CS371p Fall 2020: Amit Samuel
What did you do this past week?
This past week began with a visit to the hospital. I injureed my back and was immobilized for a few days. Other than that, it was a productive week. I spent most of it working on the Collatz lab and finishing up any small tasks assigned to me in my classes. I am also a pod mentor, so I spent a good part of the week helping them with their 3rd week of college.
What’s in your way?
The major obstacles in my way were, one, my back, and two, all the small and unessecary tasks getting in the way of the bigger challenges I have to face.
What will you do next week?
Next week will be spent finishing up labs and assignments from my non-OOP classes and getting my pod peas ready for career fair and recruiting. The remaining projects I have left this week are in Modern Web Apps and a history class I’m taking. I’ve all but submmited my Modern Web Apps lab, so I will do than. And I will complete the history modules I’ve been putting off for a few weeks.
What was your experience of Collatz, the starter code, the makefile, its optimizations, and exceptions? (this question will vary, week to week)
I had a nice time with the Collatz lab. I felt it wasn’t overly challenging, but I was still able to learn a lot. I felt the starter code was fairly self explanitory and easy to follow. The makefile had a lot of useful information and helpful commands that took the effort out of testing. I enjoyed doing the optimizations. I like competitive programming, so these were fun more than anything. Although I hadn’t used doxygen before so that took a while to get acclimated to.
What made you happy this week?
My girfriend and I started a new TV show this week. It is a cartoon series from our childhood and I always enjoy wathing it again. We also got legos from the store and spent time building them.
What’s your pick-of-the-week or tip-of-the-week?
My pick of the week is about autonomous weapons. There’s and on going debate about whether Autonmous Weopons should be out right banned, or whether we should give them consideration. The Pro Ban AW case states that it will open a pandoras box for an Autonomous arms race, much like the nuclear arms race. And it also makes it easier for countries to jump into war since militaries don’t have to think too heavily about loss of soldiers lives.
Conversly, the Anti-ban case states if humanity is going to continue this route of war and violence, we should use Autonomous Weapons to eliminate unecessary civilian casualities and make better decisions than a stressed wartime soldier would have to.
I tend to lean on the preemptive ban side to try and eliminate the negative feed back loop of using technology to make wars easier to fight, instead of making them less frequent. I however, think the anti-ban stance brings up valid points about civilial and military casualties, however they fail to consider the humans on the other end of the field that are likely follwing order out of misguidance or fear. I also agree that Autonomous technology that should be in the military, just not in the form of weapons. If we have the technology to make killer robots, then we can surely use it for defense. I feel a more protective and perceptive approch to Autonomous technology would be able to keep your own safe and mitigate any threat without inciting violence.
