This week we had an interesting black mirror episode called “White Christmas” which shows us some new technologies being used. It starts off with Matt Trent talking with Joe Potter about what he did on his spare time. Matt helped men who were uncomfortable talking to women by having them wear an ear piece and glasses so he could see what they saw. He would use what the other person was seeing to read how the person they were talking to reacted so he could figure out the best way for the dude to talk to them and end up taking them home. The guy he was helping ends up being successful and ends up going to this women’s house where the women ends up killing the guy and herself and Matt and his team end up deleting the video and any proof that they saw it happen. This then leads to Joe sharing his story. Joe talks about his struggles with his ex girlfriend. Joe was taking out the garbage when he finds a positive pregnancy test and then confronts his girlfriend about it. She doesn’t want to keep the child where he does and they get into an argument and she blocks him. Everyone has a chip or lenses on that allow them to block certain people and then they cant hear them or see them they just be come blurred. His girlfriend the next morning end up leaving him. Joe then sees her out many months later and only recognizes her because she is blurred out and now very pregnant with their child but she still wants nothing to do with him. Joe knows that she goes to her fathers cabin every year for Christmas and goes so that he can see his child but when someone has you blocked you are also blocked by their offspring. He does this every year and finally see from the blurred image that he has a daughter. Then tragically one day his ex dies in a train crash and the blocker is removed after death so he can finally go see his daughter. He goes to the cabin with a snow globe for his daughter but the grandfather tells him to get out and that he cant be apart of his daughters life. Joe then irritate hits him in the head killing the grandfather and then leaving only for his daughter to find him and go out looking for help and freezing to death. This all happens inside a fake mind imprisonment of sorts where time moves very fast to trick the people inside. This allowed for joe to be convicted of the crimes and for Matt to be able to walk free for his help. Matt is allowed to walk but is but down as a sex offender and then blocked by everyone.

This episode bring up some very interesting technology that could be very possible in the next couple of years. The blocking technology would be very interesting to see how it would play out and the effects it would have on people because you could have no idea who that person is and you would never really be able to find out. While the mind prison could work very well at getting people to confess to crimes that they have committed without having to put a whole lot of time into it. I think if that was something that became available to be very helpful for that reason and then also helping people get over traumatic experiences. Then having the ability to have someone be blocked by everyone in society could either lead to them changing their ways because they are unable tell who is who or doing even worse thing because they don’t know who they are effecting so then it bothers them even less.

An article we read this week called “Emojis Don’t Mean What they Used to” which talks about the evolution of the emoji. Emojis when they first came out were simple pictures used to express a certain way you felt about something and depending on the context meant different things. The article talks about the snowman emoji which could simple mean something about a snowman but could also mean that a person is cold or that it might snow today depending on how it was used. Now there are thousands of emojis will the ability to change the skin color to make it more universal and make everyone feel included. This has lead to emojis having more of a literal meaning and only really being used for the way they were intended as a snowman just being a snowman. While I think this is true for most there will always be the one that have double meanings or that get used to mean different things depending on the context. Have you ever received emojis in a text message or sent them and have them be interpreted in a completely different way then they were suppose to be? Sort of like this picture below.

News Article

This article talks about the evolution of the emoji from where it started to where it is now.

https://www.wired.com/story/guide-emoji/