Blog assignment 2

I want to make a complaint regarding the road infrastructure of Karlstad. It sucks. Why there are potholes in one of the streets I use daily. That street is also not some backalley street either. It is the Tullhusgatan and it is a fairly large thoroughfare.

If you leave the main roads in the city you will always eventually come across small problems such as the ones at Tullhusgatan. I do not like to drive slalom to avoid potholes in the asphalt.

Blog assignment 1

I think that in the next 1-5 years the use of landline phones will dwindle to almost nothing. Even today you can see that they are no longer as favored as they once were. For an example, since moving from childhood home five years ago I have only owned a landline phone for a single year before getting rid of it.

I also believe that the landline phone is on the way out because there are more ways to communicate today. IP telephony services such as Skype is such a way. Besides that there are mobile phones (unreliable in some places due to poor coverage).

In 6-50 years I think that humanity’s presence in space will increase. One of the reasons for this is that there are more and more commercial space projects being started. For an example of this one can see the growing space tourism.  

Engelska för tekniker II

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Blog assignment 3

I am going to make my reflection about the book Out of the Dark by David Weber. Now then I am going to quickly summarize the book. Essentially the book follows several characters spread over the world during an alien invasion. We humans though are not reacting to the alien’s superior fire power as they thought we would. Because of this they decide to wipe human species out. It should be noted that they managed to kill half of all humans before they reached this decision. So humanity is doomed with no hope of turning the tide of alien’s invasion. Then it happens. Deus ex machina. 

Deus ex machina is when something extremely unexpected happens in a story that saves the cast from whatever literary corner they had been painted into. The way it is implemented in this book means that there is no chance of seeing it coming unless you have very specific and obscure knowledge about a certain subject. To avoid spoiling the book I won´t go any deeper than that.

Now to what I think of the literary device deus ex machina. I generally don’t like it when authors use it in their books but I think Out of the Dark was an okay book even though it had a deus ex machina ending. Now my belief is that generally a deus ex machina is a cheap way for an author to get his plot out of a difficult position. It is usually also inconsistent with books internal logic and challenges the suspension of disbelief. So why is it still used if it can disrupt the flow of the story so badly?  Well maybe the author just one day decided that it was something he or she wanted to write. Perhaps it didn’t feel as a deus ex machina when the writer wrote it but when looked at from perspective of a new reader it might. This question seems to have quite a few possible answers so I think I will leave it at that.

Blog assignment 2

After watching Annie Leonard's presentation at The Story of Stuff I had a few thoughts. The first one is really a question about whether Annie Leonard's numbers and information are accurate. The second one that popped up in my head was that she is probably correct about most the existing problems in the current system. See I have managed to mostly contradict myself with my two first thoughts on the subject.

Generally I agree with everything that Annie Leonard says in the video but I do wonder about the source for her 99% of everything that you buy in a six-month period is going to end up in the trash. Is there some study somewhere that actually got this number, because to me the number seems rather high.

So what can be done? There is probably no great idea to hope that the people will just what has to be done. No you must somehow pressure the public to accept the changes needed. There is probably also a need to educate the public. At the end of the day what is needed is a well informed public.

I also happen to believe that as technological improvements increase the efficiency of our industries the problems will be lessened to some degree. Also one can hope new less resource taxing technologies are developed in the future.

Reflection on Snopping Bosses

After reading the article ’Snooping Bosses’ I had several thoughts on the matter of privacy. To begin with I am going to point out that employers are always looking for ways to increase efficiency of their employees. Looking at it from that standpoint it becomes obvious that implementing electronic surveillance in the workplace is in the interest of the employers. After all it is the employers that pay employees their salary and because of that they have all the reason in world to make sure they get their moneys worth. 

I believe therefore that employers have the right to check how their employees spend their time during work and also to ensure that the company's employees follow the company's rules of conduct. For an example monitoring the content of email and other communication forms. Of course there is the fact that I think that all employers that uses such methods should inform all their employees of the fact that they are being monitored in a thorough manner. 

This of course only describes my thoughts of electronic surveillance in a workplace environment. The article mentions that some employers also check what their employees do in their spare time. This includes continuous background checks as well as checking social websites such as Facebook. The simplest way to ensure that you don't get fired is to not post or upload anything that could have a negative effect on the company your working in.

Not only is this getting usual amongst different companies it is also becoming more prevalent in other parts of our society and it is my belief that tracking, monitoring and surveillance will become an integral part in the future. As can probably be perceived from my inclinations I favour security and safety. I reach that belief because if the police has access to more information they will hopefully solve more crimes. Also more surveillance in public places would increase the safety in such areas. Well these are my thoughts on the matter.