Electrical Engineering

What is Electrical Engineering, and what made me want to study it?

[danielbaezee]

Interdisciplinary Source

As the issue of the effects on learning and the distractions associated with the presence of digital technology have played major role in the growing problem with media multitasking, what often gets overlooked is the impact of digital technology in a social mean. Studies have shown that large amounts of time spent on these devices may increase the amount of stress and anxiety a person has. For instance, in a 2001 article published by International Online Journal of Educational Sciences, Ahmet Akin presents the results of a study he and his fellow researchers from Sakarya University conducted on the relationship between the repeated and frequent use of digital technology in a university classroom and the physiological obstructions such as anxiety, depression, and stress. Akin and his colleagues had three-hundred students from a University in Turkey participate in their study. Numerous students from each year (freshman, sophomore, etc.) participated in the study. Ninety-one percent of students were between seventeen and twenty-four years old. Students were to complete multiple questionnaires, in which Akin used two scientifically approved scales to measure the amounts of stress, depression, and anxiety there are in those who were considered to have an internet addiction. Of those who were considered internet addicts which was approximately thirty-four percent or one-hundred students, forty-five percent showed signs of depression, forty percent showed signs of anxiety, and forty percent showed signs of stress. To make his point clear about the effect of digital technology on psychological obstacles such as stress, Akin emphasizes, “Research on internet addiction and depression demonstrated that the overuse of the internet, which results in a disruption of the normal lives of an individual and the people around him, was associated with an increase in the frequency of depression”(139). That is to say, when Akins points out that internet use causes disruptions in a person’s everyday life, he is trying to demonstrate that the superfluous use of technology or the internet replaces the time that could be spent with family and friends. When one is not as social, this may result in smaller social groups and higher levels of depression and isolation. With this in mind, one can begin to see how this study from Sakarya University clearly demonstrates that when students spend excessive time on their digital technology, students begin to drift away from physical social life. In fact, people will begin to feel more stress and lonely when less time is spent with friends and family. These negative physiological obstructions may also result in academic obstructions.

[danielbaezee]

Mediamultitasking

Perhaps the simplest reason that media multitasking while learning has been a growing issue recently is that students tend to learn new information while juggling two complex tasks. For instance, one can see a clear indication of this issue with juggling complex tasks in a 2006 article published in Computers & Education that outlines a series of studies conducted by Carrie Fried and other researchers from Winona State University in which they examine the amount of time college students use laptops or other forms of technology during a lecture class. To approximate the time students spent on digital technology throughout the class lecture, each day Fried had roughly 130 students from the General Psychology department take surveys, concerning their engagement with the class. Generally speaking, roughly sixty-five percent of the college students allegedly used  their laptops at least once. Of this group, about eighty percent claimed to check emails. About seventy percent claimed to instant message. Forty-three percent claimed to be on the internet, and lastly approximately twenty-five- percent claimed to play games. Fried also asked students to report any interruptions or distractions that happen during the lectures. According to the surveys, Fried calculated an average of seventeen minutes spent off-topic per student in the seventy-five minute lecture. To clarify the implications of her findings regarding students juggling complex tasks, Fried goes on to explain, “Students admit to spending considerable time during lectures using their laptops for things other than taking notes. The use of laptops was negatively related to several measures of learning” (6). That is to say, when Fried points out that students are using digital technology while learning, she is trying to demonstrate how the use of laptops is a clear issue within the a classroom because of the large percentage of people off-topic. Research shows with the increased accessibility to laptops, the probability of a student spending time attempting to juggle between listening to the professor and looking on Facebook or Twitter will increase, therefore students will more likely interpret less information given in the course. To make her point clear about the effect of juggling two complex tasking while learning, Fried explains, “Computers and other high-tech equipment are likely sources of overload and distraction” (3). In essence, when Fried refers to laptops have decreased overall performance in the class, what she means is the ability of people to pay attention and process information is limited. Researchers say that if there are too many sources of information, a person can be overwhelmed with the amount of information available. If a student has a laptop out in class, it is more likely that the students around him or her are distracted too, therefore the overall performance is affected not just the one student with the laptop. With this in mind, one can begin to see how this study from Winona State University on the accessibility to technology in a classroom clearly demonstrated how students who are connected while doing work are more likely to be distracted. Research shows that the brain is overloaded with information similar to a desk stacked with paper. If a student does not go through these papers one at a time, the student may not know what papers are worth keeping. Instead the student will keep random pages.

[danielbaezee]

[danielbaezee]

Growth of E-Sports

On October 19, 1972, at Stanford University, a group of students were invited to play the game Spacewar. The winner was to revive a year's subscription to Rolling Stone magazines. This event was considered the first official competitive video game competition in the United States. E-sports, also known as Electronic sports, is a word used for video game competitions primarily played by professionals. Over the years, video game companies have evolved to include more PvP, or player versus player, type games and/or game modes. Professional gaming is not a new subject. Since the 1990s, skilled players have been making money playing video games such as Super Smash Brothers, but competitive gaming was very uncommon and unknown to the public. Over time, this began to change. Many journalists argue that video game competitors should not be considered athletes because of the lack of physical strain. However, when one takes a closer look at the research on the growth of E-sports, one begins to wonder if there is a difference in professionals who preform competitively on stage or on a field. For example, in the early 2000s Major League Gaming, or MLG, and The Evolution Championship Series, also known as EVO, were created. Both are considered distinguished video game companies in the E-sports community. EVO predominantly hosted fighting game tournaments, while MLG hosted shooters and RPGs. Over the past 10 years, MLG has rewarded hundreds of thousands of dollars to professional players for playing in competitions, and they continues to do so today. Over 11.7 million viewers tuned in to watch the four 2012 MLG Pro Circuit Championship events online. MLG and EVO are notorious for laying the ground work for what E-sports are today. aez With the evolution in cross console gaming accessibility and the growth in popularity of PvP gaming, a small company began developing a computer game that would grow to be one of the most popular PC games today. In 2009 Riot Games released the multiplayer online battle arena video game,or MOBA, called League of Legends. The game is an online, live strategy and teamwork based game. Players must level up and defeat the opposing team by destroying the enemy's Nexus or making the opposing team surrender. League of Legends has grown to become the most played and watched online video game in the world. League of Legends became the news in the E-sports community after the World Cyber Games in October of 2010. Before this event, most competitive games were played in exclusive tournaments such as The Intel Extreme Masters (IEM), IGN Pro League (IPL) and the Major League Gaming Pro Circuit (MLG). Eventually Riot created leagues based upon the location of players such as the LCS, LPL, and OGN. Each league consists of the top eight teams of the regions, and each week the teams play two games. At the end of each season, once a year, the top three teams of each league go to the World Championship similar to a play-off bracket. When it comes to the number of players, in 2013 over 85 million people played League of Legends worldwide with approximately $350 million in gross revenue for Riot. In addition Riot gave out approximately $8 million in winnings that year. This brought attention to many big name companies. In 2013, Coca-Cola announced a partnership with Riot Games after the display given during the 2013 Season 3 World Championship. The championship took place in the sold-out Staple Center in Los Angeles, California. Over 32 million people watched the tournament online with a peak of 8.5 million viewers at one time. This made it the most viewed E-sports event in history. If a person were to listen to an event such as this, one could possibly mistaken it for a traditional sports cast. Announcers give play by play commentary on the game. Announcers will also sit at a table with other professional competitors discussing the previous games or predicting future ones. When watching the games on aez streaming websites such as Twitch, viewers could see a number of similar aspects to traditional sports broadcasting. This will include: live comment or Twitter steams, list of upcoming topics to discuss, and advertisements. With the mass growth in popularity and more importantly revenue, Riot Games acquired the attention of the U.S. Government which helped make a big change for the good of Esports as a whole. The U.S. The United States government now recognizes professional LoL players as professional athletes, and will give them visas to work in the U.S. under that title. While the United States government considers it, some people disagree with E-sports being recognized as legitimate sport such as the president of ESPN. The task may not take nearly as much physical effort compared to sports like football or soccer, but the countless hours players give up in their everyday lives and the high number of people viewing the events illustrate that professional players should be considered a type of athlete also. With the exponential growth in viewership, fan based participation, and number of people playing throughout the years, people can say E-sports is just starting. Who knows how many people will end up watching the Championships this year

[danielbaezee]

Laptops in Class? Good? Bad?

Recently, many researchers and educational administration have been questioning the use of portable digital technology in the class room. The problem that comes to be is whether or not a student can finish an assignment to the best of their ability while using devices such as laptops and cellphones in the classroom. The use of digital technology while completing other tasks or using multiple forms of technology at the same time is know as media multitasking. Perhaps the simplest reason that media multitasking while learning has been a growing issue is that students tend to learn new information while juggling two complex tasks. For instance, one can see a clear indication of this issue with juggling complex tasks in a 2006 article published in Computers & Education that outlines a series of studies conducted by Carrie Fried and other researchers from Winona State University in which they examine the amount of time college students use laptops or other forms of technology during a lecture class. To judge roughly how much time students spent on laptops or smartphones throughout the class lecture, each day Fried had roughly 130 students from the General Psychology department take surveys, concerning how engaged they were during the class. The professor of the lecture allowed students to use their laptops to take notes. Generally speaking, roughly sixty-five percent of the college students allegedly used their laptop at least one time during the study. Besides taking notes, about eighty percent claimed to check their emails. About seventy percent claimed to instant message. Forty-three percent claimed to be on the internet, and lastly approximately twenty-five- percent claimed to play games. Fried also asked students to report any interruptions or distractions that happen during the lectures. Of the distractions reported, the one that people seemed to have noticed the most was people sitting in front of others using their laptops. With all of this information, Fried calculated an average of seventeen minutes spent off-topic per student in the seventy-five minute lecture. With regard to academic performance, the class experienced an overall drop when the new policy of laptop use was introduced. 

Throughout the study, Fired is pointing out the major issues associated with the use of digital technology in the classroom. Fried points out that with the use of laptops in the classroom, there is a large percentage of people who go off-topic. Simply thinking about it, with the increased accessibility to laptops, the probability of a student spending time attempting to juggle between listening to the professor and looking on Facebook or Twitter will increase, therefore students will more than likely interpret less information given in the course. If a person spends time doing one thing, they will not be able to complete another task at the same time to the best of their ability. Another point that she brings up is the ability of people to pay attention and process information is limited. Looking at this in a general sense, if there are too many sources of information, a person’s mind can be overwhelmed with information. If a student has a laptop out in class, it is more likely that the students around him or her are distracted too, therefore the overall performance is affected not just the one student with the laptop. The study presented was not to say that smartphones and laptops are bad, and no one should ever use digital technology. Instead the article is presenting the fact that the use of digital technology when learning new information or performing cognitive thinking tasks, shows more negative results then positive i.e. decrease in overall performance.

[danielbaezee]

“White” or “Black” hat Hacker?

For a typical Electrical Engineer, the people who pursue this field move towards computer programming in a sense of data analysis or circuitry, but there are those who take the path of breaking into data bases illegally. These people are known as “black hat hackers”. On the other hand, there are those who are paid to break into the databases of major companies. These people are know as “white hat” hackers. Recently, CNN interviews a computer programmer named Parisa Tabriz. She is also known as “Google Security Princess”. Parisa is an Information Security Engineer for Google, but she had her official title changed. Parisa’s job is to hack into data bases of the most popular websites to find flaws in the system before the "black hats" do. She purposefully breaks into the systems to help improve their digital security. When Parisa first joined Google eight years ago, she was one of fifty security engineers in the company. Now there are over five-hundred with the immense growth of the company. As the company has grown immensely over the past decade, so have cyber-crimes. Cyber-crimes range from credit card theft to foreign government surveillance. The largest problems that Parisa has run into are people who find bugs in Google’s software, as sell this vital information to governments or criminals. These bugs in the system could lead to people entering the databases of major information corporations like Google who provide the services of properly protecting personal information. If the information is not properly protected, they lose business, or worse, release classified information. Google does not exactly know every person who uses their services, but there are numerous  highly-targeted individuals or political figures who use their services. To prevent this problem from getting to the wrong hands, Google came up with a program that would hopefully persuade those with the information, to inform Google instead of others. They came up with the Vulnerability Rewards Program. This is where people can get anywhere from $100 to $20,000 for reporting a bug or glitch in the system. Over the past years, Parisa and her crew had suspected governments actually trying to infiltrate their data bases. Since these groups are working for governments to break into their systems, that means they are well-funded and have the equipment needed to increases their chances of successfully bypassing the security, but the team at Google seems to just be better. 

“White” hat hacking or Information security engineering is becoming an increasingly popular field to follow with regard to programming. As noted in the article, with the the rapid increase in cyber-crime throughout the internet, and the rapid growth in databases, more companies are looking for those who can better secure their mainframes and prevents unwanted visitors from entering their systems. Like many other traits a person could learn in the world, someone can use what they learned from programming to do illegal activities like accessing databases. Just like a person who joined the military could use their skills in combat to endanger others, a smart enough hacker or group of hackers could do the same or much worse. Most everyone is connected somehow whether its by a person’s cellphone, smartphone or computer. These devices are full of different kinds of information that depending on the person you are, could endanger others. It may sound far fetched, but imagine if someone somehow found access to the presidents computer or simply the White House database. Who knows the classified information that could be released to a foreign or domestic terrorist groups. An example of an event that actually happened during the winter holidays was the hacking of Sony PlayStation Network and Microsoft’s Xbox Live. A group of hackers shut down the servers on Christmas day preventing the millions of people from using their systems. Another event in 2012, another group of black hat hackers gained access to the PlayStation network, and stole the personal information from all PSN users, this included credit card information if the user had their credit cards connected to the service. Millions of dollars were stolen, but eventually returned to people. “With great power comes great responsibility”, Uncle Ben.

[danielbaezee]

Post 3: Pop-Culture??

They say: 

            Earlier this week a tragic event happened at the London Hotel located in Hollywood California. Multiple officers arrived at the scene of the crime with little to no evidence to whom committed this crime. The security cameras in the building were no use to the authorities because they were not facing the appropriate direction to catch the criminal. As a result, the surveillance tapes showed no suspicious activity which could have alarmed security personal to the event taking place. Officials were called for the theft of Lupita Nyong'O’s Oscar dress. Officers were furious to find that the thief had somehow passed security without being detected with the dress, but in fact it was thrown out of the hotel room balcony. The thief who stole the dress contacted TMZ and informed them to how he successfully avoided detection. The thief knew the location of the cameras located around the hotel room and the path he was to take to escape. The thief knew what room Lupita was staying in and waited for the right time to sneak in. Once in the opportunity came, he entered the room and threw the dress of the balcony where another person waited at the bottom to retrieve it. The thief discovered the pearls on the dress were worthless fakes, thus he returned the dress. In the video attached to the article, one could see officers retrieving the dress and placing it into a body bag for proper transportation.The article does not inform readers of any legal actions or arrests associated with the thief.

I say: 

           This article related to “Pop-culture” has no direct connection to the main topic of this blog. As pointed out in the summary, the article summarized in this post came from TMZ, specifically TMZ online. Referring to a previous post about the internet, most of the information from websites such as TMZ can be considered the useless ones that users need to know not to use in scholarly works . Many of the websites similar to TMZ online provide users with misleading and non-credible information. For example, the article I had read refers to a dress being thrown off a balcony of a hotel. The article gave no information on who stole the dress, when the dress was stolen, or any direct information from law enforcement or people at the scene. An immense amount of space in the web is used to store this “news” about what is happening in the lives of celebrities. When I read this, the main things I thought were how people find entertainment in reading this, and how taxpayer money is spent on a wild goose chase for a piece of cloth that actually had little value because the materials were fake. Of course, I do not decide what people do with their time on the internet, but I am informing people to not use most of the information found on these sites for scholarly or relevant works because they are not credible sources of information.

[danielbaezee]

Jobs

I found the film Jobs to be a respectable form of media associated with my overall topic. Jobs is a film in relation to the life of Steve Jobs and the growth of Apple Inc. The movie begins with Steve Jobs, played by Ashton Kutcher, introducing the first iPod at an Apple conference. Immediately after the presentation the movie flashes back to Steve Jobs as a young adult roaming the walkways of his former college, which he dropped out of. The film proceeds to introduces some of Steve’s friends and family members. The film then flashes through a few years of Jobs traveling the world and ends with him living in California with his parents, while he is working for Atari, a video game company. At this point, Jobs has an assignment where he needs to develop a new game. He takes this project to his close friend Steve Wozniak. Wozniak helps Jobs by completing the game. The game he makes is the well known Pong. After giving Wozniak his share of money for the game, Jobs notices a computer on the table of Wozniak’s work room. Jobs convinces Wozniak to present the computer at a local computer club and name it the personal computer Apple. Following the presentation, Jobs is given an offer by a local computer store to make a set of units. Working out of his father's garage and with a group of friends, Jobs and Wozniak create fifty computer motherboards. With not enough capital, Jobs seeks investors by calling hundreds of people, but he continuously fails. Eventually he gains the attention and help of Mike Markkula, a previous worker for Intel and investor. Jobs and his group use the investment to create the Apple 2, incorporate the company, and present the product at a computer fair. The film continues through the growth of Apple and the development of new Apple personal computers; until a major drop in sales with the Macintosh Project. During this period, Steve Wozniak leaves Apple because the he felt Jobs had changed in the wrong way, and the company was not what they had first made it to be. Steve Jobs is eventually removed from the company for not following what the shareholders what him to do. The film again jumps forward approximately ten years where Jobs is now running the company NeXT which he founded. At this time, Apple is buying out the company, and he is asked to return to the Apple because they needed help. With the dramatic decline in stock prices and revenue, Jobs agrees to help. The film ends with Jobs as the CEO of the Apple Inc, and he brings back the ideas that made Apple successful. 

The film Jobs has many of the concepts of what it means to be a good Engineer. As an engineer, one is expected to be creative, innovative, and open minded. Throughout the film, Jobs, Wozniak, and their team encounter numerous problems, yet they do not quit. They created an idea, and they grew that idea into a company. They wanted to revolutionize the computer industry and steer it into a new direction towards the consumers. In the film, one can see that Jobs has an extreme attention in perfection and success. He did not take anything but the best of his work. That is an important quality to have to be successful in a field that revolves around efficiency, and in a field where it is about how ones product is better than the others. While much of the credit is given to Jobs with his great deal of entrepreneurial skills for the creation of Apple, I felt that not enough credit was given to Steve Wozniak, the original Electrical Engineer of the Apple computer. Throughout the film, people see less of Wozniack as the film progressed up until the point he quits the company. While the film was directed towards the life of Jobs and how the writers saw Jobs’ life, its seemed there was little attention to Jobs's best friend and cofounder of Apple. Nonetheless Jobs was portrayed as a perfectionist who made an idea in his friends house into a multi-billion dollar company, and even after his death, his legacy continues to grow.

[danielbaezee]

[danielbaezee]

[danielbaezee]

What Makes Me Do, What I Want To Do?

They Say:

As I thought to myself of a place, thing, or idea that inspired me to choose this theme of Electrical Engineering for my Tumblr, I realized the thing, that could also be considered a place, at the center of it all. They say its a place that does not have one specific location on Earth or anywhere in fact. They say its a  thing that is continuously growing in size and knowledge like a living organism. This thing or place is the Internet. The Internet is known as worldwide system of computer networks intertwined to connect billions of devices around the world. The Internet is comprised of millions of different kinds of networks and servers from public to private and from government to academic. This organism was born in the 1950s with the development of electronic computers. In the early 1960s, the United States Department of Defense approved the creation of the network system, specifically the ARPANET or Advanced Research Projects Agency Network. With this, the Internet Protocol or IP was established. The IP is a protocol followed by the network to deliver data from the host to the destination based on the IP address given by the destination. The ARPANET was the first network to send a message  with IP. A common misconception about the Internet is that it can also be called the World Wide Web or WWW when in fact these names are not interchangeable. The World Wide Web in fact an application of the Internet. The Web is a collection of documents, images, and other resources accessible to users depending on the servers associated with the data. The amount of data begin using is growing exponentially. Analysts have calculated the internet will consist of approximately 966 exabytes of information by the end of 2015. To put this number into perspective, the average computer now a days has approximately 250-500 gigabytes of storage available. The number of computers needed to hold the data compared to the size of the internet would be would be approximately 3 billion.

I Say:

When I look at the icon on the side of my computer that says Google Chrome, I see an endless ocean of information and resources. While the Internet is not exactly the thing we access, the Web is a place full of any kind of information or resources a person would like to know or use.  Some information is useful while plenty is not. I say it is up to the user to decide what is what. Yet a person doesn't only use the Web to finish a research assignment or find out more on dinosaurs, a person may go on Youtube to watch a funny video a friend posted on Facebook. Someone may have also heard a new song that they wanted to download onto their smartphone. A person may want to get in contact with their relatives halfway around the world. The number of services available on the Web and on different networks on the Internet, are endless. From looking up information on the Web about the Web, a seemingly large portion of the world’s population have used the internet is some form. In addition, the act of data collection and technology are fundamentals to electrical engineering, therefore I found it appropriate to make the Internet my place or thing that inspired me to do this topic.

[danielbaezee]

Introduction

From a young age, I enjoyed fooling around with computers and playing games on numerous electronic devices. Having no clue what I was doing, I would sometimes open the back of our home computer to simple stare at the wires. I would wonder how an image would appear on a screen from a bundle of wires and plastic pieces. Thus, in college I decided to put these curiosities to work by beginning to study Electrical Engineering. This blog will be about what electrical engineering is and what applications there are associated with this field in the working world.