A To Z Challenge: Technology And The Next Big Thing (That Could Invade Your Privacy To Extremes)

Technology is science applied to real-life problems. Physics equations and observations are all well and good--but technology allows the enormous range of scientific fields to play a very large part in people's everyday lives. The term technology has various uses: It can refer to a specific subset of machines (such as space technology) and it can refer to the total knowledge and capability of a society.

To be honest, the second part of this post (the "recent developments" section) came to me before the introduction. Google Glass is a piece of technology I've been wanting to post about for a while and the A to Z Challenge seemed like an ideal spot, seeing as I've already proposed some controversial subjects in previous posts.

Antonio Zugaldia, CC-BY-3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Google Glass is a pair of glasses with the capabilities of a smartphone. You give it orders to give you directions, send messages, take photographs and videos, etc., and all while wearing the device as feedback appears in a small screen on one side of the eyeglass frame. While some people (me included) don't like the idea of having multimedia so close to one's actual eyeball, the privacy concerns have to be the most argued-over bit (though there are also concerns about distracted driving and so on).

The problem? There is no way for someone else to tell if a person wearing the glasses is recording--which could mean your face is unwittingly being uploaded to Google's servers and could be played back by the person who recorded the footage, or, perhaps, by governments; facial recognition software could be applied to identify crowds of people just because someone walked through a busy location with Google Glass recording. There aren't any limits to when someone can record, either; imagine all the moments most people would absolutely not want saved for another person to see.

Google Glass is scheduled to arrive some time in 2014, according to the Executive Chairman of Google, Eric Schmidt.

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Sources:
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/technology
http://techland.time.com/2013/04/23/three-questions-i-hope-google-answers-before-google-glass-is-released/
http://www.latimes.com/business/technology/la-fi-tn-google-glass-2014-eric-schmidt-20130423,0,3402891.story
http://www.google.com/glass/start/

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Will you be wearing the new Google Glasses once they're released? If you run across someone wearing them, will you be worried?


-----The Golden Eagle

Blog Action Day 2011: Food

This year for Blog Action Day, the topic is food.

For my post, I decided to take on the subject of food deserts.

A food desert is, according to Wikipedia:

Any area in the industrialized world where healthy, affordable food is difficult to obtain. It is prevalent in rural as well as urban areas and is most prevalent in low-socioeconomic minority communities, and is associated with a variety of diet-related health problems.

This issue strikes close to home because the town we live in is rural, and the closest city has entire neighborhoods where there are no grocery stores at all; it's actually listed on the Food Desert Locator by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

The local store is around 1.5 miles away and within walkable distance. While it does sell fruits, vegetables, and other relatively-healthy foods (bread, cheese, some meat) it is problematic because a.) they hike their prices in the summer when there are more people coming through the area, on top of their high-ish prices all year-round b.) they don't have a very good record when it comes to their business practices (charging the wrong price, not listing their prices correctly, promoting people but not giving them a raise, strange employees, etc.) and c.) their stuff is just lower quality than other marketplaces.

But there's no competition, since the second-closest place is 15 miles down the highway or by backroads, which run along the highway. The farmers' markets only come by in the summer, and their prices are much higher.

And if you don't have a running car (which we didn't, for a while) then you're stuck with the more expensive store, taking a slow and inefficient bus down to the city to where there are places to shop, or the gas station, which is super expensive. They sell a quart of milk for almost four dollars.

Of course, that's better than having only a convenience store or a gas station, which is the situation many people find themselves in. Some rural areas don't have sources of healthy food at all, unless you want to grow it yourself, which takes land, time, energy, and money.

Hopefully, this problem will be addressed more. Some things have already been done: the Obama administration has established the Healthy Food Financing Initiative, which works with First Lady Michelle Obama's Let's Move! campaign against childhood obesity, and some states in the U.S. have set up their own programs.

It would be wonderful if those programs worked and food deserts became much less of an issue, and not just in this country, either. But there's still an awful lot distance to cover.

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In case you'd like to watch/read a report on food deserts by the PBS NewsHour, go HERE.

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About Blog Action Day:

Blog Action Day is an annual event that unites the world’s bloggers in posting about the same issue on the same day. Our aim is to raise awareness and trigger a global discussion around an important issue that impacts us all.

For 2011, our Blog Action Day coincides with World Food Day, so our topic of discussion for this year will be food. Take the first step now and sign-up your blog to Blog Action Day and then look at our suggested topics for some food flavoured inspiration to discuss.

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Do you live (or have you lived) in a food desert? What do you think should be done to help relieve the effects of them?


-----The Golden Eagle

Book Review: Matched (And The Answers To More Of Your Questions)

Last week, I got a few more questions on the post that was part of my blogoversary:

Petty Witter asked:


What is the one thing guaranteed to put you off a book?

A bad plot. I cannot stand weak plots, ones with holes, or endings that can be seen from afar. I love twists, turns, turnarounds, and anything else you can throw at me.

N. R. Williams asked:


How do you choose the books you read? Do you have an e-reader?

First: blurb. Second: any reviews that are on the cover/jacket. Third: author. Fourth: cover. And, in some cases, if I've heard of the book before. I don't usually care about genre--if I've read a good review, or if something about the book intrigues me, I'll pick it up. :)

Nope. And, at the moment, I prefer it that way. I like reading paper and ink rather than an electric screen.


*****

Title: Matched

Author: Ally Condie

Publisher: Dutton Books

Genre: Dystopian

Page Count: 366

Rating: 3.5 out of 5

Cover Rating: 4 out of 5. I like the green, and I like the way they put the girl in the orb. Plus, the font is very Dystopian-ish.

Inside flap:

In The Society, the Officlas decide. 

Who you love. Where you work. When you die. 

Cassia has always trusted their choices. It's hardly any price to pay for a long life, the perfect job, the ideal mate. So when her best friend is appears on the Matching screen, Cassia knowsn with complete certainty that he is the one . . . until she sees another face flash for an instant before the screen fades to black. Now Cassia is faced with impossible choices: between Xander and Ky, between the only life she's known and a path no one else has ever dared follow--between perfection and passion.

My expectations: Mixed. I had read positive reviews saying "This is a great book!" and meh reviews saying "This book was a take-off of [insert title here]" and negative reviews saying "This book isn't very good".

About the book: One thing I read several times is that this book is a lot like The Giver by Lois Lowry.


My opinion? This book really was not like The Giver. Mainly because Cassia, the main character, was very different from Jonas, as were the others the book focused on. The Society is similar in many ways, but it never made it into my head that "Yes! This book is like The Giver!"


The writing style I just couldn't get attached to. I felt like the author was trying to keep some distance between the reader and the character, which I don't usually mind, but in this case I found kind of flat. The scenes were not particularly detailed--I would get information on one thing, but not other factors that I really would have preferred to know about. It wasn't a bad style, but it isn't my favorite.

• Plot:

I could guess what happened. In what's probably every single YA book I've read the character goes after--taking from the blurb--"passion". Heck with "perfection". It's always passion, and this was no exception. Some details of the plot kept me going, like what the Society Officials were doing and if there would be revolution. I do love a good revolution.

• Characters:

Let me say this now: I did not like Cassia. At all, really. She was okay at first--I felt as if she was a little annoying but might turn out to have some real potential when I read the opening scene--but I just couldn't get attached to her. Another contrast with The Giver: Jonas cares about the people and citizens of his city and their well-being. Cassia, it seemed to me, does not. It's all KY. And goodness, don't get in her way when it comes to Ky.

Ky himself was interesting. Again, I just couldn't get attached to him. He had his secrets, and it was intriguing that he knew how to write like that, but he wasn't the most spectacular love interest. I liked him better than Cassia, however. He knew what the Society was really like, and what they did to people.

(I felt there were too few emotional obstacles between them. It was just the Officials in their way--and come on, relationships aren't like that. There's conflict between people.)

Xander was normal. He had his faults, but he cared about Cassia and he seemed less willing to just believe than Cassia did. I hope he comes back in the sequel, because I get the feeling he could really have his day.

• Setting/Elements:

The Society intrigued me. Their rules, regulations, laws, restrictions, what's not to find interesting and appalling about a government who destroys art, poetry, writing, everything except 100 works in each section of human expression?

Other: This book is relatively clean for a YA novel. In fact, I wouldn't say that Matched is significantly more violent/etc. than The Giver. It just has a romantic theme.

Do I recommend this book? Not really. I wouldn't say "Don't ever read this book!" but it's not on my list of must-reads.


-----The Golden Eagle

Book Review: Nomansland

Title: Nomansland

Author: Lesley Hauge

Publisher: Henry Holt and Company LLC

Genre: Dystopian/Speculative Fiction

Page Count: 243

Rating: 4 out of 5

Cover Rating: 4.5 out of 5. I really like this cover--the horse, girl, and bow/arrow all fit the book.

Inside flap:

Sometime in the future, after wars and fires have devastated the earth, a lonely, windswept island is populated solely by women. The women have survived against all odds by working hard in the fields. Their lives are tough.

   Among these women is a group of teenage Trackers--expert equestrians and archers--who are in training to protect their shores from the enemy. The enemy, they've been told, is men.

   When these girls come upon a partially buried home from the distant past, they are fascinated by the strange objects--high-heeled shoes, teen magazines, makeup--found there. What are they to make of these mysterious things, which introduce a world they have never known? And what does it mean for their strict society where friendship is forbidden and the rules must be obeyed--at all costs?

My expectations: I'm all for strong women and independence with regards to the female gender--so I was intrigued by the blurb, although I wasn't sure what to make of the "high-heeled shoes, teen magazines, makeup" part of it.


I found this an interesting book, meeting my expectations.

About the book: This book is a view of feminism taken to the extremes--with no men in the society at all, and the women are isolated and worked hard to support the community. They all have their different areas--the main character, Keller, is a Tracker trained to protect the borders of Foundland.


It wasn't really a book about women being strong/independent--it was dark and occasionally disturbing, and some the thoughts presented surprised me. For example, Ms. Windsor ***Minor spoilers here, nothing really serious*** believes that the Bible is all about subduing and presenting women as evil and seducing men--and that women were abused and treated badly when they tried to please men by dressing up/using makeup/etc.


To keep the society going, "Committee" members force the girls and women into artificial insemination. The "Seed" is described as being a painful and gruesome experience. The male children are taken away; it never explains what happens to them.


As for the the writing, it was strong. I liked the narrative, and I could picture the bleak world they lived in well.

• Plot:

I could predict some things that happened, but that doesn't mean it was weak. The plot was very good overall, and there were some surprises. The ending was satisfying enough, and lived up to the rest of the novel.

• Characters:

I didn't know what to make of Keller. Sometimes she seemed like a determined person, and other times she was dragged along with the rest of the crowd, not really thinking for herself--I did not like her generally, but she was an interesting character to read about.

Laing wasn't sensible. She was desperate for attention, and popularity, and I much preferred Keller over her--however, she was an interesting representation of a kind of person from modern society.

Ms. Windsor was a scary person, and complex. She wasn't evil, precisely, just blinded by her opinions. And her opinions were extreme, going to the farthest end of feminism and women that you can go. I didn't like her, either, but she was a terrifying person to read about.

There are no characters that I really enjoyed--they all have their sides, some ugly, some dark, some noble, some twisted. But despite that I couldn't really like any of them, each has their own personality, which I appreciated.

• Setting/Elements:

There are aspects to it that are thought-provoking (I know, overused phrase, but it's true) and it brought some interesting ideas on society and women.

The world was intriguing--I wanted to know more about it. It seemed like a rough environment, and I wonder where it was corresponding to current locations/countries; there were remnants of a "Time Before" that was clearly like the modern era.

Other: The descriptions of the "Seed" were disturbing; there's also violence, some language, cruelty, and references. It's not a very light read.

Do I recommend this book? Yes, if you want an interesting read on another perspective of women, and what it might be like in an all-female society.

-----The Golden Eagle