Technology and World change lesson 1.

This is my 1st lesson if the week and i went in to the lesson with my group of friends. The lesson was pretty interesting and started off with a video of did you know: Shift happens. After that we had a little ice breaker to get to know about our classmates better and also our perception about TWC. We also get to know the expectation of our Prof Gurinder Shahi.

The next half of the lesson topic that we discuss is technology and the rise of civilization.We started off from this video: guns, gems and steel. Followed by a short discussion of the video and followed by technology passed down since stone age. One interesting observation that i had gained from this lesson is actually many of the things that we used and see grew primarily from the middle east. For example, Algebra is originated from Arab and people have then, used those algebra equations to invent great things. Another thing that caught my attention is the video that Prof Gurinder had shown us; Prediction by 2013, a supercomputer will be built that exceeds the computation capabilities of human brains.

This leads to my question of whether in future, the cyber world will end up taking over humanity. I would cite one show to support my argument and that show will be eagle's eye. The show is basically how a supercomputer has manipulated the computation capabilities that it has and manipulated 2 person in an attempt to take over humanity. This might not happen as most people would claim: It's just a show. However, we must not dismiss this possibility as technology might become so advance in future and nobody knows what the future holds. Another take away point for me is how much technology has advanced to the extent that it has surpass our biological needs. As a result, there's a increase in the rate of obesity. However, i also have to add to the point that one of our classmates has discussed, i.e. some area in the states has more fast food outlet around the vicinity and most of them do not have the choice but to purchase their lunch and dinner at those fast food outlets. However, this topic was not further discussed during lesson and i hope this topic should be further elaborated. The reason is because i feel that this issue is related to us in every other way. We might not be obese now but 10 years down the road, who will guarantee that the weighing scale that we stood on, will not be at the opposite end of it? In addition, obesity is the cause of certain heart related diseases like heart attack.

I think that this first session is rather meaningful to me. However, i think prof should allow us to repeat the topics that we have chosen be it oral presentation, tropical review paper or group project. The reason is cause in addition to this, we are not allowed to repeat the same topic as our classmates which post a challenge to our research. I hope you can consider changing this policy. I would rate the lesson 7/10 =)