NOtes
This page is not in the book, but keep the file for future use.
Encryption
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Dave Cornell, "Edutainment and Girls", The CPSR Newsletter, Vol 15, no. 1,
Winter, 1997, p. 6. "A 1992 study of the 47 top-rated Nintendo games found that
only seven did not have violence as their major theme, the covers of these games
portay a total of 115 male and 9 female characters, and 13 of the 47 games contain
scenarios with women kidnapped or having to be rescued.... The majority of designers
are male...."
- Reliable because deterministic [illusion of perfect reliability]
- Columbia plane crash example
- Intel Pentium floating point bug
- Split personality approach (we trust the computer, but also expect crashes,
garage-in-garbage-out, etc.)
- Incredible sustained performance improvement, miniaturization [stewardship]
- Chart of CPU speed improvement over time, memory density/speed compared
to automobile speed or gas mileage, compared to television resolution,
compared to airline ticket prices, compared to phone quality, etc.
- Show animation demonstrating the density and small size of computer
integrated circuits (compare to map of a large city).
Other examples:
- trust in computers, computer models of very complex systems
- free speech on the Internet
- Encryption
- changing nature of work, telecommuting
- isolation, nature of community
- controlling technology, progress, preventing bad technology
[*** This section is incomplete, need to fill in outline below...]
- Encryption
- Does a legitimate need for confidentiality justify providing tools that
also enable illegal activities?
- Does technology always come as a Faustian bargain?
- Gender and the computer
- treatment of male/female characters in computer games
- gender differences (on average) in learning, thinking styles, differences
in computer "aptitude" because of the way most software is written
- issue of justice - equal access and opportunity
- Reliable because deterministic [illusion of perfect reliability]
- Examples: Columbia plane crash due to computer interface design, Y2K
bug, Intel Pentium floating point bug, Arianne rocket software bug
- Split personality of users (we trust the computer, but also expect crashes,
garage-in-garbage-out, etc.)
- issue of faith - where to we put our ultimate trust? Is technology our
savior?
- Incredible sustained performance improvement, miniaturization [stewardship]
- Chart of CPU speed improvement over time, memory density/speed compared
to automobile speed or gas mileage, compared to television resolution,
compared to airline ticket prices, compared to phone quality, etc.
- Show animation demonstrating the density and small size of computer
integrated circuits (compare to map of a large city).
- Can we harness this power without succombing to its dangers?
Other examples (perhaps for the breakout?)
- trust in computers, computer models of very complex systems
- changing nature of work, telecommuting
- isolation, nature of community
- controlling technology, progress, preventing bad technology
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This page was written by Steven
H. VanderLeest.
© 2001 Calvin College, All Rights Reserved