Driver Size

Posted on April 22, 2014 by Joshua Lien

Generally on most headphone packages the companies will try to emphasize the size of the drivers in order to ‘wow’ customers into buying the product.  For example you may be walking through an electronics store and you see a headphone package stating

“50MM DUAL DRIVERS”

“EXTRA BASS”

or something along those lines.  However this tends to cause somewhat of a misconception.  Contrary to popular belief, larger drivers don’t actually mean better sound.  A pattern that is about 60-70% consistent is that larger drivers mean more bass quantity.  This does not mean bass quality, but they can push more air and have a more boomy sound.  However, this is either a good or bad thing because it may overpower vocals on certain tracks and some audio purists will hate that wit ha burning passion.

Smaller drivers, usually present in earphones generally have more balanced and accurate sound.  The drivers inside can move faster for more accurate reproductions of sound frequencies.  Again, this may have its downsides because bass quantity may not be as much as that produced from larger driver headphones.  But sometimes this also means that the quality of it will be cleaner and more punchy to the ear.

There are always exceptions to these things, but it is important to know that just as if the headphone model is called “PRO” or “Studio” doesn’t necessarily mean it is good; the same applies for driver size if listed.

Larger drivers =/= Better Sound 

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Racist Easter Eggs

Posted on April 22, 2014 by Joshua Lien

Last week I read an article about a family enjoying an Easter egg hunt on their property until they found an Easter egg that was a bit different from the rest.  Instead of candy inside the egg there was a racist message, something that was not intended for the three year old son to find.

o-RACIST-NOTES-IN-EASTER-EGGS-570

“Diversity = white genocide”

 “Mass immigration and forced assimilation of non-whites into our lands is genocide.”

Based on history the messages seemed more like something the Native Americans would have said instead of modern day white supremacists.  Everything about the wording is unconvincing. I’m not exactly sure why they think such rude ways of putting their position is going to attract more followers of their cause.

We may laugh at the lack of discretion and abruptness of the racist message above but many times in writing we write similar things that turn off the reader.  While we may be trying to sound stern and confident it may accidentally come off as rude and disrespectful; making us sound like complete jerks and driving off the reader in the end.

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False Positives

Posted on April 18, 2014 by Joshua Lien

TERROR TWEET1.jpg

I saw an article earlier this week about a girl who had tweeted a fake bomb threat to an American airline company as a joke.  This was apparently a bad idea because she was tracked down and arrested for questioning.

For airline companies safety of passengers is probably first priority above all else.  Even jokes about threats are taken seriously.  They can’t just assume that something won’t happen just because its posted on the internet and real threats wouldn’t make it so obvious.  The last time this happened a user on the imageboard 4chan posted that he was going to shoot people at a mall.  Nobody believed him but the next day he actually shot people at the local mall.  Writing anything online requires careful rhetoric, as it could be taken more or less seriously than the author intended.

Update: A plethora of twitter users have been bombarding American Airlines with similar terrorist threats after the girl was arrested for her tweet.

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Noise Cancelling and Noise Isolating Headphones

Posted on April 17, 2014 by Joshua Lien

Bose-and-Shure

 

Some people travel a lot, from going on business trips to commuting to the work place.  Some common methods of transportation are trains and airplanes.  Most people don’t like to deal with loud noises of engines, so they turn to music to help alleviate some of the noise.

Because normal earbuds allow potentially lots of ambient noise to distort music, there has been a transition to headphones which reduce the outside noise and keep music pure.  The two main kinds are “noise isolating” and “noise cancelling”.

Noise isolating headphones work by creating a physical barrier that blocks outside noise.  Whether its on ear or in ear, how good of a seal on or in the ear will affect the amount of surrounding sound that becomes muffled or blocked.  Some people find in ears uncomfortable, and tight squeezing on ear headphones can become uncomfortable after certain periods of time, which may become an issue for some listeners.

Noise cancelling headphones are a bit more complicated than noise isolation.  They work mainly by recording outside noise levels and producing inverse waves that cancel out the sound.  For example if a processor determines that the outside noise is +2, it will generate waves of -2 to cancel the noise out to 0.  Generally these work more efficiently for loud noises than noise isolating headphones.  However, these are usually battery operated and run through an internal amp, which means that if the battery runs out you will have nothing to listen to, not even without the noise cancellation feature.  It also doesn’t perfectly cancel out sound at all frequencies, and poorly made noise cancellation systems will add annoying hissing noises and possibly even distort the musical sound.

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Wireless Headphones

Posted on April 10, 2014 by Joshua Lien

bluetooth

In the last few years, the development of Bluetooth technology has grown at an extremely fast pace.  Starting with single earpieces, certain phones had Bluetooth capabilities to pair for easy talking without holding the cell phone up to the ear and completely keeping one hand occupied.  Now, many audio companies that produce headphones are starting to shift their products towards wireless capabilities.

The problems of wired earphones and headphones start from cable noise while moving around, wires getting tangled in the pockets, and being cumbersome in general to use while doing tasks such as running, yard work, etc.  By eliminating the long length of wires to a relatively short one for ear buds and none for over and on ear headphones people have more freedom to move around as well as the benefits of not having the problems of wired headsets.

There are faults too with these headphones.  For critical listeners wireless headphones will not have as accurate of sound production as those of wired headphones.  Audio is compressed and sent through waves which is then decompressed inside the wireless headset and some quality will be lost.  There is also the issue of the headset running out of battery, most Bluetooth sets running purely on a charged battery.  However, as new headphones are released battery life and sound quality is constantly being improved to accommodate for a larger range of consumers.

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Tone in E-mails

Posted on April 10, 2014 by Joshua Lien

tone-keysTone.

You hear English teachers and professors talk about it all the time.  The way you write can reflect your current attitude and how strongly you feel towards the topic.   It is important for your tone especially in rhetoric based writing to make you sound confident but respectful.  If the tone is too firm then it may turn off the reader and backfire in terms of persuasiveness.

However, tone in emails can be much more difficult to control.  Recently while writing an email to a professor I did not pay too much attention to my tone and when I came back to read the email a bit later I noticed that it came off as rude.

The concept of emails make words carry more meaning and emotion than essay based formatting or tactics of in person communication.  Its similar to how typing in all caps seems like the writer IS COMMUNICATING IN A VERY LOUD VOICE. Additionally,  most people read emails relatively quickly, so even tones that are usually acceptable can become inappropriate and offend the reader.  When emails are worded in a way that is completely different from how you would talk in person the tone can come off as insulting and edgy.  Even if you intend for the email to have instances of humor if the reader doesn’t find it funny then it can damage the conversation’s progress and value.

 

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PETA: People Eating Tasty Animals

Posted on April 3, 2014 by Joshua Lien

images

PETA, which stands for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals has repeatedly shown up in my news feed on Facebook, in my regular email as well as my PSU email often enough that I think I should voice my opinion on their tactics.

From most of their articles and messages, they have used a very interesting approach to the three parts of rhetoric: Ethos, Logos, and Pathos.  I know saying ‘no offense to the vegetarians/vegans’ won’t actually make it less offensive, but I don’t agree with their claims and I also have problems with their methods of rallying supporters for their ’cause’.

ETHOS

PETA loves celebrity endorsement.  They find whatever celebrity available to say a good word on whatever motive they are trying to advertise at the moment.  Whether it is about cruelty of eating animals or acts of animal cruelty apparently if a famous singer, athlete,etc says its wrong then that celebrity must be a reliable source.  Clearly a professional swimmer would know more about endangered species than a biologist right? Another example of such would be saying that because ‘x’ person followed a certain diet they achieved a great body or some other noticeable benefit.  However PETA tends to ignore the fact that there may have been other factors such as months of hard work in the gym.

LOGOS

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This may be an exaggeration of the actual case, but to a certain extent it is true.  PETA likes to focus most of their efforts into appealing to their target audiences and causing them to feel bad about certain things they do which PETA labels as ‘inhumane’.  Too many of their arguments revolve around biased speculation instead of logically sound statements.

PATHOS

Pathos seems to be what PETA is the best at of the three, and even then I don’t find it very effective.  If anything, somewhat disgusting.  Probably around 70-80% of PETA’s articles contain gruesome and gory photos that most people would find offensive or shocking.  Descriptions also lean toward darker tones.  If there is anything PETA is good at it should be imagery.  They are pretty effective in describing situations in the rawest form.

Although 95% of their content is poorly constructed, they occasionally do something right in actually using statistics, studies, quotes from biologists and such, as well as analysis of both sides of a viewpoint.  On a good day the pathos will variate from the usual bloody and obscene imagery.  I suppose that their messages would be even better if they addressed existing counterarguments to a proposal side by side with their own.

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Sound Signature

Posted on April 3, 2014 by Joshua Lien

In the audio industry companies try their best to create products for all types of listeners, such as studio producers, audiophiles, as well as the general consumer.  Therefore the way they tune their speakers and audio will differ from model to model depending on the target consumer.  The general patterns of how sound is output from these products are called sound signatures.  Besides custom tuned signatures, there are 4 main frequency response types:

Analytical

Analytical
The analytical sound signature is rather bland and to most seem somewhat lifeless.

Midcentric

Midcentric
The midcentric sound signature focuses in on vocals especially in the mid range, but the bass and highs may sound distant.

ANALYTICAL:

Certain companies create speakers and headphones specifically for monitoring purposes.  This sound signature is generally honest and will not artificially inflate or deflate any part of the frequency range.  Even though it makes high quality recordings sound better it also exposes bad recordings and makes them sound worse.  Its a double edged sword really.

MIDCENTRIC:

Products that incorporate this sound signature generally aim to make acoustic music sound better, especially with vocals. This signature is not as detailed as the analytical type signature. The sound stage is generally smaller but it is also the type of signature that causes the least listener fatigue.  Great for listening marathons. 

Basshead

Bass Boost
The bass boosted signature is that of which the bass is inflated to be more prominent. It makes most electronic, rock, and pop music sound more fun.

Balanced

Balanced / V- Curve
Balanced sound tends to emphasize bass as well as treble. Along with the bass boost signature this signature is mostly found in average consumer products.

 

Bass Boost:

The bass boost signature is most commonly found in products aimed at  listeners who listen mainly to bass heavy music such as hip hop and and electronic music.  With an emphasis on bass quantity and quality, it often lacks detail in the higher ranges, as shown by the sudden drop in frequency on the graph.  Commonly referred to as ‘fart cannons’.           

 

Balanced / V-Curve:

The balanced sound is mostly found in products aimed at average listeners who listen to a variety of music.  It does not seemingly excel at any frequencies however the overall sound is warm and colorful.  Most of these don’t offend the listener on any part of the spectrum except purists.  The perfect all rounder.   

 

 

 

 

Sometimes if you think a song or soundtrack is poorly produced you must consider that it might not be the track itself, but it might be the way the drivers are tuned inside the system.  And that’s when equalizers help to counter any faults of audio output.

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Hearing Damage

Posted on March 27, 2014 by Joshua Lien

Not everyone likes loud noises. Some people like to listen to music at volumes where others can not tolerate.  Ranging from fire alarms to concert speakers sounds that get to a certain level can cause hearing damage.

decibel-scale

Many of the sounds in the chart above are unavoidable on a day to day basis, but turns out that speaker systems and headphones also can cause damage if the volume is set too high.  In that aspect noise isolating systems are very helpful in preventing users from turning up the volume too high.  Conventional earbuds have almost no isolation and when outside people will attempt to compete with the outside noise by raising the volume to unsafe levels.  However with in ear monitors or noise cancelling headphones this risk is reduced by the fact that 60-90% of outside noise can be blocked out.  This is useful so the user doesn’t have to turn the volume up so much to hear his music.  Many companies today are starting to shift their focus to noise isolating and active noise cancelling systems to help prevent hearing damage.  Personally I still think that ear buds are generally safer in louder environments because if completely isolated it is difficult to tell what is going on around you and could pose a risk more dangerous than just hearing.

29101

This is an example of an in ear monitor, it fits straight into the inner ear canal and isolates most outside noise. However it may become uncomfortable after extended periods of use.

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Earbuds, headphones which rest in your outer ear generally don’t isolate as well as headphones which have active noise cancelling or fit directly into the ear canal.

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2014 Hide n’ Seek Champion

Posted on March 21, 2014 by Joshua Lien

APphoto_Malaysia Plane

Its been a couple of weeks now since the Malaysian plane disappeared mid flight.  To this day nobody knows where it is, but many interesting theories have come up regarding what might have happened to flight MH370.  Ranging from alien abduction to a plane hijacking, each theory lists its own reasons for what happened.

The use of rhetoric is important here for justifying each theory’s feasibility.  Logos is required to justify with logic the possibility with the use of statistics and known facts.  Since the plane disappeared mid flight it is hard to say where the plane may have flown.  Many possible locations including a desert in China, an island near India, or even Kazakhstan.  Any theory supporting a change in the original flight plan must have lots of logic to make it appear possible.

Additionally,  the opinions of ‘experts’ seem to be more trusted here.  Many pilots have offered their opinions and possibilities and those would seem to have more credibility due to the fact that they may know about the workings of a plane including the piloting and communications with stations on land.

For many people, positive theories offering a best case scenario will appeal and that is where pathos comes in.  Theories where the plane may have landed somewhere due to some problem, or even a hostage situation offered hopes of the plane passengers being alive somewhere unknown.  Although these theories may not be as logically sound as ones suggesting destination change, these offer the situation in a more optimistic light and relatives of those on the plane will more likely want to believe a situation where their loved ones are alive somewhere.

Missing planes are perfect for conspiracy theories, and there is no doubt that much thinking on all aspects of the situation must be taken into account.  But for it to be effective in attracting believers it must employ tactics of rhetoric.

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Why Prices Are Misleading

Posted on March 6, 2014 by Joshua Lien

The above brand Monoprice specializes in making high quality audio products for a price that will make you feel a tang of guilt when you realize how much you paid for such excellent performance.

“One can only show a horse where the water is, but he cannot force the horse to drink.”  This saying is very true for consumers relatively new to the audio industry in terms of purchasing a certain setup or equipment.  Among all the factors, price as well as description can be extremely misleading and cause a customer to rip himself off.

Certain companies like to use buzzwords that make a certain product sound like it implements the highest end technologies in the item in the packaging.  “Professional”, “Dynamic Drivers”, “Dual drivers”, “balanced”, “Powerful Bass Response”, etc are some of the marketing terms used to fish in consumers who don’t actually know what these terms mean.  There seems to be a trend where if the package puts the technical specs on the back or somewhere on it then consumers get an impression that said product must be good.

The second and usually more decisive term that draws in those who have little to no idea what they are dealing with is the pricing of certain product.  The amount of times I’ve heard someone justifying a product’s quality based on its price is way too often.  There exists some preconceived notion that the more expensive a product is, the higher quality the performance will be.  Although this may be generally true, there are many products which offer the same quality for much less of another product.  Name brand and celebrity endorsed products are usually the reasons for premium prices on equipment.  In my previous blog post I talked about the Chinese audio industry and how it has unbeatable price to performance ratio when compared to some of the top well known brands from Europe, America, and Japan.

Ultimately it still comes down to the consumer’s intentions on what he wants and how much he is willing to spend to acquire such equipment.

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State Patty’s Day

Posted on February 27, 2014 by Joshua Lien

state pattys day graphic

State Patty’s Day, Penn State’s alternative celebration day for the tradition Saint Patrick’s Day.  This day consists mainly of consuming alcoholic beverages and partying and was usually held the weekend after THON had ended.  Since the event is this weekend I’ve been seeing posters everywhere around campus trying to persuade students to not participate in any illegal activities using the concept of logos and ethos primarily in terms of rhetoric.

Many posters and notifications around campus try to get students to not drink based on the general consensus that the consequences when caught are not worth it.  Fines of up to $300, $200 mandatory classes, and even University based punishments were some of the main reasons that students should not participate in these activities, but instead attend alternative activities for free in other areas of campus.

The other technique widely used is the one of authority.  Sometimes when calmly trying to persuade potential party animals doesn’t work the administration has to take a different approach.  They know that some students really don’t care about getting caught so they start making rules that might turn away visitors such as raising parking rates and limiting overnight guests in the residence halls.  This is a kind of “We still have power” kind of statement that establishes that you should not take their words lightly.  Even the police department has joined forces with the University to crack down on underage drinking and tried to scare people by claiming that they will camp and monitor off campus housing extremely carefully in hopes of showing their authority as well as making students think through their actions.

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The Rise of the Chinese Hi-Fi Industry

Posted on February 27, 2014 by Joshua Lien

For the last couple of decades the U.S, Europe, and Japan have been the undisputed leaders in high fidelity audio equipment ranging from speakers to headphones to amps.  They have left varying impressions on audio enthusiasts based off of their claims and pricing of products.

Many companies who charged premium prices for their products turned off potential buyers such as Beats by Dr. Dre and Bang and Olufsen. Around the same time, China was known for making knockoff products whose outer appearances could not be differentiated from the real thing.  The difference would be in quality and more importantly, PRICE.

If you compared China’s high fidelity products with those of Europe/Japan/U.S quality wise China is not up to par.  But if you compare prices, China’s products undoubtedly have the better price for the performance value.  Unfortunately, many of China’s brands are little known. China has somewhat of a bad reputation for making knockoff products, many of which are used for scams on online markets such as eBay and Amazon. This in turn causes many potential customers to turn away from a great product.

China’s industry is still growing. Although products are great I feel that their marketing is still lacking, which may explain the lack of popularity.

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Earbuds and In Ear Monitors (IEM)

Posted on February 20, 2014 by Joshua Lien

In the beginning of portable players there were two types of headphones:

Supra-Aural which looked like

track_headphone_black_5301_5

and smaller, more portable ones called Ear buds, which looked like

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Most people preferred ear buds due to the portability of storage as well as the fact that it was usually cheaper in price compared to its larger siblings.  They fit in the outer ear but didn’t actually go into the ear canal.  Depending on the build material of such earpieces they could have a secure fit or fall out easily.  Many picky listeners including myself complained that it lacked isolation to the point where ambient noise seeped in and made the acoustics barely audible.  As a result, people turned up the volume on their source players to the point where it was needlessly loud and could potentially damage hearing.  However, some would argue that it gives a better sense of outside surroundings especially in urban areas.

Fast forward 20-30 years and the in ear monitor has been created.

29101

This evolution from the traditional ear bud usually gave higher amounts of isolation because it was inserted directly into the ear canal.  They were just as portable as the original ear buds but the sound outputted was usually more accurate.  Fit in ear was less prone to fall out as well, which made them very preferable to use for exercise.  Generally these in ears were used more by audio engineers, audiophiles, and concert musicians than the average consumer initially since most would be satisfied with the traditional ear bud.  In ears were considered the solution to picky listeners who demanded a higher quality of sound.

Some prefer over ear/on ear headphones to in ear/ear bud type headphones. Quite frankly some people don’t care at all, as long as it produces recognizable sound and doesn’t cost an arm and a leg.

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News

Posted on February 19, 2014 by Joshua Lien

Most of the time when you talk about news you would refer to some TV news show or a newspaper, or even some online news website for the latest events.  I will shamelessly say that I get my news primarily from:

FACEBOOK.

 Now before you gasp in disapproval hear me out.  I’ve been using Facebook since middle school sometime between 7th and 8th grade.  I have to say it has been pretty reliable in terms of people posting about weather conditions, good or bad.  I suppose that school cancelling due to weather has been emphasized more often on Facebook than other sites, especially from people who lived in the same school district.  Additionally, any new breakthrough, tragedy, or political update worth commenting about has appeared by some of my contacts who decide to share it with everyone.  To be honest, its a somewhat efficient way of weeding out worthwhile news and news that is less important.  Usually links are posted so I read more in depth about anything that looked interesting.

The primary reason I don’t like watching news on television is generally the bias of the reporters/speakers.  The same can be said about Facebook and websites and even print sources, but at since I spend a lot of time on Facebook it kind of forces me to see what is going on in the world.

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Car Accidents Don’t Just Happen to Cars

Posted on February 13, 2014 by Joshua Lien

Source

First Impressions

The first thing I noticed about the image was a young girl who had a dent in her head.  At the bottom there is some text that informs the reader that it is harder to stop at 60 km/h than 50 km/h.  There is nothing in the background to distract the viewer, it seems the artist intended for the entire focus to be on the little girl.

A Second Look

On closer inspection there are some details that I did not notice the first time.  The girl appears to be sad, upset, or even worried about something.  Additionally, the dent in her head is much larger than something that is humanly possible to survive.  The texture of the dent resembles aluminum with the glint of the light reflecting off it. Despite the severity of the dent in her head, there are no traces of blood or discoloring.  It seems around the same area her forehead/face area is missing some color which seems to resemble paint on cars.   There is a small logo near the text at the bottom which is probably some sort of car safety administration.

Interpetation

When I first found this image it was in a campaign called “In Town, Car Accidents Don’t Just Happen to Cars“.  Clearly it is meant to advise people to drive more carefully so innocent pedestrians and civilians don’t get injured.  I think this image is aimed towards people who carelessly drive around neighborhoods or urban areas with many pedestrians.  The image draws sympathy from the audience and effectively gets the point across that a little girl of her age would be completely unable to avoid a car accident from a careless driver.  I suppose that the logo from the automobile safety administration helps make the text below it and the entire ad seem more credible.  Overall, the message is that if you don’t drive carefully, small innocent children may get injured by negligent drivers.

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Celebrity Endorsements

Posted on February 13, 2014 by Joshua Lien

Beats-By-Dr-Dre-Logo

What do the above logos all have in common?

If you look at them you can see that many are brand names with celebrity names attached to them.  Soul by Ludacris, Beats by Dr. Dre, or even flat out Marley (reference to Bob Marley).  Around 2008, the famous record producer Dr. Dre founded a company called Beats Electronics LLC.  This company gave a great awakening to the headphone industry.  With the right marketing techniques, Beats Electronics had discovered an effective way of persuading consumers to purchase their high priced headsets.

 Before then, paying premium prices for a headphone was mainly for artists and producers in music studios.  Most average consumers would be satisfied with almost anything $100 and below.   However if a celebrity was paid to say a few good words about it then perhaps targeted consumers would give said product a try.

If a consumer likes a particular celebrity, and the celebrity ‘likes’ a certain product, by the transitive property wouldn’t the consumer also like that product?  Perhaps it is simply a case of fandom, where the consumer wants a product with a celebrity’s stamp of approval on it.  It might simply be for the sake of establishing a sort of personal connection to the successful, rich, and famous.

In the audio industry, the success of Beats Electronics’ marketing has inspired many other companies to follow in its footsteps.  Some view this as a great awakening of the audio market, attracting a new generation of audio enthusiasts.  Others see it as straight up robbery of consumers’ hard earned money.  Quality of endorsed products will vary in opinion from person to person.  Similarly, whether outrageous prices for a certain product with average quality are justified is debatable.

    

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The Evolution of Portable Audio

Posted on February 7, 2014 by Joshua Lien

cropped-Headphone.jpg

Artist: Pei

Title: Music n’ Soul

DeviantArt

Remember when audio had to be stored on cassettes and CD’s and could only be played by CD and cassette players?  Even then the playback quality was not that great.

Then came the walkman players which would play a cassette or CD without having to lug a large player around.  But even then the sound quality was nothing spectacular.

Over the past decade portable audio has been on the rise, starting with small sized MP3 type players which typically held anywhere from 500mb to 8GB.  The company Apple was ahead of the race by introducing a line of MP3 players named iPods.  These iPods exploded onto the market as some models offered rechargable batteries, offered many many hours of playback and an easy to use interface with a color LED screen.  Primarily using the MP3 format of music files, the audio quality was greatly improved from previous generations of music players.

Fast forward a few years and there are now internal and external equalizers and amps to customize the specific sound signature of a particular song or general preference.  If once wished he could turn up the bass or reduce the treble as pleased.  Of course, doing so may or may not distort the quality of sound and some listeners prefer pure unadulterated sound.

Eventually music player functions started to be integrated into mobile phones as a basic function.  When people realized that the race for the best music player had started to fade, they turned to the second most important thing for portable audio: headphones.

After a certain point all portable music players had the same standard of musical output; and that no matter what one did to make the music player output accuracy of sound, if the headphones were bad it would completely defeat the purpose of optimizing the music players.

And so the sound market opens, many companies competing against each other to revolutionize the sound industry, focusing in on primarily speaker setups as well as high performance headphones and earphones.

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An Unbalance in the Three Branches of Government

Posted on January 31, 2014 by Joshua Lien

 

In the ‘Presidential Power vs Congressional Inertia‘ debate published on January 29th, there were five debaters who participated on the issue of presidents acting unilaterally and whether it was ethical or not.  Out of the five debaters, only one was a woman, so I decided to see her viewpoint on the issue.

Elizabeth Price Foley is a professor of law at the Florida International University College of law.   Long story short, she believes that Obama and any U.S president should not be allowed to freely prance about breaking existing laws or acting solely by himself without the consultation of  the other two branches of government. Basically a tip in the balance of powers towards the presidential branch.

Personally I agree with her standpoint because laws are laws for a reason. Although it sounds extremely cliché, it is probably also the best explanation of why even presidents need to stay in line.  Laws are generally made through a fair and long process of deliberation between many many people in the government.  Many aspects are considered: the benefits, the downsides, and even the dangers.  If a president suddenly decides to overturn a law it only provides speed and not careful thought. Thus, I believe the president should respect the law and overturn, amend, or even create new laws through the proper old fashioned process.

 

 

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First Blog Post

Posted on January 24, 2014 by Joshua Lien

Hi.

This is blog post number one.

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