unpleasant to think on how they can sell their ideas as easy as this.

Prize-winning photo description

This photo has won a prize of the National Geographic nature pictures. On the foreground there's an orangutan covering himself with a big leave in order to stay dry, because it's raining. The background is unfocused, we can't see ir clearly. The orangutan in situated in the central part of the photo, and the background does a progression from a dark color (on the left part) to a lighter one (on the right part). The orangutan has a strong way of looking, it seems patient. The photo is stricking because of its way of looking and because the action of the orangutan is so similar to what a human should do in its situation.

Refugees

 On 4th March we did a schooltrip to Barcelona and we did some activities, as I explain in a previous post, where I explain something about the trip (Tourist interviews). After record the interviews, we went to Palau Robert and we saw an exposition about the refugees. That was interesting and shocking, we saw a reality really different of our reality. In the picture we can see childs lying down and covered with a flag. Arround them we can see people with banners and candles, protesting of their situation.

Carina Nebula

 

This is a photo of the Carina Nebula, a big cosmic area of shiny dust and gas. It is seven thousand
light years away from the Earth, but in the space it isn’t too far, is just our neighbour.

Actually those few centimeters are three hundred bilion kilometers. The Sun is more or less like one of the smallest stars of the picture, to have a notion. If one of those stars were the sun, we could not even see the Earth.
The picture is a composition of a lot of photos, all of them taken by the Hubble telescope, so we can say that the photographers are the NASA and the ESA.

In the photo, you can see lots of stars and dust. Actually, there are hundreds and probably thousands of stars, but we can’t see them because of the quality of the photo.

I think this photo has no foreground or background, but maybe what attracts most is the explosion (left-center).

On the left side there is a beautiful progression from red to blue. On the left of the central part we can observe the giant and ancient explosion (Eta Carina explosion), the brightest part of the picture. Rays of light are expelled from this point. The right part seems empty if we compare it with the left one, it is a calmer zone.

The picture is colorful, striking, and for me it’s calm as well. It is striking because it doesn't seem real, because of the colours and the composition, and because of the size of the nebula. I think we can't imagine how large is it.

There’s one interesting thing about the photo. This picture should be more famous, because the central explosion is probably the most important fact that has ever happened in our cosmic neighborhood. 

Does the beauty exist in all the sizes? As I know, yes. From the smallest to the biggest things... The beauty, just like the imagination, has no limits.

Tourist interviews: Excuse me! Do you speak english?

Last Friday we did a school trip to Barcelona. There, we went to the theather and then we did some english interviews in Las Ramblas. We needed english native people, and we found them.

After many failed tries, I found two nice and friendly tourists. They were two old women and they said me that they were from Germany but nowadays they were living in England. It wasn't the first time that they were in Catalonia; they had travelled here a lot of times before. They were staying in Barcelona until Sunday, so they were going to stay there for four days. The ambient, the atmosphere, is what they liked the most in Barcelona.One of them spoke a little bit of spanish and some words of Catalan, and she liked the catalan language! They were so friendly, talking with them was a pleasure! 

The interview

 

Anuar Patjane Floriuk Photographer

He was born in Mexico, in Tehuacán Puebla, and he is anthropologist and photographer. Anuar doesn't remember when he started to take photos, he says that he has always had a special affinition towards cameras.
He thinks that the creativity has no limits. He wants to show the creativity of the reality: the diffrent and real stories and emotions which we don't see, the creativity of the nature that escapes of our view. So in his photos he tries to catch up strong emotions and shocking situations that we usually don't see. Of course, that's just a part of his work, he tries to capture the beauty too, he has photos of a lot of landscapes for example.

"I believe the best thing we can do as photographers is to give the world the tools to create some meaning and help ourselves and others observe the different perspectives of what we usually take for granted." by Anuar Patjane Floriuk

As you can see, this one is not really colorful. By the way, Anuar's photographs are usually black and white.
This photo has won two important awards. It is striking, dramatic and unusual. Dramatic because it's spectacular, and unusual because it's rare to see a whale and a little whale surrounded by people and with this light. It is spontaneous, the photographer didn't plan it, and it is powerful: having a look at the image we can imagine the power of the whale. It makes me think about how small are we and about how vulnerable are we if we are alone in the nature.

__________________________________________________________________________________

This is a simple picture, and it's simplicity makes it beautiful. It gives a calm feeling, this place is far away from everywhere, far away from the problems: the perfect example of a peaceful photograph. It is the calm before or after the storm, it gives me the same feeling.

My New Year'sResolutions

The past year, 2015, has been a good year for me, a really good year. But actually in some aspects it hasn't been good. I am thinking in studies, for example, or my lazy dynamic, and more.

In 2016 I have to improve in a lot of things that I know they will make me feel better.

1. First of all, I will be more strict and stronger with my own decisions and promises. In my opinion, this is totally necessary if you want to go into the right way.
2. Another of my objectives is to become more comprensive with the others. I am comprensive with the others, but not eneough yet.
3. I will go more often to the mountains, into a forest or just in the Nature, lonely and share it with someone too.
4. I will learn to NOT WASTE TIME (if you don't understand it: I hate to waste time, and it happens to me too much often) .

Just four points. But If I am able to accomplish those four resolutions, I will be proud, and ready to jump up into 2017.

Is my dream possible?

My dream is work in scientifical research, specifically in physical or astrophysical research. I know this is so difficult, I need to work hard and have a good level to achieve it. There are many students who want to do this, so this adds competitiveness,  and that means more difficulty (for it isn't enough hard yet).

It’s laborious, but I think I can accomplish it, because I love it and I enjoy working on it. 

To achieve this dream, I have to work a lot and get good base studies, then I have to continue and enter at the university and keep doing the same (study, work hard, etc.), and after the four or five years doing this process, I would have done a degree. Then, beeing lucky, I will get a job.

Orphan

Trailer of the film

 

 

The plot: A pair (Kate and John) are waiting for their third child, but he dies when he is yet intro the body of Kate. Kate starts to have nightmares and problems, and the pair decide to adopt a child. When they go to the orphanage they meet a little, sweet and innocent girl, Esther. The pair adopt him, and the problems begin not far from here. Of course, Kate and John are the last ones to realize that Esther is not what she seems.
Why I don't like it: I don't like it. First, because I don't like the horror films, and then because The Orphan is a kind of horror movie that isn't frightening to me. Esther has a problem, but she is controllable, a person with a singular problem, but nothing supernatural, what really terrify me.

The Gothic Novel

• Who invented the G.N.?
• It was invented by Horace Walpole.

• What was the first G.N.?
•   The Castle of Otranto was the first, published in 1764.

• When was it first published?
• In 1764.

• Wich basic elements of horror didn't you include on your list?
• Setting in a castle.
• An ancient prophecy.
• Omens, portents, visions.
• High, even overwrought emotion.
• Women in distress.
• Women threatened by a powerful, impulsive, tyrannical male.
• Laughters.
• Characters trapped in a room.
• Ruins of buildings.
• Lights in abandoned rooms.
• Bays of wolves.
• Choler.
•  Uncertainty of reciprocation love.
• Rival lovers or multiple suitors.



Dictionary

• Unreturned love.

The Force Awakens (News in levels)

The trailer of the seventh Star Wars' film has been published online. The trailer has accomplished the expectative, it has been well recived by the public.
In this film have worked the main actors of the IV, V and VI Star Wars' films. The Star Wars company has been publishing some anticipations of the film in Twitter. It continues the history three decades after the facts of the VI film. 
The exciting trailer has touched many viewers, and the film will be released on December 17th in the UK.

Fast longboard ride (Click here)

Zak Mayturn is a professional long rider. In this video, he get a velocity of 112 km/h racing in Colorado. He won a lot of success in YouTube: more than three milions of viewers just in the first three days. The organisation that helped Zak to do this stunt is Venom Bushings.

There are many reasons  for wich we don't have to try to imitate Zak in the video, including good skaters:

• He wears padding clothes, even if we can not see them in the video.
• He wears a specific helmet and specialized shoes for high-speed riding.
• He is one of the top high-speed professionals.
• He has been riding for a decade.

 

Multiple intelligences

Before doing the Multiple Intelligences test, I got this result:












This are my opinions according my results in the test:

• I disagree with logical intelligence, in comparation with naturalistic intelligence, I think my naturalistic and logical intelligences are equal.

• I think interpersonal should be higher, I disagree, in my opinion my interpersonal intelligence isn't lower than my visual/spatial, logical or naturalistic intelligences.

• I disagree with my kinestetic intelligence, I am a swimmer and I like to run and jump arround, in the mountains or many places.
• I totally disagree with the linguistic intelligence! I love languages and learn them, and I like to write too.

According to the results, I can be: mathematician, physicist, astronomer, wilderness guide, pilot and biologist.

Then, when I was in calm at home, I repeated the test, and that was the result:

I preffer that one. I think the Iterpersolan and Intrapersonal intelligences are more like this comparated to Naturalistic and Logical.
Logical keeps in the same level. I thought it was higher than others, but maybe I was wrong, it's hard to compare different intelligences.

The animal in me
  Am I a penguin?



Learn more about the Penguin...

Now you see it, now you don't. Aggressive yet gentle, outgoing but shy, stable yet flighty - everyone sees the penguin in a different way. It's that black and white thing: the penguin only reveals the side that it wants to you to see. So whether you like this darling-devil or not, you have to concede that it's a fascinating and enigmatic individual.

Penguins are birds condemned to live out their days on the ground. Unable to fly, their excess energy has no outlet save their creative talents and emotional outbursts. Penguins are poetic, artistic, and intellectually gifted, and as writers penguins have no equal.

But, if unable to channel their impulses in a positive way, the resulting turmoil proves damaging to their relationships and careers.

Penguins are deceptively intelligent and are particularly animated when intellectually challenged. They excel at word games and puzzles but are modest about their abilities and are generally underestimated by others.
With their misunderstood personality, penguins find writing an ideal tool for expressing their true feelings. They have a natural aptitude for languages and penguin personalities dominate the world of publishing as writers, editors, and journalists.

With a natural aptitude for languages, penguin personalities dominate the world of publishing as writers, editors and journalists. A strong sense of drama draws them to the theater and cinema, although unlike typical bird personalities they avoid the spotlight unless they're able to hide behind the characters they play. Once on stage however, they prove to be excellent performers with their multifaceted personalities conveying the full gamut of emotions.

However, a lack of confidence affects their work. Penguins tend to give up on tasks they were otherwise capable of and are often disappointed with their performance. Still, work never dominates their life and they always put their family first.



My opinion:
Now you see it, now you don’t… Shame I am not a real penguin, I always wished to be invisible! Already now, in the first sentence from the beginning, I am disappointed with one thing: everyone sees the penguin in a different way. All the people that know me see me more less in the same way, or this is my impression. Oh, I totally agree with the penguin only reveals the side that it wants to you to see. Am I an enigmatic individual? I should answer this to my friends; I don’t know these kinds of things from myself. And I can’t reach to be a devil.

Somewhere in the complete description of the penguin, say that the penguin is humble. So, for a real penguin, it could be hard to agree with good things from himself. Although this, I agree more or less with the second paragraph, save as writers penguins have no equal. I like the paragraph, it’s pretty poetical.

I totally agree with are particularly animated when intellectually challenged, I love intellectual challenges! I agree to with the modesty about my abilities.

Maybe I like writing, how it say for all the penguins, but I haven’t tried to write something seriously, but I would like to do it, one day. I agree about the languages. Natural or worked from when I was born, I think I have good aptitudes with the languages. I am disappointed with what it says about the cinema and theater: it doesn’t draws me. I dislike the lack of confidence or much lack of freedom in my works, and I hope that work never dominates my life and I’ll put my family first.

Conclusion:
I am a penguin.



The animal in you - page.