Sharmina's blog

3D Printing might just be the next big thing!  The way it works is you choose what you want to be “printed”, and the Maker Box prints out this plastic in circular motions with very thin layers. It may take some time because the small dice we did in class took about 20-30 minutes. And it isn’t exactly perfect either. The Maker Bot does mess up but this doesn’t mean I’m bashing on it. This is just a small step to something even bigger. Imagine in the future, the Maker Bot is able to print out eatable food. This could solve world hunger! I would love to have one of these in my house if it was just a couple of thousands of dollars cheaper ): . I would print out pendants and make my own necklaces!

For this paper i wasn’t sure if I wanted to go along with the statement I had chosen for the previous assignment, or choose another statement altogether. After spending 30 minutes on choosing between 5 different statements and making small outlines about what I can write about, I still had nothing interesting. So I picked a random number, went to that page in the book, selected the first 4 sentences of the passage, and I just stuck with it.

It wasn’t a bad idea at all. The statement was better than the other ones I was thinking about choosing. It made writing the paper easier. The statement regarded the “electric information environment” and how it causes us to become connected with each other. I immediately thought of Facebook and Twitter and the ease of staying in touch and knowing just about everything that is happening, from the weather outside to situations outside of our country.

McLuhan was a “media Nostradamus”. He predicted that mediums (e.g Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr) would be used to know too many things about too many people. And he is correct.

Media is the Massage

I agree with this excerpt. McLuhan believed that eventually machines will take over the jobs that humans have held. A job as simple as a toll teller could have fed a family of 4, but now there is few need for a teller. With a new technology called “EZPass”, cars can go through tolls, and pay the toll later on credit. It causes little crowds and easy moving. With this technology, people have found themselves looking for another job. In factories, machines are helping create products. Machine power beats human power. What can take a machine several minutues, can take a person several hours. We wouldn’t need tutors to teach us new material. We can learn via the internet. We can learn different languages through a software called Rosetta Stone. It probably wouldn’t take long before there is a robot cutting my hair. Hopefully it’ll be one that can do a better job than my hair stylist.