Week 2 [21-27.10.19] City activists

Read the presentation at 

https://konwersatorium1-ms-pjwstk.blogspot.com/2019/10/week-2-1410-201019-city-activists-right.html

and comment on it/discuss it here. 

Week 2 [21-27.10.2019] Automation!

Have you ever asked yourself a question what actually the Bot is? 

"You're either the one that creates the automation or you're getting automated"

 - Tom Preston-Werner

      At least once in your lifetime you've been persuaded to tick the form that you're not a robot, I bet you did!  Modern web services are checking if the interaction is made by human-being not without a reason and in this article I'll bring some light on it.

      Instance of the Bot is like box fulfilled with what is called Bot Tasks. Each Bot Task is a script     (variety is wild, from XML to Python) that based on the system and GUI accessibility proceed some actions designed during the process of creation. Combining those tasks creates the Bot that is able to act like (super) human.

In the picture you can see the structure of usage Bot as ChatBot.

      The idea of the Bot was to cover time consuming and repeatable actions but as you're probably aware - possibility of usage is almost infinite.
Big companies combining Bot capability, ML and AI created huge potential for data processing. For example whole supply chain of international company can be automated in around 85-90% ( shipments, customer claims, payments etc) - hundreds of thousand documents each month are proceeded on VMs with actions that are similar to traditional users.
      I mentioned previously about reCAPTCHA - bots are also used to generate fake traffic on websites or to speed up the process of buying stuff online. There're lots of collector goods sell on the internet these days and it's really profitable to resell them.  Here's where the bots pops up!
For ex. Supreme - NYC based streetwear brand - each drop of their stuff is sold out within few minutes but the most valuable items are off the "shelfs" after few seconds!! It's because well designed bots that are able to proceed the whole human-experience purchase several times faster that any "real" person.

You can see the example of usage one of automation toolkit which is called WorkFusion :

or if anyone would be interested, Bot creation for Supreme purchase :

Questions :
1. Have you ever heard about the Bots?
2. Have you ever tried to create one?
3. Do you think that replacing human-tasks with robots is dangerous?

Feel free to comment, share your thoughts and I hope that we'll start some interesting conversation!

Sources :
1. https://www.workfusion.com/
2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NY2FbSXlq_I
3. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AGpKm0pdTMM

Week 2 [21-27.10.2019] Binary world

 Binary world

Have you ever wondered what happens in your smartphone, personal computer, or even a kitchen oven? Although all those devices seem to be different on the particular high abstraction level, on the lowest level, they do exactly the same things. They operate on binary code which consists of two symbols “0” and “1”. The most amazing fact is that this system was invented in 1689. It has lasted for years and what is more, it’s empowering all today's devices. Can you imagine the world without this system? That’s why we can say that we live in a binary world.

https://static.wixstatic.com/media/322997_1872e2e2b1524764b55f81be928749e9~mv2.png/v1/fill/w_1600,h_900,al_c,q_90/file.jpg

This system assigns a pattern of binary digits also known as bits to any character, instruction, etc. Each word in this article is also a set of binary digits because simply, each character is represented by a specific number of digits. This number depends on a particular encoding system like for instance UTF-8 – the most commonly used encoding scheme in today’s computers and networks. Even each pixel of the display in the device you use is represented by three binary sequences that correspond to the primary colors (R – red, G – green, B – blue).  Isn’t it fascinating that such a trivial thing like two digits can be responsible for everything we can see on our smartphone?

All devices interpret those digits and change them into words, instructions, etc but an algorithm used in this conversion isn’t so simple, particularly for the first time when you see this. Although nowadays computers do all this job in no time, it will take a while for anyone who will try to do this first time. Let’s now focus on the question: “How does the computer know what to do?”

https://media.indiedb.com/images/games/1/47/46436/Typography-Numbers-Binary-World-.1.jpg

All circuits in computers are made up of billions of transistors. Each transistor can be in two states – (1 and 0) representing the (on and off) state. All transistors act as a switch or gate for electronic signals and regulate current or voltage flow. They are all connected in huge circuits and create the whole net of different possibilities to interpret input signals and create output.

To sum up, the binary code is a really powerful technology that helps us in everyday life until we use electronic devices. The purpose of this article was to make everyone conscious of what’s beneath our devices displays, etc.

Watch the video below to find out more about binary code power

 

Please tell me in comments what you think of:

• Have you ever heard about binary code? 

•  Do you think that there will be some technology to replace a binary system in the future?    

• Try to convert a number in the decimal system (which we use every day) to a binary system which is computer using inside.