Stupidity and Laugh Tracks

I found Klosterman's article rather amusing, though I also found it somewhat insulting. I think I would have found it more insulting if I didn't agree with his stance. I mean, saying that I'm not capable on my own of deciding whether or I should laugh at a joke is belittling. But, Americans do tend to shy away from being unique and tend to not form their own opinions. We are programmed of the correct responses to numerous, unique circumstances and perform these responses like robots. While an individual is smart, people do tend to be stupid. I can honestly say I've never consciously acknowledged whether or not a sitcom used laugh tracks. However, in retrospect, I have observed how people react differently to "comedy" in sitcoms that use and don't use them. I personally would like to think that I'm am an exception to Klosterman's rule more often than not, as I pride myself in having a unique sense of humor. But, I've never actually monitored my reactions to sitcoms with and without laugh tracks and observed the differences. I think I will definitely be more aware of how laughter is used on a day-to-day basis.

Security Engineering

I plan on doing research about security engineering, though I haven't quite narrowed my focus as of yet. I want to research the latest physical security innovations, such as facial recognition cameras in Great Britain or the airport security mechanisms in place today. I'd like to know more about the scope of the security engineering field and what is required of security engineers on a day to day basis. It has always been interesting to me the security applications in place that no one notices. Barricades outside of malls or large corporations disguised as large decorative flower pots or hidden security cameras used for surveillance. Some of these issues are controversial, and I may want to delve into the stances that many have for or against using these new technologies. Finding information about this topic seems to be very specific and it is difficult to find a lot of new, quality sources. However, I do want to pursue this field after graduating, so I think I'm up to the challenge of finding more information on the topic.

Optomechanics

Marquardt, Florian and Girvin, Steven. "Optomechanics." Physical Review Letters: Physics 2, 40 (2009). n. pg. American Physics Society. Web. 2 Feb. 2011.

The authors introduce the fundamental concepts of the forces exerted by electromagnetic radiation. They explain how mirror can be moved, or "trapped," using light. These mirrors oscillate and can resonate at different frequencies and the radiation forces can be measured from this frequency over a time lag. They conclude their thesis by explaining practical applications of this technology and setting goals for being able to harness this technology. This work is a combination of over fifty outside refences as well as original experimentation and observations from the authors. This information is particularly interesting about how radiation forces could be applied at quantum levels of physics applications, extending into integrated photonic circuits, switching, and semiconductor chips.

Richtel's Article About Technology

The Cambell family is definitely an extreme example in my opinion. The article "Your Brain on Computers: Attached to Technology and Paying a Price" (found here) was interesting at points. I couln't believe that their technology dependence was to a point where Mrs. Cambell burned her cookies twice in the same afternoon and Mr. Cambell forgot to pick up his own children from school. I believe those are self-control and priority issues, not the fault of the technology at hand. Technology, I feel is like any other tool. Tools can be used as intended or abused. I think of the saying "guns don't kill, people kill" as a similar correlation. Technology doesn't distract, people let themselves get distracted.

There were some interesting statistics in this article, too. The statistic that said people at work switch between windows, email, or other programs almost 37 times per hour seemed a bit high to me. I'm not sure either that switching between various documents or spread sheets count in this study. If it did, I would say that's just someone doing his or her job. If not and I was the boss, I'd be monitoring and blocking computer usage of the tested sample. But I find computers immensely useful. Commenting on this article is so much easier because I have it open in another Internet tab for reference as I write this.

Without a computer, heaven forbid, I wouldn't be able to do my job as an Intelligence Analyst in the military with half the efficiency that I'm able to now. While deployed, I spent nearly 10 hours a day at a computer station reading, communicating, making spread sheets and graphs. This just would not have been possible without my computer work station. Any major incident that happened in Southern Iraq was instant messaged straight to my work station from the first unit's analyst who knew about it.

While the distractions come as a part of it, (you only have to look at the page of the article that I linked above - the clutter of adds and applications make the site very distracting) you have to make a conscious effort to tune it out. This also falls back on the programmers who design sites, should take into consideration how distracting his or her media layout is. The New York Times site that I linked to is a disaster. Over 1/4 of that page is irrelevant to the article - various advertisements and links. The same can be said of the layout of this blog. With designs like these, it's no wonder people can't pay attention.