The Final TWC Lesson

Akin to giving birth after 9 months of labor, the module has come to a close and it can be said to be both a relief (the mother no longer has to bear the weight of the child) and rewarding (a new life is born). The end has been coming, and time has been expedited with learning and workload, making the closure arrive seemingly faster than predicted. It had been a good journey of learning and exposure, yet at the same time I do not deny that I am glad that I am slowly letting go of one of my heaviest modules thus far.

This last lesson of TWC is the day of my group presentation, and how apt our project is with regards to the timeline of the course. The end is indeed here. My group project spoke of the end of the world. Many ways of destruction were discussed. However, the focus of our project is a theory we formulated on our own based on technology changing the world, and this technology is artificial intelligence. We created a Pyramid Theory, whereby a three-tier society is formed in a scenario that we foresee could happen if the current situation of artificial intelligence is allowed to continue growing without sufficient regulation. At the same time, we proposed some solutions to this problem. Throughout this entire course, we have learnt about how technology can be used to change the world, and technology can lead to the world's demise, if we aren't careful.

The next group that came after mine had a website that looked exactly the opposite of the one my group created. While ours reeked of gloom and doom, with the pages in intended disarray and filled with black skies and deathly colours, the website of the other group was white-based, neat, and was created with a desire to attend to the world's medical needs. They had many interesting ideas, such as using mosquitos to spread vaccines. It may or may not be feasible, but they are certain ideas that are creative and intriguing. At the same time, I feel that the pertinent issue in medicine is not so much of these little things they propose, but more of finding cures for diseases or improving on them. However, it is noted that these issues are too technical for our understanding. It was quite amusing when Prof corrected a piece of information the group presented, stating a chemical cannot be used to cure yellow fever. Almost forgotten that Prof is a medical resident.

The last two groups talked about art and technology surrounding women today. Art is an appealing subject, but it is very subjective and many people might have no interest in this topic at all. The group presented the topic in great depth, and covered many areas from photoshop to swapping the pen with a stylus. I feel that technology in art has ruined a fraction of it by reducing its value. However, softwares that cause this such as photoshop is also a great and convenient way of creating art as well. So where should we stand on this? With the large array of tools that photoshop provides, I guess we have to take a step back elsewhere, such as always second-guessing if an image looks good inherently or because it was tweaked and edited.

The final group (an all girls group) spoke of women and technology. Their presentation was interesting and fun to watch, but it remains rather queer to me that they seem to be putting themselves down with the way they speak about women. This is just a curious observation. God knows what girls talk about when they are together in a group like that.

On the whole TWC course, I feel it is a very unique course as most of the course was based on presentations after presentations, whether is it individual or group presentations. It is good, because it allows everyone to be exposed to different forms and parts of technology, and I am sure many of us would have at least learnt a thing or two about technology throughout this time, no matter how well-read about technology we were before this. However, only a course like this can have a teaching style as such, and it breaks us from the monotony of the other lessons. There is only one problem for these two weeks, I feel there isn't much interactions within the class.

TWC has ended. It has been a long road, and we have reached the destination. Whoever is reading this, I wish you well, and may the end of this road open up new roads for you to explore and reach your true potential.

7.5/10

Goodbye. Take care!

Down and out

For the first time in months, I came down with fever and a throat infection. My temperature on Monday morning measured at 38.7°C, rendering me unable to attend all the my lessons on this fateful day and the next, as I rested at home and tried to sleep the fever off. Well, it was a little regretful being unable to attend lesson, as I missed out on presentations as well as quite a bit of things. After updating myself by asking around and looking through some of the websites created by my peers, I was able to gain a little insight on what went on during the session.

There were two notable quotes presented in class. One of them was "Knowledge is a process of piling up facts; wisdom lies in their simplification." by Martin H Fischer. Knowledge is no longer as highly valued as before, due to the abundance of information sources and the increasing ease of attaining access to these sources just about by anyone, at any place, at any time. The information available is also generally quite accurate. True value lies in wisdom. However, I wouldn't say that wisdom is the simplification of knowledge, although it is a part of it. I would term wisdom as the ability to see beyond the piece of information and attaining new meaning through knowledge. It is to be able to reach an epiphany through self-thought and realization. It is sad to see that the students nowadays are laden with knowledge, yet the wise ones are few and far between.

The second quote is "You know more than you think you know, just as you know less than you want to know.". We have knowledge tucked away at the depths of our brains, thus we know more than we think we do. However, the fact of life is that we will never know everything; it is just impossible. However, we always yearn to attain new knowledge for various reasons, whether it is of use to us, or to give us an edge over others. We should never stop doing that, because if not we will stagnate and the human race would have never grown to the magnitude that we see today. This quote seems to be more motivational than meaningful.

Poking my nose around the websites, the one on land constraints caught my eye. Personally, I am quite affected and empathetic of this constraint scenario. Every day on Orchard Road, or in SMU, or in the MRT train, I feel the effects of this constraint; our population is rising, but we do not have the land to allow us to retain the same population density, and each and every one of us has less and less space. This, coupled with the heat and humidity of Singapore, is making the country an increasingly unpleasant place to live in. I feel that many of the solutions proposed by the group presented a very concise summary of what the world can do to counter the problem of land constraint. It is also quite well structured, giving the viewer a clear idea of what the website plans to achieve. However, I feel that the measures may not be extremely effective; it might come to a point in time where overpopulation and the lack of land will overwhelm the human race. Perhaps the world should look at controlling birth rate and slowly reducing population growth as a possible solution as well. After all, humans are the problem.

Flying cars on the other website provided a fresh and futuristic perspective as compared to the land constraint problem. It is interesting, and we may be driving such cars in the future. However, I am quite skeptical about the idea due to various reasons, such as the danger, regulation problem and overall unfeasibility.

Having missed the lesson, I feel it is inaccurate for me to give a rating on the lesson itself or give insights on what to improve. I think that would come next week, which will be the day of my group's presentation. I would give a rating, nonetheless, on the groups' work and the quotes given.

8/10

A little teaser.. The end is coming.