Wednesday, September 27, 2023
Antiwar Voices
Homing Pigeons
What I Learned?
War Pigeons
I was surprised to learn that Homing Pigeons were used as late as World War 1 and 2 for private messages. During World War 1, pigeons were used extensively to communicate and the United States, by themselves, used around 600 of them. There was a particular pigeon, known as Cher Ami, who was shot through the leg but still managed to get its message to its destination. That final message ended up saving around 194 people in the 77th division. During World War II, The United Kingdom had at least 200,000 war pigeons and 32 of them were awarded the Dicken Medal. Project Pigeon was started in World War II by the Americans as an attempt to create pigeon guided bombs. Project Pigeon was cancelled and eventually revived by the Navy until it was eventually proved inefficient by electronic guidance systems.History
The Winklevoss Twins
Positive Impact
Facebook was one of the first social media networks that paved the way for almost all of the social media that exist today. Before there was an Instagram or Snapchat, Facebook was one of the few places where you could go to get updates about the people in your life. Facebook changed our way of communicating forever because before there was social media, if you wanted to know anything about somebody, you would have to personally reach out to them. Facebook allows for people all over the world to connect with each other and businesses to reach out to a wider audience. People are also able to express themselves freely, within the guidelines of Facebook, and reach out to others with similar interests to communicate and share ideas.Negative Impact
Studies have shown that Facebook has had a severe effect on the mental health of many individuals. There were early cases, before Facebook joined the public aside from universities, of increases in depression and anxiety more from college students who were using Facebook versus those who weren't. These health related issues also showed a decline in academic performance at those same universities where students were using Facebook. There were also a number of political issues that came from Facebook, one of them being "rabbit holes". Facebook's algorithm was designed to continuously share what you're interested in so if you showed an interest in either political party, there was a chance you would be subjected to a "rabbit hole", which led you to the extreme values of that political party. There were also issues of privacy that led Zuckerberg to the Supreme Court where he had to address the selling of data to third parties.Monday, September 11, 2023
Promoting Innovation
Left and Right Brain
There are a lot of people in this world who tend to say that they are either left brained or right brained and use that as a way of sharing that they are either more creative or logical. As someone who has a passion for both a scientific and creative field, I tend to say that I lean towards both. That also applies when looking at the Eight Values of Expression because when I think about how we promote innovation, that requires both creativity and logic. Innovation requires a creative mind that can come up with ideas but also somebody who's willing to crunch the numbers and figure out how to make that idea come to light.
What Does Innovation Mean to Me?
Innovation vs. A.I.
The Supreme Court
After reading about the Supreme Court from History, I have learned some new information and gotten a chance to think about how I feel towards it. Supreme Court - History