#Technology and Society

[brainlesstechnerd]

Introduction: As a high school student in the 21st century, there's no denying the importance of computer science in today's world. Whether you're a seasoned programmer or just dipping your toes into the world of coding, the power of computer science is undeniable. In this blog, I'll share my journey as a 12th-grader venturing into the fascinating realms of C, C++, and Python, and how this journey has not only improved my computer science profile but also shaped my outlook on technology and problem-solving.

Chapter 1: The Foundations - Learning C

Learning C:

C, often referred to as the "mother of all programming languages," is where my journey began. Its simplicity and efficiency make it an excellent choice for beginners. As a high school student with limited programming experience, I decided to start with the basics.

Challenges and Triumphs:

Learning C came with its fair share of challenges, but it was incredibly rewarding. I tackled problems like understanding pointers and memory management, and I quickly realized that the core concepts of C would lay a strong foundation for my future endeavors in computer science.

Chapter 2: Building on the Basics - C++

Transition to C++:

With C under my belt, I transitioned to C++. C++ builds upon the concepts of C while introducing the object-oriented programming paradigm. It was a natural progression, and I found myself enjoying the flexibility and power it offered.

Projects and Applications:

I started working on small projects and applications in C++. From simple text-based games to data structures and algorithms implementations, C++ opened up a world of possibilities. It was during this phase that I began to see how the knowledge of programming languages could translate into tangible solutions.

Chapter 3: Python - The Versatile Language

Exploring Python:

Python is often praised for its simplicity and readability. As I delved into Python, I realized why it's a favorite among developers for a wide range of applications, from web development to machine learning.

Python in Real-Life Projects:

Python allowed me to take on real-life projects with ease. I built web applications using frameworks like Flask and Django, and I even dabbled in data analysis and machine learning. The versatility of Python broadened my horizons and showed me the real-world applications of computer science.

Chapter 4: A Glimpse into the Future

Continual Learning:

As I prepare to graduate high school and venture into higher education, my journey with C, C++, and Python has instilled in me the importance of continual learning. The field of computer science is dynamic, and staying up-to-date with the latest technologies and trends is crucial.

Networking and Collaboration:

I've also come to appreciate the significance of networking and collaboration in the computer science community. Joining online forums, participating in coding challenges, and collaborating on open-source projects have enriched my learning experience.

Conclusion: Embracing the World of Computer Science

My journey as a 12th-grader exploring C, C++, and Python has been an enlightening experience. These languages have not only improved my computer science profile but have also given me a broader perspective on problem-solving and technology. As I step into the future, I'm excited to see where this journey will take me, and I'm ready to embrace the ever-evolving world of computer science.

If you're a fellow student or someone curious about programming, I encourage you to take the plunge and start your own journey. With determination and a willingness to learn, the world of computer science is yours to explore and conquer.

#Computer Science #Programming Languages #Learning Journey #C Programming #C++ Programming #Python Programming #Coding Tips #Programming Projects #Programming Tutorials #Problem-Solving #High School Education #Student Life #Personal Growth #Programming Challenges #Technology Trends #Future in Computer Science #Community Engagement #Open Source #Programming Communities #Technology and Society

[biglisbonnews]

Communicating across time TeleAbsence, a project from the MIT Media Lab, probes and imitates the way humans process feelings of belonging, love, and loss. https://news.mit.edu/2023/communicating-across-time-teleabsence-0811

#Arts #Augmented and virtual reality #Communications #Students #Technology and society #Graduate #postdoctoral #Media Lab #Visual arts #Art #Culture and Technology #Center for Art #Science and Technology #School of Architecture and Planning #Ken Shulman | Arts at MIT #MIT News

[tygerland]

The International Space Station was passing over South Africa when this image of the Earth was captured by French astronaut Thomas Pesquet, 5 September 2021. The orange band is made up of sodium atoms left behind by meteors entering our planet's atmosphere.

#stardust #life #technology #dark #community #naturecore #science #photography #astronomy #space #africa #lights #culture #society #academia #earth #travel #stars #humanity #inspiration #📚

[endcraft]

i like etho as a mcyt figure because he is like if a computer engineer could be a caveman. like imagine if the guy who invented the watch and the guy who invented the wheel were the same guy. imagine if you were talking to him and he was like oh yeah i also invented the hand axe. and google

#hes like if a grandpa were both a programmer and a luddite #hes like a paleolithic mech engineer #hes like if someone made the internet out of sticks and rocks #hes like if you could talk to a big rock and its like yeah i remember before anything was ever hungry bc life wasnt invented yet. #and also i invented algebra #hes like a guy someone found in a cave hungry and covered in dirt and then hes like wait before you bring me back to society #look at what i made while i was stuck in this cave. and its technology sufficiently sophisticated as to seem like magic. made out of mud #fueled by the motion of earth through space #like you think maybe i should leave him in the cave and let him cook #hed benefit from being around people… but also hes onto something. in that cave

[disk28]

#disk28 #cyberpunk #technology #cyber city #secret society

[explore-blog]

In the autumn of 1883, a paper in the nation's capital reported that "an Iowa woman has spent 7 years embroidering the solar system on a quilt" — to teach astronomy in an era when women could not attend college. Her story.

#Women's History Month #women's history #astronomy #craft #quilting #space #science #science and technology #history and literature #culture and society

[front-facing-pokemon]

#dedenne #beep beep beep beep… phone's ringing it's dedenne from the expedition society #she's here to tell you about some more danger #uh oooooohhh #i think that's what it does. right? beep beep beep. something like that #i don't remember if she's like. calling through the connection orb or just beaming herself into everyone's heads #or if they're wearing earpieces or some shit but the connection orb is the most technological advancement we've seen in all of pmd #and it's only at the expedition society. they're holding all this proprietary tech for themselves and keeping it from the rest of the world #so they can continue to have the advantage. the only organization with the lapras liner to have access to the entire rest of the world #truly a megacorporation of our time

[lets-try-some-writing]

How good would the bots handwriting be?

In English? In Cybertronian? Why not both?

━━━━━━ ⊙ ❖ ⊙ ━━━━━━━━━━━━ ⊙ ❖ ⊙

On Cybertron, writing anything by hand was not exactly common. Technology trimmed the process down a great deal and writing by hand was seen as something reserved for the higher castes. A written series of glyphs was a material promise, something important and made only to be used in serious events. Otherwise most everything was done digitally to save time and improve efficiency. Autocorrect most certainly helped many a struggling writer back on Cybertron.

With this in mind, as resources cut short and Earth lacked the needed materials to make a surplus of datapads, handwriting skills became very clear. More so than ever once the children decided to try and teach the bots to write for possible cover reasons. One could never be sure when one would need a bot to sign them out of school early.

Arcee has the worst handwriting by far, a surprising twist considering her dainty digits and relatively small size. One would think writing would come easy to her, but she hates doing anything like that by hand. She can type quickly, but writing out anything on a datapad, much less paper of all things? No she would much prefer being on Shockwave's operating table over having to possibly write her report manually. The glyphs of the various dialects on Cybertron are too much for her and the hatred of writing transferred over to English even though it is FAR easier to write in. The team won't say it to her face, but her writing looks like chicken scratch in both languages. The children don't know she is garbage at writing in Cybertronian too, and the team are content to leave them with the thought that she is just bad at learning English.

Bulkhead and Wheeljack share one braincell on a good day, and their writing shows this. They write exclusively in the wartime Wrecker dialect that formed over the millions of years of conflict. No one but Autobots can even begin to read their writing as its all a strange deviation from Autobot encryption. Sure they can write in mainstream Cybertronian dialects, but it looks awful and honestly the team prefer having to put on reading glasses and stare at their encrypted writing over having to get out a dictionary to even begin to parse out their other writings. In light of this, they do not write in English when asked to use an Earth language. Instead, they like Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and other such languages due to the ease of which they find encrypting the writing to be. They are hated by Bot and human alike for their habit of making things more complicated than it needs to be.

Ultra Magnus writes in the most computer generated manner known to any of the bots. How he does it is a mystery. Yet somehow he got so used to manually writing out his signature that now his every written glyph comes out as if it were typed. He doesn't seem to notice or care for the team's gawking, and he absolutely refuses to write in English simply because he had no interest in relearning writing. The team don't know, but the real reason he doesn't want to write in any other dialect is because he purposefully trained his motor functions to only write in his very specific manner. To try and learn a brand new written language would mess that up and ruin his clean and crisp glyphs.

Ratchet is an odd ball in his writing. When in a hurry, his writing in both Cybertronian and English looks like the Doctor's scrawl that those outside of the medical field have no hope of figuring out. However when he's not in a rush, he has a very distinct method of writing his glyphs and letters. In Cybertronian dialects of any kind, he adds extra emphasis in places where there has been no need for further glyph usage since the age of Wrath. In English, he adds interesting swirls and excess E's absolutely everywhere as if it is an additional glyph meant to add meaning to the word. Rafael tried to correct him once. That didn't end well.

Smokescreen has never written anything in his life. He can type like lightening, but he was never schooled in traditional manual writing simply due to how time consuming it was and how unneeded the ability happened to be at his post. He can't do any writing to save his life, but he has managed to convincingly fake the ability to write when in a tight spot. He can scribble and make it look like REALLY bad Tarnian dialect. And since that particular script hasn't been used since the city was destroyed, most don't judge him for it. But Optimus knows, and when he has time, he does what he can to school the rookie. Rafael has also taken it upon himself to try and teach Smokescreen some English with limited success.

Bumblebee grew up under Optimus, and Optimus in turn grew up under Alpha Trion. The two have startlingly similar handwriting more often than not. They both know many languages and dialects and are fluent in them, they both share glyph usage preferences, and both are known for their regular language swaps in writing. The only way to really tell them apart is to look REALLY closely at either the curvature of a specific glyph in Ancient Cybertronian or to stare really hard at the way their write their O's and B's. Both write like they walked straight out of ancient eras of old on a good day and write like living dictionaries for pretty much any other dialect. The team and the children gave up trying to figure out who wrote what a long time ago. If they can't pick it up from the context of the writing, they can just assume its important regardless.

#transformers #maccadam #transformers prime #ratchet #optimus prime #bumblebee #team prime #bulkhead #wheeljack #arcee #smokescreen #ultra magnus #tfp kids #yup #they write funky and its chill #when you are a very technological society its not wonder only the rich learn to write

[thoughtportal]

#tweet #tweets #twitter #books and literature #books and writing #books and libraries #books and authors #books and reading #1984 #nineteen eighty four #fahrenheit 451 #dystopian #Dystopia #AI art #AI #Society and Culture #pop culture #cultural critique #cultural criticism #technology #Entertainment #movies #film #TV #art #the arts #novel writing machine #george orwell #orwellian #orwell

[tanoraqui]

the real problem with The Silmarillion is that the creative sandbox is SO big, from the literal world map to the many-millennia timeline to the characters who are half historical figure constructed from 6 different half-contradictory drafts, half mythical archetype, and don’t even get me STARTED on the theological philosophy… that there is NO chance anyone else will remotely properly write the fic in your head. In other fandoms, I can be pretty sure that at least the people in the carefully chosen 12-person discord server I belong to all have the same fic in their heads that we jammed together at 2am, with the same interpretations of character and theme which we’ve debated and discussed at length. But The Silmarillion? You can spend 3 hours discussing a single character in like a 5-year period and walk away completely happy with shared headcanons BUT SIMULTANEOUSLY certain that their interpretation of the character is fundamentally different than yours, such that any fic they write would suffer from notable if not severe “he would not fucking say that” disorder…and that both your and their interpretations are completely reasonable reads of the text, so you can’t even be mad.

So you HAVE to write ALL your own fic or it’s AGONIZING.

#the silmarillion #tumblr give me polls so I can ask my audience what they most want to read #so I can focus on something instead of just having wildly tonally different plot bunnies bouncing around my head CHALLENGE #me eight months ago: why do so many people write long elaborate return to valinor fics? it’s gets saccharinely samey surely #me now: I want my blorbos to get A chance to live happily ever after but the nuances of their many characterizations and relationships #as well as changes in elvish society culture and technology; the literal effects of the Oath; the attitudes of the Valar #the involvement and/or existence of certain OCs; and the balance of tragedy joy seriousness humor cynicism and hope must all be CORRECT or I #will at best be ANTSY

[biglisbonnews]

Q&A: A high-tech take on Wagner’s “Parsifal” opera Director and MIT Professor Jay Scheib’s production, at the Bayreuth Festival in Germany, features an apocalyptic theme and augmented reality headsets for the audience. https://news.mit.edu/2023/high-tech-take-wagners-parsifal-opera-0803

#Music #Augmented and virtual reality #Music and theater arts #Music technology #History #Arts #Technology and society #Climate change #Ethics #Social justice #History of science #Global #School of Humanities Arts and Social Sciences #Peter Dizikes | MIT News #MIT News

[reasonsforhope]

"Beneath 1,350 square miles of dense jungle in northern Guatemala, scientists have discovered 417 cities that date back to circa 1000 B.C. and that are connected by nearly 110 miles of “superhighways” — a network of what researchers called “the first freeway system in the world.”

Scientist say this extensive road-and-city network, along with sophisticated ceremonial complexes, hydraulic systems and agricultural infrastructure, suggests that the ancient Maya civilization, which stretched through what is now Central America, was far more advanced than previously thought.

Mapping the area since 2015 using lidar technology — an advanced type of radar that reveals things hidden by dense vegetation and the tree canopy — researchers have found what they say is evidence of a well-organized economic, political and social system operating some two millennia ago.

The discovery is sparking a rethinking of the accepted idea that the people of the mid- to late-Preclassic Maya civilization (1000 B.C. to A.D. 250) would have been only hunter-gatherers, “roving bands of nomads, planting corn,” says Richard Hansen, the lead author of a study about the finding that was published in January and an affiliate research professor of archaeology at the University of Idaho.

“We now know that the Preclassic period was one of extraordinary complexity and architectural sophistication, with some of the largest buildings in world history being constructed during this time,” says Hansen, president of the Foundation for Anthropological Research and Environmental Studies, a nonprofit scientific research institution that focuses on ancient Maya history.

These findings in the El Mirador jungle region are a “game changer” in thinking about the history of the Americas, Hansen said. The lidar findings have unveiled “a whole volume of human history that we’ve never known” because of the scarcity of artifacts from that period, which were probably buried by later construction by the Maya and then covered by jungle.

Lidar, which stands for light detection and ranging, works via an aerial transmitter that bounces millions of infrared laser pulses off the ground, essentially sketching 3D images of structures hidden by the jungle. It has become a vital tool for archaeologists who previously relied on hand-drawings of where they estimated areas of note might be and, by the late 1980s, the first 3D maps.

When scientists digitally removed ceiba and sapodilla trees that cloak the area, the lidar images revealed ancient dams, reservoirs, pyramids and ball courts. El Mirador has long been considered the “cradle of the Maya civilization,” but the proof of a complex society already being in place circa 1000 B.C. suggests “a whole volume of human history that we’ve never known before,” the study says."

-via The Washington Post, via MSN, because Washington Post links don't work on tumblr for some godawful reason. May 20, 2023.

#maya #mayan #mesoamerica #central america #el mirador #guatemala #indigenous #indigenous history #indigenous peoples #mesoamerican #architecture #ancient history #anti colonialism #fuck racist misconceptions and narratives about indigenous societies and technologies #history #good news #hope

[drac-kool-aid]

I've talked about it in some tags, but I'm thinking more on it, and I really do believe that there is something.....mmmmm supernatural and particularly gothic going on with the impersonation game Dracula is playing.

The eerie supernatural double was actually a very big theme in gothic literature as well as folklore of the time. Hell, two very famous deaths (Abraham Lincoln and Percy Shelly) have doppelganger sightings attached to them (although whether or not they are true or just added on postmortem to further sensationalize the event, I do not know).

Basically, you or someone you are close with seeing your double (whether that be a doppelganger, ghost, evil twin yet unknown, an actor doing a supernaturally good impression, etc) was a very ill omen and often one of death.

Not really sure where I'm going with this, but tl;dr Dracula impersonating Jonathan isn't just a part of his grand plan to isolate and drive him to rely on Dracula, but in fact a long standing trope of Gothic literature likely tied to the inherent horror that your own identity can be taken from you with nefarious results.

#dracula daily #dracula #re: dracula #jonathan harker #think Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde #or how many Sherlock Holmes cases revolve around how identity can actually be very fluid #even Sherlock's unnatural ability to shape change #while couched in realism #is probably related to this #although he is one of the few heroic examples of assuming identity #nowadays the trope doesnt quite hit so hard #identity theft is a concern of society but we no longer need to write a supernatural reason when technology exists

[pangur-and-grim]

okay releasing another short chapter because I think it’s funny, don’t be mean or I’ll actually cry:

Chapter 25

“And this is – COME ON, MOVE FASTER – this is where the train docks. Don’t EVER go inside the train, it’s nothing but rusted metal. Do you know what tetanus is? Do you know what a train is? A train is like a long car.”

I didn’t know what a car was, but lacked the heart to tell her.

Despite her crooked nose (obviously healed from past violence), her imposing frame, and those muscles, Hydna bounded about with the eager friendliness of an over-large puppy. I’d stopped trying to shape my replies to please her, as anything I said, no matter how foolish or petulant, seemed to bring her delight. Most likely I could thank Merulo for lowering her standards of conversation.

“Moving right along now, this is – CAREFUL!” Hydna lunged at me, and I flinched, closing my eyes in brief cowardice, but she only yanked me back from the sink hole I’d been about to step into. “You’re a delicate little thing, so use your eyes, eh?” was my rebuke, along with a shoulder-shattering clap on the back.

“I’m above the average height for men,” I said, pointlessly, for she’d already moved to the next attraction of Poseidon’s Family Fun Resort. This section of the resort looked a proper horror show, with its crumbling merry facades and sun-bleached pigments, bearing the ghostly afterimages of smiling aquatic creatures. When Merulo and I first arrived via portal, we’d evidentially emerged in the section of the resort used for housing visitors, with all the blocky, tall buildings forming a quasi-neighbourhood that radiated out from the newly designated library plaza.

I found it bewildering that this underwater city had been built solely for transient entertainment, though I didn’t doubt Hydna’s explanation. Mentioning this to the sorcerer proved a mistake, as he simply said “Yes, I can imagine thinking is a great effort for you,” and then banished me to spend time with his sister. Or rather to “provide that creature with whatever form of entertainment you see fit, so that I might be spared its company.”

“Are you and Merulo not close?” I asked, remembering the exchange, then winced. I’d interrupted her explanation of a terrifying plastic wheel that stretched many feet up above us, complete with intermittently spaced chairs into which victims might be locked.

“Close?” She sounded baffled – and thankfully unoffended that I hadn’t been listening. “Of course not!”

I squinted up at the dragon woman. She’d dressed herself in relics for the tour, having wasted God knows how much magic in their restoration: a wide-brimmed hat embroidered with water droplets, crammed onto her massive skull, and a shirt stretched painfully tight over what might be either breasts or prodigious pectorals, its smiling fish illustration distorted into a boggle-eyed monster. Her baggy “pants”, which ended mid-thigh, burned an intense yellow-green that didn’t exist in nature. It felt cruel to ask someone so playfully dressed this question.

“Well, you are family! Shouldn’t there be, you know, some underlying love?”

Rather hypocritical, given that my own father likely fell asleep each night thinking of creative ways to kill me, but she didn’t have to know that.

“He’s a walking knife,” came her growled reply.

“Well, yeah.” I kicked around at loose bits of pavement. Intervening in Glenda’s various moods had gone some way toward thickening my skin, but I still shuddered at the waves of displeasure radiating from Hydna. “He’s a lonely guy, I think.”

“Might be less lonely if he weren’t such a piece of shit.” She met my eyes without blinking, and for a sickening moment I found myself mesmerized by their reptilian scarlet.

“You have to. . .” I clenched my teeth and resumed my kicking, concentrating my attentions on a particularly large and rounded chunk. I reminded myself that I owed the sorcerer my life and then some. “I don’t know. Meet him more than half-way? I think he does want company.”

“But is too much of a bastard for company to want him back.”

“Exactly!” I said, delighted that she’d completed my thought. This faded as I saw her expression. “That’s neat that you can raise one eyebrow like that. Good control of . . . uh, of your facial muscles.”

Hydna pointed to a circle of unicorn-sized crabs, complete with saddles, welded to a roofed platform that looked vaguely capable of motion. No half-shouted explanation followed, though; I’d succeeded in puncturing her enthusiasm.

“Those are cool,” I said lamely. Then, “It’s only because he’s been kind to me, when he didn’t have to be. Merulo, I mean. Not that everything’s been perfect, I didn’t much like the whole ‘torture needle’ thing, but –”

“The what?”

“Hang on, I’m coming to a point. Merulo might make a lot of insulting, degrading remarks, and he is overly obsessed with killing God –”

“This is a defense?”

“Hydna, please! What I mean is that, brushing aside all those little details, he’s always been there when I needed him most. Like when Glenda shot me full of arrows, or slit my throat, or –”

“Who the fuck is Glenda?”

“Hydna, come on, I didn’t ask you what a car was!” I rubbed at my stubble, wishing I could reach into my own head to pull my thoughts into order. “Merulo will be there for you, too, if you ever need him,” – and I hoped that was the truth – “So, it’d be good if you could both . . . try.” At her contorted grimace, I added, “I’ll talk to him too, promise. Same speech!”

The dragon woman exhaled deeply. “You’re an annoying little man, Cameron.”

“Again, above average height.”

#it's after the halfway point of the book where things have started going a bit batshit #it starts off as a bog standard European-medieval high fantasy #and then you learn that the entire civilization was built post an apocalypse event #and that the relics of the old society are all technological #so you start going why is this all medieval then? what's with the magic? #and can I say. the answer at the very end is so much dumber than you'll ever guess #(don't worry it's not a hallucination or a dream or the matrix or whatever. everything is real. its just real for a stupid reason) #book

[queen-mabs-revenge]

found 'the way' a really interesting piece of speculative fiction exploring the idea of anti-migrant xenophobic violence being turned inwards towards 'legitimate citizens' when interests of capital are threatened by struggle, but this sequence in the last episode def stood out to me as a neoluddite.

feels connected to this quote from dan mcquillan's 'resisting ai - an anti-fascist approach to artificial intelligence':

Bergson argued that if one accepts a ready- made problem in this way, "one might just as well say that all truth is already virtually known, that its model is patented in the administrative offices of the state, and that philosophy is a jig- saw puzzle where the problem is to construct with the pieces society gives us the design it is unwilling to show us." (Deleuze, 2002, cited in Coleman, 2008) In other words, however sophisticated or creative AI might seem to be, its modelling is stuck in abstractions drawn from the past, and so becomes a rearrangement of the way things have been rather than a reimagining of the way things could be. AI has, in effect, an inbuilt political commitment to the status quo, in particular to existing structures that embed specific relations of power. The absence of different concepts leaves out the possibility of conceiving that things could be arranged differently.

#the way #the way (2024) #the way 2024 #michael sheen #machine learning #artificial intelligence #luddism #look i know everyone is talking about *that scene* but like i think the whole thing is worth an actual watch #clunky and kind of both ham-fisted and politically coy at times but there's a lot of interesting ideas being worked out too #particularly thought it was strong on the ideas of alienation and esp alienated masculinity under capitalism #the role of the myth in the alienated society #surveillance technology obv #and how the rabid xenophobia and racism of capitalist imperialism will always find a scapegoat for its fascist ideology #even among people who had been previously granted access to the 'safe' 'white' group when it suits consolidating & preserving power #oh god and yeah the gothic marxism of it all - the literal ghosts of our militant working-class past

[explore-blog]

Oliver Sacks on how chocolate cast its spell upon humanity, from biochemistry to culture.

#food #Oliver Sacks #chocolate #culture and society #science #science and technology