The Mayans, They Knew

SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) are serious problems that we are facing right now. Thanks to Wikipedia and other websites, a lot of awareness has been spread so people realize what they are up against. Wikipedia along with other sites blacked out to race awareness about SOPA. Recently many videos have been uploaded to YouTube informing the viewers about SOPA and its consequences. For those who believe in 2012, then SOPA may very well be what the Mayans predicted. SOPA was a bill suggest by Lamar S. Smith. The bill was meant to eliminate piracy on the internet. However SOPA has a lot of bad side-effects. It will have disastrous consequences on the world. SOPA is bad for numerous reasons. For one thing, freedom of online speech would be reduced to practically nothing. Secondly the amount of power it would give the American government would just be plain terrifying. Also practically anything on the Internet that we consider "fun" or "useful", will disappear. Not only that the entire law is pointless.

One of the things disastrous consequences of SOPA would be that practically any site which we deem either fun or useful will disappear. This includes Picasa, Blogger, Twitter, New-Grounds, 9gag, Wikipedia, Facebook, You-tube, and many, many more. Imagine your life without those sites. You may not use all of the ones I just mentioned, but if Wikipedia, Facebook, and You-tube were to disappear, that would have a big impact of the world. Certain sites are already being removed. This is further proof that SOPA is serious business. "Mega-Upload" was branded as a "rogue site" by the music industry. As a result the site was rendered unavailable due to a DNS take-down. A group of artists including P.Diddy had made a song to support Mega-Upload and to raise awareness about what was happening. The Universal Media Group (UMG) forced You-tube to take it down, as they said it violated their copyright. The scary thing about this incident brings me to my next point which is control.

SOPA would give the American government AND mega-corporations a large amount of control of the Internet. The UMG for example didn't even need a legitimate reason for taking down P.Diddy's video.Under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, the UMG had made a deal with You-tube allowing them to take down videos they did NOT have the right to. Therefore that mega-corporation can censor videos from the second largest search engine in the world. Not only that but also the largest video distribution platform that shares videos with people opinions on absolutely anything you can possibly imagine, internationally. So not only are they annoying the American public, the entire world is affected. This is what is going on right now. It is only a taste of what is to come if SOPA is passed. SOPA would effectively destroy You-tube and any similar site like for example, New-Grounds. What SOPA does is it gives the government the power to eliminate a site that has the potential of supporting pirated content via DNS blocking. It isn't even about eliminating just the pirated content. SOPA will not only destroy the copyright content, it will destroy the entire website supporting it. It will also destroy any website that even had the means to support pirated content. This means that any site which allows the user to upload content, or allows the user to edit the site, will be blocked. Currently the government cannot do so because of the safe harbor rule. This rule means that if copyrighted content is uploaded to a site, the site itself can't be held responsible for the actions of the user. This means that the user willed get sued, not the website. SOPA will abolish that rule. A great example of SOPA's concept is, lets say a drunk crashes his BMW into your house. The cause of the accident was clearly the drivers fault and was not caused by a technical malfunction in the car. Because you want money to fix your house, you sue BMW because some guy crashed his BMW into your house. So basically you're holding BMW responsible for what a drunk did to your home. That is the concept of SOPA.

Because Sopa will end easy/legal access to sites that allow the user to upload content, online freedom of speech will also be greatly affected. SOPA isn't only about piracy, it is also about censorship. SOPA not only grants the American government power, but also the mega-corporations suffering from piracy. As a result Hollywood and the UMG and other mega-corporations will gain power. Mega-corporations tend to maintain their financial dominance through marketing a having a strangle-hold on all channels of product promotion. These mega-corporations bombard every single nook and cranny of the media with their products. Its kind of hard not to notice that. Turn on a TV, and every 5 minutes there will be a commercial break, turn on a radio, there will be a lot of commercials, no matter where you go, there will be advertising. Even on You-tube there are "advertising" videos, but the difference with You-tube is that the message the video sends, depends on the users opinion o the product. The user may love the product and urge the viewer to get it too, or the user may hate it and warn the viewer to stay away from it. On You-tube, ideas and opinions are promoted freely and independently. Smaller, independent companies use you-tube as a way to promote their products and to make themselves known to the general public. These smaller "Indy" companies as they're called often make use of "WTF is.....?" videos to promote their products. These videos are made by customers whether they be satisfied or unsatisfied. These videos give "Indy" companies a voice they would not have had without you-tube. Besides being a platform with a lot of pirated videos on it and the main way "Indy" companies promote their products, it is also the one media branch that mega-corporations do not have complete control over and have not been able to completely flood with their advertisements. One of the companies sponsoring the SOPA bill is EA Games. They happen to own the biggest FPS franchise in the world. EA would of course love to stay the biggest FPS franchise, and it would love that competition would stop being promoted. That is why they are sponsoring SOPA so those two wishes of theirs will come true, at our expense. If you-tube goes down a great deal of our freedom of speech will be gone. Sadly SOPA will also get rid of any other site that will allow us to express ourselves like blogger and social networks. Facebook would go down because some could post something that is copyright as their status or could put a copyright image as their profile picture. Blogger would go down for similar reasons.

SOPA would have disastrous consequences which are not only disastrous, but also unnecessary. SOPA would hardly solve anything. To begin with there are ways around DNS blocking. Software and security engineers from big companies like Google and Yahoo have brought up this point. If you simply enter the IP adress of a site you will still be able to access the site regardless of the DNS block. These people know what they're talking about, so it would seem like a good idea to listen to them. One of the many dangerous and scary things about this bill is that the people debating about it, aren't to well informed of what they are talking about. “The vast majority of the people debating have no idea what it is. They hardly know how to use the Internet for one thing. They have freely admitted that." John Bain - UK law graduate. There were some debaters who suggested speaking to people who were more informed of the subject. Believe it or not they were in the minority. Currently we have 50 to 70 people discussing the fate of the largest and most important technological innovation we've had in a long time. Most of those 50-70 people don't really know what they're talking about and what kind of effects their choices will have. Personally I personally, do not think this is a good idea. "It's like putting toddlers at the controls of a 747, but not just a 747, every 747, 777, Airbus A320, every aircraft in the world. Do you think that's a good idea? No." John Bain. Valve, a company directly affected by piracy, disagrees with SOPA's approach. They said that "piracy is a service problem and the way to defeat piracy is to provide a better service than the pirate."

SOPA needs to be stopped. It will have disastrous consequences not only on American society, but also on the world. Its effects are not only horrific, they are also pointless. SOPA also comes with a twin though, which is not to be forgotten. This twin is called PIPA (Protect IP Act) PIPA, has similar consequences to SOPA and is not to be forgotten. Even if SOPA falls, PIPA will need to be next. Currently many people are working hard fighting SOPA and PIPA. There are many videos on YouTube raising awareness, and many petitions on the Internet that can be signed that fight SOPA and PIPA. There is also a group called "Anonymous" that is fighting for freedom of speech, and is thus fighting SOPA. Anonymous is a group that is fighting SOPA through "hacktivism". One last thing to think about. What about the next You-tube? What about the next technological innovation that doesn't get the money it needs to flourish, because the laws are so strict that investors are to afraid to invest. SOPA needs to be stopped, and if this is what the Mayans predicted, that gives us all the more reason to try and fight back.

picture from:
https://fbcdn-sphotos-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/s720x720/377778_10100118733185148_60700609_41031024_1982258477_n.jpghttp:/act.boldprogressives.org/survey/survey_sopa_reddit/

Genocide

Genocide. The organized mass murder of large numbers of innocent people. The most infamous genocide was the holocaust and lasted from 1939 to 1945. During that time 10 to 11 million innocent civilians lost their lives. Not to the bombing, not to the invading armies, but the hate and the racism. the 10 to 11 million people included Jews, Romani, Soviet prisoners of war, homosexuals, the disabled and political enemies. From 1939 to 1945 these people were treated like they were unworthy of life. They were hunted down and slaughtered like animals and lost every they owned and all of their rights. But the Second World War is over now right? So everything is ok? Sadly that is not true. Genocide has continued to plague human civilization. In Rwanda and Sudan genocide continued to claim lives. People sadly have not learned from the example set by WWII nor from Sudan or Rwanda. Genocide needs to stopped!

Genocide needs to be stopped because it ignores ALL of the Human Rights set by the United Nations. "Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person."-article 3 of the UDHR. During genocide people are killed by the millions and live in fear. "All are equal before the law and are entitled without any discrimination to equal protection of the law. All are entitled to equal protection against any discrimination in violation of this Declaration and against any incitement to such discrimination."-UDHR article 7. During genocide people are killed for absolutely no reason at all.

People nowadays are very much against the bio-industry where animals are treated horrible and kept in cruelly small cages. Genocide is so much worse. Its like the bio-industry, only for humans. And instead of the goal being to make a ton of money the goal is to wipe out a certain race. Even though they the bio-industry and genocide are two different things the roles of the people involved are surprisingly similar. Both systems have a "victim". In the case of the bio-industry the "victims" are the pigs, the the chickens, the cows, and the other animals, who are mutilated,have horrible living conditions and are treated inhumanely. In the case of genocide the "victim" is whoever is being picked on. They are herding into crowded barracks, tortured on a regular basis, and are forced to do hard work, and in general are treated inhumanely. The "boss" is the one making profit and is the one making the plans. In the bio-industry the "boss" would be the boss of the corporation would is swimming in pools of money. During genocide the "boss" is the person in power who orders the soldiers to round up the "victims" and profits from his actions because his enemies are being wiped out. Then there is the "worker". In the bio-industry the "worker" is the farmer who does the dirty work. He/she mutilates the animals, treats them badly, and stuffs the animals into tight living areas. The "worker" is doing what he/she is told to do and does not question it. In genocide the "workers" are the guards at the camp who run it, torture and kill the inmates, and follow orders without question. Often these guards do not have a choice but to do as they are told. Then there is the "ignorant civilian" who does not know what the corporation/government is really doing and willingly believes all of the pretty tales and propaganda the corporation/government tells them. Not only are these horrible things happening, but truth is often altered by the sources to make it hidden or seem moral. "No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment"-UDHR article. This treatment of fellow humans is not only immoral and illegal, it is unnecessary! The cruel treatment of the "victim" is NOT the fault of the "worker". Even if the "worker" were to become dissident and refuse to do his/her work, the "worker" would become a "victim" and another "worker" would take his/her place. The cruel treatment is the fault of the "boss", but also the fault of the "ignorant civilian". The "ignorant civilian" allows him/herself to be easily fooled by the governments propaganda. It is the "ignorant civilian" who allows him/herself to forget his/her morals and let them be replaced by that of the government. It is the "ignorant civilian" who has the power to stop what is happening at any time, provided someone finds out what really is happening. People need to realize what is happening so we can stop the inhumane treatment of fellow humans.

Genocide doesn't only have a negative effect on its victims, it also greatly effects regular people living in that area that are not targeted by the genocide. Those non-targeted people lose friends who are targeted and may see how their friends are forcefully removed from their homes. Not only did that person just lose a friend but he probably just acquired a trauma from that experience. Also those non-targeted people are still targeted by something else, propaganda. They receive a large bombardment of racist propaganda which dehumanizes the group targeted by the genocide. Those civilians who are not being hunted are being told 24/7 who the enemy is and how badly they should treat them. This creates a racist society and completely destroys the old morals of the people.

In Sudan so far 400.000 people have lost their lives and many have been affected since 2003. In Rwanda 500,000 - 1 million people were killed over a course of about 100 days. During the Holocaust 10-11 million people lost their lives over a course of 6 years. Genocide also occurred in many other places these were only a few examples. All of these people died because of one thing, genocide. It seems like genocide is an unstoppable monster striking places at random, tearing apart and ending lives. But this "monster" is surprisingly easy to defeat as it only gets its power from a single source. Take away that source, and genocide is gone. The source, the root of genocide is racism. If we can eliminate racism, then we stop genocide from happening again and again and again... Once we realize that nothing good ever comes out genocide and that we are all equal whether we be Black, White, Asian, poor or rich, straight or homosexual, or anything else for that matter. We are all human

Homework Overload!

The amount of homework students are getting is on the rise. In 1981 6 to
9 year-olds devoted 44 minutes a week on average on homework. In 1997 that number increased to 2 full hours! The amount that 9 to 11 year-olds spent on homework increased from 2 hours and 45 minutes to 3 and half hours. But that means more time is spent on education nowadays and our students are getting smarter. That isn't really true. Students could easily learn just as much while doing less work. After all, most of the homework is just work to keep the students busy, not to teach them anything.

Besides homework many students also have other out-of-school curriculums like ceramics, taekwondo, or music lessons. American students are coming home with more homework, at a younger age. What happened to free time? Due to the amount of homework, students don't have as much time to socialize and spend time with their family.

The students aren't the only ones affected by the homework. Parents are feeling the strain as well. "I didn't feel [stressed] until I was in my 30s. It hurts my feelings that my daughter feels that way at 11."-Parent. The load of the homework turns the home, a refuge from work, into a tense war-zone, and the atmosphere in the home turns tense. The amount of homework leaves students as well as their parents with headaches. Parents often don't know what to do. Should they leave their children to it, and risk a frustrated, sleep-deprived child with a migraine? Or should they help their children with their homework with the possible consequence that their child doesn't learn as much? Should they complain to the teacher about the heavy workload, or should they be grateful that their children are being pushed forward towards success?

The main cause for the large amount of homework is so that the students
will hopefully learn more and get into better colleges and universities.
However the large homework load encourages rote learning, or learning by
memorization, which isn't the most effective way to learn. Through learning by memorization, the student simply knows what the answer is, but doesn't
understand. Through "meaningful" learning the students learns the concepts
and understands the subject. The student will then use his/her knowledge and
understanding to find the solution/answer.

Due to all of those reasons I feel that schools should reduce the amount of homework of homework given to students. Doing so will also reduce the student’s stress allowing them to perform better in school, because overworked students will eventually collapse under the strain of the homework, while if they are not overworked they will be able to perform at their full capacity. That way the schools still get the high grades they want. So unless schools want students to work inefficiently and don’t want students to enjoy the freedoms of childhood, I feel that they should think twice before giving homework.

Information from:http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,990065,00.html

Picture from: http://blocs.xtec.cat/tick6/files/2009/03/homework.gif

Imagine a place struck by famine. The harvests have failed, there is hardly any food, and every day is a fight for survival. Such a place exists, current day Somalia. The UN has declared a a famine. 10 million people have been effected by the worst drought in 50 years.

Hundreds of millions of dollars are going to be needed to address the problem. To make matters even worse a ban has been brought into action against outside help by the militia group which is in power. The ban causes a major setback for humanitarians trying to reach those in need. Currently 30% of Somali children are suffer acute malnourishment, and 4 out of every 10,000 children die daily.

However the situation seems grim, things can be done. Refugees camps are in place and humanitarian efforts have reached some people in need. But regular people are also doing their part to help the Somali. Andrew Andasi, an 11 year old Ghanaian schoolboy is raising money for those in need. He told the BBC he wanted to raise $13m during his school holidays. "I want individuals, companies, churches, other organisations to help me get 20m Ghana cedis." The boy's determination has impressed the ghanaians, and he has appeared as a guest on TV and on the radio. He was moved by images of Somali women and children walking for days in search of food. Then he decided to start his campaign, he created a bank account for the donations and made stickers and flyers. So far he has rasied $500. He is currently working with the UN and the WFP (the united nations World Food Programme).

The New World

Utopia, it is what we all dream of. It is what everyone wants to achieve. We have been trying to achieve it since the dawn of mankind. Many people have tried to create their own utopia but failed miserably. They tried to take control of the world and made sure that the flaws of man would be wiped out and so wouldn't interfere with their Utopia. By doing this they create the opposite, dystopia. A great example would be Adolf Hitler. He took control and tried to "cleanse" the world in order to make an Aryan utopia, by killing the Jews and everyone who wasn't Aryan. Another example would be the novel "Nineteen Eighty-Four" by George Orwell. The novel is about a society that is very technologically advanced, they have kinds of technology we could only dream of. Sadly that technology is in the hands of a very oppressive government. They are always watching, always. It is from this novel that the famous phrase "Big Brother Is Watching You" came from. The big mistake that Adolf Hitler and the government form "Nineteen Eighty-Four" made is that they thought that a utopia is a world that functions perfectly, but in fact utopia is a place free of human suffering. this is what caused their fall into dystopia. They focused in making the world work, by oppressing the people.

If I had to start a new society and had to choose one characteristic I think it should have, I would have to think very deeply. Good education may not be the best choice, as there will eventually be a power hungry maniac among us, and the only thing worse than a power hungry maniac is an educated power hungry maniac. However I can't just form a government that gets rid of this kind of people, because of the "Nineteen Eighty-Four" effect. Technologically advanced may also not be the best idea as it can easily be abused (this is exactly what happened in "Nineteen Eighty-Four"). I doubt that there even is a single characteristic that can lead to utopia. Take freedom for example, if people are free from the government then there will be chaos. If I choose for law and order, you get an oppressive dystopia. Sustainability may be good for nature, but it doesn't put an end to racism, war, poverty, etc...

I think that the best choice would be peacefulness. Out of all the possibilities it gets you the closest to Utopia. If people are peaceful towards one and other they will accept each other differences ending racism, exclusion and war. Without the distraction of war and violence people will be able to focus more on economy and so putting an end to poverty. Once poverty is gone people will no longer have to rely on cheap products that hurt the environment. Then with the improved economy people will be able to invest, more and spend more time developing eco-friendly machines. Once all the problems are gone people will be able to lead a good life free of hunger, war, pollution, racism, war, etc... This means that people will be free of suffering which means that utopia will be achieved. This process will probably take a long time, but it may give mankind a possibility achieving utopia.

I say "may" because peacefulness is not a guarantee. There will always be more than society in the world, and that other society does not have to be peaceful. In fact it can be very hostile. If the other society decides to invade my society for the sake of power or other reasons, then the society may very well be doomed.

FRIM

The 7a team went on a field trip to the FRIM (Forest Research Institute Malaysia). We got there by bus and stayed there for one night. We slept in tents and avoided leeches (some people were not very good at this). At the FRIM we did a humanities activity based on 'The Hunger Games' by Suzanne Collins. We needed to use information and things in order survive the activity. We also had to perform skits/presentations in order to get bonus stuff (luckily we didn't have time for this). The things we wanted were the: First aid kit, mosquito net, sleeping bag, mirror, and twine. The first aid kit to heal injuries, the mosquito net to protect ourselves from insects and to make traps, the sleeping bag for sleeping and for protection, the mirror for signaling and fire starting, and the twine for climbing trees and traps.

The people in my group were Jinatta, Tim, Marie, and myself. We had chosen a spot near another group but with a tree in between us for protection. We had also dragged a fallen branch to make it harder for other groups to reach us. We left the other two side of the camp open so we wouldn't get trapped in our own camp. The camp was quite high up so it would be easier to defend. What also made a difference for us is that we were chosen to be the career tributes. This means that as of birth we were trained to kill and and the best training there was. This upped our chances of survival significantly. This also meant that we got to choose our stuff first. According to the rules we were also supposed to put up a performance for bonus materials. When it appeared that we didn't have time to perform, some groups were mad, but we on the other hand were quite happy. We hadn't thought of a performance and weren't looking forward to making fools of ourselves. Even if we had though of something we still wouldn't be looking forward to it, because we would still make fools of ourselves. So we were happy about not having to do it. I thought the game was perfectly fair. I got to choose first, get almost all of our supplies, my group was made the careers, our survival chances were upped, and my group survived. It was perfectly fair (or perfectly unfair in my advantage).

The best three things about the trip to me were the bonfire, the capture-the-flag game, and the hikes. The bonfire because I simply like fire, the capture-the-flag game, because we played the game in the forest and that made the game a lot more fun, and the hikes, because I like nature and I just simply like hiking. The worst things about the trip were having to worry about leeches all the time (luckily it paid of, and I didn't get bitten), the noisy neighbors, and Mr Peavy's bad mood. I didn't like having to worry about leeches because it is very annoying, but I guess I will just have to let that go, because it is part of going to a rain forest. The noisy neighbors because they made it hard for me to sleep and woke me up early. The noisy neighbors and noisy teammates eventually led to another bad thing about the trip, Mr Peavy's bad mood. Mr Peavy's bad mood wasn't exactly making my horrible morning any better. I had seriously never seen him this mad. He shouted in our faces and made us clean the camp before having breakfast. Once I was done doing my bit, he put me on toilet duty! Luckily the toilets weren't that filthy, but seriously, how low can you go? Besides, what did I do to deserve it? I wasn't the one being disrespectful to the guides, I wasn't the one who stayed up 'till one o'clock in the morning screaming, I wasn't the one who woke up at 4:30 in the morning, I wasn't the one messing around on the monkey bars! What did I do to deserve it?

The Mysterious Short Story

In Humanities class today, we read a weird short story about a yearly lottery. But here's the weird part. Nobody wants to win it, because whatever the prize is, it doesn't seem to be very good. What was also weird was that a sticker was covering the title, we had no information about the author, and the end was missing. After reading the story (or at least the part we got, as in, everything except for the ending!) we had our own little lottery. The teacher pulled cards with our names on them out of black box (like in the story). Some of them had nothing special on them (like mine), others and a big black dot one theirs (like the dreaded black spot in the story). We were given our cards and were told not to open them until we got home. Very mysterious.....



When I got home, I opened the card and in it I found the rest of the story. It appears that if you pull the card with the black dot on it, the other villagers will throw stones at you. It may not sound so bad, but imagine this. You are completely surrounded by villagers, have no where to run, and they are all throwing stones at you. That would hurt, especially since rocks are ROCK HARD! In the card I also found some instructions. The instructions said "Go write something on your blog about the story and answer these questions". OK that not what it literally said but you get the picture.

1. If I had to title this story I would call it "The Lottery".
2. I thought that the winner would be killed, or at least that something bad would happen to them. I thought this because of the foreshadowing in the story, how everyone made such a big deal about it, how relieved the villagers were when they found out that their cards were blank, and how they reacted to how the loser/winner got the bad card.
3. I was quite mad when I didn't get to read the end in class, because I didn't understand what was going on, and got really curious about what was happening. Also I really wanted to know what was going to happen to the loser.
4. I was somewhat surprised that we were doing a lottery of our own, though I did sort of see it coming. I was happy to see mine didn't have have a black dot on it, especially since I saw them on some of the other cards. It probably doesn't matter as far as what was in the card, but I can't help but feel relieved. I suspected the end of the story would be in there (and I was right), and some instructions for an activity. There I was wrong. There were instruction for homework. I did follow the directions for the homework, as you can see. About waiting until I got home, well, you're just going to have to take my word for it.
5. The black box, and the black dot, did seem a little sinister. Probably because they were black. The blank/white card isn't black, but white. Most people feel that black is bad, and white is good. Not for a real specific reason, but they just do. I think that the same is going on with the black and blank items in the story. Black equals danger, while white equals safety.
6. After I read the story I felt bad for the victim. Her fate seemed rather painful. I mean a rock to the side of the head, with lots more rocks to come.... Not very nice, and definitely painful. I completely agreed with the victim when she said, it wasn't right.
7. My prediction was somewhat correct. I was right about the prize not being very good, and painful. I was wrong about what it would it be. I thought she would be killed, but she just got rocks thrown at her head.
8. I not sure if anything could have helped me make a better prediction.
9. The author probably left voids to confuse the reader, make them curious, and want to read on.
10. The fact that the story had no title and no author made it seem quite mysterious, The fact that there was no ending was just plain frustrating, because it had gotten me intrigued and I really wanted to know what would happen, and get a decent explanation. The foreshadowing got me intrigued, and curious. It also gave it a darker mood. The mystery paper, got me even more interested and curious. The delayed ending was a relief, because it was so much better than no ending. The end also calmed me down a little, because I my curiosity had finally been doused. There was one interesting thing I noticed, it did create tension for me, but in a different way from the rest of the things. I had noticed that in the end, they mention a person called Steve Adams. He wasn't being particularly nice to the victim, but hey, nobody was. Anyway, in another story I had read at school, "Shadow of the Minotaur", the antagonist's name happens to be Steve Adams. I was wondering whether or not there was a connection. I was wondering if perhaps the same person had written the stories. It probably isn't a great reason to suspect this. It could easily be a coincidence, but I can't help but ask myself whether or not it was the same author.