Enjoying Life (and snow)

Scientists have found the first other planet besides Earth that orbits a distant sun and is in a life friendly zone. This planet sits 500 light years from Earth, but has a high probability for sustaining life. The sun that this planet orbits around shines dimmer than our sun, so high noon on Kepler-186 would look similar to Earth an hour before sunset.

Humans may one day need to seek out a new place capable of sustaining life, and planets like Kepler-186 are likely candidates. The only current issue is of course getting there. Here’s to hoping we develop a method for getting to a distant planet!

Recently, a major internet security flaw was uncovered. The flaw can potentially leave usernames, passwords, and personal information open to anyone with the knowledge to exploit the flaw. Basically, the flaw is a poor coding job. An error between the communication of one computer with another. What happens is when one computer requests information from another (a.k.a. loading a website, page, or paying for an item), The requesting computer dumps information that it is storing and considers “useless” on to the other computer. Usually this information would be deleted in the process of transfer, but a simple error in the coding caused this information to be left on the temporary memory of the second computer.

People with a basic knowledge of coding could easily find this and sift through the information. Sifting, is the positive side to this issue. Instead of this being an information “goldmine” for hackers, it is more like looking for gold in a dumpster because the username and password are a very small part of what the computer sends and considers junk. This could have been a lot worse, but for precautionary sake, change your passwords.

Turkey recently held elections for Prime Minister. On March 20th, Turkey’s Prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, vowed to “eradicate” Twitter because of corruption tweets that were circling before the election. The election resulted in a large victory for Erdogan, and I believe this may be because of the Country’s ban on Twitter. The ban was finally taken down today, April 3rd, by Turkey’s government on account of the ban being “illegal, arbitrary and a serious restriction on the right to obtain information.”

Turkey also recently put a ban on Youtube because of a leaked video of military officials discussing intervening in Syria. If the Turkish government wants Turkey to truly be free, then bans such as this should never happen. The government officials who banned these websites did so because they didn’t want leaked information to sway voters away from voting for them. Congratulations on your victory, Mr. Erdogan.

Source: nytimes.com

Image Source: NYtimes

A recent study shows that most of the cities in China fail to meet the minimum air quality standard. Just 3 of Chinas 74 central government monitored cities meet this standard. The dirtiest cities in china are resulting from the coal based industries in the North. This is one of the issues that normal Chinese people are having while trying to pressure their communist government into taking action about it.

Things like this make me grateful for where I live. This is a terrible thing for the Chinese people to have to deal with. This is a good example of why a communist government doesn’t function as well as other types of government do. Last year when pollution became very bad Chinese citizens were forced to wear masks in order to be outside. This was nicknamed the “airpocalypse.” The Chinese government should have taken stronger action against pollution when news of the “airpocalypse” became public. I hope pollution laws are set in to place soon so that the Chinese may once again be able to breath outside.

Image source: CBS news

As I am sure that everyone is well aware of, a recent flight went missing mid-flight. This is both tragic and unbelievable. I believe the way this news was handled was extremely disrespectful to the missing passengers. News of this sort deserved a solemn story that showed respects to the lost people on board. Instead of reporting in that manner, the media blew this story sky high.

For every advancement, or “lead,” in the case of the missing plane, the media made a huge ordeal, reporting in the same manner that they would present a blockbuster movie. They made it feel like the chase to hunt down this plane was exciting. The media even went so far as to report on crazy theories of what could have possibly happened to it. The most recent update on the story seems to be the most logical and tragic outcome. A piece of debris was spotted by satellite imagery meaning the plane likely combusted mid-flight. I hope the media can learn from this case about how to be respectful while reporting certain events.

Image Source: green.autoblog

In recent news, Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk announced his plan to build a battery gigafactory. This is very exciting news. The Tesla model S pictured above was voted the 2013 car of the year. It is elegant, fast, innovative, and 100 percent electric. There is no grease, no gas, a range of 300 miles per charge, and a fronk (trunk where the combustion engine would be in a traditional automobile.) The only issue with the car is the $98,000-$110,000 price tag that the car carries. Musk’s recent announcement of the Gigafactory could change that. The plant is said to be producing the volume of lithium-ion batteries that was produced worldwide in 2013 by 2017. The specialization of the plant on batteries is also said to be able to wind the li-ion batteries up to 30% more efficiently meaning 30% more power output. The greatest thing about the plant is that it will cut down the price of the lithium ion batteries tremendously, in turn cutting the price of the Tesla. Elon musk plans to have a Telsa on the road that is half the cost of the model S by 2017.

IImage Source: IBN news

President Obama was found to have a sense of humor just recently as he was talking about an effort to boost the manufacturing and inventing of high-tech products. He started with “I’m here to announce that we’re building Iron Man.” He announced the creation of two manufacturing innovation institutes in Chicago and Detroit, and said “I’m going to blast off in a second,” and “This has been a secret project we’ve been working on for a long time. Not really. Maybe. It’s classified.”

This is actually very funny! I wouldn’t expect a joke from the president to make me laugh. It think it is great that Obama added some humor into his announcements. It definitely shines a very positive light on his announcement of the manufacturing innovation institutes. About the institutes, he is quoted by saying “They’re partnerships that bring together companies and universities to develop cutting-edge technology, train workers to use that technology, and then make sure that the research is translated into real-world products made by American workers.” Good job President Obama.

Image Source: Film Junk

When I first started to read the news, I read it from my local newspaper. As I got older, I found myself reading news from electronic sources more and more. It is easier and more efficient to read news electronically. I believe that there is also a huge benefit to electronically receiving your news. The benefit is that when news is read from a local newspaper, the stories read are from the words of the same people week after week. Those particular people have their own biases and opinions towards things, and the articles written by them reflect that more often than not. When news is received at a computer, it is likely from a specialized news application or website. Those applications and websites gather news from a wide variety of sources and authors. Something that I do with news I find very interesting is I read the same story from different authors. This gives me a broader picture of the situation while helping me to eliminate the biases. Another benefit to reading news electronically is the ability to view comments on the articles. Comments give you a general idea about people’s thought on particular subjects, and may even give you information that is key to a story, but wasn’t mentioned in the article. This is why I read my news electronically. It helps to paint a broader picture of the stories.

Image Source: Five Red Dice

Today I will be doing a visual analysis for this picture of Uncle Sam. When first glancing at this image, instead of seeing a man, I see the United States of America. I feel like Uncle Sam is trying to convey the message of scolding his citizens for not already joining the military. Although I probably should not, I can’t help but feel bad when looking at this image. I almost get the feeling that I am letting my country down.

This simple image is so effective at conveying this message to me because of the styling and format. The entirety of the image is the colors of the American flag, and the only different color is Uncle Sam’s skin. The colors are what presents this man as America, and they do a very good job of it. Another thing that draws in the viewers attention is the simplicity of the image. It is centered with a simple white back round, and it prevents losing the viewers attention because of clutter. Finally, the point of the image is presented in Uncle Sam’s pointed finger and stern face. The finger addresses the viewer directly, and the face gives the viewer a sense of being called upon. This is one of the most famous propaganda images of all time. It gained it’s fame because of the potency of the image and point it is trying to make. Even without a single word on it, this image immensely persuasive in trying to get the viewer to join the U.S. military.

January 31st – In the article about Obama’s State of the Union address,”Room for Debate: Presidential  Power vs. Congressional Inertia,” Obama states that he will use his power to help American families. The power he is talking about is his ability to make decisions by himself and without the approval of Congress. If the past few months and the Government shutdown weren’t any indication, Obama and the majority of Congress do not agree with each other. The article asks the question of whether the presidents power to act by himself, without the approval of Congress, is a good thing, and what the downfalls to that may be.

I read a response article to this question written by Eric Posner, who is a professor at the University of Chicago Law school. He responds by writing about how this power is given to the president because the system that Congress follows is so slow, and conflicted that this is the only way that anything would get done. He writes about three concerns about the executives power. The first is that the president ail indulge in his own ideologic fantasies, but follows by writing that the president is more of an advocate for the american people than congress. The second concern is that the president “short circuits” democratic deliberation and cites his surveillance policies as proof of this.  The third concern is that the power can eventually lead to tyranny, but this hasn’t happened yet, and probably never will. I agree with his position but I think that the power should remain with the president, solely based on the fact that congress takes a very long time to establish laws.

:p