Religion?

Religion is defined as "a specific fundamental set of beliefs and practices generally agreed upon by a number of persons or sects" by www.dictionary.com. But I beg to differ, this may have been religion once upon a time, not so much anymore. Religion these days does not quite fit that definition anymore. They still fit the general requirements but these days it seems far more like a business than a religion. Business is defined by www.dictionary.com as "a person, partnership, or corporation engaged in commerce, manufacturing, or a service; profit-seeking enterprise or concern." I feel this definition fits far better into so called religion today. If we read the definition we can see it says " . . . corporation engaged in a service; profit seeking enterprise . . ." Is this not what religion has become? If we look at how "The Church", for example, conducts their goings-on we see that they are running their "religion" as a business. This is how I see it, when they make people pay "tithe" they are making you pay for their service as it were. This is one reason why the religion is more like a business. Another reason is that religion used its people in the past to get what they want. Such as for example The Crusades. The Crusades were merely a money making venture if we look at it from an economic stand point. There was lots of monetary value in sending people to conquer new cities and taking over trade routes and such. Now try saying that religion isn't a business maybe in some ways this might not be true but as a whole religion is the best business ever established, and for that I commend religions everywhere.

Incarceration

http://www.barnorama.com/the-cold-hard-facts-about-incarceration/

The United States has the largest inmate population in the the world about 25%. There are more and more elderly people being put into jail every year. 90% of these prisoners are male, and 44% of those are black. Also 1 in every 100 men in the United States are in jail or on probation.
These stats personally frighten me into never wanting to go the the United States. The fact that they have the largest prison population in the world along with only 5 % of the worlds population means they are either too hard on people for committing lesser crimes or there isn't any effective crime prevention. I think that it is a little bit of both. America is notorious for jailing people for lesser crimes and most of those lesser crimes are possession of narcotics. Also The american community doesn't do much to prevent crime. Not to sound course, but the American population is overwhelmingly selfish, meaning that they don't care as long as it doesn't happen to them. Many people on top of that, have an attitude of "Just leave me alone in my living room with my toaster and TV, I'm not hurting anyone. . ." When they should be saying that this is unacceptable and it will not happen anymore. When we look at the amount of money being spent on prisoners each year and then look at how much is being spent on education, its no wonder there is a rise in crime. More and more youngsters are getting a bad education because the American government keeps cutting the education budget, while at the same time increasing the DOC's (department of corrections) budget. The point is that if more time is spent on preventing crime then less crime is likely to be committed, because educating kids is after all crime prevention.

Purity of expression

What do you think of when you hear the words "purity of expression" ? Well the other day I was listening to some one say that he wasn't happy when a "bitchy [sic] english professor" seemed unconcerned his purity of expression. This got me thinking, why is out purity of expression being stomped on daily? The fact of the matter is that we are being molded into conforming into society every time we get a bad grade for having missed the point of an assignment. But what if we hadn't missed the point? What if the point was there its just that the teacher didn't appreciate that it was done exactly how they wanted it. Much of what we say and do is skewed by what others want to hear. Imagine a world where everyone expressed them selves purely. it would be EXCELLENT! But this is not the case, most of what we say isn't pure at all. take for example people that censor themselves. Instead of coming out a straight up saying "fuck", which would be pure in expression because it is raw and untainted, because it is what was meant. It shows the emotions of what the person is feeling and far more effectively conveys the message. We have people that instead of expressing themselves purely saying things like "frek" or "fck", which to me is tainting what u mean to please others. Purity of expression does not mean swearing at all. In fact swearing itself can be tainting people's purity of expression. Take for example when a person curses every few words or so, all the time. That too taints the purity of his or her expression, because it is not allowing them to put out what is foremost on their minds. Instead they are diluting their words with pointless meaningless profanity, which when they need to use it to convey their emotion of anger or sadness may be lost on his or her audience, because the audience cannot see the true meaning behind it. So the point is to be pure in your expression, say what is pure and not what people want you to say.

Ssunflower art

http://funguerilla.com/millions-of-porcelain-sunflower-seeds/

What this man did was amazing he had 100 million porcelain sunflower seeds made. Every seed is individually made and is completely unique from the others. So the piece is actually made up of 100 million smaller art works. The amazing amount of time and effort that must have gone into this is astounding.
I think that this embodies China perfectly. For a nation that produces just about everything and in large quantities it seems only right that they produce this as well. The piece shows the new China as it is today. The abundance of the seeds to me represents the abundance of production goods that are made in China. The fact that it was hand made shows the manpower that the country has to spare and how they can do anything with sheer willingness and man power. The other side to the piece is the cultural aspect, the fact that it is made out of porcelain shows the culture of China because they were the first to have it. Why do you think its called China? other than that if you read the article it says that at one point the Chinese economy was producing vast amounts of sunflower seeds, this give us a peak at their heritage.The best part of the whole thing is the "Made in China phenomenon" because to be honest just about everything is made in China these days, and if it isn't its really expensive.
So at the end this piece of art is the embodiment of what we know as China.

Super Powers

http://wtf.thebizzare.com/offbeat/science-and-technology/5-super-powers-you-can-have-today/

As kids we all wanted to have super powers and it was but a fantasy, but we still wished it was true. Now that we are older and have been exposed to the world of what is possible; we have lost our imagination and our hope in super powers. The new technologies that have been developed has brought back that possibility of having super powers. Look at how the disabled can run again and faster than the average man. See how a man can record his days with an eye which is a micro camera. The future is full of wonders such as these superpowers. But the question now becomes when does it stop? The way things are going its only a matter of time before people are getting elective implants for everything. It starts with a guy trying to run again and leads to people cutting off their own legs so that they can run faster and longer. Where do we draw the line ? When does it become an invasion of privacy to film every one around you all the time ? There are things that must be outlined that eventually must be dealt with. There isn't yet a limit to what we can do with our technology and pretty soon I think that people will have superpowers of some sort if they can afford it. So in the end our childhood dreams of super powers may still come true, and at the rate technology is evolving it might be sooner than we think.

Is Gogle god??!!??

http://www.thechurchofgoogle.org/Scripture/Proof_Google_Is_God.html

Is google god? or is it just some crackpots crazy rants. I think that although it is very close to god in many aspects it is not quite there yet. God cannot be replaced by a machine or a cleverly designed bit of software because god has to make moral and ethical choices which a computer cannot yet fathom. Yes it is true that Google can potentially be everywhere, contains almost all of human knowledge, and is potentially immortal. It is not god because it has no ethical or moral brain. It is merely a tool for human use. Also if google were god it would be all powerful which it isn't simply because it cannot function outside the realm of cyber space. sure it potentially controls all of cyberspace but it cant function anywhere but. So even though it is the closest measurable thing to god it isn't god. This debate can lead into whether god is real or not, but for the sake of argument lets assume god neither exists or doesn't exist.

Google!

http://www.topstrange.com/google-empire-2882

Google is our answer to everything these days! If you have a question, look it up on google, if you want to know about a movie or a restaurant or even a person, look it up on google. But how far is google going? Google now has everything from answers to hardware. I think that if google progresses at the same rate it will reach a point where it owns us and all we will be is slaves to google. I mean look at that video linked above. It makes it pretty clear about what google is planing on doing. Google is trying to buy the internet and the electricity that runs the computers from which you use google. So does this not show that they ay be planning on controlling when where and how we use the internet. Not only will they control the hardware they will control the software too. They want us to use google docs and gmail and so on, so that they own all of our intellectual property. This is a scary thought because nothing we do on the internet ever truly gets erased. So when we look at it our lives will be owned by google and everything we do will be on record. So to conclude i believe google is trying to own us all and make us slaves to their products.

TV!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-11178043

The fact that technology, like that of the linked video, is advancing so rapidly means that we may not even need multiple devices to entertain ourselves with anymore. The near future holds awesome innovative technologies such as those OLED TV's that have amazing quality and are only 2.9 mm thick. When that TV is combined with the internet, like many TV's are becoming, then the computer losses a lot of it's use.

TV's aren't only becoming connected to the web and thinner, they are headed for a complete over in how we watch TV. These days it has become so very easy to just download and watch your favorite shows on your own time that there is no need to watch scheduled TV anymore. This has had such a huge impact on the TV that many companies sought other ways to have people still watch their favorite show whilst not having to have it be scheduled programming. Thus Tivo was born, but is not the only product out there for on demand TV. Many companies have had to change their broadcasting to the internet, so that they can still make some sort of profit from their shows.

So where is it all headed? no one knows for sure but it is safe to assume that the next step after 3D TV and ultra thin TV's is probably holographic displays, which are already being researched and developed. As for TV programs they will just have to find a new way to use the internet to make profitable TV shows.

Fight Club Quotes

“The ability to let that which does not matter truly slide”

I think that many ,and I mean MANY people do not have this ability. We all need realize that we need to just let things go, because holding a grudge will eat uyou up from the inside. How is it that people say oh it doesn’t matter but then they get so hurt by it? Why do small things that have no consequence to anything or anyone have to be such a big deal? Small things like someone bumping into you on the street shouldn’t matter at all because it hasn’t done anything to hinder your progress. So why do people let it bother them so? I think everyone needs to just relax and let the small things go and the world will be a better place for it.

"Sticking feathers up your butt… does not make you a chicken."

This is funny you have to admit but it does show a very interesting part of our culture today. We all think that we can be “cool” or “perfect” by being like someone else. But this is just the same as sticking feathers in your butt and saying that you are a chicken. Why try and be something else when being yourself is closer to beauty that perfection than anything else? Why do we feel we need to like someone who in popular culture is called “beautiful” it’s a self-destructive pattern that needs to end now before we destroy and hope of thought and free will, which I doubt we have now.

How was nuclear war avoided

During the cold war there were some very close calls but one of the closest was the Cuban Missile Crisis. The leaders on both sides didn't want to go to war but they were being pushed into it by the war mongering generals. Now the way I believe they avoided this was with empathy for each other. President Kenedy was constantly looking at it from the other sides perspective and trying to keep from blowing each other up. They also used back road politics so that both sides get what they want and both sides look like heroes for it. For example the Russians would remove their missiles and in return the americans would remove theirs. But there was on condition the Russians couldn't say it was a trade off and the americans would only remove their missiles six months later. The empathy and back road politics kept the world from going to nuclear war.

atom bombs

I think that the atom bombs dropped on hiroshima and and nagasaki were unnecessary. They could have easily have dropped a bomb on less populated area or on a more military populated area. Most of deaths were civilian and pointless. Truman could have dropped the bomb on the tokyo harbor. I feel that this would have been a sufficient show of the bombs power. Also at the time the bomb was dropped the japanese were about to give up anyway, and yes the americans did give the japanese the option to surrender but the japanese also didn't get enough time to respond. The bomb cause untold damage there are still areas which are too radio active for people to live and in total about 250,000 people. It was a tragedy that could have been avoided with some better judgement and planing.

yellow submarine SMASH day

about a month ago we had a smash day. Our goal in the smash day was to create a periscope. This was so that we could see what was inside a box on top of a table. We were not allowed to have our heads above the table. 

before we started we were given a few supplies. They were a meter of tape, a piece of cardboard, ten pieces of paper and four mirrors. When we first received the supplies we thought about what we would do with them. The first idea was to make a traditional periscope but we quickly discarded it. Then we wanted to make a large mirror on a stick but the four mirrors didn't really give one solid image. since we all think in a similar way we didn't need to discuss our design modifications much. we just took the information and ran with it. we decided the a large mirror would not work. but we ran with the basic principle of mirrors and sticks. We then thought that we should make more than one periscope. But we didn't have enough supplies. Then we came up with he idea of being "cheap". At that moment it was decided that we should just make paper sticks with mirrors on the end. We rolled the paper very tightly and it was as hard as a regular twig or stick. We then made our mirror on a stick prototype. It was a success. We proceeded to each making one of these mirrors on a sick. In total we had three. When it came time to put our "periscopes" to the test they prevailed. We were the first team to get all of the objects in the box correct. After it was announced that we had won we looked at the other teams and one of the other teams had mashed their periscope so that it was also a mirror on a stick. It was nice to see that even though we were cheap the other teams ended up doing the same.

The modification of our design wasn't really necessary because we talked about what we should do before we stared. thats how we came up with the being "cheap" idea. we were inspired by the chinese. As in quantity before quality. We now apply this to every other smash day. We have not lost yet.

The way we new how to modify it was when we placed the four mirrors next to each other it didn't have a clear solid image. And also when we had a piece of cardboard with the four mirrors placed at different angles. It didn't seem to be effective. then we ran with the be "cheap" idea.

My only tip to some one doing this for the first time is THINK "CHAEP". 

South African Mercenaries

South africa is trying to keep the fact that there are thousands of mercenaries that are South African trained. Most of these men were trained before apartheid ended. The training they received was of the best training in the world. When apartheid ended they were relieved of their duties. Most of them had no other skills and went into the private sector of war. To this day the South African Mercenaries are some of the best in the world. they offer their services to the highest bidder. They are some of the biggest problems in wars today. The americans in Iraq have experienced some problems with them. They are best private soldiers in the world.

taiwan

1.How do Paiwan people show their respect to the animal they hunted? 

they make wood carvings of the animals they hunted.
2.Why archery is so important to Bunun people? How did fathers train their children to be an archer?

best way of hunting. the fathers put deer ears and tellt he boys to shoot at them.

3.Why are bats welcomed by Ancient Chinese culture? But in western societies, why do people regard bats as nuisance?

they are considered good lucky. because they are considered dirty and disgussting
4.This video shows a lot of living extinct animals in Taiwan. Please choose one animal that impressed you the most and describe its habitat and its way to survive in the natural environment?

cloud leopard its habitat is the mountains it is probably dead but it feeds on smaller animals

new politics in south africa

South africa is coming into a new era of politics. The ANC was the leading party in South Africa for many years, about 13. And the ANC was recently over thrown by a new party called the SANC. The ANC's presidential candidate was unacceptable in many many ways. so every politician that didnt want to have any part of the ANC anymore left and went to the SANC. And the amount of peoplel that left was HUGE like about 60% of the ANC is now in the SANC. now if the SANC wins the next elections they will take over the country and South Africa will no longer be a communist country it will be a truly democratic country. It is a communist country because the ANC is made up of 2 parties the communist party and the peoples party and they together are called the ANC. But now South africa will probably be under new management because the SANC is made up of all the most influential ANC members.

Obama president!!

yeah sure obama is the better of the 2 choices but i still think neither of them should have wont the election they were both unsutible for the job. Obama would have been my choice too but i think that if they had hilary clinton running she would have made a much better president. she seems to have more experince then Obama. She also had better plans than John mc cain. but i am happy that this time america chose the lesser of the 2 evils. At least this time they made a choice to help their country rather than destroy it further. now we can all just pray that Obama doe a good job of getting America out of the crapper.

energy bar

The energy bar we made was ok tasted very good. But i think that we could have done better it was too soggy and we didnt have all of our ingredients when we made the bar. We are hoping that we can change the ingredient that keeps the bar together since it didn't work the first time we tried it. originally it was supposed to be Rice Krispies and marshmallows but we dint have the ingredients on the day we made it so instead we used musely instead of Rice Krispies. It didn't go as planned it was very soggy. Next time we make the bar we will take out any grains and instead we will use gelatin to hold it together. Thus making the bar a kind of jelly bar cover in chocolate. While making the bar i think we work well as a group i think we all understand each other well. We all have a good sense of what is going on and how we will achieve that.

taiwanese foods

taiwanese food is in many ways disgusting but yet at the same time it is delicious. think that most of the taiwanese food i will never try for myself its just too disgusting. The things i will probably never eat is chicken balls due to the fact that it was described to be creamy and milky. I would like to try the oyster omelette it seems to be a great tasting dish and it is a taiwanese favorite. i must admit that i like korean and japanese food much more than taiwanese food due to the fact that it is not as bizarre as taiwanese foods.  

what are the rules for all living things???

Well i think the rules for all living things are as follows.

Number one: All living things must be made of biological matter eg: skin.

Number two: All living things must be able to reproduce.

Number three: All living things must be able to heal themselves on some level.

Number four: All living things must be able to grow in some way.

Number five: All living things must have or be cells of some kind.

I believe that without these five basic rules something can not be classified as "living". 

NOVA and its theories

 i feel that this movie is an accurate description of science and how everything work mostly because it makes perfect sense and its very understandable even though the 2 theories contradict it is clear to see that string theory ties it all together in a very comprehendable way and i feel that this is quite accurate and understandable due to the fact that most of what they are saying i can understand and relate to in many ways i also feel that the possibility of black holes and other dimensions with more of me is quite posible.