Background picture: "On the move" before Covid 19.
WELCOME TO MY VIRTUAL WORLD
Over a decade ago, instead of setting up a LinkedIn, Facebook or any other social media account, I decided to design my own webpage to have more control. In 2010, I started it on a USB drive as a collection of my favourite web links, then in 2012 it went online as my GBC portfolio, which I kept updationg until 2020. In early 2020, the COVID 19 pandemic broke out, and I completely redesigned this site into an online classroom.
Looking back and checking some of my original links, which I collected since 2010, I realized that many websites just vanished into thin air. Many of the those that remained have not only changed their appearance but even their content and vision. It reminded me of the old Persian addage that this too shall pass. In fact, faster than we think. Impermanence and Entropy prevail. And history, particularly the forgotten kind, is likely to repeat itself.
As many of us had to "overnight" switch to the new reality of virtual meeting platform (in my case, classroom), we have also become aware of other changes on the horizon. Robotics, AI and Quantum Computers are already here and rapidly evolving. Online information overload is growing exponentially. Focusing on one specific area of interest has become challenging. Irrelevant or misleading distractions and attention disruption are abundant. YouTube is a prime example of this trend. Even the relaxing music on Youtube is now "polluted" with commercial interruptions.
By comparison, TED, although highly selective, is better to get state of the art, high quality information without disruptive, subliminal, commercial messages. However, for complete, in-depth knowledge on any specific subject, the most authoritative website is the (still) commercial-free, highly professional online encyclopedia: Wikipedia. There, one can find all the latest essential information in any technological or scientific field, written in many different languages for any research project or study, for free.
Wikipedia (English link) is always the best authoritative reference to expand one's knowledge or get updated in any profession. Just as a matter of interest, check out the keywords: ”Quantum Computer” , “COVID19” or "3rd millenium". For now Wikipedia still depends on donations, but it’s hard to predict how long they can keep it up before it gets bought by a big commercial enterprise (like Youtube was bought by Google). Few people realize that it is worth a lot more than Netflix, Youtube and Prime combined. Although it does not have the latest exciting announcements which you can find elsewhere on the web (e.g.: 2022 Nobel Prize winners in Physics, Quantum Internet or Quantum Summit), it will include all the reliable infomation as soon as it has passed professional peer reviews (see: Quantum Network).
Finally, to avoid more or less legal data-mining enterprises, I use the search engine DuckDuckGo and the free, encrypted ProtonMail. Without setting up my ProtonMail email account, which I acqured specifically for interaction with my students, I couldn’t effectively manage the communication with over 150 students by using the GBC email, which is overloaded with important interdepartmental messages and other “viral” clutter.
It's easy to notice that everywhere there is an overload of information and therefore one tends to get "lost in the bushes". Consequently, my biggest emphasis here is on, what I now call, the drone view. I hope I can contribute my part to provide a bigger picture, without sacrificing too much of important detail. In the end this all amounts to Essential Employability Skils (EES in GBC's Course Outlines). - At this stage another rubric/genre seams indicated, which is now more important than ever: ESS, Essential Survivability Skils.
- Best wishes, stay well, do well and remember:
- No one gets out of this life alive,
- turnn crisis into opportunity,
- check also my Pandemic Years In Retrospect link, and always
- carpe diem.
Zack Bajin, GBC Prof