Friday, October 24, 2008
People should know the issues before they vote!
Thursday, October 23, 2008
Why Now?!
Teaching Students About Safe Sex
We live in a State where teenage sex is not much talked about. It is one of those things that people push under the table and want to believe it is not happening. It is time to face the facts. Our teens are having sex and now more than ever teenage pregnancies are at a high. Safe sex should be taught in school.
We need to teach the importance of safe sex practices at home as well as in schools. Children spend at least 6 hours a day at school. As much as we do not want to believe it, this is where they learn most about sex. No the teachers aren’t teaching it, but the kids are talking about it and teenager are the most curious at this age. Why would we not want our children to know the facts? With sex come babies, diseases, and emotional changes. Teenagers should be made aware of these things, as well as how to prevent diseases and abortions. Many, or in fact all teens are truly not ready to have children of their own. So if a teenager does become pregnant, one simple way to resolve this problem is abortion. I am neither pro nor anti abortion but, if people were using safe sex practices more, the abortion levels would go down.
If teens were more aware of safe sex techniques and were not afraid or embarrassed to buy the products. I believe this would drop the insane levels of teen pregnancies and abortions. In whole people would be more prepared when deciding to actually have children, and our youth would be in better condition. That is another paper in itself.
What is "green"?
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
can we justify our lawlessness?
I think, as a whole, our society is a somewhat united one when it comes to observing and obeying the laws of the land, at least when publicly adressing the subject. We agree that it is bad to steal things. It is inappropriate to kill someone. Even running red lights is generally frowned upon. And though people often do things they aren’t supposed to, they acknowledge, at least when asked, that breaking the law is a bad thing. So why is speeding so socially accepted? I’m not going to say that everyone does it, because those of us who do speed have, at least once or twice, have been stuck behind that guy going sixty four MPH while we're trying to make it on time to our one o’clock English class. This proves the existence of speed-limit obeying individuals. But this question is directed generally towards those of us who, like Sammy Hagar, “can’t drive fifty five." So why is it okay to speed? Is it morally justifiable? Aren’t we all just flaunting our lawlessness, considering when we speed there are plenty of other people around us to witness the crime (and it is a crime)? Or are we all in denial, a bunch of ignorant, transient sheep, following the traditions of a few long gone, Hagar-like renegades? Driving over the speed limit on any given road is against the law. There's no arguing that. So whats our justification as otherwise law-abiding citizens?
I’m not really sure what to think about it all. I speed. I normally never go less than four miles over the speed limit. But can I justify my actions without admitting to being a law-breaker, something I definitely don’t consider myself to be? It’s hard to say.
Who's More Aggressive? Male or Female?
I have found that it is somewhat true. I went to an institute dance a few weeks ago. I was expecting to see more couples dancing during the "slow songs" than were actually dancing. I thought the guys would be more aggressive in asking a girl for "this dance". But they weren't!
There were a ton of guys just standing in a circle with their buddies, chillin, while girls stood around desperately waiting to be asked. Why is that? Is it really because guys think they'll be rejected? It's an institute dance. I'm pretty sure they wouldn't be.
"Do you wanna come hang out tonight with me and some friends?" Has become the norm. It is the replacement for truly asking someone out on a date.
In my physiology class in high school, we were talking about hormones and what they do differently to both males and females. My teacher reported a statistic that proved that females have become more aggressive in the past few generations. It did not have a specific definition as to why. I think it's because they have had to. If the male won't do much, the female is going to have to right? Now I'm not saying that it is entirely the males job to do all of the work. That would never conclude with a successful relationship. It must be mutual. Females are also entitled to be bold at some point, although not all the time.
There is this guy in one of my classes who, lets face it, I am attracted to. From the way he teases me and slightly nudges my arm on occasion, I think he feels relatively the same way. In a conversation once, we found out that we had the same political science class at different hours with the same teacher. We had a mid-term coming up (ick) that would be helpful to study for. He said that we should study together and he got my number on a Thursday. He then said "I'll text you later." I was excited and knew that studying with someone would help me keep it in memory. The test was the very next Tuesday, so I was thinking he would want to study over the weekend sometime. Friday....Saturday....Sunday....Monday at noon, at 4:00, at 7:00, at 8:30. Nothing. Well I couldn't wait forever so I studied most of the day on Monday. At about 8:36 I couldn't stand it anymore, so I texted him something like, "Hey did you still want to study for that test?" At around 10:00 he texted back,"Oh man, I'm so sorry I totally forgot. I have had a busy weekend with work, volleyball and homework." I replied, "Oh, that's fine, I figured you were way busy. How about tomorrow after class?" He agreed, we studied, it helped.
While studying, we discovered that we had both taken 3 years of ASL in high school, so I invited him to come an activity planned by my Deaf ASL teacher. He told me to just text him about it. So I did. He ended up having to work instead, which was fine but a little frustrating. Is this how a guy feels after being told "no."?
It wasn't a big deal really. I just wonder if I have become a statistic in the aggression of females skyrocketing. I felt I was initiating everything.
What do you guys and girls think? Am I going crazy?! Are females truly becoming more aggressive with dating and such? Must they? Have guys become less aggressive due to rejection or the thought of it? Share your experiences. Tell me what you think or have observed, and if you could please try not to spread my story to the world, it would be much appreciated. :) Thanks.
Monday, October 20, 2008
Socialized Medicine
Disrespect in Kids!!
Do Teens Take Too Many Risks?
Role Models
Sunday, October 19, 2008
Subliminal Messages in Political Campaigns
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OSAOQuLxSdY McCain
and
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1H70Ikaso7A Obama
for some reason I've always been interested in subliminal messaging. I don't know what's true but i've heard that it's everywhere. Movie theaters use it to get us to buy popcorn. Soda companys have explicit pictures inside their ads to grab our attention. I don't know, some of its probably true, some of it isn't. One thing I noticed when looking up these videos, it seems like McCain uses it alot more than Obama. either that or Democrats are more likely to belive in the "conspiracy theories." What do you guys think about this?
Friday, October 17, 2008
Teaching OLD dogs NEW tricks...
Quality
I now want to talk on the notion of quality in artworks of all types. Quality is truly subjective. It is true "one mans trash is another mans treasure."
About a week ago now, one of the most prolific designers of aircraft addons for flight simulator posted his latest work. He has done between 50 and 75 original aircraft from the ground up, where most designers burn out after about 4. His planes are not bad, either! He is quite set in his ways. His name is Kazunori Ito, and he is Japanese.
This was posted as part of his most recent readme
*******************************************************************************
"ASS Hole. stupid, Jap !"
"Are you Insane?"
For sentences in the upper row is,
It's an answer when I cut it off to the demand of person who doesn't like my VC.
He wrote "I wants source file of your MDL file, send me it"
And, I wrote "I want to you....please make your model by yourself"
And for sentences in the the lower is,
It's a reaction when I don't bundle flight dynamic etc. to my work.
It was the first experience in my life.
I actually felt that the racial discrimination, the prejudice, and others still existed at this time.
I think.........One of the reasons why the war doesn't discontinue in the international society is here.
There are neither endurance nor a mind of the generosity.
Abuse and violence.......
I was making the models for me by myself as my hobby.
How should I respond with this?
Should I keep uploading it with the mind of the generosity?
I'm sorry for asking a trivial thing.
But, Though worlds of hobbies must be happy.................
I'm sad and frightened.
--------------------------------------------------
This is because he got an angry email from some troll...
First off, why does this guy thing his version of quality is valid enough to force on the designer?
Secondly, why on earth would anyone be so madly racist?
I simply cannot understand it.
If you want to communicate with Kazunori, his email address is: KazuIto0926@aol.com
If you want to discuss this, you can do so on the blog, but also on the flight-simulator forum I frequent. Here is a direct link to the topic: http://www.sim-outhouse.com/sohforums/showthread.php?t=1600
Marketing
An immense amount of work has been expended over two years on the project - an F-86E/F Sabre jet-fighter with leading-edge slats on the wings - and to prevent plagiarism of the work, before the project is released as freeware, it is being marketed to increase enthusiasm for the work and increase awareness of the ownership of the Intellectual Property. So far, this has been achieved by press-releases to some of the major sites in the hobby (avsim.com, flightsim.com (which has not yet posted the press-release), simflight.com, others), through Work In Progress topics at important hobby discussion boards, and through the creation of a dedicated website to market the product.
First, I want you to look at the website - we desperately need input on how the website can be designed to increase effectivity in marketing. The website is http://www.sectionf8.com/
Second, I want to note that the Flight Simulator hobby has piracy in a manner unlike any other creative hobby I know of. Work for which a fee is charged - payware - is regularly stolen through bittorrent (not unusual), and it is regularly posted to third-party sites for free-download (also not unusual). What is unusual is the rampant plagiarism in the hobby. Payware and freeware are both regularly stolen and remarketed as the original work of another person - this is a daily problem. Rarely is payware resold, either. Mainly, the problem is a simple refusal to acknowledge that other people have rights to the IP that they themselves have created. A simple and painless acknowledgment that portions of a new addon are based on others work or the simple acknowledgment that the file has been reposted from some other place by some other person is often all it takes. Very rarely is an author of an addon for Flight Simulator so unreasonable as to disallow some limited or even in some cases very extensive modification to his or her work. Despite the simplicity and ease of obtaining permission and giving credit, free files are plagiarized and stolen daily. Further, there is another nice problem with this thievery - often when credit is given, the name of the reposter is not! Hundreds of sabotaged and destroyed files have been posted on the net, with the result that many generous and talented designers have retired after being deluged with help requests for an unauthorized and sabotaged model.
That is why this effort has been put forth for a freeware project. How truly sad it is when mean-spirited and thieving knaves destroy the work and lives of others! How truly sad it is that people are so selfish that even the little courtesies are ignored so rampantly!
Please remember others when you download stuff, write stuff, draw stuff - where there is credit due, PLEASE GIVE IT!!!
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
How we judge...
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
Are we anti-social?
The whole reason i starting thinking about this was because the other day i was at the dentist when an elderly women came and sat by me in the waiting room and immediately complimented my shirt and started a conversation. We talked all the way until i was called to see the dentist and i just thought, "wow that never happens at school." Is it our generation? Do we not know how to talk to each other without a phone or laptop?
Free wireless internet in 4-10 years?
FCC approves the use of the white space spectrum for nationwide, free wireless internet
Posted by Kelly Hodgkins on Oct 14, 2008 8:08 am 8 comments
Filed in Networks, News, Wireless
Score one for Google and company as the FCC has cleared the way for the use of the white space spectrum for free, nationwide wireless internet service. Calling the reports of interference by the opposition as being “overblown”, recent tests conducted by FCC engineers in Seattle showed that the white space could be used for wireless internet service without a significant risk of harmful interference. Bad news for T-Mobile who has vehemently opposed the plan as their recently launched 3G network, which they purchased for $4 billion a few years ago by the way, borders this white space spectrum. D’oh! The FCC is expected to finalize the rules for the usage and allocation of the spectrum in preparation for an auction sometime in early to mid-2009. Free wireless Internet access that will reach 50% of the U.S. population in four years and 95% within a decade? Bring it on!
There's a company that was selling laptops, and they run a promotion. When you buy a laptop, they send the same type of laptop to a 3rd world country. This gives people access and information, something that will raise them out of poverty, because knowledge becomes power.