3 Year Degrees

In Ohio the governor of the state told universities to start to get ideas for 3 year degree programs. The basis behind the idea is to get students in and out of school and into the job market quicker. This idea however has been at Ball State in Indiana since 2005. The idea at Ball State is to take classes year round including the summer. However, at Ball State students only wind up saving a couple hundred dollars.Only 25 students are enrolled In Ohio the idea is to make degrees which can be passed without going in the summertime.
Seeing that I am almost through this would not effect me much however i believe if i was just starting i would be all over getting out after three years. Especially with money saved it would have been awesome. The full story can be read at http://n.pr/eP5aoe

Baseball Season is Here!!!

I have to through in one of my favorite times of the year into this blog. One of my favorite days of the happened last Thursday. Last Thursday Major League Baseball had its opening day and to me this is a new season of hope and opportunity for my favorite team the Atlanta Braves. I have to thinl that most of you do not care about this but let me explain myself. I love the game of baseball because of its unpredictability. I have to say that most think it's boring in this part of the country, however i have to disagree. I must say that I will watch most any game but Atlanta is the team i follow mostly. So if you think baseball is boring then give it a chance and you might like it too.

Be Careful what you Tweet

While i was browsing the internet, I came across this story about tweets and the needs for them to be censored. I believe that everyone has heard of the awful events that have occured in Japan. In response to this Gilbert Gottfried got fired from his job as AFLAC duck voice. Also a member of Mississippi Governor, Haley Barbour's people also lost thier job on the "jokes" they told about Japan. Rush Limbaugh and rapper 50 cent did not loose their jobs.

I believe that we need to think before we tweet and that it is a relief that i am not the only one who feels this way. The authors of the article says that their is a thin line between posting something good and not so good. However, according to the article two comediennes do not think so. Paula Poundstone says that it takes a lot of effort to get the joke in 140 characters or less. Lisa Lampanelli also feels this way. I have to side with the author and think that someway somehow we need to filter and maybe censor things we tweet. However, saying this i have no idea how this can be accomplished. The full article can be found at http://n.pr/eBrGFc

A Religious Themepark

As I was browsing the internet Icame across something that reallygave me mixed feelings. In Kentucky they are going to build a Bible based themepark. The centerpiece of the park will be a giant replica of Noah's Ark. It will also house a Tower of Babel, a Walled City, and a First century Middle East Village.
The main reason for building the themepark is for economic relief in the area of Kentucky just south of Cincinnati Ohio. Kentucky governor , Steve Beshear, is behind this idea because of the increase in economic help. The area has unemployment rates near 11%. The park will be near the are where they put a Creation Museum. The museum has gotten alot of criticism but also it has gotten about a million visitors since opening. The builders of the park want to have more awareness toward the Bible.
My feelings are as i said are mixed. The things i like about this is the awareness for the Bible and the economical help it will induce. The things i dislike are hard to pinpoint but something tells me that these things should not exist but I do not know how to say why I feel this way.
The full story can be found at the following:http://n.pr/iaebct

Broke Wisconsin

As i was browsing the internet i came across an article which depressed me. The article was saying that the state of Wisconsin is broke and ithout money. The sad thing is that the governor Scott Walker, is going to cut the public school and local government budgets by $1.5 billion. Some of the cuts will be by the way of the government giving up pensions and other money they have to give up.
The article states that the government needs to start making up the budget before they harm our best assets our children. The governor will have many cuts in the schools. However, they say they are starting to get the budget under control now which in the long run will effect the children because if they cut the school budgets then why will in effect hurt the children in more ways than one. The story concludes by saying that the other parts of Wisconsin's government will do revisions. I hope that they get their money from someone else. The full story can be found at the following: http://n.pr/gWC472

Military Weapons are Getting Smaller

As I was browsing the internet, I came across an article that first made me want to say, what next? The article was about a new mechanical hummingbird. This is not a new toy but a spy weapon for the military. The article says that the Pentagon has spent four million dollars on this project. The weapon can move up, down, forward, and backward. The thing, i hope does not happen is that when these things are finally released or maybe even before that , that we do not see the world's hummingbird population drop. The full article can be found at:http://n.pr/eadMKX

Classical Music Comes to UNA

Meet the New Jeopardy Contestant

While I was searching the internet and came across something that caught me off guard and to be honest it scared me a little. The article which I came across was about a computer which was a contestant on Jeopardy.
The name of the computer is Watson and it was made by the people at IBM. It works because the people who made it put about 200 million pages of information in it. The information ranges from pages of the Bible, novels, and encyclopedias. The lead creator, David Ferrucci says that the computer quickly picks out many possible answers and uses phrases and other hints to answer the questions from the show.
Mr. Ferrucci says that Watson is not mistake proof and can flub up on occasion. One example of this is when in a sparring match, the question what do grashoppers eat was asked. The robot answered kosher. Ferrucci says that computer technology is not at the point were computers will run people's lives however it proves that artificial intelligence is farther advanced than I at the least released.
This article scares me and i kind of makes me scared that the people in charge do not tell us everything. It also makes me think that technology is farther advanced than we realize.
The full story can be found at the following website: http://n.pr/fHTBvq

Podcast and Reviews

In one of my classes, the professor told us we had to blog about a podcast and gave us some sites we could get podcasts from one of them was Slate's Culture Gabfest. I chose the January 4, 2011 edition entitled Your Marriage is Probably Doomed. This particular podcast's host were Stephen Metcalf, Dana Stevens and Julia Turner. This podcast talked about the film Blue Valentine, the year in film for 2010, and a thing called Google ngram.

First up they talk and review in detail the movie Blue Valentine. The film stars Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams. The way they speak of and describe this movie kind of makes me not want to see it. They say that the movie is extremely realistic in that basically from the beginning you know that their marriage is in trouble. I have to say that when they speak and say that the film is hard to follow in that it is hard to find the turning point when you know things are going south really puts this film on the backburner for me because in a way I kind of wanted to see it. They have mixed feelings but ultimately say it is realistic and depressing.

The next thing they discussed is the year in films for 2010. They all seem to have mixed feelings again because one likes Black Swan and another does not. I kind of want to see this one but that is not a guarantee at this point. They all agree however that Toy Story 3 is worthy of being one of last years best and one even says that it was the overall best. Some other films they all seemed to agree upon would include Inside Job a movie I have never heard of and this is kind of the only one they agree upon. The funny thing about their movie review selections was the fact of their wild card films. One said they really liked Machete, another said he thought Tangled was one of the best and the third said a foreign film that I cannot recall the title of.

The third part to me was the least interesting to me. It was that of the Google ngram and their database of 5.6 million books in their database. They have mixed feelings about this but i would have to say they all think it is a positive except for the fellings that Stephen had about the idea that this would not allow for literary reviews because if I am not mistaken he feels that it takes away parts of the books in general. These three had good ideas and for the most part the podcast was entertaining and I might again listen to them in the future.

Finally Some Good News or is it?

With all the sad news and in some ways scary news about what is happening in Egypt, I was really was trying to find some good news. I know everyone remembers the BP oil spill from last year, know the experts are saying that it will not take as long as previously expected. According to the administrator of the compensation team who was placed in charge by BP, Mr. Kenneth Feinberg. According to him and his team of environmentalists, economists, and other experts think that the Gulf should be cleaned by the end of 2012. However, they do place the claim that prediction is not an exact science. The money which is supposed to be compensated for the people who lost money will begin to take place very shortly. So far, Mr. Feinberg has given out $3.5 billion in emergency needs to the stricken Gulf areas.
However, many consider Feinberg not being disconnected from BP. According to a report done by a Texas A&M, researcher he claims that it is not going to be cleaned that quickly. Many people follow the findings of the A&M researcher and have found that this research could have some merit and many residents have hired lawyers to fight Feinberg and get the money they believe they deserve if it turns to those circumstances. I hope that the people are correct and that it takes a shorter amount of time than initially thought for the Gulf to recover, however only time will tell in that manner. Another point I would like to make is I hope the people get their just amount of money however, I hope they do not get greedy and want more than they deserve.
The full story can be found at http://nyti.ms/gd709b

Turmoil in Egypt

In class today I learned about the turmoil in Egypt. To be absolutely honest I was totally unaware of the unrest. I think that the turmoil was very scary that the social media is such a strong way to relay messages. From what I learned it seemed to me that the Egyptians got their ideas from Tunisia. I believe that this proves just how powerful social media is and that it is not going anywhere. The unrest was centered around people posting tweets about their disagreement with their government. Over the past few days the United States it seems to me from what I have been hearing has mixed feelings about this situation. According to the news stations, the U.S. sides with the protesters in ways but also sides with the Egyptian president. To concludethis entry, I just hope with the help of God that the Egyptians straighten this out.

More Driving Distractions, more headaches

As I was browsing the internet, I came across an intriguing article on the NPR website. The article was titled Can Drivers Handle More Gadgets? Experts Say "No". The article centers around the idea that Transportation Secretary Ray Lahood was making a trip to Ford Headquarters to talk about "distracted driving".

In an astonishing statistic 5,000 people where killed in distracted driving incidents. Lahood's major concern is with the advent use of cell phones when it comes to driving. I have to agree with Lahood and say that every time I see someone on the phone while driving, it infuriates me. If the conversation is that important pullover!!! Going deeper into the NPR article, I learned that cell phones are indeed distracting but they distractions pile up while on the road. Lahood mentions his dislike of infotainment additions to cars such as Onstar and Sync. These two things are just additions to the distractions.

The article even mentions the inane idea that the Ford Company is putting drivers through a tutorial before buying their car. I have to agree with the expert they have by saying that this truly is ridiculous.

Wrapping up i have to say the idea of more gadgets to use in the car is pretty scary stuff and some of the things that are said to be on the way like checking your facebook in car are a little farfetched. I guess i will have to take the government approach of wait and see.

The full article can be found at http://n.pr/fWDmFx

School goes for I Pads will others follow

In one of my classes the other day, I learned that one school in the Knoxville Tennessee area is making it mandatory for kids grades 4-12 to have i pads for next year. I found this wrong on so many occasions.

The first thing I did was I researched the school. It turns out that Webb School in the Knoxville Tennessee area is one of the best private schools in the country. To be totally honest when i found out that this I-pad requirement was happening I wondered who would pay for it because they are quite expensive. After I learned that the school is private I believed that the students could afford this because they attend such a prestigious school. Forgive me if I am wrong

The part that I hope never happens is that until the price of these things comes down, I hope that it is a long time before this becomes mandatory throughout the country. Because I don't know about you but I have to say that over half this country cannot afford these things for their children besides who knows how many you'll have to buy because kids break things at any age.