RELI/ENGL 39, Fall 2015, University of the Pacific

Author: Jaime

Palladio’s Mapping

In class we played around with the Palladio Mapping system and it was quite interesting to play with. The program is really fun with all the different types of customization and mapping options.

The first map that I created was between the time zone during World War 2. The “dots” are all based off of a data set and represent where each photograph was taken. And the bigger “dots” Untitled WW2represent more photograph taken in the specific area.
Untitled Post-WW2

The next map I created was during the Post-World  War 2. I found it interesting that during the war there were more photos taken in the East Coast while after the War there was more Photos taken in the West Coast.

The Palladio Program was really fun to play with but, there were many problems with the program. For Example, the program had so much lag and crashed so many times. Also, with the program if you were to acidently leave the site all the data and all teh work that you did was gone and lost.

Social Media’s Privacy

I enjoyed the article, Robert Hotz’s Wall Street Journal and found it interesting how it talked about, “Metadata Can Expose Person’s Identity Even Without Name.” And it begins to make me think about all the privacy terms and conditions that everyone ignores and are too lazy to read all the pages. It also raises issues for me about how safe and trusting the internet really is, because most people update their social medias to tell their friends about what is happening in their lives. But, not knowingly they are giving the entire world access to their lives and gives the world a possibility to track their location and in a way stalk them.

Also, it kinda scares me knowing that with a little data like my social media, and purchasing information, and algorithm has the possibility to figure out who I am and track my location. This reminds me about the post-9/11 age and the scare of terrorism and how we rather sacrifice our privacy in exchange for security. How the NSA was so much power to track our locations and determine who is a “threat” to society. Which at the time was understandable but today when there are not as many threats, what can stop the NSA to begin picking targets and finding simple misdemeanor a “threat” to society.

My main question would have to be, How can privacy be protected in today’s age of technology?

My experience technology.

My experience with computers and technology was been interesting, my first experience with technology was with my Super Nintendo Entertainment System and it just prospered after that. I began to be interested in how technology worked, my Super Nintendo was having some issues so I put matters into my own hands. As I got older my interest grew, when I got my first computer I began researching on how the computers worked. I taught myself on how to use software and taught myself all the different shortcuts.

My experience with technology has not been all good, during the summer tutor children in math, and when ever I would ask them a question like, “what is the formula to find the area of a triangle.” So the children immediately took out their phones and googled the answer, even though their textbook with the answer was in their hands. Just after that i began to realize just how reliant are we to technology, and just how much do we expect to google the answer instead of using the good old textbook. It is not a big problem it is just a pet peeve knowing that the next generation is so dependent and trusting on what the internet says.

What is Digital Humanities?

Digital Humanities is using technology like computers and phones to studying humanities. But, there are a lot of speculation on what exactly is focused in the study of digital humanities. Where most people think that digital humanities is about building, when actually digital humanities is about sharing. But, honestly I do not understand why we study digital humanities and the many opinions about digital humanities is making to understand digital humanities extremely difficult.