The company had produced a product this year, just like they did every year. After testing it, performing surveys, and doing various other things that measured how much people wanted this product, the company found that it simply didn’t measure up to the competition. Nevertheless, it was the best thing ever. Everyone would want to buy it, and once you had it, you would wonder how you lived without it. It was nothing short of a revolution in the toaster industry. However, due to the fact that it only toasted one slice of bread at a time, didn’t pop up, and was made out of ugly plastic, it would be kind of difficult to convince the unwashed masses of the facts. This was no job for the engineers and designers; this was a job for the marketers.

    The marketers looked at the blueprints, 3D models, sketches, and prototypes of the toaster and decided that this would be a piece of cake. After conferring for a few hours, they decided on the theme for the marketing campaign: minimalism. Minimalism was a pretty trendy thing at the time, seen in user interfaces for smartphone apps, video games, the actual phones themselves, and many other things. It only stood to reason that people would want everything to be minimized. Heck, this could be expanded into an entire product line - toasters that only toast one slice, a blender that is just a square spinning blade, and microwaves that are not actually microwaves, just solid cubes with a few lights on the front. The possibilities are endless! The marketers thought of this, and made up a snappy name for the appliance line. They also got to work creating a website which had no useful information on it whatsoever, but it looked really pretty.

    The next step for the marketers was making the toaster more attractive. Using the plastic shell to their advantage, they made the toaster available in a wide variety of bright colors. A toaster with a metal shell would be available for an extra charge. The marketers prepared an ad campaign that showed the toaster and all his fellow minimalist appliances against a white background with sparse, ambient music. Another ad showed the toaster, the frontman of the product line, in all different colors. More ads showed the appliances majestically standing amongst the cosmos. This made it clear that the toaster was too good to pop up, and really, why are you expecting it to pop up? It’s minimalist! It’s simple! It’s a revolution!

    There were a few months left until the appliance line was released, plus the engineers were getting bored, so to go the extra mile and to make it even more attractive they shoved some electronics into it and hopped on another bandwagon, turning it into a device which could be linked into the Internet of Things. A user could make a special gesture in the Toaster App (It had no buttons and used gestures only, and turned a special color if you did it right.) and boom, their toaster would toast the bread! Much easier than pressing the buttons on the toaster yourself. A fantastic ad was produced based on this. It featured a busy family who wanted to have toast in the afternoon but didn’t have enough time to make it when they got home. After years of misery, they solved this problem by buying The Toaster (which is what they had gotten to calling it now, just Toaster), putting the bread in when they left in the morning, and pressing the toast button on the app when they got home. This ad won its way into the hearts of everyday people everywhere, and drove massive sales of the toaster on its release.

    It was time for the toaster to be released to the public! The ad mentioned earlier was not run on TV immediately upon the release - the company waited for the excitement about the launch to die down. They held a big party to celebrate the launch of the toaster, inviting many high-profile tech executives. When asked what he thought about the toaster, one replied “The party was great! I enjoyed it a lot, especially all the free food and money.” There was a bit of confusion before he figured out that he was being asked about The Toaster, after which he replied that it was undoubtedly a revolution, will change the world and the industry forever, etc, etc.

    The unwashed masses enjoyed the toaster quite a bit too. It sold a million units in a first week. The other appliances sold somewhat less, which was understandable because they were not marketed quite as much. The company’s tech support line got a number of confused calls from buyers who could not figure out how to put food into it, even after turning it off and turning it back on. The tech support line had to regretfully inform the customers that yes, you have bought a solid cube with a smartphone app and some blinking lights and no, we do not offer refunds. The unwashed masses were quite mad about that one for some reason or another. Something about false advertising, it isn’t what we said it was, blah blah blah. It clearly said in all the ads that THIS MICROWAVE MAY NOT ACTUALLY FUNCTION. WE ARE NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY SHED TEARS, TORN OUT LOCKS OF HAIR, OR SPENT MONEY. Thanks for reading. Buy the toaster.

Neuromancer Book review

Neuromancer was written in 1984 by William Gibson. It was one of the first major works in the cyberpunk genre, and won multiple award, including the Nebula Award, the Hugo Award, and the Phillip K. Dick award. It inspired movies such as The Matrix and video games such as Shadowrun. The cult classic Johnny Mnemonic was based on a William Gibson short story of the same name, set in the Neuromancer universe. There have been numerous attempts to adapt Neuromancer to media such as video games, movies, comic books, and even opera. They have mostly been unsuccessful, but a movie adaption is rumored to be in the works.

Neuromancer tells the story of a computer hacker named Case who, after being caught stealing from his employer, has had his ability “jack in” to computers destroyed. He becomes a hustler in the slums of Chiba City, Japan, relying on hard drugs to keep going. After running up numerous debts to crime lords and nearly killing himself with drugs, he is picked up off the street by a mysterious woman named Molly. She pays off the the crime lord and takes him to her boss, Armitage, who repairs Case’s brain and liver, but with a catch. He has had toxin sacs inserted into his liver. If he does not finish the job in time, he won’t be able to jack in anymore.

In the first part of the job, Case and Molly steal a Flatline Construct from the company Sense/Net. The construct contains the consciousness of one of Case’s mentors, named Dixie.

Armitage is shown to have a mysterious past. Case and Molly discover that he served in the Battle of Screaming Fist under the name Corto, and went through a large amount of trauma.

The group heads to the colony Freeside, where an AI named Wintermute resides in the Villa Straylight, a massive home owned by the family/corporation Tessier-Ashpool.

It is revealed that Wintermute is only one half of the AI inside the Villa Straylight. There is one other, which is hinted to be much more powerful, but Wintermute is prevented from merging with it by Turing regulations. Lady 3Jane, a member of the Tessier-Ashpools, has the secret word that will allow them to merge. Molly and Riviera, a member the team recruited in Istanbul, go into the Villa Straylight to retrieve it.

It is revealed that Wintermute has been controlling Case and the others the whole time, through Armitage, Finn, and Case’s old friend Julius Deane. Wintermute took Corto’s shattered personality and rebuilt it into Armitage.

Case and Dixie, the flatline construct, unleash a powerful virus on the Tessier-Ashpool software defenses as tasked by Wintermute. Armitage’s personality begins to break down, and reverts into that of Corto. Responding to this, Wintermute kills him. While in the Villa Straylight, Riviera turns on the group, siding with a ninja and Lady 3Jane to capture Molly. Case and the Zionite pilot Maelcum go after her. Case jacks into cyberspace, and while the virus is destroying the Tessier-Ashpool defenses, retrieves the secret word. Wintermute is able to merge with the other AI. Case’s toxin sacs are removed, and Dixie also gets his reward by being destroyed.

Case has a conflict with himself. He loved cyberspace, and when his brain was sabotaged he lost it. Towards the beginning of the book, Case says that he “still dreamed of cyberspace, hope fading nightly. All the speed he took, all the turns he'd taken and the corners he'd cut in Night City, and still he'd see the matrix in his sleep, bright lattices of logic unfolding across that colorless void…” Case tries unsuccessfully to block everything out and forget, and it puts him in a vulnerable place for Wintermute to exploit him for his plans. While Case is breaching the Tessier-Ashpool defenses in preparation for merging Wintermute with the second AI, he loses contact with Dixie. Case starts to lose hope, but then Wintermute says “Hate'll get you through. So many little triggers in the brain, and you just go yankin' em all.  Now you gotta hate.” Wintermute has manipulated Case to the point where the only option is now for him to hate. Since Case has so many things to hate, such as Wintermute killing Armitage, frustration at the slowly dissolving toxin sacs in his liver, and others, he is able to retrieve the secret word and merge Wintermute and the other AI, Neuromancer.

My favorite character is Wintermute. In the beginning of the book, the job that Armitage has tasked Case to do seems so simple. But as the plot unfolds, you find out that Wintermute is controlling not just Armitage but other people that Case knows to fulfill his own goals, without much care for any of them. When the personality that Wintermute has built on top of Corto into Armitage starts to break down and revert, Wintermute kills Corto and sabotages one of the ships, knowing it is a sacrifice but it will cause less damage in the long run. It’s also fascinating to compare Wintermute to its counterpart, Neuromancer. Neuromancer is able to see patterns in behavior, similar to psychohistory in Asimov’s Foundation but on a much more detailed scale. While Wintermute can only directly interact with humans by changing things in the environment and manipulating certain people, Neuromancer can see patterns about to happen - such as that someone is about to die - and then make it happen to manipulate someone that way.

One of the important themes from Neuromancer is to not rely on something too much, because if it gets taken away, you can be ruined. Case thought he was invincible, so he stole from his company without thinking of the consequences. He ended up losing the most important thing to him, and trying to compensate, ruined his life.

I could relate in some ways to Case’s love of cyberspace. I love computers, and rely on them without thinking for many of the things I do. If I could somehow never use computers again, it would probably be a devastating thing for me.

In my opinion, Neuromancer is without a doubt one of the best books I have ever read. It is full of amazing details in scenery, characters, and plot and has many interesting inventions specific to its universe. I would strongly reccomend it to anyone who has an interest in sci-fi, especially cyberpunk - it practically invented the genre. It is an exciting novel with a lot of depth, and definitely worth a read.

Creative Project

My creative project is a scene from Neuromancer in video game form. Near the beginning of the book, Case asks Dixie if he ever tried to hack an AI. Dixie responds by telling him the story of how he tried, and ended up flatlining(dying, so called because of the flat EEG). To play my game, click the download link and decompress the zip file downloaded. Launch the application extracted from it. For best results, choose 1280x800 resolution, uncheck windowed, and choose “Fantastic” graphics quality, unless you are lacking in the graphics card sector(in which case choose a lower setting). To melt ice, click the mouse button. To move, use the WASD keys. To quit, press esc.

I'm Tobi Hahn, and my You and the World project was on internet privacy. The agent of change portion of my project happened at the same time as the reintroduction of the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA), a controversial internet privacy bill which was voted down last year. It would allow the government and corporations to share your private browsing data without a warrant or any justification. You could file a complaint saying that your data was used in a wrongful way, but CISPA also has a clause that keeps the use of your information secret. It could be abused for warrantless wiretap, copyright enforcement, and targeted ads. It is in direct violation of the Fourth Amendment. After it passed the house, I presented to my advisory about it. I explained to them how the bill would impact everyday internet usage, and encouraged them to sign a petition. On April 25, the Senate stopped CISPA in its tracks by refusing to vote on it. But CISPA is far from dead. It was voted down in the house last year, but came back this year. It is likely to come back again, possibly in separate bills.

My process changed significantly with the reintroduction of CISPA. My presentation was originally going to be about how you could improve your privacy on the internet, but then CISPA was reintroduced, and I recognized it as a bigger issue. If CISPA was passed, there would be no browser settings you could change that would preserve your privacy.

I encountered some problems with scheduling my presentation, as there were many presentations happening at the same time. I managed to find a time to present, however, and fixed the problem.

I think my presentation went well, as it raised awareness about CISPA. CISPA got little coverage in mainstream news outlets, and it could have had negative consequences for internet privacy if it was passed.

This project impacted me, as I saw that it was possible to make an impact in my community, even if it was just my school's community. Before it seemed like something that was not really possible to do without huge amounts of people and coordination. I think I am still learning how to make an impact, though, as I think I could have done a bit more. I only did one presentation and probably had time to do more.

For my presentation, I talked about what CISPA was and why it was a threat. I also talked about how it could be abused, and what you could do. Josh Berg said that my presentation was very informative, and it made him more aware about the topic.

You can see my slide deck below.

I'm Toby, and this is my second blog post for my you and the world project. Since I last posted, the ITU meeting happened. Many of the governments present refused to sign the treaty, and the conference ended at a standstill. So for the moment, the internet will stay as we're used to. A petition has also been listed on whitehouse.gov to defund the ITU. I suggest you sign it.

Since the ITU meeting is over, I'm changing the focus of my project to privacy on the internet. According to Wired, the FBI is pushing for legislation for requiring devices to be easier to wiretap. Not only could this cause privacy concerns, it could also make it easier for criminals to listen in because of the backdoor that the FBI put in in the first place! In happier internet privacy news, Michigan recently passed a law that would give citizens the right to withhold their social networking username or password from an employer or parent who requests it.

I've also done some original research, creating a survey that people at SLA took. It asked questions about how anxious people were about internet privacy, what sites they were worried on, and why. A total of 40 people took the survey. Most people rated their level of anxiety at about 4 or 5, as seen here.

The site most people were worried about their privacy on was Facebook by a vast majority of 65%. 30% of people said they were not worried about their privacy on the internet.

For the last question (If you have ever been worried about your privacy on the internet, why were you?), responses varied. A number of people expressed concerns about colleges and future employers seeing their posts on social networks, while others were worried about stalkers. Other people were worried about people they don't know finding out their identities or seeing them in the wrong way. One parent (and IT professional) said they were concerned about SLA's SLATE blog being too open. They did not like the fact that student's identities and images (although there is no default profile picture and most students leave it blank) and said it should be on an intranet (private computer network) behind a firewall. Additionally, if you are not signed in as a student, you can only see the name of the instructor when looking at the public feed for a class. However, the names can be seen as the author of a blog post, even when signed out.

What I can conclude from this research is that most people are not too concerned about internet privacy, but many of the people that are concerned are especially concerned, worrying about their privacy even when their content is private. This correlates with the news article mentioned earlier about the FBI pushing for devices that are easier to wiretap. People that said they are worried about what colleges and future employers can see can rest a little bit easier because of the law Michigan passed mentioned above. Hopefully more states will follow suit.

I think that the FBI's suggestion for devices that are easier to wiretap is not a good idea. As Wired says, backdoors open the path to hackers. On the other hand, I do think that Michigan passing a law that gives citizens the right to withhold their username or password is a good thing, as it makes social networks a bit more private than their current state. Based on my survey, I think that Facebook's privacy policy should be changed, as it would explain why most of the people surveyed were worried about privacy on Facebook. Facebook's privacy policy states that Facebook may collect data about you while you are browsing in order to give you more relevant information, including your location. You should be given the option to turn this off. Also, since most people may not read the privacy policy, the fact that Facebook collects this information should be displayed in short form somewhere conspicuous. Another way to solve the problem would be to show a condensed version of the privacy policy when users sign up. This is because Facebook's privacy policy says that they will not collect information without telling you about it first, such as in the privacy policy. The privacy policy is linked to on the sign-up page, but just like license agreements, only a few people will ever actually read it. Not just Facebook should do this, but any digital service that requires you to read a long agreement.

Another concern expressed about Facebook in the survey was hacked accounts. Facebook has a feature, similar to Valve's Steam Guard, that would require you to enter a verification code when logging in from a unrecognized browser. This means that if a hacker managed to guess your password, they could not get into your account unless they entered the verification code sent to your mobile phone. Instructions on how to turn it on follow.

1)Mouse over the gear and then click Account Settings or Privacy Settings.

2)Click Security.

After all my research, I'm left wondering why the people who are worried about internet privacy tend to be unnecessarily paranoid about it. For my agent of change post, I am thinking of presenting to advisories about my issue. You can view my annotated bibliography here. Thanks for reading!

Intro

Me llamo Toby, y este es mi proyecto.

Yo

Me llamo Toby. Soy de Filadelfia. Tengo una familia muy grande y el pelo rubio. Me gusta surfear la red cuando tengo tiempo libre y jugar videojuegos con amigos.

Él

Su nombre Wilson. Es mi mejor amigo. Él es divertido y tiene un perro. Le gusta escuchar música.

Ellos

Sus nombres Javier y Mitchell. Son mis amigos, y son bastante cómicos. Me caen bien porque son mis amigos.

Ellas

Son mi abuela y mi madre. Son súper simpática, y también tener gatos. Les gusta cantar. Me caen bien porque son mi familia.

Nosotros

Se llama Sam. Somos bien inteligentes. Vos gusta jugar videojuegos los fines de semana. Nos llevamos bien porque su es simpática.

Conclusión

Gracias por ver mi proyecto. ¡Adiós!

Pebble in the Sky Book Review

Pebble in the Sky was Isaac Asimov's first novel. It is part of the Empire series, which takes place in the Foundation universe. The Foundation series won a Hugo Award for “Best All-Time Series” in 1966. Pebble in the Sky was first written as a short story called “Grow Old Along with Me” and submitted to Startling Stories. It was rejected because the magazine's usual genre was adventure instead of science fiction. The story was then accepted by the Doubleday publishing company, as long as Asimov would expand it to 70,000 words and give the book a name that sounded more like a science fiction book. In 1951, a radio adaption, written by Ernest Kinoy, was aired on NBC. However, the radio adaption left most of the plot points out, including the entire concept of time travel.

In Pebble in the Sky, a man named Joseph Schwartz is inadvertently transported into the future because of an accident regarding a uranium sample at a nearby laboratory. He stumbles to the house of a couple who take him in nervously. They do this because the law is that anyone over sixty will be killed. They are hiding a relative who is over sixty, and they are worried Schwartz is a government agent. Earth is radioactive, and oppressed by the galactic empire who see earth's natives as a lesser race. Earth has attempted to rebel multiple times in the past. Schwartz is taken by the couple to a trial for a machine that is said to activate the synapses in the brain and make the subject smarter. Schwartz gains increased mental powers from the machine, allowing him to harm or even kill a person. Schwartz, the machine's inventor, his daughter, and an archeologist named Bel Avardan discover a plot by religious fanatics on earth to release a virus that would wipe out all the other planets. They are able to stop it, however, using Schwartz's mental powers. In the radio adaption, however, the rebels on Earth succeed in releasing the virus, making Earth the only planet left living in the galaxy, therefore the earth is a pebble in the sky.

There is a conflict in this book. The type of conflict is person versus society, because the conflict is Bel Avardan (who is from the Empire) trying to avoid the prejudices of the Empire when dealing with Earth. He has a very unpopular theory that Earth is the planet that humanity began on, which is proven in another Foundation universe novel, Foundation and Earth. The people of Earth are looked down upon by the Empire, and Avardan has to deal with this while trying to prove his theory.

My favorite character would have to be Joseph Schwartz, because of his unique mental abilities and predicament. Seeing him gradually become aware of his mental abilities and learning how to use them makes him a very interesting character. I think one of the ideas in this book is that keeping a group of people oppressed for a long time is a bad thing and can have dangerous results.

I cannot relate to this book because the characters and events in this book are so different than my life, because it is a science fiction book. What happens in this book is as far as we know impossible, so I can't relate to it. Although, I have trouble relating to books in general, even books that are not science fiction books. The fact that it is a science fiction book and the events within are impossible is just a reason that springs to mind. It may be the reason for this particular book, but since I have trouble relating to books other than science fiction books, there may be another reason.

However, I did enjoy this book. It is an exciting read that provides an interesting view of Asimov's Foundation universe. On the downside, the plot can be shallow, as much of it hinges on the coincidence of Schwartz being transported to the future and gaining mental powers that inevitably happen to save the galaxy. Pebble in the Sky lacks the deep and engaging plot of Asimov's Foundation series, but it is still an exciting and interesting book that is definitely worth your time.

Most of my design was following what it said in Presentation Zen: Make things big. I did this for most of the images, and then made the text a little bit smaller, because Presentation Zen says to make things visual. I started with the headcrab a lot bigger, but eventually made it smaller because Presentation Zen says to have empty space. I think I could have had a bit more empty space if I could do it again, though. I also made the bacon bleed a bit, according to Presentation Zen's tips. If I could do it again, I would follow the rule of thirds, because my slide seems a bit disorganized. I would also add more contrast if I could do it again.