Nearby Schools: North Andover High School, North Andover Middle School, Annie L. Sargent
School
Nearby Hospitals: Northeast Rehab 200 Sutton St. #420; Saints Medical Center, 203 Turnpike St.
#300; Essex County Veterinary Hospital, 247 Chickering Road; Merrimack
Valley Health Services Center, 100 Andover Bypass Street; Many private
practices
Map Of Area Hospitals
I chose this home in North Andover as my main residence because I wanted to stay in the Merrimack Valley area. The house is huge and has a gym and a home office, so I probably never have to leave the house. North Andover has great schools so I know my kids will get a good education. The backyard and the pool was another big reason I chose this house. I will definitely host people every chance I get. I couldn't find any property history information, but it was built in 2001 so it probably has had only one owner.
Nearby Schools: Gloucester High, Ralph B. O'Maley Middle School, East Gloucester Elementary, Milton L. Fuller Elementary
Nearby Hospitals: Cape Ann Medical Center; 1 Blackburn Drive, Gloucester, MA 01930
North Shore Veterinary Hospital; 7 Doctor Osman Babson Rd.
I don't really need to say much as to why I chose this mansion in Gloucester. The pictures tell it all. It was built in 1880 but the inside is very modern. In February of 2003 it sold for $2.35 million. Now its been on the market for less than a month and the list price is $2.85 million. The beach is literally in my backyard, and everything in the house is brand new, from the kitchen to the bathrooms.
I chose this property because it was very inexpensive compared to the first two properties I purchased. It is a small beachfront property with only two bedrooms so I would use this house to get away with the wife, or maybe another couple for a few days. I would rarely bring my kids here because it just doesn't have enough room. I couldn't find much information on this properties history. In March of 2003, Daniel Blajda sold the house to a Michael Baker for $115,000. Then in May of 2011, he sold the property to Matthew and Hillary Holian for $115,100; not much more than he paid for it.
Google has over 70 different companies in all different industries and businesses. And now, they want to take on the automobile industry. Google is currently developing an automobile that basically drives itself. I have watched a couple videos on YouTube featuring a Toyota Prius mounted with a bunch of cameras and other sensors, speeding around a track in an empty parking lot. Another video shows the vehicle in action on city streets. The technology is still in the early stages, but I think it will be revolutionary in the next 10 to 20 years.
From the information I could gather watching a couple videos, the car drives itself by using cameras to look for traffic lights, signals and other objects, and a scanning laser mounted on top of the vehicle that also tracks nearby objects like cars or pedestrians. Basically you tell the car where you want to go and its computer, powered by Google of course, plans the route you will take. The car is aware of speed limits, traffic conditions and even objects that suddenly come in your path. This technology will definitely be the future of driving. But I don't think that it will replace drivers altogether. Google is developing this technology to make driving safer, not so people can drink and "drive" or be asleep at the wheel. But that's exactly why I want this technology.
Eventually, I can see the driver-less car being so common that we can send it to the airport to pick up a relative, or have it drive itself to the mechanic. Imagine living in a big city and driving to work, but your late and can't find parking. No problem, just send your car back home and program it to come back and pick you up at a certain time. What if Google put a sort of breathalyzer in the car so if you blow a certain limit, the car won't let you drive, and it drives itself home? Instead of sitting in traffic wasting time, you can be working on schoolwork or reading a book. This technology can save thousands of lives a year by reducing the number of car accidents. Here is a cool info-graphic I found that has some interesting information regarding driver-less cars.
Another Google development is Google Art.This probably wont be a major source of revenue for Google, but it is a very cool project nonetheless, especially if you are into art. Google has partnered with the most prestigious art museums all around the world to put their painting online. You can choose which museum you would like to visit, and view all the painting they have. You can zoom in to get a close up that is so high definition, you can see the individual brushstrokes. Another cool feature uses Google's Street Maps technology, where you can take a virtual tour of museums where you can walk the corridors and feel like you are inside the museum itself. You can pan the camera 360 degrees and click on the painting you want to see up close. You can even start and art collection where you save all your favorite works of art. If you are into art I would definitely check out Google Art.
So I read a couple articles today about cyber warfare. It is a lot more common than one might think, and can range from a simple computer virus on a laptop, all the way to a network of computers working simultaneously to hack a military network to steal information. We live in a digital age where almost every single piece of information that exists, does so on some sort of computer network. We like to think that this information is safe, protected and couldn't possibly fall into the wrong hands. That is a very naive thought. With the right personal information, a half decent hacker can hack into your bank account and transfer your entire life savings into the account of his choosing.
Now imagine if an expert hacker or cyber criminal, who is being funded by a foreign government agency and given the best technology possible, decides he wants to have some fun and turn off power to a region of the United States. This is very possible seeing how almost any network can be hacked into, and everything from natural gas to electricity to the water supply is controlled by government computer networks. Obviously these networks have very sophisticated security and are monitored 24/7. But they are also vulnerable and an attack can't always be stopped, never mind if they even know its happening in the first place. A virus named Operation Shady RAT has done just that. Here is a quote from a Vanity Fair Magazine article describing Shady RAT:
"Operation Shady RAT has been stealing valuable
intellectual property (including government secrets, e-mail archives,
legal contracts, negotiation plans for business activities, and design
schematics) from more than 70 public- and private-sector organizations
in 14 countries. The list of victims, which ranges from national
governments to global corporations..., demonstrates with
unprecedented clarity the universal scope of cyber-espionage and the
vulnerability of organizations in almost every category imaginable."
There is no need for conventional spies anymore if this sort of espionage is relatively easy to accomplish. If a foreign country that we aren't on good terms with manages to get a hold of U.S. military or government secrets, it could spell disaster. Even worse would be having hackers destroy or compromise systems that control what we take for granted every day, like water or electricity. If the U.S. was to have its power cut and was put into the dark, I believe it wouldn't be more than a few days before people start to panic. Can you imagine not having your phone, or television, or internet, or anything else that uses a power source taken from you for a prolonged period of time. We would be thrown back into the stone age and cities would be in chaos. The movie Live Free or Die Hard comes to mind. Bruce Willis has to take on an evil genius hacker who hacks into government networks and cuts off power to parts of the U.S., blows up natural gas pipelines, and messes with traffic control systems. Even just the traffic lights not working puts people into a confused frenzy.
This brings up the issue of cyber security. If even the most secure government networks can get hacked, then most of us don't stand a chance. Cyber warfare is very difficult to be stoppped. The government needs to step in and see what new measures can be put into place to stop cyber warfare, since the ones we have now obviously are not very effective. The U.S. has way too many assets, and I'm sure way to many secrets that need to be protected at all costs.
Before being given this assignment, I had only used an iPad
two or three times before. I’m not what some people would call “Mac enthusiast”, and I usually get annoyed
when I hear that Apple is coming out with some new product that people camp out
for days to over-pay for. So after hearing what I had to write about I borrowed
my father’s iPad and played around with it for a few hours. Maybe I’m just used
to conventional computers and laptops, but right off the bat I didn’t like how I
had to hold the iPad. I didn’t feel comfortable sitting at a desk and looking
straight down the entire time because I had to lay the iPad flat. And I couldn’t
really lay on bed and put it on my stomach to browse the web like I do with my
laptop. I know you can buy cases so that the iPad stands up at angle, but I feel
like that would only make it a bit more difficult to type. I might be a bit
biased because I’ve never liked phones that only have a screen and no real
buttons to press. I’m the kind of person that needs the actual touch and feel
of buttons or keys as I’m typing.
But besides that, I feel like the iPad is a machine that you
couldn’t really get any real sort of business or schoolwork done on. I feel
that it is more of a web-browser/iPod/video game machine. I couldn’t see myself
using it for anything other than those three things. I know that the iPad has a
newsstand app where you can read magazines and newspapers, which is pretty cool
feature. I could definitely see myself reading the morning paper on it in the
morning as I eat my breakfast. The iPads iBook and new apps are feature that I think
will attract people into buying an iPad. You can get all your newspaper and
magazine subscriptions in one place, which I feel is a lot more convenient for
most people.
Another feature which will definitely attract customers is
all the games you can play on it. I’m not much of a gamer but I do enjoy Angry
Birds and Words with Friends. It was a very different experience playing them
on a much bigger screen than my phone. The number of games in the App store is
massive, with games of all types for all ages and a lot of them are free. If I used
an iPad regularly and had kids I would definitely use it to keep them
entertained. You can also watch movies on the iPad, but I just don’t think the
screen is big enough for me to want to sit through an entire movie, never mind
hold the iPad in my hand the entire time.
Nevertheless, the iPad has been very successful and most
people that own one love it and use it frequently. It had been a huge source of
revenue for Apple and I’m sure their next version of it will be just as
popular. They continue to add new features to draw in new customer and keep
their existing ones. But for me, I just don’t feel that I would get enough use
out of it to justify me spending $500 dollars. Maybe in the future if I could
get a used iPad for around $200 dollars or so I would buy it, mainly for the
iBook and newsstand apps. I can see why people love the iPad but it just isn’t practical
in my world. With that said I’m definitely going to borrow my fathers iPad more
often though.
