While machine may usurp many menial tasks – typing of letters, making out paychecks – it can also work in less mundane ways. One such example was the use of a computer to predict the result of football game. All the information about the two teams: speed of the back, weight of linesmen, past performances …
Prabowo rejection rant on Youtube
Prabowo Subianto, in his latest speech uploaded to Youtube, has once again slung mud at the democratic process of the 2014 presidential election. He said the election was marred by “massive and systematic” fraud and accused president-elect Joko “Jokowi” Widodo of cheating throughout the whole process. In his 23-minute speech, Prabowo said he had chosen …
The Language Machine
Those who see the spread of automated machines as a nefarious force out to usurp the proper functions of mankind have corroboration for their belief in the language machine. The paltry handful of expert translator with a profound knowledge of many foreign languages leave a wide gap in out sources of vital information. With important …
The Library Machine
As automation permeates many new idea of life, its effect upon us becomes concomitantly more profound. Information processing and communications machines are finding their way into libraries. Here they alleviate the burden of storing and bringing out to the reader the accumulation of information which is becoming more prodigious in this era of specialization and …
The People Decide
The place of propaganda in which is not free differs from its place in an open society. In a dictatorship there is no competing propaganda. Those who dissent from the official line may do so only in a clandestine manner. Where there is no open ferment of ideas, the possibility of discerning the true from …
Who Listens?
As the quantity of propaganda become greater, ideas are presented in more strident tones in order to overcome the increased competition. Those who are the targets of the propaganda find it more difficult to discern between or analyze the new and expanded pressures. The concomitant situation which develops with the stepped-up propaganda is one in …
A free Society
In a free society it is intrinsic that the individuals and groups have the inherent right to propagate ideas and try to win converts. We do not look upon an idea different from ours as an anomaly which should be precluded. Nor do we permit only innocuous or congenial beliefs and forbid those that we …
Choose Sagely
Today, the paramount influence in the forming of public opinion is propaganda. It is not a heresy to our democratic beliefs to state that pressure groups play an important part in our lives. Propaganda makes one vulnerable to the influences of others. Prudent person will chose between cogent and specious propaganda efforts. While propaganda has …
The Double-Cross
Many incidents that took place aboard his ship are re-told by Twain. One has to do with a wealthy cattle man who was approached by three gamblers. The cattle farmer had let it be known that he had a great deal of money, and the gamblers were trying to him into a card game. He …
The River-Boat Pilot
The river-boat pilot was a man considered omnipotent by all. Mark Twain once held that high position. He writes that he felt at the zenith of his life at that time. Starting out as a fledgling pilot’s apprentice, he could not abjure dreams of the time he would become, “the only unfettered and entirely independent …