Google vs Drug trafficking

It is a well know channel to sources of information around the world. It is what we use most in our day-to-day life. It is a tool for the easy access to contact and information. I’m talking about internet. But, despite its multiple applications, it is still full with trashy information that is not worth searching for; however, it can be used by the people for the people.

People face many problems every day, from the bill we all have to pay to some hard times we face at work, but there is a problem that is affecting everyone’s life in the United States, and more specifically, in Latin countries such as Mexico or Cuba. I’d like to refer to Drug trafficking.

According to Victor Hugo Michel, website Nuestraaparaterendicion.com journalist, Drug trafficking is a phenomenon that has, so far, taken the lives of 24.102 people. Those people were in Cartels (Criminals groups dedicated to commercialize with illegal stuff), and these groups are often involved in skirmishes with other Cartels, being hitmen killing members of enemy criminal factions as a result. Such amount of dead people does not include the figures of the most violent cities in Mexico, such as Guerrero or Michoacán.

What are authorities doing? Nothing that could qualify as useful, but the work titled Knowing where and How Criminal Organizations Operate Using Web Content by the researchers Viridiana Rios (Mexican) and Michele Coscia (Italian), proves that Internet (Google) can also be a great tool for investigation and the tracking of criminal organizations. That report shows the big scale gathering of information, which being relied only upon the effort of police or authorities wouldn’t be enough; on the contrary, are people who give information and several online papers re being used as sources of information too.

Is there any media Coverage? Yes, there is. The work of the previously mentioned researchers is based on statistics and data collected and given through internet channels of information.

So, do you think mass media helps? Would you help organizations with anti-criminal orientation to develop their work?

Works cited

Article here

Media coverage

Media Coverage: Harvard

Statistics

Google Docs: the current trend toward group work at university

Personally, I am not a follower of group activities; especially, those which are asked to be done after our class time since it is always a difficult duty to schedule meeting with other people outside the lecture room due to the different timetables. Particularly in a university context where most of the participants study and probably do something else apart from it. 

Fortunately, now it is not a headache any more since the Net is offering us a wide variety of tools to carry out those tedious assignments at home. Namely, Google Docs. It is a freeware that gives us the opportunity to do our  pending class work on-line.

With that application, it is possible to create different documents that the rest of our classmates can edit simultaneously or afterwards. So it is not necessary that we waste our free time getting together. For all those reasons, this program is getting more and more popular among students.

 In this sense, I would dare to say since this Google product was launched in 2006; almost nobody is doing group activities in the more traditional way: students do not gather to work face-to-face. On the contrary, they all enter the web page at different times preventing the exchange of ideas and a deep discussion of them. In short, the work is carried out as it were an individual one. 

To sum up, it is important to mention that Google Docs' usefulness is out of debate; the problem is that we overuse it, and we have forgotten that our professors included group job in their teaching programs due to the benefits behind it; in fact, it is expected that through this way of working, learns could be able to develop not only cognitive but also social/interpersonal skills.


Taking all the factors exposed above into account, could it be appropriate we labelled that as group work?




As we cannot deny the usefulness of this application; now I am going to show you a video where you are going to find the guidelines to use Google Docs.


In the video, it is possible for us to see how Google Docs works, and all the opportunities this tool offers its users., in terms of types of documents you can create and all the pre- designed patterns available. 

Can Facebook worsen love relationships?

Can Facebook worsen love relationships?

Have you ever arrived home very tired of work or university, and wanting to have a break from problems of real life? Many times Facebook has played the role of our entertainment; however, we don´t know how much it can affect our personal relations. Recent studies have shown that there are certain features of Facebook that make it a source of problems among couples. Many people have confessed that they have had problems because of the information that is shared on Facebook.  One of its characteristics is related to time; not only the time that they spend on the social network, but also what are they really doing on it during that period of time. Another important aspect is the over-informative attribute that is related to Facebook. This means that you can control what you write; yet you can´t control what other people write about you, what they write on your wall, and what they read about you.  For instance, a girl notices that her boyfriend has accepted five friends requests of girls that she doesn´t know, so they have an argument.  Of course that jealousy itself as well as self-esteem and emotional health are starting points in these situations. What do you think is to blame? Is it technology that influences our relations, or is our own personalities that we can´t control? 

Slaves of technology

Nowadays, people easily have access to technology. Internet, laptops, cell phones are key factors of that. However, with all these applied science, we tent to live our lives through it. Facebook, Twitter, even our e-mails are forms of communication that make us to be always connected to a website. When was the last time that you did not stay front a computer for a long time? And by a long time I am referring to a year. Do you remember? I do not think so.

During the last years, people in companies started to use internet as a source to exchange information with their workers. It is a fast way to be in contact with employees. Nevertheless, it is normal that people get tired of receiving messages or emails all the time.  The professor of London’s Global University, Caroline Sauvajol-Rialland, found out in a study that “excessive emails and general information result in social and psychological risks to employees and impoverishes the company”. Those workers spend 30% of their time at work attending calls or emails that demand immediate answers. Because of that, people get stress easily and their family lives start to disappear.

We are becoming slaves of technology and its changes. It would not surprise me that in a few years, the only way to show that we care for our beloved ones will be through internet. What do you think?

Jules Verne: The prophet of modern technology

Verne was born in 1828 and in his books said that in a future there would be unthinkable devices for the time that would make people’s life much simpler. In his book “Paris in the twentieth century” written in 1863 and published in 1994, described a dehumanized and tyrannized society by technology. It mentions a railway that runs through the city, urban lighting generated with electricity, some “calculation instruments” which are similar to the current electronic calculators, a worldwide "telegraphic" communications network (internet?) with a system of personal and instant messages that replaced the common letters used at that time (e-mail?).

This book also describes our society, caught up in machinery, vehicles and technological tools to make easier our daily life. It also mentions inventions such as the “phonotelephote” that according to Verne it allowed "the transmission of images by means of sensitive mirrors connected by wires,” this device sounds as a pioneer of today’s videoconferencing technologies.

In his novel “From the earth to the moon” anticipates the moon landing with specific details about the spaceship, the landscapes of the moon and even that the astronauts would become weightless in space. He made these predictions more than a hundred years before the Apollo project.

He saw all these technologies with a century of anticipation. How could he do that?

Do you think that Verne was a prophet or just a good guesser?  How would you describe the world in a hundred years from now?

here you can see a trailer of a movie called "The Fantastic World of Jules Verne" inspired in his novels which are full of modern machinery.