6 year old Rylee is a kindergartener. Her and her family have recently gone to Florida and she told me all about it. Just a warning, 6 year olds tend to jump around a lot in their stories.
"I had an ear infection the day before we left so we had to get the drops before we left. The next day I felt way better though. We had to get ready and we had to do lots of things so then we got in the car and drove to the airport. When we left somebody brought the car over to my dads’ work and stuff. Then we got to the airport and we checked our bag and we got on the plane and we got our Ipad’s out. I had my Ipad. My apple Ipad. I was listening to music on it.
When we got off grandma and grandpa picked us up and we drove home to the lake. They had a work party so yeah. So we took a golf cart ride and then the next day we went to the pool because it was really nice. The next day they had to work though, and they work at the same job so later yeah.
Then we went to the beach and I got seashells and we jumped over waves that came. I got to pick which seashells we brought home and stuff like that. We played golf with grandma and grandpa though but it wasn’t normal golf. It was pickle golf but I guess there aren’t actual pickles though. I like pickles.
The thing I most remember is we went on this roller coaster and we went upside down most of the way and most of the time all of it was screaming and I won this big giant duck and I won this little tiny fish for Quinny (Her 2 year old sisters’ name is Quinn). And my big giant duck, it’s head was bigger than it’s body. I got the goodest one and guess what a little kid was doing? She was throwing a fit because she wanted the big one. So then they had to leave. That’s what happened. You get what you get and you don’t throw a fit. Seriously, she was like *imitation of a child wailing*. She was even stomping her feet. She was like this: *stomping* 'I want a big one'. I was actually kind of funny but I was trying not to laugh.
We got to see sting rays too. We saw them but they didn’t have the stinger on them. We had some shrimp and we put our hand down and guess what? One of them splashed my mom and my dad and Quinn was soaking wet. From feet to like hair were soaking and she didn’t like that very good.
We also went to this turtle thing where we had like 3D glasses and there was this big giant crab that was like *demonstration of imitating crab noises and claw pinching* and then this bird flyed down and almost grabbed us. I wasn’t scared.
We went to this dolphin show and we went to a shamu show. Do you even know what shamu is? *me saying ‘no’ because she is more intelligent than I*. Your older than me and you don’t even know what it is? Okay, so it’s a whale, and it’s called shamu. Really. I was sitting in the splash area. I was soaking wet. It was fun! *sudden realization* No it wasn’t. It wasn’t fun being soaking wet the entire way home.
And one time I saw a wasp.
When I got home Ali (her best friend) was like ‘I miss you. I miss you.’ and she squeezed me so hard I almost choked to death. She missed me so much.
My voice hurts"
Thursday, April 9, 2015
Thursday, April 2, 2015
Design
Design plays a more important role in our lives than most people ever realize. Everything has design to it even if it is poor design. There are different arrangments of things that make up design. When you change the location of the applesauce in your fridge, you are changing the design.
Good design should have a number of things. It should be appealing to your eyes to make you want to look at it. The color combinations and fonts can help to make people want to look at it more. Once you have someones attention with the appearance you need to make people actually want to read what you wrote. A good design should pull readers in on different areas on the page. you have to understand your readers and know what people will want to look at and what they will be to lazy to read. People like pictures, info graphics, and big numbers so good design will play to that.
Design can make choices for people before they even know it. So many choices are made strictly on the design of things. You want to read, own, or experience something that is appealing to your eyes.
One example of this is buy things like cars. Your car needs to have good mileage, a good engine, nice tires (you can tell how much I know about cars), but above all else it has to look good. For a lot of people, including me, there isn't much to the decision. I don't know what features are good for a car to have and what aren't. If I was buying a car I would have my dad tell me which ones are best according to all the car stuff, and then pick the one that looks the coolest. That's just what would happen.
I went to a store while I was on vacation and come across bacon band aids. They were just like normal band aids, except they had pictures of bacon strips on the front. Right next to them were normal band aids priced at $1.98 or something. These do the exact same thing but the bacon ones were like 6 bucks. That is more that a 300% increase for bacon pictures. That is completely ridiculous but to be quite honest I contemplated buying them. For awhile.
In a lot of case, design is more important than cost, effectiveness, or anything else. It helps make decisions everyday even if you don't know it.
Good design should have a number of things. It should be appealing to your eyes to make you want to look at it. The color combinations and fonts can help to make people want to look at it more. Once you have someones attention with the appearance you need to make people actually want to read what you wrote. A good design should pull readers in on different areas on the page. you have to understand your readers and know what people will want to look at and what they will be to lazy to read. People like pictures, info graphics, and big numbers so good design will play to that.
Design can make choices for people before they even know it. So many choices are made strictly on the design of things. You want to read, own, or experience something that is appealing to your eyes.
One example of this is buy things like cars. Your car needs to have good mileage, a good engine, nice tires (you can tell how much I know about cars), but above all else it has to look good. For a lot of people, including me, there isn't much to the decision. I don't know what features are good for a car to have and what aren't. If I was buying a car I would have my dad tell me which ones are best according to all the car stuff, and then pick the one that looks the coolest. That's just what would happen.
I went to a store while I was on vacation and come across bacon band aids. They were just like normal band aids, except they had pictures of bacon strips on the front. Right next to them were normal band aids priced at $1.98 or something. These do the exact same thing but the bacon ones were like 6 bucks. That is more that a 300% increase for bacon pictures. That is completely ridiculous but to be quite honest I contemplated buying them. For awhile.
In a lot of case, design is more important than cost, effectiveness, or anything else. It helps make decisions everyday even if you don't know it.
Sunday, March 15, 2015
Religion in Public Schools
Religion is a very controversial topic that many people have different views on. Most people have a strong opinion either for or against it. Whichever opinion they have, it’s a good chance they passionate about it. Because of this most schools are against teachers, and sometimes students, expressing their opinions on such a controversial subject.
The Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 states that employers must allow their workers to fulfill their reasonable religious practices, as long as it doesn't interfere with the job. This can really conflict with the U.S. Constitution's Establishment Clause. That clause keeps public schools from allowing teachers from advocating a particular belief in front of students.
The conflicting elements of these can make it difficult to enforce rules regarding religion because of the balance that needs to take place.
It can be hard to figure out what is acceptable and what isn't. Schools are allowed to talk about the history of religion, in fact in most schools it's a standard. Nearly every school agrees that books like the Bible and the Torah have had a huge impact on the world. However, showing devotion or a singular truth of a sacred document is not permitted.
It is hard to know not to cross the line because sometimes it isn't always clear where the line is. A lot of times people need to make their best guesses on what is acceptable and what isn't.
There has been a recent case in North Carolina recently that has helped to have a new law passed specifying what is accepted in public schools. A 6 year old girl in an elementary school was told to remove the word "God" from a poem for Veterans Day. She wrote "He prayed to God for peace, he prayed to God for strength". She wrote this referring to her grandfather, a Vietnam veteran.
This new law helps to clarify just what can be done by public schools and what can't. There will always be blurred lines in this situation but at least this provides some structure.
Sunday, March 8, 2015
Choice
Choice is a huge part of our lives. We make many little decisions every day, even if they aren’t big ones. We don’t know a life without any choice, but we don’t know one with free will either.
Choice is very necessary but too much can lead to bad results. You need to have some sort of structure or rules. You can't grow up without rules or nobody can help you make decisions in your life at times where you aren’t yet capable to make them yourself. A persons decision making skills don't develop fully until age 25. Because of this, we need people to help us make decisions until a point in our lives.
Even though we know that people can’t have full choice, people can’t have no choice either. Without choice, people would fight for it like in every dystopian novel ever. People need to make their own choices, even if it will be the wrong one. We need to make the wrong choices to learn from them. Bad choices help us see the good choices more clear.
Free will is completely impossible. Nobody will ever make a decision all by themselves. There will always be consequences and restrictions that influence your choices. You will never have a blank slate, to make any decision you want.
There is also no way to make a decision on your own because your brain makes the decision before you even know it. There’s a difference between making a decision and your brain making a decision.
What we do now is make decisions based on the very small spectrum of options we actually have to choose from. A lot of times you have to choose the lesser of two evils. We sometimes don't even know these are evils but because they are both choices we are glad to have them.
I don't know if it would be better if we had more freedom. If we could make more decisions by ourselves would we be happier or overwhelmed by the responsibility?
Choice is very necessary but too much can lead to bad results. You need to have some sort of structure or rules. You can't grow up without rules or nobody can help you make decisions in your life at times where you aren’t yet capable to make them yourself. A persons decision making skills don't develop fully until age 25. Because of this, we need people to help us make decisions until a point in our lives.
Even though we know that people can’t have full choice, people can’t have no choice either. Without choice, people would fight for it like in every dystopian novel ever. People need to make their own choices, even if it will be the wrong one. We need to make the wrong choices to learn from them. Bad choices help us see the good choices more clear.
Free will is completely impossible. Nobody will ever make a decision all by themselves. There will always be consequences and restrictions that influence your choices. You will never have a blank slate, to make any decision you want.
There is also no way to make a decision on your own because your brain makes the decision before you even know it. There’s a difference between making a decision and your brain making a decision.
What we do now is make decisions based on the very small spectrum of options we actually have to choose from. A lot of times you have to choose the lesser of two evils. We sometimes don't even know these are evils but because they are both choices we are glad to have them.
I don't know if it would be better if we had more freedom. If we could make more decisions by ourselves would we be happier or overwhelmed by the responsibility?
Friday, March 6, 2015
The Future of Journalism
I think that journalism is going to continue on forever, but will change over time. I don't think that journalism can end because of my definition of journalism. I believe that journalism is communication between two or more people. With that definition, communication would have to end for journalism to end. That is impossible.
Even though journalism won't end, it can still change and evolve. This is obviously already happening. The difference between journalism in my generation and 50 years ago is huge. So much more of journalism is online than ever before. Soon nearly everything will be.
Coming up with the idea for newapp was very difficult for one main reason. This is an invention for the future, but we don't know what will be most appealing to people, even 6 months from now. We didn't know much about what the future, but we did guess a few things. We assumed that we would evolve over time and be able to do more things. However, we seemed to go off of the assumption that people would still have the same interests and like the same things.
People are lazy. A successful source of news will understand this and adapt to this. They will have short and to the point news. We tried to make this happen by having people submit their own things. They would only write what they would want to read.
Another reason we have submissions by the public is because we think that a main part of journalism is communication and communication isn't a one way street. That was one of the most important parts of our project and what we decided to focus on.
Even though journalism won't end, it can still change and evolve. This is obviously already happening. The difference between journalism in my generation and 50 years ago is huge. So much more of journalism is online than ever before. Soon nearly everything will be.
Coming up with the idea for newapp was very difficult for one main reason. This is an invention for the future, but we don't know what will be most appealing to people, even 6 months from now. We didn't know much about what the future, but we did guess a few things. We assumed that we would evolve over time and be able to do more things. However, we seemed to go off of the assumption that people would still have the same interests and like the same things.
People are lazy. A successful source of news will understand this and adapt to this. They will have short and to the point news. We tried to make this happen by having people submit their own things. They would only write what they would want to read.
Another reason we have submissions by the public is because we think that a main part of journalism is communication and communication isn't a one way street. That was one of the most important parts of our project and what we decided to focus on.
Monday, February 16, 2015
Celebrities and Feminism
2014 was one of the biggest years for cultural figures fighting for feminism. Some of these figures were John Legend, Lena Dunham, Ellen Page, Beyonce, Patrick Stewart, Ashton Kutcher and Dustin Hoffman. These people, along with many others, have been using their platform to help with furthering the idea of feminism.
Emma Watson has been one of the most important people in this sudden rise of feminism. The British actress was appointed UN Women Goodwill Ambassador in July of 2014. On September 20 of the same year, she gave her game-changing speech at the United Nations. In this speech she started the #Heforshe campaign and corrected one of the biggest misconceptions about feminism. "I have realized that fighting for women's rights has too often become synonymous with man-hating. If there is one thing I know for certain, it is that this has to stop" says Watson during her speech.
Feminism is the advocacy for women's rights on the grounds of the political, social, and economic equality to men. Many people believe that feminism is about proving that women are above men and the current roles should be switched. This is what the #Heforshe campaign is trying to fix. The purpose of this campaign is to let people know what feminism really means. The equality of both genders. Watson asked men and boys to help spread the word and show their support by saying "How can we effect change in the world when only half of it is invited or feel welcome to participate in the conversation?"
Many men agreed and signed the pledge, in fact to this day there 217,561 signatures by men on that website. 60,906 of these men live in the United States. Twitter also blew up with pictures of men holding #Heforshe signs and tweets from supporters of the new campaign. Among these men were celebrities such as Harry Styles, Logan Lerman, Tom Hiddleston, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Chris Colfer, Matthew Lewis, and Jared Leto.
One of these men, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, not only participated in the #Heforshe movement, but also talked about feminism on his own. While on The Ellen Show, he talks about him being a feminist and what that means to him. After this, he noticed all the mixed feelings people had been showing online about him classifying himself as a feminist. He made a video of himself at his home, talking about these things and misconceptions people have with feminism. "It's complicated and I grant that it's complicated and I think that it's a really great thing for us all to be talking about" he says in this video.
The fact is that so many people, both celebrities and normal people, have started talking about feminism in the last year. People are learning about the problems that both men and women face and that feminism is about helping. Feminism is seen as something for solving women's issues, but in reality it deals with men's issues too. Emma Watson shows an example of this in her explanation of being a feminist. "When at 14 my girlfriends started dropping out of their sports teams because they didn't want to appear 'muscly'. When at 18 my male friends were unable to express their feelings. I decided I was a feminist and this seemed uncomplicated to me." Men and women's issues have the same idea.
Jackson Katz is the creator and co-founder of the Mentors in Violence Prevention(MVP) and gave a speech for TEDxFiDiWomen. In his speech he talks about the importance for both men and women to realize that equality is important and we all have to come together for it. "And so one of the things that I say to men, and my colleagues and I always say this, is we need more men who have the courage and the strength to start standing up and saying some of this stuff, and standing with women and not against them and pretending that somehow this is a battle between the sexes and other kinds of nonsense. We live in the world together." Says Katz
It is amazing that women fought so hard to get the right to vote in 1920 and the fight for equality is still going today. We wish that we wouldn't have to keep fighting for equality but it is great how far we have come. We never would have thought it would get this far, even though that's sad to say.
Emma Watson has been one of the most important people in this sudden rise of feminism. The British actress was appointed UN Women Goodwill Ambassador in July of 2014. On September 20 of the same year, she gave her game-changing speech at the United Nations. In this speech she started the #Heforshe campaign and corrected one of the biggest misconceptions about feminism. "I have realized that fighting for women's rights has too often become synonymous with man-hating. If there is one thing I know for certain, it is that this has to stop" says Watson during her speech.
Feminism is the advocacy for women's rights on the grounds of the political, social, and economic equality to men. Many people believe that feminism is about proving that women are above men and the current roles should be switched. This is what the #Heforshe campaign is trying to fix. The purpose of this campaign is to let people know what feminism really means. The equality of both genders. Watson asked men and boys to help spread the word and show their support by saying "How can we effect change in the world when only half of it is invited or feel welcome to participate in the conversation?"
Many men agreed and signed the pledge, in fact to this day there 217,561 signatures by men on that website. 60,906 of these men live in the United States. Twitter also blew up with pictures of men holding #Heforshe signs and tweets from supporters of the new campaign. Among these men were celebrities such as Harry Styles, Logan Lerman, Tom Hiddleston, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Chris Colfer, Matthew Lewis, and Jared Leto.
One of these men, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, not only participated in the #Heforshe movement, but also talked about feminism on his own. While on The Ellen Show, he talks about him being a feminist and what that means to him. After this, he noticed all the mixed feelings people had been showing online about him classifying himself as a feminist. He made a video of himself at his home, talking about these things and misconceptions people have with feminism. "It's complicated and I grant that it's complicated and I think that it's a really great thing for us all to be talking about" he says in this video.
The fact is that so many people, both celebrities and normal people, have started talking about feminism in the last year. People are learning about the problems that both men and women face and that feminism is about helping. Feminism is seen as something for solving women's issues, but in reality it deals with men's issues too. Emma Watson shows an example of this in her explanation of being a feminist. "When at 14 my girlfriends started dropping out of their sports teams because they didn't want to appear 'muscly'. When at 18 my male friends were unable to express their feelings. I decided I was a feminist and this seemed uncomplicated to me." Men and women's issues have the same idea.
Jackson Katz is the creator and co-founder of the Mentors in Violence Prevention(MVP) and gave a speech for TEDxFiDiWomen. In his speech he talks about the importance for both men and women to realize that equality is important and we all have to come together for it. "And so one of the things that I say to men, and my colleagues and I always say this, is we need more men who have the courage and the strength to start standing up and saying some of this stuff, and standing with women and not against them and pretending that somehow this is a battle between the sexes and other kinds of nonsense. We live in the world together." Says Katz
It is amazing that women fought so hard to get the right to vote in 1920 and the fight for equality is still going today. We wish that we wouldn't have to keep fighting for equality but it is great how far we have come. We never would have thought it would get this far, even though that's sad to say.
Tuesday, February 10, 2015
What is Journalism?
If you are a part of my generation, I bet you can't remember the last time you read a newspaper. However, the last time on social media was probably a matter of hours ago. This would seem absurd to the next generation, but is really just our reality. This makes the number of news sources skyrocket. There are papers, television, online sources, and social media sites such as facebook, twitter, instagram and tumblr. Many of these are targeted at completely different audiences.
Television has always been not only a source of entertainment, but also news. This has been a new version of news for a while, but recently we have realized there is someething much higher up on the scale and that is the internet. The only time I will ever turn on the news is because is because I saw something important trending on twitter. After seeing that, I will go onto the news because they are a much more reliable source to give me the information. Social media gives me immediate updates on current event, where as the news gives me reliable information if I choose to find out more.
This being said, I think that journalism does not just have to be news. I believe that almost everything is journalism. My definition of journalism would be as follows: communication where another person retains something of substance.
There are only a few things that I do not consider journalism. Firstly, I think that there has to be an audience of some sort. That could just be you talking to your mom, or writing for the Star Tribune. If you are writing in your diary that you will burn before anyone ever reads, that wouldn't count. As long as someone else will hear, see, or understand what you are communicating, it is journalism.
I also believe that this communtication has to be something of substance. Almost everything is "of substance" so that isn't a very hard regulation to follow. As long as it isn't a random combination of letters, it means something. Even words that aren't technically words are of substance because they
have meaning to some people. For instance the term "asdfghjkl" may mean absolutely nothing to some people, but to some internet folk, it is totally understandable. However, 20 years ago nobody would think of that as something of substance. This just goes to show that the definition of journalism can change as society does.
One person talking to another person, I think, is journalism. It doesn't really matter if it important or news. You don't have to read the largest audiences or write for the best people to be a journalist. Every can be, and is, a journalist .
Television has always been not only a source of entertainment, but also news. This has been a new version of news for a while, but recently we have realized there is someething much higher up on the scale and that is the internet. The only time I will ever turn on the news is because is because I saw something important trending on twitter. After seeing that, I will go onto the news because they are a much more reliable source to give me the information. Social media gives me immediate updates on current event, where as the news gives me reliable information if I choose to find out more.
This being said, I think that journalism does not just have to be news. I believe that almost everything is journalism. My definition of journalism would be as follows: communication where another person retains something of substance.
There are only a few things that I do not consider journalism. Firstly, I think that there has to be an audience of some sort. That could just be you talking to your mom, or writing for the Star Tribune. If you are writing in your diary that you will burn before anyone ever reads, that wouldn't count. As long as someone else will hear, see, or understand what you are communicating, it is journalism.
I also believe that this communtication has to be something of substance. Almost everything is "of substance" so that isn't a very hard regulation to follow. As long as it isn't a random combination of letters, it means something. Even words that aren't technically words are of substance because they
have meaning to some people. For instance the term "asdfghjkl" may mean absolutely nothing to some people, but to some internet folk, it is totally understandable. However, 20 years ago nobody would think of that as something of substance. This just goes to show that the definition of journalism can change as society does.
One person talking to another person, I think, is journalism. It doesn't really matter if it important or news. You don't have to read the largest audiences or write for the best people to be a journalist. Every can be, and is, a journalist .
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