The end has come

What I have taken away from this class, is a whole new outlook of what the world has become thanks to the use of technology. This has happened at much faster rate than I had ever really thought, the events that I will talk about later in this paper shaped how stores price items, how companies could now shift work to other places.. Also I will address the question that has really plagued me the whole time in this class.

The best supply chain, this phrase is synonymous with Wal-Mart. After reading Thomas L.Friedman “The World is Flat”, I have learned a great amount about the workings of what makes a good supply chain. Prior to my reading of this book, I felt I knew everything I needed to know about Wal-Mart. But learning what makes their company supply chain the best was the key element to understanding Wal-Mart. What this companies supply chain has done has made it so they have almost monopolized the consumer market. Is this a good thing or a bad thing is whole other topic, but they what have done has made it possible for you to get the cheapest best quality things all at one store. After reading this part of the book it made me think, to stay a head you must be willing to bend the rules of the business world, also the idea of being moral is definitely called into question. Overall, this class has given me a look into things such as supply chain, I know I can see that this really is what makes or breaks a company.

Some of the other things that have still stuck with me from this class are how outsourcing is not always a bad thing. Before this class, I had always been given the one-sided opinion that it was bad, and that nothing good could come from it, but now I can see there is a lot of good that comes from it. The thing that caught me off guard was that it ultimately creates the opportunity for higher paying jobs, and also simultaneously promotes the idea that education is how to get those jobs. This class has also given me a more worldly opinion on many things that I always have been narrow minded about before.

Overall, I found this class to be a history class of things that have happened in the past 70- 50 years in the tech world. I have learned so many things just from my reading of The World is Flat.  The sad truth is that these are things I should have had some more knowledge of, but in k-12 this was never a subject that was gone over. So that being said, I really enjoyed becoming more educated on things that have happened in my lifetime before I could really understand what the milestones meant. Now I can see know the real story behind how things in the 21st century started and is paramount to understand what is possible, and what is just a branch idea from the first core ideas of this century.

I really have no suggestions for how this course could be improved in the future. At first I was a little hesitant of using a blog. But after using it for this class it was simple and easy to understand, and I enjoyed doing it because I have never done it before.  The book that we read for this class was very compelling, and it held my attention with ease. Overall, I found that the class was very easy to understand what was asked of you. The simplicity of how the course was laid out made it easy to engage the core material. I read a few pages a day out of the book, and on Saturday wrote about it. That made the class not feel like I was in a rush Saturday to read all of the pages and write on my blog.

GNR Mind Tricks

The way that Bill Joy talks of GNR it is convincing to the reader, he is able to show the down side and some unexpected things from all three. Genetics is the first thing I will talk about of the GNR aspect of the paper. Joy talks on the unknowns that genetics bring to the table, from what I took from it, he felt that there was far too much risk in genetically altering food, and that it was unthinkable to try it on people. He felt that if you were able to genetically alter something that there would be benefits to it, but the main point  I took from my reading of his article on this topic was the risk will not outweigh the reward. Another point he drove home was that notion of equality would be lost as of the cause of human cloning.

 The second part of GNR is the Nanotechnology, this is things such as machinery that can replicate anything such as simple cell structure. This topic was something that really had Joy questioning the risk involved with them, for example his argument was that this will not be a weapon that is going to be hard to get your hands unlike the NBC. Bill Joy felt that “GNR technologies have clear commercial uses”, what this means is that it will be much easier to use as a weapon.

 The next part of GNR is Robotics, Joy felt that the world would become even more taken over by the elites of the world with the introduction of robotics. He also felt there was some chance that man power would be taken over by the more effective robots power. The end result of this would be that the need for people in the world would shrink, and on top of that the world would be controlled by the elites of the world and the lives of millions of people would hang in the balance of their choices.

Personally, I felt the author's fears where right and a little far off, but I did feel the author made a good point of how we never think of what will happen with the next big break through. When I say that I felt that he was a little far off, it is because I don’t see the same outlook he does. First, I do want to say his opinion on GNR is great, but personally I see different truths from it. This could be that he just is far more educated on this subject, and is able to have far better foresight than I.  But I just can’t see that far in to the future, I simply do not see these 3 fears that Joy does only because I am so new to the subject matter. I just don’t see robots being the reason mankind kill over, and I also don’t think that Nanotechnology is going to grow in leaps and bounds in the next 20 years as does Joy. Overall, I really enjoyed Bill Joy “Why the future doesn't need us”, it really gave me a new outlook to the way that I perceive humankinds future. But to me, I would much rather try to think of what mankind can do for the good of all with the future of technology.

MINDLESS MOVIE

The computer-related film I’m going to talk about is Fast and Furious 7. I just want to give full discloser that I will be speaking of the plot, so if you want to see the film just keep that in mind. The reasons I chose to use this movie to talk about is simply the computer element is very heavy, and innovate. In the movie there is a tracking device called Gods Eye, this computer can track people by using every electronic in the world to do so. The Gods Eye can use street cams, cell phones, and the list goes on. This idea is crazy to me because it is plausible that the government could actual use something like this. I just want to give some idea of how powerful Gods Eye is, it can use cell phone cams on phones in your area to confirm your identity. To put it in simple terms, it uses a workflow system that lets you use all the cameras and microphones in the world to track someone.

This idea is realistic, our world wants everything intertwined and there is going to be some cost for this. I do feel this idea is great, but we have to think that it would be used to spy on the world. But I can also think of the benefits, war would never be the same. Being able to target the leaders and their exact location would save so many soldiers, and on top of that far less civilian casualties. The Gods Eye would have cut every war the world has ever had in half, by only having to target the head of the monster you would save lives of millions of people. The idea of Gods Eye will definitely become a weapon of the future, the only real question is when. In my personal opinion, I really think that there are weapons very similar to this one already. The world that we live in is a sobering reminder that we need something like Gods Eye to feel safe anymore. Our country is fighting a war that is played in the shadows by the Islamic extremist. They are using forms of terrorism that takes our country by surpasses. But if we had something like Gods Eye we could make this war a much fairer and balanced playing field.

The social and cultural issues in Fast and Furious 7’s computer elements all boil down to the inevitable downsides to Gods Eye. The question that is asked is what would happen if Gods Eye is used for evil or taken by a country like North Korea. The problem is that this power is not meant for the world, this would have so many side effects with our lives. For starters, we would be using it to invade the public’s right to privacy. Second, all other countries would feel that we would use this to gain an edge, and the end result would be hate towards us.

I chose to talk about this movie because I really could see how the Gods Eye uses a lot of what we have talked about in this class as far as things like workflow software and countless other things. This computerized weapon uses all of the innovation that the world has made, by doing this it uses a platform that was already set out for it, and it cashes in on the work of others. All this weapon is doing is leapfrogging from all forms of technology to achieve its goal. Overall, this movie has a much unexpected computer element that is actually one of the most realistic things that is portrayed in this film.  

THE MAN NAMED JOE

To think that this story was written almost 70 years ago is absurd. On the basis that we have almost all the same advantage and disadvantages that the story has, it really is just matter of opinion. Being able to guess some of the things that we use in our lives today almost 70 years ago is something that really shocked me. Given how little technical advancements came in that area, it’s almost mind blowing to think someone had that much foresight into what will come.

The story is all about the temptation of technology that people in the story and our lives will face and have faced. The ‘logic’ in this story has some real similarities to some of the technology we use in our lives today.  The first similarity between the two was the searching for answers. The story used its logics to find answers, we use search engines. There are some similarities with the two being that it gives the best answer the system can give. The difference is that search engines do not give the exact answer to ever question. But the logics in the story gives an exact answer to whatever question is asked in the story. The story gives there logics more power than the people. But with our search engines there is only so much knowledge that a person can gain given they are powered by what people know, it can’t generate answers to things that are still mysteries to use.

I want to touch back on the use of search engines, and how in the story they almost felt naked by the ability of people being able to see their personal business. This is not similar to us at all, we all live in a time that it is just common knowledge you can find out anything about anyone. I could go online and look up anything about anyone, this is just the day and age we live in. besides that people that go on Facebook and divulge their lives stories anyways. Modesty for personal information is dead unlike the story where the people felt so violated by this.

The story talked of the use of censors and the errors that still occurs even with them. I found it interesting that the story spoke of being able to use logics to find out how to better perform criminal acts. I can compare this to our use of the web, you can find out how to build bombs just by jumping on the internet. This really seemed to me to be prophetic, being able to see that people would abuse the use of the technology was very apparent to the author of “A Logic Named Joe”. I’m sure he just understood human nature, and knows that given the chance to use it for wrong, people would. Also I felt that in the story and in our world, we both search and find things that really should not be found. You can almost type in any word on google and have something inappropriate pop up.  In the story you could ask how to kill someone and it would give you the exact info you need. This is a sad truth, but we can’t use the internet without running into these sickening things. The story had the same end result of too much info on things we do not need to know.

These things I have talked about in this paper are the subject I found to be prophetic in the story of “A Logic Named Joe”. I also just wanted to show how they compare to our use of technology. The fact that someone could really see all these things come to shape is truly amazing, but the author just did not see that we would become so desensitized to it all.

Oil On The Brain

I found chapter 14 of “The World Is Flat” by Tomas L. Friedman to be very insightful. It talked of the “Age of Interruption” and how we have become overly indulged in media and electronics. We all have seen someone that cannot look away from their phone or computer, well you are trying to talk to them. This is not a thing of the past it has become much more overwhelming since the release of this book. Now children have become sucked into this sickening cycle of over indulging of technology. This has become very big problem in our lives, people can do so much more to stay updated on other people but choose to lose the real human contact. I really liked this chapter because it showed the down side of the use of technology. I felt that this chapter really showed that the book outlined both the ups and downs of the flattening of the world, and the side effect of the use of technology.

The building of a Dell laptop is the true show case of collaboration by working with nearly 400 suppliers from North America to Asia, and few others in between. The Dell computer company can have a computer built in Malaysia and sent to you with in four days. It all starts with you placing your order over phone and giving the exact specifications of what you want. Shortly after that you give your card info, and then the order is sent to the production system. After all your pieces for your computer are ordered by dell to its supplier they are than only given 90 minutes to fill it. Then after the orders are filled, they are dropped off and put into assembly bins, after this the inventory is then assembled by a team on site. Then the computer is sent to the software center for the download of the desired software. Shortly after this it is boxed and sent on a charter jet to Tennessee where it is taken to the factory in Nashville for additional external parts then shipped to the customer. This is all done in a very short time span which speaks to the power of their supply chain.

It’s very scary to think that al-Qaeda has a supply chain, but it is true they have found a way to benefit from something that we all love and benefit from. They are able to upload videos, find recruits and outsource their training. They use there supply-chain to distribute the needed supplies and the end result is pandemonium. The chain that is used all too often gives them the ability to communicate and work together like never before. The use of a there supply-chains has let them become a much bigger threat. This new flat world has made the small businesses much bigger with the use of supply-chains, groups like al-Qaeda are now been able to find that same niche. They are able to communicate with the other members across the world giving them the power of building a much bigger membership base.

The curse of oil is just a sad thing for all those oil rich countries, because of the money the countries make from the oil there is no taxation which mean no voices for the people of these countries. The oil  in these countries are almost all the governments revenue, this means there are not  many jobs given the lack of free trade with other countries, there is no need for the dictators to seek out ways to make money given there oil. I found this topic very interesting on the basis that we all feed into this sad fact by buying gas. I found this very similar to the saying, “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day, teach him to fish and you feed him for life”. We are just playing into the dictators hands by buying their oil. But if we could get oil from somewhere else we could make those countries blossom into a much better place for their countrymen.

credit to the computer

Computers have always been part of my educational experiences throughout school.   I found that through grade school up until now computers have made school so much easier to succeed. Another point I wanted to touch on was how computers have given us an ability to get the best and most creditable sources by just simply typing it in to a search engine. The simple fact is that the children of today have it so much easier than we did at their age in school simply based on the advances in computers and the entire tech world.

The use of computers in school is almost an afterthought, but at one time this was not the norm. When I personally was in elementary, the use of computers in schools was still very much in a beta phase. We could use them but not for anything very productive to learning. What I remember using them for was playing games like The Oregon Trail. But as I came into junior high we started being able to use computers for a few more things. But the only class I still was only able to use it for was intro to typing class. Looking back at this, it makes me laugh to think that the only class that I used a computer was typing. This in some right is sad to say though only because it was much harder to learn something if you could not understand how they did it in class, now you can go to YouTube, or Khan Academy and they can help fill in the blanks for you. But I don’t want to get too much on this subject only because I will address it later in the paper. After junior high school came the next big shift in my use of computer in school. It was in high school where the use of computers became more apparent, not so much in school but more so in the use of a home computer. At this point in time it was very common to own home computers, so teachers began to tell students to use them for homework and other things such as writing papers, after this time period I was out of school for many years. But now I am back and I’m blown away at how much the use of computers is needed to be a good student. I also can see it has made school so much easier for the students. I personally love the use of canvas, this has made keeping up with school so much simpler. By giving you everything you need to navigate the due dates of assignments to letting you test scores to see what it will take to get your goal grade.

The use of computers has made finding the best creditable sources for papers so much easier. I can only imagine how long it would take to search a book to find creditable sources.  This really has empowered the student to always have the power to find the best source for their argument. I personally am so happy to be able to use a search engine to help me find the best support for my argument. I also love the fact that if I am unsure of anything I can use my computer to also solve that problem. Students are so blessed to be able to have such a great aid at our fingertips. I really can’t imagine what school would be without it.

The kids today have the world at their fingertips with how much computers can help them learn, there is no reason to fall behind. Computers can give you the ability to learn anything you want. I personally wish that computers had the capability as they do today for when I was a child. I am so envious of what they can do to supplement what they have learned in school by simply using free sources of education. Even being in college, I love using supplement material to help me understand my classes that much more. The computer has just given us all so much powers to make ourselves more intelligent people. The main point I wanted to show is that as a student I only hope to use computers more for my schooling. The computer will always help us as student to reach our goals.

all you need to know

This week’s reading of “The World is Flat” by Thomas L. Friedman, was very compelling on many different fronts. One thing that stood out to me was the fact that Ireland has become a power of a country, I would have never guessed that. I found it very interesting that they offer basically free college for their people. By them doing that they eliminate the stress of losing jobs to cheaper labor, and stress the importance of having a well-educated labor force. The country as a whole decides they need to make changes, and by doing so they have seen where they need to improve, where they did and still need to. This country has done great, but my argument is the fact that they only have 4.6 million people as of 2013. The U.S has 316.13 million as of 2013. My argument is that we can’t hope to use the same tools they did to become a better country in the flat world. We have to go through the same growing pains they did before we can fully embrace and understand what we should do. I feel that education is paramount to us being able to move forward in the future. Every country that has been able to thrive in the new flat world has realized it, and we still need to as well. I just wanted to talk about Rob Watson, I felt he made a good point by saying there are “far more environmental lawyers and scientists than environmental businessmen”. This just shows you can make a difference in the world by just thinking about what is best for our environment. I also have respect that he went back to school to find out how he could make a green business more profitable. Our world is something we should care for far more than saving a few cents here and there. This has to become a standard at one point to help make our planet livable for others in the future.   

Some countries have been able to do more with the same possibilities at hand. The main reason is that development is a voluntary process. The people in power of this country hold in their hands the outcome of what can happen when it comes to trying to develop their countries.  After they become invested in wanting to develop their country they must do four basic things. One, they must try to improve their infrastructure. Two, become more invested in the importance of education in your country, this will create a more educated labor force. Three, having good governance will help attract companies to your country by having flexible labor laws and low corporate taxes. The last but not least is having an open economy for open foreign trade. Some regions of the world shoot themselves in the foot when it comes to why they cannot attract business to them. They chose to let their culture get in the way, these cultures chose not to be open to changes that could help them out in the long run. The regions that have cultures that chose to be open and willing to change have a great advantage.

 A self-directed consumer is a consumer that wants the feeling of every product and serves being tailored for them. This has made companies have to offer much more options for the consumers, but it also gives them the ability to give us a buffet to serve ourselves. As a company you can not only offer what you want consumers to buy anymore. Now with the rise of self-directed consumers we can serve ourselves anywhere to see what the best prices are. The rise of the self-directed consumers has made buying from the internet much easier to do. Essentially you are taking away the retailer from the buy experience, you become the employee by simply checking yourself out. This saves the company money by not having to pay for work that is ultimately done by the customer. I can honestly say I am a self-directed consumer, but I like to be in control so I will never change that. I just like to always have control of how I can buy and this gives me that control.

When I was thinking globalization I wondered what other countries felt about it, and what scared them most about it. But after reading this week I was dumbfounded to find they felt that the American cultural would overtake their own, and that they would lose their beloved culture. But this did not happen until the world became flatter and brought with it the diversity of the entire world. With the use of the internet, cultures became even stronger. You could now communicate with others from thousands of miles away with ease. We can now see that Americanization has not happened like everyone had thought it would with globalization. But rather the opposite, an equal flow of cultures in to the world is now more of what could happen with globalization.

Sorry kids your in trouble

Free trade is when governments do not restrict imports or exports from other countries.  Free trade is important to the whole world, our country is a very big consumer of imported goods. I feel our country needs to look at the big picture of how we can capitalize from this. We keep thinking that all of these other countries are taking our work, but this is just how the world works and as a country we must change with it. The fact is why some businesses would pay much more for low skilled workers. The real change that I see with free trade is the shock that people are still in over it. In the world of free trade we need to start the movement of trying to tap into these huge new markets of China, India and so on. The fact is that we have so many new niches to get into in almost every field imaginable. We need to go back to our roots as a country of being the world’s most innovative country. The truth is if your job is a fungible job you should look to gain new skills so that if your job becomes taken over by technology or lower cost labor force, you can thrive in the new job opportunities given by the free trade market.

 The new middle class is being taken over by people that have been able to use these skills. First being able to be a manger that can bring out the best in their team, this skill makes you much harder to replace. Another attribute is having good people skills, it can make all the difference when dealing with your customers and team members. The next thing is having collaborative skills. This makes work horizontal with others much easier for everyone involved. The overall theme of the new middle class is just being great at adapting, and having a versatile set of skills so that you are never left behind. The new middle class is able to see the true value of mathematics, this class sees the ever changing world and that you will need to have this skill to move through life. After reading chapter six of “The World Is Flat” by Thomas L. Friedman, I can see why the math requirement in college is math 1050 now. The simple fact is we might not see that this skill is needed for our degree, but how can you know it will be needed for your job ten years from now. I personally like math, but I would not say it would be in the field I want to go in to. That being said I do know that almost all jobs will change throughout the time we are in them, so I do see the merit in mathematics.

    CQ + PQ > IQ is a formula that states that CQ-curiosity quotient plus PQ-passion quotient are greater that IQ-intelligence. This equation is very important it shows passion and curiosity outweighs the benefits of intelligence. I found this formula to be spot on, I personally want to become a dentist, and I have talked to a lot of dentists about what skills I should try to work on. The same answer was given by everyone “Intelligence can only get you so far, but passion and hard work really make the difference.” My personal view on passion and curiosity is that you can do anything with those two things. Being intelligent is great, but you have to have passion in something to really want to do it. I personally feel in college, passion and curiosity have helped me to achieve my goals I have set for myself. I also have taken class based on if the professor is well liked from prior students. I don’t mind taking hard classes as long as the professor can make the classes more than a vague outline that is hard to interpret. And so far I have had all professors using input from sites like http www.ratemyprofessors.com.

I just wanted to go in to chapter 8 vaguely, I found a point I would like to talk about. Chapter 8 the education gap talked about how the U.S has fallen behind in advance math and science. To me, I found this to be a lack of interest from students and a lack of good attractive material. I feel that our k-12 has not changed some of its core work for like 50 years. The biggest change needs to be met in math, there are so many different ways to teach this, but we chose to use the same style. Why not have two different classes with different styles, that way every person learns differently. Using the same books year after year just means the text you are using is out of date. We could even use computers and go to websites like www.khanacademy.org. This shows you so much more than any class I have ever been to for math.  

blame game

The triple convergence is the adding of new players to a changing playing field that has brought about a better process, and caused new habits to form in business to be able to adapt.  The triple convergence is making the super power business from the past reinvent themselves to be able to keep up with the up and coming new players. The changes have shown how our country has become stagnant in innovation and other fields related to it. Our country did not change as fast as others did because we were not able to advance at the same rate given the fact we were still hung up on old technologies. Many of the new players in other countries did not have to be weaned off old technology, instead they were able to just jump in to the new technology and thrive. One of the most important aspects of the triple convergence is that the U.S is not able to poach talent from other countries as easily as they could in the past. This helped further the gap and this lack of ability has made the U.S have to only count on its own countries men and women to improve our chances. But if it is an arms race for intelligence between China, India and our country, we are already losing. Both China and India have stressed the importance of education way more than the U.S has ever been able to.  Also their populations are much larger than ours, so by just sheer numbers they will always have a much deeper talent pool of education. The only real way I feel our country will compete is to stress education in K-12, and go back to our roots of being the most innovative country. We need to adapt and conquer, but the only way to do that is to use all of the tools given by the triple convergence.

The story about India and Indiana is about who exploited who and which one was exploited. After reading this I really came out thinking this is just not as black and white as this is who was exploited and the exploiter was. The fact is that both sides have good reason to hold their ground and feel they are right about their perspective. I can see why the Indians felt they got the short end of the stick, they give the best bid, and still were not given the ability to finish the job. But I also can see the point of the people from Indiana, they felt that their government should keep the work in the U.S even at the cost of saving money. This subject is something that I feel is too complex to only feel one way about. The fact is that both sides of the argument are no better than the other. It’s easy to say that we should not offshore jobs, but that is the world we live in today. The fact is we have to offshore jobs to keep up with the world as we know it now. But there are just some jobs that need to be locked in our country to help ourselves out. I could write a pros and cons list on this subject for days, but let me just end it here with this it is not as easy as the blame game in this case. After reading the story 3 times I have no more real understanding of who is doing what to one another.

 Intellectual property is the innovation and or work of someone’s creative mind, that can result in profit of the work or just help others with it. Intellectual property is things like music and other things that take creativity to invoke.  Intellectual property is not always something you see, it can start as just an idea. The importance of it is that some laws give you the power of how you would like to use it. You can choose to paten or cross-license, these are only a few options that you can do with your Intellectual property. Many people choose the path that the most money can be made from. Overall Intellectual property is at its base intangible property. It can be sold to the highest bidder.

I found this week’s reading of “The World Is Flat’ by Thomas Friedman to very enlightening on all fronts. The subject that stood out to me was that we are battling ourselves when it comes to consumers vs citizens. We want it all, the low prices for consumers, the best heath care for citizens, but we must see that the two do not match up. The sad truth is that we can’t cut fat from one and hope it grows back without any changes. There has to be some accountability from us to see we need to think as both to make any changes that can be felt in our day to day lives.

Let me pick your brain

The job I chose to talk about was computer programming, but I found myself asking what computer programming was. Before this paper I had a very vague amount of knowledge on the subject, so I will illustrate on the subject at hand. From what I have learned it is the process of creating computer programs. This may sound very self-expiatory but there is much more to this then that vague intro. A program gives the computer a set of instructions that make the computer fulfill the task given by the program. The computer programmers use languages to relate there instructions to the computer through the programs. The most common used are Java, C, C ++, PHP,VB, C#, Python. Those were the most popular that I found throughout my research but that is not to say there are tons of other good ones.  This will give the reason of programming, ‘The purpose of programming is to find a sequence of instructions that will automate performing a specific task or solving a given problem.[citation needed] The process of programming thus often requires expertise in many different subjects, including knowledge of the application domain, specialized algorithms and formal logic”( Wikipedia).

I must confess I only chose computer programming because I have a good friend that is in this field. So I asked him what makes a good programmer and this is the list he gave me, “They are able to do program languages, scripting languages, program principles, production of principles and personal skills”. I felt this is a great list, but it felt like it was just too generic. So after some pushing and prodding I said what skill has helped you most in the work place. The answer was, “problem solving, logical thinking, having a good attention span and, being self-motivated is paramount”. I found the interview to be a great look into what has helped my friend to be a good computer programmer, and what to try to improve on if you chose to go in to that field.  The one thing that stood out to me was the fact you need a good attention span, so I chose to do some research and found that writing the code is a respective action which is easy to get lost in. The interview showed me that the skills my friend had learned from his time in school made the job so much easier and much more enjoyable. The fact that after reaching his goal of becoming a computer programmer and the roots of what has given him the job of his dreams was the time spent in school improving, self-motivation and addition span.

After doing the interview and research on computer programming I have seen that this job is for a well-educated and self-motivated person. Being able to write source code is somewhat of an art form, being able to paint a picture for the computer to be able to see and understand the meaning of it is not an easy task. The readable of source code is very impotent for both the computer and the programs. The programmer spends a lot of their time on reading and understanding the source code to be able make changes on the program. I found this to be comparable to writing a paper, you first write a rough draft and then go back through to check the readability of your paper to others. Being able to discover and implement efficient algorithms makes the programs work much better. This job takes a lot thinking to be able to make the best programmers you can, so being able to understand all of the small details make a world of a difference.

My overall view on computer programming is that I still have a lot more to learn on the subject and that I could have spent years learning about this field. The knowledge I have learned on the subject has just scratched the surface of the topic. After all the research and the interview, I have a much higher respect level for the field of computer programming. I also would like to thank them for making all of our lives that much easier. We all use the work of the computer programming throughout our day without noticing it, but we sure would notice it if it wasn't here.

The Scramble

Offshoring is when a company moves all or some of their factories to other countries with a much lower labor cost. Many companies have had to do this to keep up with their fields of work. It is becoming almost a standard of any business to offshore at least part of your labor focus, business must adapt or die, this is a changed world. There are many countries in the continent of Asia that offer business the chances at low cost high quality work. America must learn to live with the fact we have lost a lot of power when it comes to keeping factories in the USA. We cannot compete with low the cost of taxes and labor cost. But we must find a way to use what we have been given, and Asia has given us a way to cut cost and apply it in other areas. The big difference between offshoring and outsourcing is that offshoring moves all production of a factory from a place like America to a much lower cost of labor country to some place mainly in Asia. Outsourcing only moves limited function to other countries with lower cost of labor. It is hard to think that to keep up with this flat world we must lose jobs to gain some, but that is just the nature of the beast. Low skilled jobs are going to always have good chances to be offshored or outsourced, our country really needs to promote education during k-12. I was talking with my sister who is an 8^th grade teacher, I told her that our k-12 schools should really capitalize on India’s low cost of tutoring for students that are stunning. I feel if we could do this it would be a great way to use this changing and ever flatting world.

A supply chain is when a company and the manufactures work in unison to provide goods. The steps that lead to it are something like this delivery, sorting, packing, distribution, buying, manufacturing, redoing. I have worked in a distribution center for seven years so I feel I have a good understanding of almost every part besides the manufacturing aspect. I can tell personally it is things like food and water that will always follow this chain because of the never ending demand for them. Many companies use outsources distribution to spread their product to a much larger amount of stores. Companies like Wal-Mart have many distribution centers of their own in almost every state. Wal-Mart uses their supply chain to their advantage by being able to buy goods in volume directly from the manufacturers. They also save money by using their distribution centers and not having to pay a third party. Wal-Mart has also opened its sales inventory database to suppliers to help make the chain even faster.

Google has changed the landscape of businesses and advertised, you now can type in what you are looking for and you will find results. The businesses ads would show after searching for specific topics, and then Google could charge the businesses for how many times it clicked on the ad. Google has changed how companies go about the level of work of people by being able to use google to look up reviews on them. It also has made ads more geared to the people that would be searching for that subject. This more direct advertisement approach has helped reach people that the ads were meant for. Before this direct advertisement approach, ads were just put out in the hope that the target audiences would see China has changed the way the world looks at manufacturing costs, it is now a must to use offshoring or outsourcing. Wal-Mart and China have shaped how the world is going to look in the foreseeable future with their push of low cost everything.

 The 10^th flatteners really just made all of the others just become even more overpowering. I feel that with the addition of the 10th flattener it is becoming easier to be able to use all of the previous flatteners to make the world so much more interconnecting and leveled the playing field completely. UPS does so much more then I would have guessed, I can’t believe they have their hand in everything. I found this week’s reading of “The World Is Flat’ by Thomas Friedman to just be a real eye opener of how fast the world changed because of the elements of outsourcing and insourcing. Also how China simultaneously has become Americas worst and best nightmare.

Mindless

Workflow software has helped to set standards and protocols, so that we can communicate and interconnect with aspects of the communication chain. One of the best examples I can think of is companies that you can buy textbooks from. You search the website for a certain book, the website will sale the book to you. Your order is sent to a billing, billing then sends the order to shipping. Shipping then sends a conformation that your book has been sent. The use of workflow software makes this happen with no hiccups. There is a chain of commands that happens so fast because of the advances in workflow software. Almost everything that happens is automated from your confirmation email, billing and sending your order as soon as you place it to being packaged and sent. Without workflow software this would be a much more tedious task. But thanks to workflow software companies now can outsource to other countries and still have just as much control of the outcome of their product as if it were in the next store to them. The more we can advance in the workflow software the easier it will be to automate even more than we can now. Or we can access cheaper talent in other countries and work hand and hand as if they were in the same room, so the boss can be a world away and still have the control.

Open source software is the collaboration of the minds of software junkies to make software for everyone to use for free. The concept of open source software is truly noble to help make it easy for everyone to use software for free. But that being said it is sad to say but if there is a nice way to make money someone will exploit. This is true when it comes to open source software, many companies will try to see how they can build off of the original idea to make money just like IBM did to Apache. I think that many companies were happy to see that OpenOffice.org was able to compete with Microsoft Office, but I would have to agree with the fact that Microsoft Office is the standard and I don’t see that changing.  One of things that open source software has brought is Linux and Firefox which has given so many people an opportunity to use the internet. I also like that open source software makes the big companies try harder to keep our business completion breeds innovation.

 Outsourcing is being able to move jobs to somewhere that you can spend half of what you would previously and still find talent for the job that compares or exceeds the previous employees. Many companies have moved aspects of their work load to places like India and China. The work you can find in places like those can be faster and cheaper. India has capitalized on opportunities given to them by fiber optic cables explosion throughout the world, and the dot com busted.  Also they gained the trust of the U.S. companies during the Y2k scare, this let them show the world they can do the job fast and cheap with positive results. It is funny to think that our country actually played a big part in how the world became flat. We at one time exploited India’s unstable economy by head hunting their best and brightest to help grow technology. Now they are capitalizing on the fact their best and brightest want to say, and they have made relationships to be able to set the future for their country.

I feel that computers and software have just grown at such a fast rate globally, as a result of supply and demand. For me personally, I have never really put much thought into the early stages of computer and software. But after reading more this week in ‘The World Is Flat’ I found it almost mind blowing to think of how restricting software was less than 20 years ago. Only because when I began using computers when there was standards and much better software thanks to workflow and open source software. I also was very enlightened on how the country of India did not steal jobs, but rather capitalize on the opportunities they were given. When you think about it they are only emulating the American hunger for a better life.

mind bending

I found the book ‘The World Is Flat’ to be very compelling so far. The way I have looked at the book as of now is almost like a future text book of our world history, for many reasons it just shows how our lives have been shaped by the uses and advancement of technology. The technological revolution will be talked about through history as this is when our lives became much easier through growing reliability of technology. I have gained a new found appreciation for the monumental changes that have happened during the last 20 to 30 years. It’s sad to say that I did not learn more about this through my time in k-12.

The use of off-shoring jobs to call centers has always has been explained to me as a bad thing. That being said I have to say I’m happy to hear that the people of India have been able to use it to help them to achieve a better quality of life. The use of off-shoring these jobs have helped to open up new opportunities for those that are state side. Our world is always changing and we cannot be so ignorant to not change with it, this may be easier for me to say being that I’m more of a glass half full person. Our country is always going to evolve and adapt to what is happening in our ability to provide jobs, but so should the people so they do not become overwhelmed by the lack of skills.

Globalization 1.0 shrank the world from a size large to medium. Some of the things that characterized this period were by power and the country stature at the time. This was also the first time that the world started to connect in some form or another. After this happened the question was how our country stacks up against the other powers of the world when it comes to innovation and opportunity. This time period was a real gauge to countries to see what the innovation of technology such as wind power, horsepower and steam power. To better put Globalization 1.0 in perspective, its a time period stated in 1492 until 1800.

Globalization 2.0 started in the 1800s to 2000s, in this time the world shrank from medium to a small. The key this time period was the introduction to multinational companies. This would forever change the world and the way we look at it. The cost of transportation dropped which in tune fueled the fire for this new movement. This time period has helped birth the global economy with the use of the World Wide Web, satellites and fiber-optic cable. The only thing that could slow the growth in 2.0 was the wars and the Great Depression.

Globalization 3.0 started in the 2000s and is still in progress, this time has again shrank the world from a size small to a size tiny and also flattened and leveled the playing field. This time period has empowered a new demographic of people. This has given people the power to be able to team up or compete against a new set of up and coming countries, such as India and China. Many people have been able to capitalize with these new opportunities. Some of the ways people have cashed in on are offshore jobs such as call centers.

 Globalization 1.0 and 2.0 is different than 3.0 in the fact that it is driven by mostly the U.S and Europe. The difference in Globalization 2.0 and 1.0 was that it was able to make companies be able to go globally unlike Globalization 1.0. Also the introduction to the industrial Revolution set the pace of what was to come in the future of Globalization 2.0. One of the biggest differences of the three periods was that 3.0 was the only one that truly leveled the playing field not just shrank it. To say that there is a difference in all 3 is an understatement, my understanding is that by the time we reached Globalization 3.0 people started to really have a voice in the outcome of what is to come. In 1.0 there was not one person that could make the changes to their lives like in 3.0. You now can work with people half a world away from the comfort of your home. In Globalization 2.0 the frame work was made to make business and life correspond from thousands of miles away.

Friedman felt the fall of the wall helped change the view that we can all work together in a globally economy. There was a change that occurred throughout the world by giving everyone the confidence to create a standard of how they could create a global economy. The wall falling had so many positive outcomes, one being the world shift to democracy and free market oriented governance. The wall symbolized a barrier in the idea of the word as a single market, so after the fall many countries could finally see the clarity and reason for a single market.

Netscape is one of the true pioneers in computer developmental software, they gave the world what it needed. That gave a more simplified search engine for people of all ages. The ability that Netscape gave the people was to be able to maximize the internet. Netscape came out with software to help implement an open standard. It made the use of computers and the web much easier to use. Without Netscape there is no guarantee we would be so heavily reliant on computers. They give us the ability for everyone to use a computer, for without them we could be left in a much different scenario then it is today.