the Atomic Dot bomb and musings of the future

The Dot Com bust was just because people were over estimating the market at the time. they realized what could be done but most people did not have the expected access to the new markets that were being created at the time. However even though most did not see the bubble building some companies were able to survive and then flourish in the aftermath that was the internet graveyard of companies founded in the Dot Com era. I think that this was inevitable with the technology that was happening at the time and I don't think this will be the last time the market believes in the next new thing. Whenever a new technology emerges there is bound to be something that people want to adapt and use but in this period there was no safety net. Now people are a little more wary but there will be a time where something comes out most likely VR or AR in my opinion that opens up a huge market and the greedy people that are part of this country will throw caution to the wind and invest in this new market before it is adopted fully. There is a movie coming out called "Ready Player One" based off the book and I just see the possibilities of VR and it makes me think the same thing will happen because humanity does not learn from past mistakes. and this leads us to the next topic that we talked about in class, convergence and disinter-mediation. which is what Ready Player One is all about. people having no place because the combination of technology and it is a real fear to have in this world right now.

A Visitor from the Clouds

It isn't just about being a programmer. So Shadrach White came to class today to discuss his business, what it does what it is and how it applies to what we are learning. He is in the business of Cloud Computing, which is not exactly what I thought it was. It seems like a it is just using the power of servers and their vast amount of storage and computing power to run things remotely so they can be accessed from anywhere. His business focuses around using the Cloud networks to host and run programs for many different companies. I do not fully understand it because I thought cloud computing was supposed to be using the computational power from many different computers/servers to work on the same project. However it seems like that was not quite correct and it is more like just shared resources being accessible from any location. It seems like he is doing quite well for himself I imagine because he is using others resources for pennies on the dollar and just creating an interface between data structures. It does not cost much to use others services and create an interface. but if that is all that is required for cloud computing it seems very simple. It is almost like a blown out of proportion of an operating system having different processes or users in this case accessing the same resources. Overall his lecture was quite interesting and I might give it a try to mess around with AWS and Pearl to make something on the "Cloud".

Startup and Breakdown

The startup.com video was really interesting. The first thing I think of though is that the documentary really pulled the winning ticket when they chose to work with govWorks. Like can you believe how lucky they were to document the rise and fall of a multi million dollar company in under a year? I wonder who's idea it was to run a documentary along with the creation of the company. That aside though, the whole story of the .com era and the bust is really something. I grew up when it was going on but for the most part i was too young to know what was going on in the world so it had no effect on me. This movie makes you wonder though like how much money was lost in the bust of the .com and how many companies grew and failed. Kaliel really had a way with people and a way to make money, he doesn't seem like a bad person in the films but the way he talks and does things is extremely psychopathic much like many CEO's of companies. He really had a mind for running the business. Where as Tom on the other hand really had no idea how to run a business and was just doing this as a fun project it seemed like. especially when he said he was not personally at risk if the company went under. I do wish though, that they had made some amount of money. Also with the failing of the business what happened to all the money? does Kaliel and Tom owe it back? I have no idea how business works and it just surprises me that 2 friends could make such a thing happen. it is almost surreal and reminds me of the american dream.

Making Personal Space Online

It has been quite a while since the last time i made a page or site in html. I think like 8 years ago or just about that I did it in the summer of my freshman year in a networking class I took. Since then it seems I have forgot how to make one. The one we have to make for this class is very simple and easy to create. I decided to look around and see what I could do with some of the techniques in this simple version, and what I learned is that marquee is not really used anymore. Also i don't ever remember using CSS but it seems to be a huge part about making pages now. I however, could not be bothered to deal with  CSS, I tried to make a bordered box but was having difficulty and it is actually kind of difficult to type so I decided to just give up on CSS for now but I will give it a try later. I did actually put my website on the school server you can check it out and it even links to another page which i put like 10 seconds into making and hurts. The color red should never be a background. I also did all my code within microsoft visual studio code, which is a light weight version of VS and it highlights everything similarly to notepad++ but in the instructions to use notepad it is actually very difficult to keep up with all the tags, but in newer word editing software it is fairly easy since they highlight the tags. I also tried to look for templates but everything seemed to want to use CSS and i just gave up on it so you get like the most basic thing out of me. http://cssgate.insttech.washington.edu/~gardnerg/website.html

Gnomes Primary Mailing Method vs. Snail Mail

When I refer to Snail Mail I am speaking of the post office and how they manage and deliver mail. Today we call it snail mail because of the painfully long time it takes physical objects to traverse our world. However this is because we can compare it to the transfer rate of digital media which is a unfair comparison. Which brings me to the actual comparison of the two methods of communication and delivery. First we have speed, obviously email wins out being able to send or receive a message in seconds all around the world. Next we have physical space of operation, the email can be housed in a single warehouse of servers or multiple across a wide area, however Snail Mail has to have huge warehouses and many people working on it and it is most definitely run at a loss. Which brings us to cost of use, as of right now the cost of stamps and the government funding does not meet the cost to run the US postal service, they are currently 5.6 Billion in debt due to running costs being too much. However with email the cost is much cheaper I do not know the exact value but the versatility of email allows it to only cost power to run the servers and keep them cool and programming costs. As we spoke in class on the matter they both function very similarly but in operation they are very different. The only reason the Post office is still around if because people like to send birthday cards and packages, as well as bills.
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A Not So Virtual Presentation

In the world that exists beyond this great vast web i'm enshrined in there is another place, one where people have physical form and here is where something unusual occurred. In place of a standard lecture discussion a visitor had arrived, is name, Erik Hamburg. Erik presented concepts to the class with a presentation, although the presentation had a lack of a second screen of one side of the class he was still able to harness our gazes and lead us down his awesome past. But before he told us of his past he taught us a valuable lesson in entrepreneurship and that is to be open to the concepts of technology and think abut how they might be adapted for other purposes than the ones they were created for. Looking at the results of Bill Gates, and the betrayer, Steve Jobs. He then continued his talk about himself as though blogging in real life. It was quite interesting though it have to say, he has done many things in regards to the internet and trying new business models online, with his TheHoratio, Exit133, Suite 133,and SidexSide. It is kind f crazy to think that he has had so much experience with developing jobs and opportunities for himself, and those opportunities have lead to much more and he now even has a considerable passive income. His take away from this presentation seamed to be the "Cave and Stream" model, where you need to balance production of whatever you are doing in a blank environment, and the flow of information. He also spoke of the downsides of living in a virtual world, the biggest issue being privacy. I have to say his presentation was quite informative and might have changed how i think about things for a bit. However the biggest thing in enjoyed from his presentation was the asides where we spoke of things I had no knowledge of like CoWorking Space, Incubators, and Accelerators. This Gnome has quite a bit to think about and will get back to you after this short commercial break.

What A Gnome Wants out of Taking a Class.

To be blunt the first things I want out of this class is a pass and the 3 credits that come with it. However that is not all I want out of the class, I also want to make relations and connections with people in order to help me in the future. I want to talk more with Andrew and possibly get tips on how to get a job in the Computer Science industry. The class also seems like I will be able to learn quite a bit because i do not follow the news closely but it seems like this class will make me look at what is going on in the world and how it is changing constantly in relation to technology. I also look forward to learning how the internet works and how to make a web page. It has been quite a while since I have made a page in HTML and making a page seems very useful and I am already getting ideas on what I would want to do with creating an HTML web page. Also so far I have thoroughly enjoyed your stories about your past and experiences and I look forward to hearing more and learning more about the you and the subject matter in the class. It also seems amazing that we are going to cover so many topics and technologies in the class, I cant wait to cover Robotics in the third week. I think in a whole I just want to learn as much as I can and make connections, there are many topics I know quite a bit about as a CSS major, but there are many I am not entirely sure how they work and just being able to learn about these technology related topics that I have no idea of thrills me and makes me want to strive to learn more.