Module # 13 Final Blog (WSU FALL 2014)

This class has been very enlightening and eye opening to the “flat world” of Friedman. Technology is everywhere, and comes in many different forms, and has it’s own identity.  There are so many components to technology and the industries that thrive around creating a competitive advantage over one another.   Globalization is a good thing, and a bad thing, and affects all facets of industry, as well as society.   In a previous module I wrote  “As technology changes the world, we grow with it.  We grow as a society, we grow as individuals, and we grow as a global community.”  What this means to me is that there are truly no barriers anymore.  We can communicate with anyone, anywhere, at anytime, about anything!   There truly is a level playing field now, and new inventions and ideas can be shared everyday on a global scale.  The negative to the flat world is that it becomes too competitive, and the people and companies with the money generally come out on top.

Unfortunately as Friedman and many others have said, “If you snooze. You lose.”   This statement kind of summarizes the entire class for me, as it relates to most of the components of globalization and a flat world.  The technology industry is extremely competitive, and they spend trillions of dollars on gaining advantages over each other.   The global economy is completely reliant on technology now, as computers run the world, and we cannot live without it!  The individuality of being human is quickly diminishing, as it seems that it has now become technological warfare. The corporate giants want to see who can make the most money by making us lazy due to the speed and efficiency which technology gives us.  I feel lost without my cellphone now, and it is difficult to imagine life without it, as I am certain anyone that reads this would agree. It is kind of like my generation has become pawns in a game of technological chess.  The 40+ generation is becoming lost to this fast-paced, advancing, technological monster, and we are forced to comply, or get left behind.  We are always in “panic mode” and our world never slows down.  We grew up without texting, iphones, Ipads, I,I,I everything!  What happened to us, and we?  I think being a parent has changed the way I look at technology, as I see my children utilizing it for everything.   My kids would rather be on their computers, cell phones, or playing video games, rather than playing outside.  It is frustrating as a parent, when you wonder how they are learning to communicate and interact with each other on a physical level.  Technology is forcing us to dehumanize, and communicate in a completely different way.  

Google is God!   What more can I say!  It is singularly the most powerful entity in the universe.  It is all knowing, and has changed the way they we search for information, do business, and live our lives.  It is not just a search engine anymore, it has become the face of humanity.   It is very unsettling when I think of the way that Google has shifted the way we think on a deeper level as humans.  Google is amazing for business, and has created fantastic tools and analytics to track everything on the planet.  It is remarkable how I use Google Calendar to schedule my days, Google Docs for my business, Gmail, and the list goes on.  The Irony of it, is that I do not even see Google as a business anymore, I look at it as a tool that assists me to carry on with my day to day activities.  It is horrific to think what would happen if Google shut down, the world would probably end. 

In summary,  I feel that we as humans have always feared the future.  I think we hide behind our fears, and try and hold things back sometimes, because we are afraid to watch the world grow.  Our paradigms of the old -world, have shifted.  Traditions are failing, and the world is passing the older generations by at blinding speed.   I now know that Christopher Columbus was wrong!  The world is truly flat! “  I have had an incredible journey in this class and realized how amazing technology is, and how destructive technology can be on a human level.  Technology is fantastic, but it is affecting the way we communicate as humans.  It is desensitizing us to physical communication, and leaving it in the hands of a text message or email.  It is changing how we relate, how we feel compassion, and how we love.    

I think I will write a novel, and call it:

 “Whatever happened to really….. Laughing Out Loud!”  

(Look for it in your Globalized Supply Chain of Offshore, Outsourced, Online Monopolies!)

Great Class!  Thank you Mr. Jensen!  

           

Module # 12 (WSU FALL 2014)

Bill Joys article titled  "Why The Future Doesn't Need Us," is a look at one man's fears about the future of computers and robots taking over humanity.  He writes of much of the technology with a passion, and seems to find the good, and the bad in all of it.  I personally do not feel the way Bill Joy does, that computers and technology are going to destroy humanity.....GNR is genetics, nanotechnology and robotics.  Self Replication is a concern from Joy, where he relates it as the modus operandi of genetic engineering.  Self Replication by his definition is the process by which a machine uses it cells to replicate it's designs.  It would be like machines cloning themselves, which is a scary thought!  Genetic research allows us to do a great deal of good in humanity, but there are those researchers that take things way too far.  I am reminded of Josef Mengele, in the "Boys From Brazil" where Mengele tries to create perfect clones of Hitler.  Obviously a terrible idea, but one that is relevant today, as we clone sheep, animals, cells, and DNA.  Joy expresses concern over cloning crops and food, and stronger immune systems, as we can build up an immunity to things, and ultimately wipe out the world.  Nanotechnology exists for a purpose, there are many positive areas that it impacts.  Joy said that within 20 years, nanotechnology will be where individual molecules are circuit elements, and be very profitable for the manufacturers.  I think it will be good to help disease, and other things that we need to zoom in on and repair.  Robotics have been around for a long time, and are pretty much involved in every manufacturing plant in the world to some degree.  We see them in auto manufacturing, on assembly lines all over the world, and they perform a valuable service.  They are generally perfect with their calculations, and help produce more products, faster.  I think Joys fears of being able to put our thoughts into an artificial intelligence, or robot is somewhere in the future, but is it something to fear? I personally feel that GNR is not something to fear.  I feel that we as humans have always feared the future, and the takeover of technology.  I think we hide behind our fears, and try and hold things back sometimes, because we are afraid to watch the world grow.  Our paradigms of the old world, have shifted.  Traditions are failing, and the world is passing the older generations by at blinding speed.  All of these things that he speaks of are aiding the world, and most of it he admits.  There always seem to be a passion for the technology, but a fear of how man kind will use it.  I do not fear the future, I look forward to it.  I think that Bill Joy is a Kill Joy.....

Module # 11(War Games WSU FALL 2014)

I chose to watch War Games, as I have seen the movie before, and since I have been taking this class I figured I could find some more correlation to Friedmans book, and what I have learned to this point.  War Games is about a kid that ends up connecting to a top secret computer named WOPR, which is controlled by the government.  He thinks he is playing a video game, and ultimately starts World War 3.   He accesses the WOPR system by finding a back door password, which is pretty much how hackers access secure systems today. 

I think that there are many forecasts in this movie, much like in the "Logic named Joe" story that we blogged about.  The process of a single human being having complete control over a computer back then was not that scary, but in today's flat world, and with globalized networks, the possibilities are endless, and completely real.  The power of computers, and the way they can control our environment is a very scary notion.  The machine  named WOPR, much like the "Logic" was very intimidating, and almost Godlike.  Computers are much more powerful, and capable of destroying our way of life with the push of a button.  Hackers can create chaos, and a multitude of problems for a society that relies on computers.  Computers run the world, and I've often thought about what would happen if the internet went down, for good.  When I am at work, and the internet is down, I feel helpless, and can not complete my job.  If someone is in the computer business, or IT business, they would be forced to cease work, and the economy would begin a downward spiral.  There are so many scenarios that could occur with computers, that War Games scratched the tip of our current iceburg, but nonetheless, it showed us what could happen.  It is definitely an amazing precaution, and story that showcases what could happen to our society when a computer controls the world.  In today's world, the greatest threat to our networks are viruses and hackers stealing our personal identities and information.  In War Games the passwords that he hacked were very simple, and not encrypted and complex like they are today.  It was very nostalgic to see this movie with huge floppy disks, dial up modems, and realize that is was super technology back then.  The screens, keyboards, and everything about the movie was archaic, but it brought back memories to the time when I thought it was as good as it will ever be.   Of course, today is a different world, where technology changes the way we do everything, and anything. 

     I believe that this world is out of control when it comes to computers, technology, and the way it is taking over the planet.  Whether it is the military, or some militant group in Iraq utilizing it, it can be a very dangerous game, one in which there will be no winner.  War Games is a great depiction of what the world was to become, and how computers can control the world, with a mind of their own.  My favorite part of the movie is when he goes to find Dr. Falkan in the woods, and finds out that his son's name is Joshua.  Also I really like the term Geo Thermo Nuclear War!   I think I am going to use it as my password from now on.....but I did not tell you that....

Module 10 (The logic named Joe WSU Fall 2014)

This story is a remarkable forecast of the future.  So many things in this story resemble today's world.  The logic refers to computers, the tank refers to servers, and all of it relates to Google!  The story shows the takeover of computers in the world, and how they have all become connected.  We can access any information that we need, no matter how ridiculous, like poisoning our blonde wife.  I believe that the author was trying to provide us with an insight into the invasion of our privacy, and the dehumanizing of the world.  Children of today are becoming dependent on computers as the only source of their information.  Libraries are less and less utilized, and the connection to reading a great book, or exploring the world outside of a computer is dying.  Our privacy is constantly in jeopardy, and providing our name and any personal information can reek havoc on our personal lives, and the "Logics" we rely on to do our work.  Meaning, by distributing our personal information, we become vulnerable to spam, viruses, identity theft etc....   The author was very insightful with the way he wrote about dehumanizing us as a culture.  We have become completely reliant on computers, cellphones, and anything that has to do with technology.  I see people up camping all the time on their cellphones, and ipads, and getting full bars, coupled with the Wifi that their 49 foot camper has installed.  The kids are on their computers, rather than playing outside.  It truly does make me frustrated when my own children want to play video games, more than they want to play outside.  I have installed strict policies in my home, so that my kids understand that the computer is a perk or helper when we need it, it is not our best friend, and does not replace real play.  I truly feel that the author was right on target with the future, and realized that they would control humanity in every way.  I have said it before in my blog, but  Google is God!  There is no other way to sugar coat that in my opinion, as Google is a gigantic formation of tanks and interconnected logics with unlimited power, and unlimited information.  Google relies on us to feed it information, then spits that information out back to the rest of the world.  It was ironic to see how the logic was going to be upgraded, and better, and faster, just like in today's world.  We are always in a race to develop faster more efficient products.  To me, the dehumanizing effect is the most important.  People are getting divorced through text messgaes, and emails, and human communication is turning into acronyms and laughing out loud at everything.  What happened to actually laughing out loud?  My son saw a payphone the other day, and said "What is that glass box dad?"  I said "That's just an old school cell phone that we used to have to pay a quarter to use, no "Framily" plans for those things.  He got it, and wanted to know what we did before cell phones.  I had to tell him that people trusted each other alot more, and seemed to be more responsible, and less stressed.  This is what I feel the author was trying to convey, the complete collapse of society, and the dehumanization of a culture because of the way that we use technology.  I really enjoyed this story, as it is a great reminder that a totally connected world is a totally dependent world.

Module# 9 (WSU FALL 2024)

Building A Dell Laptop involves many components within a supply chain.  The first part of that chain is when a customer orders the laptop online, or in a store.  The person taking the order knows exactly how many they have in stock, and can either ship it to the customer after the transaction is completed, or they have to get the customized laptop built from different companies from around the globe.  China plays a huge role in the manufacturing of Dell laptops.  Several different vendors will be utilized for different components of the laptop, such as the case, motherboard, hard drives, keyboard etc.  Once the Laptop has all of the components assembled,  it ships out directly from the manufacturer that assembled it to the customer.  Generally they provide the customer with a tracking # and invoice for the purchase.  It is remarkable when you think that the laptops are ready to go when you order it online, and then you see that there is a huge supply chain that works on such an exact time frame.  Coordinating all of the individual components, along with the actual fulfillment of the laptop is a big job, but they have it down to a science.  Any delay in the process means a delay for the customer in receiving their goods,  which means bad business and reviews for the company. 

Al-Qaeda has an old school supply chain that seems to be a branch of of our American traditional chain.  However, they use their supply chain to promote terrorism, and bring weapons into their countries of origin.  Friedman said that "The mutant supply chains are formed for the purpose of destruction, not profit."  These people do not need investors, they only need sneaky dishonest people to carry out their wishes.  The US calls it the Virtual Caliphate, and it's leaders understand their supply chain just as much as Walmart does.  Friedman said that they use the flat world to their advantage, meaning that they have they ability to use the internet globally to deliver messages of terrorism with a click of a button. Al-Qaeda is built on Ideologies that mobilize and energize the Muslims, and it is a barbaric attitude that serves no one.  I am tired of worrying about the Middle East, and the terrorists, and the way that they feel that the world owes them something.  The world owes them nothing, and I honestly hope that the evil-doers get what they deserve.  I personally feel that it will never change, because there will always be that one guy that people will follow to the death.  It is a very sad world, and I feel for the women and children growing up with such pig-headed morons. 

The curse of oil, what more can I say.  I have heard people say that all wars start either over oil, or religion, and in the middle east, it is the combination.  Oil is money, money is power, and power controls humans.  According to Friedman the curse of oil stems from the leaders of a country trying to get rich off of the oil, rather than utilizing the people to grow the country.  When the sole focus of the economy is oil, there is no room for people to grow in any other business other than oil.  There will be no entrepreneurs, as the oil is the god of the economy.  It amazes me that all of the countries won't pull together and stop purchasing oil from these terrorist countries.  If we decrease the cashflow into the country, how will they survive.  I have read where we have enough oil reserves in the US for hundreds of years, and you would think that eventually we would stop supporting the middle east.  I don't get politics, and I never will, but I do know that oil is what it is all about. 

Module # 8 (WSU Fall 2014)

MODULE 8 (Computers and Education)

     I think I have been very lucky to grow up before computers, and watching them take over the world.  I owned a Texas Instruments TI-99 in 1982, and began learning to program my own graphics and create cheesy animations at 12 years old.  I graduated high school in 1988, and computers were not that big yet.  We had a Lotus 123 class in highschool, and that was about it.  Lotus was a database management software, and was used for businesses for things like inventory, and customer management.  I really did not use computers very much, till I started working for a digital sound library company in Santa Cruz California in 1994.  I have always worked with music, or around music, and my first computer was a Macintosh LC with 2 megabytes of ram.  I remember how excited everyone in the office was when we upgraded to a whopping 4 megabytes!   It is amazing how I could create music with such a slow computer that had little hard drive space, or memory.  The data back then was not as big, and 16 bit 44.1 khz was what we recorded at because of drive space.  We used to back everything up to Iomega Zip drives, Jazz drives, and Ditto drives.  Iomega drives were SCSI and the throughput was very fast, and you backed everything up to tape.  When external drives started to surface, you could utilize 10,000 rpm SCSI drives, and they were very fast.  They were comparable in speed to the "Raptor" drives of today from Western Digital, but they were less then 500 Megabytes, so they could not hold alot of data.  Needless to say we thought we were in heaven with our lightning fast machines, and huge hard drives.  I remember once at a music conference called the NAMM show, a panel from apple discussed the terrabyte, and exobyte drives that were on there way, we all just kind of laughed. 

      When I first started college in 1996, Netscape was our browser at WSU, and Altavista was our search engine. The internet was very slow, and it was very buggy, and things always crashed.  I do believe that the Technical Sales department at WSU was one of the first in the country to offer online classes.  I took some of them, and they were very slow, but efficient.   After I left college, I embarked on my career in music, and after 20 years am still in the business.  My early adulthood found me building Digital Audio Workstations or "DAWS, "and configuring them for music recording all across the country.  The music world changed with the advent of Windows 98 and even more with Windows XP.  The computer components were faster, bigger, and able to handle great amounts of stress from processor intensive tasks.  The Pentium 3 processor was probably one of the greatest computer inventions I can remember, as it enabled me to record more tracks in a session than ever before.  Also, the ability to have gigabytes of ram played a very important role in my work.   I have worked for several audio software manufacturers, and have seen the technology grow from nothing.  I still own a recording studio powered by a 12 core Mac with 32 gigs of ram, and SSD drives that are extremely fast.  There is no audio or video task that I cannot perform on that computer.  I have seen computer technology go through every phase of it's evolution, and have actively participated in it;s growth.  I eagerly anticipate new technology, as it has shaped who I am, and influenced my education in ways that I never thought possible.  I envy the children of today, being born into the speed and power of today's computers, it can be a blessing for them, but I also feel that technology is a curse.  Children today are growing up a little bit lazy, and Googling everything is a lazy approach to research, and life.  God Speed!

Module # 7 (WSU FALL 2014)

            Comparative Advantage is the key in determining why some countries are better than others at doing certain things.  Comparative Advantage is an economic theory about the potential gains from trade for individuals, firms, or nations that arise from differences in their factor endowments or technological progress.  From an economic standpoint, a company has a comparative advantage over another in producing good if they can produce cheaper.  The principle according to Wiki, holds that under free trade, an agent will produce more of and consume less of a good for which he has a comparative advantage. I think that education plays a huge role in comparative advantage also.  As some countries cannot produce as many educated people as other countries, and that education will go a long way as far as the economy goes.  In poor countries it is difficult to have any advantage over rich countries, as they really have nothing to offer.  Friedman said that Mexico has been replaced by china as The # 2 U.S. expoter, because mexico has been engulfed by the low cost manufacturing of China.  It is a cat and mouse game, or as a Mexican journalist told Friedman, “We were afraid of the wolf at first, then we wanted to dance with the wolf, now we want to be the wolf!”  It just goes to show you how a strong economy can dictate the world.

Self Directed Consumers, are people that use the Internet to their advantage to search, compare, and buy products.  I am definitely a Self Directed Consumer, as I refuse to buy anything until I get the best price.  One of my examples is Kayak.  I will search on Kayak for the best deals on Hotels, Airfare, and Rental cars, anytime I am going out of town.  Priceline is kind of the same way, as it operates in a similar fashion.  I use Ebay almost every day, and I use it as a template to gauge how much things are actually being sold for.   I will find something that I want to buy, then go to Ebay, do a search, and look at what the completed listings sold for.  This gives me a bottom line price, and an average as to what I should purchase something for, or sell it for.  I think Ebay is one of my best tools when I am selling things on KSL or, of course Ebay, as it gives me an amazing overview of almost every item in the world.  

I think in many respects Globalization is synonymous with Americanization.  If you look at fast food chains like McDonalds, expanding into other countries, and becoming a global fast food source all over the world, it is Americanization, taking on the face of Globalization.  America greatly benefits from Globalization.  I think it is a free for all in our flat world.  American companies, European companies, and many other global companies compete on the same level.  There are several companies in Europe that are in America, is this Europeanization?  I think that Globalization is for the taking, and can be had by anyone in the flat world, and it does not mean that we are modernizing Iraq by putting a Mcdonalds there…..It just means we are giving them more options…….Americanization is about presenting options to communities on a global scale.