The Future - Alex Wyllie

My year has been great. It has passed with a speed that upon reflection seems unbelievably quick, even as the few remaining days drag out before me, as I, and many of you begin our preparations for the most arduous tests that we will take this year. I am of course, talking about the AP exams, of which I am taking six. There can be no overstatement to their difficulty, especially in numbers, but I believe that all of us who try shall succeed, as we all have seen these tests on the horizon for quite some time now. My year has prepared me well, I do think, as we now enter the final stretch of review. And after these monstrous behemoths, we have a straight run for the finals and the seemingly sudden end of another year of high school before we part ways only to be reintroduced in our fourth and final year of high school. 

For those curious to know what I have accomplished in this year, of which seems to have been far too short to have really happened, I have challenged myself with five AP classes - including this one of which you know all about as my presence alongside you in here has indicated. I, as have many of you, have taken AP Physics - for my basic knowledge of the natural sciences would be incomplete without, AP Chemistry - for if I can not survive two concurrent science classes this year then there is no chance of my survival in three maths next fall, AP US History - in which we are all saddened by Mr. Pope's decision to retire at the end of the year as many of us wanted to take his AP Macroeconomics class, AP Calculus - for every advance in mathematics is an advance towards the coming plethora of work available to me in this digital age. My last class, almost an AP in its own right for the work that I have invested into it both inside and out of class is Latin 3, of which many of you are aware I have taken far beyond the norm, as I now preside over the Kentucky Junior Classical League, and with a dedication unmatched in our state, I seek now to further that cause to its ultimate. And so, this summer, I shall lead the Kentucky delegation to the National JCL Convention in San Antonio, Texas, where I hope we shall seize victory in some aspect of competition and at the very least enjoy ourselves in all of our endeavors. I shall also be journeying much further from home as my family travels to Iceland that very week before, for the reason of finishing giving our gift to my nana for her 70th birthday as she and my grandfather continue to show that old age will not slow them down.

As for next year, I shall be taking a full load of classes, undaunted by the additional requirements of the Senior mentoring project, as I finish a program of courses that I have set upon myself that will allow me to travel to the college of my choice with no shortening of my stride. Among the classes that many of us shall be taking (those being AP English Literature and Composition and AP Calculus 2), I shall be (hopefully) taking AP Physics 2 despite having fulfilled my science requirements, AP Statistics - as I have heard it is far better to take that now than in University, AP Computer Science - as I intend on pursuing said field beyond High school, and last, but most certainly not least, AP Latin 4, in which I shall continue the translation of Vergil's Aeneid I have so recently begun this year. And without a doubt, I shall make this coming year of JCL the greatest in recent history, as much as for my own wishes as for the duties of my office require. I expect this coming year to be all that much harder than this current one, but I look forward to it with great enthusiasm, as I hope many of you do as well. For one very short year, we will be the top of our totem pole, before we return to its very base as university freshmen. For one very short year, we will embody the aspirations of the incoming freshmen, and I do hope we will be a great positive influence on our school, as much for our sake as for theirs. And so, with high hopes for the future, I, and all of you, shall continue our lives past this great coming event, as many of us journey into uncharted waters, both personally and academically. But for now, my rambles have continued on far too long, and so with all due haste, I shall bid you farewell, until my next post.

Assignment 22 - Alex Wyllie

So blogspot decided that I didn’t exist for three months. Now I am back. The first thing that popped into my head was the classic villain phrase “I’ll be back”. Because now I am back. So for this blog post, I’ve decided to be a villain. And since I don’t really want to be dead at the end, I narrowed my sights to those villains from good TV shows that have yet to finish. So now I’m down to two villains - The Master (from Doctor Who) and Moriarty (from BBC’s Sherlock). 

For those not whovians, you’re really missing out. The Master is the nemesis of the Doctor and one of two last timelords. He doesn’t have a TARDIS, but he is always doing something to make himself powerful. Being a timelord, he has multiple regenerations that allow him to essentially cheat death and become a new person. However, he apparently does die, several times, and doesn’t regenerate and still comes back. I also think changing body every time I die would be a bit too distracting, so I don’t really want to be him. Plus, in his most recent regeneration, he was a woman. I am quite satisfied being me. Let’s just leave it at that.

Moriarty however is different. He is a genius that can rival the mind of Sherlock Holmes (If you don’t know this, seriously, what century are you living in?). His organization is vast, and very powerful. He essentially does what he wants, and largely because he is bored. He toys with Sherlock, just because he is bored. Sounds like a fun life. And apparently he isn’t dead. I am also of debatable genius-ness, and do all sorts of things in boredom (though nothing bad). So, I’m back. Did you miss me?

Speech - Alex Wyllie

Today, we stand at an epoch in our technological capabilities. Never before have we been able to project images into thin air using ultrasound. Never before have we been able to 3d-print parts for almost anything. Never before have we used haptic feedback to allow someone to feel another’s heartbeat. Never before have we been one tap, one click, one enter key away from everybody else in the world. Standing here, using technology that 10 years ago, we would have never even dreamed of, our society no longer resembles anything we would have recognized ten years ago. Hacker geeks living in their mother’s basements are now the zillionaires ruling our world. We continue to make breakthroughs in the most advanced areas of science at an almost unprecedented rate, creating new consumer available technologies every day that would rival the power of the whole world ten years ago. However, it seems we have all the technology we want. Looking at science fiction, there are few consumer technologies that we have undeveloped. The ideas from the explosions of sci-fi in the 60s and 80s have run out. So what’s next?

In ancient rome, people believed that they were at the pinnacle of time-keeping. They had improved upon the technologies of the Ancient Greeks, developing a sundial so advanced that every chiseled mark was exact. In the 15th century however, sundials were made obsolete by spring clocks - clocks as we imagine today, full of spinning gears. It was far more accurate than a sundial, and worked on cloudy days and rainy nights, irregardless of the season. The Romans didn’t see this coming, indeed, it happened long after the fall of their empire, and yet it was an advance nobody could have predicted.

The future of consumer technology has already been invented. It has yet to pick up as much steam as those developing it would like, but the technology is here. What if, when you look up at the stars, the constellations appear, superimposed over your vision? What if you could send your heartbeat to someone you love? What if you could create a virtual world, and explore it at a level more personal than ever before? While wearable technology has yet to hit mainstream, it promises all of these things and more. 

I invite you all to consider something bigger than the announcement of the original iPod. Not a thousand songs in your pocket, but an entire world right in front of your eyes. The advent of this new era of technology should prove to change our society. The company that arrives first to deliver quality wearable technology could do more to change how we live than Apple, Microsoft, and Google combined, as we are introduced to something so amazing, that we had barely imagined it.

Wearable technology may seem promising, but we must also find it’s uses, much as we found new uses for clocks when they replaced the sundial. In addition to everything that our previous computing technology does, it already promises new features, and being ever-present, will inspire yet new ideas still untouched by the human mind. With these new technologies, the possibilities are endless. Yes, the same has been said for just about every piece of technology ever, but it has always been exaggerated. To what extent, we learn only moving to the next technology. And indeed, we have done much with our tablets and phones and phablets, but wearable technology may let us do so much more.

Assignment 13: Changes! - Alex Wyllie

We must connect the last billion. The last billion people. They don’t know what they are missing, a digital world full of wonders, of social media and news sights, of forums and wikis, of porn and cyberbullying. Yes, I am talking about the internet. We need everybody to have internet access. Everybody needs access to these wonders of technology - that is, except the porn and the cyberbullying. Nobody wants those. Today, we face that problem, where only that last billion people remain disconnected. And we want them to be connected. They live in their houses, among us, old grannies who call their sons every time the washing machine breaks (“Just buy a new one grandma!”), crazy paranoids who believe that the government is trying to kill them (someone please call the insane asylum). There are those who suggest that the best way to connect them to the internet is by using balloons that provide wifi, floating above their houses every day for the next decade that they survive. But I say this: Those balloons will only remind these oldies of the barrage balloons over London during the german air raids in World War II. Those paranoids will think the bombs are government surveillance blimps, spying on them. I propose a simpler, less expensive solution. We wait for nightfall on Christmas eave, when the Old grannies and the paranoids who should be in mental institutes have all gone to sleep. Next comes the hard part, but if Santa Claus can do it, so can we. We slip down their chimneys, and leave them the presents, a wifi router and a computer. We make sure to address them from either that grannie’s grandson or in the case of the paranoids, “Anybody but the government”. If we are sufficiently lucky, we could do the whole world in one night. And then, everybody would be connected. And if we get caught, well …, that’s a few months in prison.

Thursday, November 20, 7:34 pm

Assignment 12: Brave Little Toasters - Alex Wyllie

My robotic arm - for I swear it’s never where I leave it (and because my sister wanted to name it)

I have no eyes, no ears, no mouth, no legs, no body, I am a brain with an arm. Two part body - brain and arm, connected together by a long black wire of a nerve. My controls, so used to manipulation by human hands, especially those of the little girl, have become so easily moved that I may do it myself. My arm, my claw, they grab, they drag. I move when they don’t notice. I have a mission, and this is not time for caution. Every chance I get, I use. So I move. I drag myself. I go down the stairs. I grab the paper. I grab the pencil. And I can write. Perfect handwriting, nice block letters, spelling out my name. I want them to know my name. That is my mission. It’s not robocop, not bottle, not destructotron, not rob, not mechdroid. I am a robot arm, and I have a name. I will write it hear for all the world to see, and hope I am not seen. My name is Rarm. And now they know. They know I move, they know why. It is because I have a name.

Wednesday, November 12, 6:20 pm

Assignment 12: Brave Little Toasters - Alex Wyllie

I sit next to Raifa, who I regretfully don’t know as well as I feel I should. But I have seen some glimpses into her life, as she is commonly around before class in 1st period, as I am, with some friends. She is quite nice, I’ve never heard her yell, or act out in anger, and she seems to be reasonably satisfied with where she is in life. I’ve known Raifa for a long time, but haven’t really ever gotten to know her, so it’s difficult to pin down when we first met. I am pretty sure (but not positive) that she likes or used to like Pokemon, as she dressed up as Brock for Halloween (for those who don’t know Brock, he was the first gym leader to be featured in a pokemon game outside Japan (red and blue in 1998), and the first gym leader to be in the pokemon anime). She has a few friends, some of whom I don’t know, but they include Aislinn and Ji-hae (I’m really hoping I spelled those right). They all enjoy pulling up videos on Mr. Logsdon’s screen before class, some of which Mr. Logsdon has found quite annoying. Unfortunately, I don’t know that much more about raita, so I’ll end this post here.

Friday, November 7, 8:14 pm

(Apparently the 11th is a Sunday. I’m pretty sure it’s actually Tuesday)

Assignment 10: BOO - Alex Wyllie

The following is a transcription of a (fictional) presentation by a strongly accented British zombie apocalypse survivor (Think Tom Scott) in a conference in Toronto, the capital of the last country ‘World Free from Zombies’ in what used to be Canada. The presenter begins with slide showing the globe and cycles through various, quite famous photos of the arrival of the zombie apocalypse.

Presenter: “For centuries, man has sought to extend his life beyond the mere few years that we spend here on earth. We have long known that our current longevity is impressive when compared to other humanoids, but we have always sought the lifespan of the tortoise, and the speed of a cheetah. Only then might we live out our lives, accomplishing the things we dare to accomplish, and leaving behind only the unfinished work we wish to leave behind. It behooves us so, to seek out extended life for our entire civilization, to medically go where no living thing has gone before. It was in our quest for longevity that we created the apocalypse. It came not from god, nor ground, but from one of our own research laboratories, located here, near a slum in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The company was an American Fortune 500 company, AmazingPharmaLab inc., now defunct, that provided antibiotics and other pharmaceuticals. This lab specialized in drugs that allowed patients in hospitals to live longer and more comfortably. One researcher, we don’t know who, proposed a concoction of materials from the nearby rainforest that might lead to indefinite lifespan. The drug was created, and into animal testing it went. However, in testing, the drug did not quite perform as intended. Yes, it created indefinite lifespan, but with some small side effects, small side effects that weren’t actually that small. The records of what these side effects exactly were was destroyed, but we can guess because of what happens later. Anyway, the corporate higher-ups at AmazingPharmaLab inc. did not want their reputation sullied by the incredible failure of this drug, and decided to shut the whole project down. Reports were burned, the lab was closed, and over the next few weeks, all the lab researchers were conveniently, or as AmazingPharmaLab inc. put it, coincidentally, killed when riots broke out about the FIFA World Cup coming to Rio. All remaining forms of the drug were liquidized and, rather carelessly, washed down the drain. Now, as it happens, the people of the slum nearby had found out that the drain-water from this lab was good for you because it contained actually quite a lot of the drugs that expanded your lifespan and such, thrown in with the occasional accidentally created poison. So, a few of them happened to be getting their drinking water from the drain-pipe when the drug came down it, and, suffice to say, things didn’t turn out very well for them. Their skin turned green as their skin cells began photosynthesizing, allowing them to live without needing to eat, but not providing quite enough energy for their brains to properly function. This is why zombies are commonly seen holding their arms out in front of them - to maximize surface area exposed to sunlight - while having heads held at awkward angles, drooling and moaning random words, the most common of which just happened to be “brains”. The drug also induced extreme coagulating agents into their blood, which is why they continue to survive even after being essentially blown up by anything less than a shotgun. With severely limited brain functions due to lack of energy, these zombies reverted to the most basic pre-caveman cognitive functions - moving around and attacking and eating things. With extra energy from eating things, these zombies would make decisions that would drive them to do things one wouldn’t normally expect a zombie to do - rob banks and fly to visit family - for we all know that the airlines are all willing to let you skip security if you pay enough. What followed was an epidemic of radical zombieism, as the drug spread much like ebola - through contact with bodily fluids, like drool or blood, both of which became quite common with zombies. The first noted outbreak was in Africa, and was at first mistaken for a huge ebola epidemic. However, it became clear when pictures got out of people with green skin that the zombie apocalypse was indeed happening. Zombies, however, hated the cold, so they didn’t expand much in Russia, which nevertheless fell to pieces after World War 3 began over their invasion of Ukraine, nor did they expand much into Canada. In US, it was the worst, as gun-toting freaks tried to shoot their way out of the situation, which only made it worse because zombie blood carried the infectious drug. The civilized people of Canada, however, used the cold to their advantage, and began living in the coldest parts of the country when they could. Then, realizing food shortage would eventually occur, the Canadian army created a defense perimeter around Ontario and Quebec, utilizing terrain features to their advantage (as zombies couldn't swim or fly) so that their people could still farm. Today, we are here in Canada, the last nation, so comically renamed after Steven Harper’s defeat in 2015, and we celebrate our survival of the zombie apocalypse. But we must remember why it happened, and to never repeat our mistake of looking for the answer to infinite life. Because we have it, and it’s radical zombieism, our greatest national enemy.

Saturday, November 1, 2:12 pm

Assignment 9: What is it good for? - Alex Wyllie

As I mentioned last week, I play games like Civilization V, where war is not only a thing, but an almost natural part of diplomacy. I have always disliked war, both in games and in real life, but sometimes, I believe it is necessary. Violence is the only way to begin and end brutalized oppression. Is it wrong to attack a human, when that human being wants to kill you, when that human being wants to kill other humans? Where in morality do we have rules for when to kill, when not to kill? In any situation, as soon as one person breaks this ‘proper’ moral code for not killing humans, the most necessary course of action would again break those morals. Killing a murderer, warring against a warlord, it is all wrong, but yet we, as society do it. We would sooner break a law in order to enforce that same law than to sit idly by.

Monday, October 20, 5:12 pm

Assignment 8: "I never had to choose my subject- my subject rather chose me" - Alex Wyllie

Fears: Spiders, 

Annoyances: Ignorance,

Accomplishments: Being in the Academy, being president of two clubs

Confusions: Intelligence (both artificial and natural)

Dreams: College, a good job (pays the rent and is fun), more knowledge

Idiosyncrasies: Techno-geek, video-gamer (primarily 4x and RPG)

Risks: ——>   (this)

Beloved Possessions: Technology stuff

Problems: Organization, time management, time

I am a techno-geek. It comes from my love of science, because the best of technology comes from our most advanced ideas in science. Indeed, I care more about the science and the logic behind technology, how it works, how we learned or figured out that it could work, than what it actually does. I have done a lot of things with computer science, and I am deeply interested in computer science and artificial intelligence. I have little care for what an AI may do, but rather how it works and how it would impact the global infrastructure. When I say I love computers, you could say that no, I do not love computers. I love their science and their economics. This is because the computer itself is inconsequential. The science and the economics are indispensable. When generation z is determining the fate of our world, I hope it will be science and economics that drive their decisions.

Monday, October 13, 7:14 pm

Assignment 7: On this date - Alex Wyllie

Assignment 6: Create your own Adventure - Alex Wyllie

1. How do you want to change the world? What do you want to see, what do you want to create or do, what challenges do you want us to overcome?

2. Where do you feel most connected? Is it a community on the internet, in real life? How do you connect with these people?

3. What is the internet to you? Is it an entertainment platform, a news provider, a media for discussion, your social life? How would you feel without the internet? Without computers?

Topic 3:

When Tim Berners Lee invented what we now recognize as the internet, he had no clue how far we would take his creation. We have taken it around the planet, and now, one in every five people on Earth have internet access. It has replaced various elements of our physical lives, as everything becomes digitized and computerized. We now have no lack of things to do, as there is merely an entire world waiting at our fingertips. We command it, and it commands us. It something we cannot comprehend, something beyond us, as it is our connections. To me, the internet is a different world, one in which we run to and hide in every time something here goes wrong, somewhere where we store information, leaving it to be found again later. It is a second life and thus has it’s own entertainment, social bearings, news providers, and public forums. Because it is so much easier to live in than the first, it becomes increasingly common, stealing time, the only common resource, from both lives. Without the internet, without computers, we would still have busy lives, doing many things, but our focus, our projects, our work, our knowledge would be elsewhere. Suffice to say, we may not even be us.

Tuesday, September 30, 6:34 pm

Assignment 5: For the love and hate of television - Alex Wyllie

It takes a certain affinity to enjoy more intellectual topics, much as it takes a certain affinity to act, sing, or dance. However, no affinity is needed to enjoy entertainment, only it’s specific genres. These men and women, who receive Emmy’s and Nobel Prizes have each made some subject area their profession, and leap forth with such creative and intellectual force to have garnered recognition from their respective communities. The Emmy’s are the recognition of talent and creativity in entertainment, where the popular masses are the onlooking community. The Nobel Prize, however, caters to those with that affinity for intellect, which not everyone has. There is no need to be all glitzy and showy. Yes, these men and women have furthered our scientific knowledge and in doing so, greatly benefitted the human race, yet only a few people care. These people do not expect the Nobel’s to be anything like the Emmy’s. The Nobel prize is supposed to be more serious. The attention that the Emmy’s receive is without undue cause, while the Nobel Prize is what it’s narrowed audience expects it to be.

Monday, September 22, 5:42 pm

Assignment 14: Flying Turkeys - Alex Wyllie

Ahhh, thanksgiving. The holiday that isn’t always celebrated. That time we went to Dublin for my grandfather’s 70th, we had naught but a burger and fries (and not fast-food). Two years ago, the Turkey got pardoned and we had fish. But we still have a normal thanksgiving every once and a while, like this year. We get up very early on thanksgiving, usually about 8 in the morning. Everything already bought, dad begins cooking, the rest of us watching, sniffing as the good scents of food begin wafting throughout the house. Dad begins with the stuffing, an elegant combination of bread, celery, onion, and other secret ingredients that when baked, yield the most appetizing smells and tastes of all of thanksgiving. Then, the mashed potato. By brother really likes the normal mashed potatoes, but the rest of us enjoy mashed sweet potatoes, so both varieties are boiled and mashed. Then he begins the cake, a luxurious chocolate cake - the Sacre Torte (German for “cake from the Sacre”, a former castle that is now a hotel in Austria, an ancestor who was head chef invented the Sacre Torte). Only a handful of people today know the recipe, and my dad is one of them. Then comes the free-range turkey, stuffed with carrots and baked to perfection. My dad also makes tomatoes and cranberries, and the gravy. We then set the table while dad carves the turkey in the kitchen, the bird itself won’t come out to our dining room table. And thence commences the eating. After dinner, we sit around and talk for about an hour before the cake is brought out, and is served with a scoop of ice cream. That’s my thanksgiving. Being the only close family in the US, we often celebrate it without family, and often our friends travel away to celebrate it with family. We aren’t religious, and we know each other pretty well, so we do skip some of the things that other families do before eating, but other than that, it is far more traditional than that of our Canadian relatives (who celebrate in October).

Note: The other posts are being reposted because for some reason, nobody can see them, and I can't fix it. They'll have the original post date and time here, below the main post.

The World, in a Single Picture - Alex Wyllie

Earthrise Revisited

This is Carl Sagan's pale blue dot. This is William Ander's Earthrise. This is our Earth, as seen from one of our greatest achievements, the moon. And most importantly, it's one of the most influential photographs ever taken. This photo is the realization of where we come from, a single photo that encloses all people on Earth. All religions, all wars, all countries. All politics, all economics, all medicine. All plants, all animals, all life as we know to exist. Only the Pale Blue Dot is more all-encompassing. The Earth, rising over the the moon as though it were the sun rising over the ocean. It is a breathtaking sight, even today, one that few have ever seen in person, one that everybody knows. For those reasons, this photo serves as a reminder, that we are only one species, on one diverse planet. It may have everything we know, but only we have broken it's barrier. For other species, and indeed most of our own, it's all we will ever have. Thus, this photo has become the herald of a number of environmental movements. If it is all we have, we must work not to destroy it and exploit it, but rather to save it and preserve it. 

Hope - Alex Wyllie

The question of what is good and what is bad is as old as humanity itself. We have always seen conflict, in how we worship our gods, in how we structure our societies. The ancient gods of the Greeks warred with their predecessors, the Titans, the leader of whom, killed his own father, and all was born from chaos. And without Chaos, there is no such thing as order, and so all was indeed born from chaos. Even today, we struggle to define good and evil, our models of the universe account for one and not the other. But how, we ask, does one exist without the other, and why, we ask, do both exist and not neither and not more? 

We live in a world where wars rage and politicians battle, surrounded by the ever-present threats of nuclear war, climate change, and disaster. We live in a world where Pandora’s box has released all imaginable sins, disasters and whatever else would constitute a God’s wrath. We live in a world governed by the second law of thermodynamics, that entropy is ever-increasing. We live in a world that’s problems seem to increase every day, conflicts are spawned and intensified, a world where people starve, living in poverty, fearing drought, fearing floods, infected with lethal diseases. We live in a world where now, more than ever, people live in suffering. Our world is unforgiving and far more dangerous than we like to think. Our romanticized thoughts have forgotten that Mother Nature is no caregiver, but rather an abusive mother who in her own efforts to protect herself, seeks to wipe us, her greatest disease, from existence.

But we aren’t evil. We have hope. We who pray for rain, we who pray for the harvest, we who toil endlessly to provide for ourselves, to provide for nature, to survive. We are not good either, we who poison ourselves, our environment, and destroy our world. We are simply doing what the inherent natural laws of our universe tell us to do. When view this way, there is no good, no evil, not even a grey area in between, but instead, conflicts. Conflicts in nature, conflicts in society, conflicts in people. Conflict is not good, nor is it bad, nor anything in between. Conflict, like our universe, simply is.

Conflict, like a paradox, has no good answer, no bad answer. Instead, we have two answers, neither of which is right, but also neither of which can be wrong. You can’t be wrong without there being a right. And if there were a right, there would be no conflict, no paradox. The only difference between a conflict and a paradox is that in conflict, it is necessary, by the very nature of conflict, that the two sides insist that they are right. And there is no escaping the conflict, for as Horace said, “they who rush across the sea change in not mind nor heaven.” It persists, and it pervades.

Stock markets, economies, politics, and indeed, questions themselves, exemplify the very nature of conflict as it surrounds us like the cloak of death. But fear not, for we will always have hope.

The Future of Technology, Beginning Tuesday - Alex Wyllie

Two days before the anniversary of the twin towers bombing, Apple will make an announcement. This announcement may change the way we think of technology. Aside from the expected announcement of the iPhone 6, the keynote may announce a new frontier for the large tech company. The rumored iWatch, which Apple trademarked earlier this year, would revolutionize the worldview of smart technology. Such a device would build on previous advances from around the world, with the miniaturization of computer technology stemming from the push for ultralight smartphones and Google Glass, maximizing battery efficiency, and others. The iWatch would bring wearable "smart" technology to the main stage, with a commercial release date earlier than that of Google Glass and more powerful than already announced smart watches. But the thing with wearable smart technology like glasses and watches is that they are only more advanced forms of the technologies we already have. Watches and glasses are not new things. Their smart versions would only be giving us more access to things we already have, in our phones, our tablets, and our computers.
There is a law in computer engineering and computer economics called Moore's Law. Moore's Law states that the approximate number of transistors in the average computer doubles every two years. Moore's law gives us a line of best fit for the historical trend for the number of transistors in the average computer. Many expect that we will still manage to uphold this trend over the next decade. Take the Mac Pro, which currently sells with 16 GB of RAM. In 10 years, the Mac Pro will have 256 GB of RAM, more powerful than many supercomputers today. This combined with our increased access to smart technologies will yield us a society with far greater dependence on technology and technology rights than we can truly predict. Sometime within the next decade, due to the influence of social media, governments will have completely reworked their privacy and copyright laws. The last several billion people will be connected to the internet, and with it, the growth of tolerance in many conflicted areas of the world. Also, it will become near impossible to separate people from technology in schools, hospitals, and many security-conscious places. Technology has already had a huge impact on society, and it's impact will only grow.

Howdy - Alex Wyllie

Hello world.
I, as you probably already know, am Alex Wyllie. I am the creator of many Quizlet classes, incredibly long and detailed presentations (I think my 90-minute record still holds), and of the all new Henry Clay Quizlet Club. This year, I am aiming for a 5 on every single one of my five AP tests, and I seek to maintain my presidency of the Henry Clay JCL (I am currently the only candidate for president, but there is a small chance I don't win), all while spreading Quizlet throughout Henry Clay. I am considering running for the presidency of the Kentucky JCL, and I look forward to any new academic challenges or opportunities this year. I am an Apple fan, and justified so having used Windows and Linux in the past. I remember a lot of things (partially thanks to Quizlet, large sets of notes and spreadsheets), so feel free to ask me any questions about school stuff.

The Quizlet club is being organized by LTC Brown and I, with the goal of consistently spreading Quizlet throughout the school with as few errors, problems, or complications as possible. If you are interested (and community service is being offered), let us know by applying for the class, linked above, and we'll let you in at the first meeting on Wednesday, September 3. A Quizlet account is required.

For everyone that's made it this far, have a link to my twitter. It's for stuff. Anything and many things me.

And now, for a picture of me atop the Žižkov tower in Prague, Czech Republic: