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E-SPEAIT Week 14

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  There are many solutions to make computers usable for people with different disabilities or impairments. Some of those are Braille displays and keyboards, speech synthesizer and screen reader. Rocky Stoutenburgh had an accident at the age of 19 where he fell and landed the wrong way. He dislocated two of his thoracic vertebrae and severed his spinal cord. He was diagnosed with quadriplegia. This left him paralyzed from the neck down. He has had some improvements but he still can hardly roll his shoulders. Before the accident Rocky really enjoyed gaming and couldn’t play from some years. His disability didn’t stop him from continuing. He said that at that time there weren’t a lot of great options for disabled gamers. His brother showed him a gaming controller designed for quadriplegics and they decided to try it. The first model wasn’t very great, it kept falling apart. Five years later a new model of this device was released and Rocky started to test it out. The controller is a mou
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E-SPEAIT Week 13

  Entering the world of Linux can be overwhelming due to the huge number of Linux distributions available. Instead of hopping from one Linux distribution to another, trying to figure out which of them is the best and suits your needs, it’s a much better idea to first learn about their differences and unique characteristics. Here I compare two of those distributions, Arch Linux and Kali Linux. Arch Linux is an independent Linux distribution, inspired by minimalist distributions. Project started in March 2012 by Judd Vinet. First released as 32-bit and in 2006 as 64-bit. Simplicity is the main principle Arch Linux tries to achieve, and this is embodied in four letters: KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid). It also focuses on modernity and versatility. Arch Linux doesn’t have a default desktop environment, web browser, or music player. Instead, all users start with a barebones operating system and customize it according to their needs and preferences. Although Arch Linux has earned the reputat
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E-SPEAIT Week 12

  The values of hackers in the 20-th century, as proposed by Pekka Himanen in his „Hacker Ethic“ are as follows:   Passion   Freedom Work ethic Money ethic   Network ethic Caring Creativity   I believe passion is an aspect that really keeps people going and trying to accomplish something. If there is no passion for the work/hobby you practice, what's the point? Hackers are passionate about what they do and that results in great outcomes. Having freedom to explore other topics and environments is very beneficial. Working on a project until it’s completely finished seems imprisoning. Sometimes doing something completely unrelated to the current project, might give and idea how to improve it or solve a problem Money ethic is another important aspect. While some people use money as something that makes them more valuable or in worst cases, use money as a personality trait. Not valuing immediate money over the actual cause, has developed great things. For example Sir
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E-SPEAIT Week 11

  China is a well known example of online censorship. Not only do they block popular apps, social media apps and search engines, but also news sites. The world is becoming more connected online, but China doesn’t seem to care. It has been taken to a level where you need to have a license just to have your own website, app, blog or forum. It’s estimated that 96% of online traffic in Chine goes through Chinese servers. All this censorship has been turned into success by some local companies. Tencent and Alibaba are aren’t just some of the biggest companies in China, but in the entire world. By blocking rival companies like Google and Amazon, people don’t have other choices therefore helping its own companies. China even introduced a law which requires internet companies to register names of users to aid government. Due to the stay-at-home orders Google services are more dominant in schools than before. Teachers use Google Classroom to manage their online classes. Google also has studen
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E-SPEAIT Week 10

  Estonia has been recognized as a country that has great cybersecurity. A global heavyweight in cybersecurity even. Prior to 2007 attacks, cyber attacks weren’t takes seriously as an actual threat to the state or citizens. After the attack there was much to learn from the experience, which helped Estonia to get somewhat of a lead in the field. Ten years after the event, Estonia had started to advise other countries about cybersecurity. The country has developed training and cooperation with Luxembourg, Austria, South Korea and NATO. According to Klaid Mägi, former head of the Incident Response Department, Estonia’s preparedness to handle cyber crises has significantly increased over the past decade. The country has created intrusion detection and protection systems, practiced cooperation with public and private institutions, significantly contributed to the awareness of users and is participating in international co-operations. This shows that the technological aspect of „Mitnick fo
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E-SPEAIT Week 9

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  Implementing the correct design requires an investment in time and effort, but getting it wrong might be exponentially more costly. When testing software, something that can be heard is „human error“. But it’s actually the designers responsibility to anticipate errors and make sure they won’t happen. Good design and usability are important everywhere and especially in high-leverage situations. For example, on January 13, 2018, residents of Hawaii were in the shock of their lives. Saturday morning, Hawaii Emergency Management Agency issued an alert to residents phones saying „BALLISTIC MISSILE THREAT INBOUND TO HAWAII. SEEK IMMEDIATE SHELTER. THIS IS NOT A DRILL.“ The political climate and tensions with North Korea made people panic. They rushed to shelters, highways were flooded with cars and everyone was trying to get in touch with their family. One person said „We fully felt like we were about to die. I drove to get my kids even though I knew I probably wouldn’t make it, and was fu
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E-SPEAIT Week 8

I remember in school I was told that you need to study hard to get good grades. Then those good grades help you get into universities where you can get a degree and all the companies are looking for a person with a degree. Something about degrees is that different universities have different credibility. For example studying Law in Tartu University or Tallinn University. I learned that law firms strongly prefer people from Tartu more than Tallinn. But it appears that those degrees might not be all that powerful, especially in IT. More and more people are self learning different programming languages and overall knowledge needed in the field. This is all thanks to the internet. Before the wide spread of the internet I believe it was not that easy to research a field that interests you and also gain enough knowledge that you could become a professional. Yes, there are always books, but I think it’s not very comparable with the internet. Nowadays tech companies are hiring people who might
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