Hey everyone,

I thought the Robot Stories films we watched in class were interesting. Clay in particular stuck out to me, since I've heard about the idea of "uploading consciousness" before. Personally, I'm crossing my fingers that it happens withing my lifetime. :)

Apparently, there's a lot of different people making the first steps to make this a reality. This article I found talks about a Russian almost-billionaire, Dmitry Itskov, and his 2045 Initiative. His idea is slightly different from the concept of Clay; it sounds like he wants to upload somebody's consciousness to a human-like robot like in the Machine Love story.

Here is the link to the article:
 http://www.slate.com/articles/business/billion_to_one/2013/11/dmitry_itskov_2045_initiative_eternal_living_through_science.html

-- Mark Craig

Hey, Judy here. So since I wrote all of my prompts in my own notebook rather than on the blog, here are pictures of my journal:

i wanted to share what I learned from my computer science class using the tritina poem format.
    

    Cloud computing is the modern way we use to connect
    Through the internet, we have instant magnificent power
    We move into an era of cloud
                                        
    Without even knowing, our lives are affected by the cloud
    From all corners of the world we connect
    Using high tech computerized power
    
    Social, economic, and political data shared by this digital power
    Reaching the point where we can all exist on the cloud
    With lightning speed, all servers connect
    
    Connect us to the world, harness the power of the cloud.

  - Justin Chow

How has technology affected your relationships and overall quality of life?

    Technology has had mainly a positive effect on my relationships. It allows me to stay in touch more easily with friends who are far away, and to facilitate the continuation of intriguing conversations when we are apart. Some can argue that these friendships are not true friendships because they were partially formed through use of the computer, not through in-person interaction. However, my communications done through technology and the opinion and ideas shared always contribute to my friendships when I am with those people in real life.
    It has increased my quality of life by making it easier, such as in doing research, communication, doing homework, and being a source of entertainment. However, I realize that such a dependence on technology takes away from the humanity of life-of being able to personally connect with another human being. Therefore, technology also decreases the quality of life because it easily takes away the simple joys of daily interaction because we are too often glued to our pieces of technology(phones, games, computers, and tv).

-Megan Wong

I could not imagine robots taking care of babies in a nursery. They would need to be super advanced to interpret what the babies are asking for (at least on a human level). Even so, I don't think it would be a great idea to have robots nurture young children. If robots did take care of babies, the babies might think that the robot is their real mother/father and have trouble realizing that it isn't when they grow older. There would not be the fundamental care-taking bond that ties parents and children together. Without this bond, what would separate parents from other family members? We would have to redefine what it truly means to be a parent in this case.

Jordan Wong

1.  Have you ever worked late into the night? Even if you haven’t, describe a situation in which you felt like you were missing out because of work or school related business.

1. How has technology affected your relationships and overall quality of life?
2. Would you trust a robot to make decisions in life or death situations? Why or why not?

-Anna Pham

I just wanted to share the poem that I wrote in my ASAMST discussion section on Wednesday. This poem follows the Tritina form. My inspiration of this poem was "Tristana," a character from League of Legends.



The company Riot Gaming wields magic
one that is deemed by many as a myth
The game they created was called League of Legends.

A world where gathers the heroes of legends
fighting as a team formed by a sort of magic
living days and weeks creating footprints of myths.

These myths
the champions have created lived long enough to become legends
completely filled with magic.

Until a day comes when magic uncovers these myths and realizes that League of Legends is not just a game.

I feel very special to have presented a reading of the class where the author was able to visit the class. Even though we had to analyze the Diwata to it's core, I still gained a lot of insight on Diwata with Barbara Jane Reyes's visit. It really clarified some aspects of the poetry book as a whole, and gave us a new way of looking at Diwata. Her explanation of what a fairy was really opened my mind because when I hear of the word "fairy", I indeed think of Tinkerbell. But in Philippine mythology, a fairy does not have to be of a nice, pretty little flying creature. It could be the exact opposite. It was amazing to hear her process of how to researched information to write the poems. It was interesting to hear how the myths of the Philippines are not talked about, how she went back to see her grandfather, and why she incorporated a women theme into Diwata. Overall, it was great to have her visit to talk to us about Diwata, especially because I was in the Diwata presentation group.

Jason Li 

Prompt: If you were to adopt a child, would you adopt one of a different race? Why or why not?
When I first heard the prompt, my initial response was no. I agree with the points that were made in class about the child not feeling like he/she belongs in the community or being judged for having a different skin color as the rest of the family. One more point I would like to add is that as a parent of a different culture/ethnicity, if I were to adopt a child of a different race, I wouldn't have the knowledge nor ability to allow my child to explore his/her own native culture ethnicity. Personally, I wouldn't want to deny my child the chance to be exposed to his/her culture by taking him/her from his own community and placing him/her into mine. 

A couple of days ago, I was browsing through Reddit, and I came across this thread titled "IAmA black guy adopted and raised by a white family, AMA[Ask me anything]!" As I was scrolling through the man's responses and other user's comments, I learned that maybe someone whose skin color is associated with an ethnicity/culture doesn't necessarily have to learn about his/her own ethnicity/culture. What's most important is that the child can find his/her own identity.  

Some of the comments from other users were:
"Took me years to figure out I was one whole individual, not pieces of different cultures."

"I have always had trouble identifying with either black or white and I'm only now (19 years old) realizing that that i just want to be me."

The OP replied to a question:
"I believe that your culture isn't something you're assigned with at birth. It's something that grows and develops as you grow and develop. I don't feel like I've lost anything because I never had it...I still think that your culture is about you, not about people like you." 

After reading this thread, I came to the conclusion that one day, if events in my life really lead me to adoption, I would consider adopting a child of a different race.
Link to the post can be found here: http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/1qrpmm/iama_black_guy_adopted_and_raised_by_a_white/

One more thing, last week during discussion we were talking about and wrote our own Tritinas. I didn't share in class, but I regret not having shared, so I'll just post it here. The three words are "myth", "magic", and "believe".

Maybe the reason why we have myths
Is that in each, there is some magic
Which at times can make it hard to believe

But there are other times in life when we want to believe
That there is truth in these myths
Because once in a while, we could do with a little magic

What we don't realize is that life has always been full of magic
It's just up to us whether or not we want to believe
Or just call the magical stories from our ancestors, myth

Or is it just a myth that we once believed in magic?

Sorry if the Tritina doesn't make much sense!
-Tiffany Wang