Technologies: Can We Trust Them?

In the movie "2001: A Space Odyssey", a super computer installed on a spaceship named HAL betrays the human crew ends up killing most of them. When it was asked before about its reliability, HAL said "The 9000 series is the most reliable computer ever made. No 9000 computer has ever made a mistake or distorted information. We are all, by any practical definition of the words, foolproof and incapable of error." I think what HAL said reflects what people believe today with technologies. We completely trust our technologies and can't imagine them making a mistake. I think this movie sends a subliminal message, which is to be aware of technologies in the future because becoming too dependent on them is dangerous.

The improving technologies are providing us with huge benefits but also with consequences. For example, many people who are addicted to smartphones become reluctant towards speaking to other people. Global security adviser, Marc Goodman gives a much more global and dangerous one in this article. He states that new technologies have "unintended consequences". Providing criminals and terrorists with new weapons is one of them. For example, in the attack on Mumbai, India, the terrorists used modern communication technologies to locate more people and killed them. The terrorists even used mobile devices to search backgrounds of their victims and they used these backgrounds to determine whether to kill them or not. As technologies improve, not only do they make our lives easier, but they also make terrorists and criminals easy to kill their victims.
Do you think technology is making us vulnerable?

Why play football?

Football is often considered a dangerous sport; injuries are very common in Football. Out of many injuries players can possibly get, head injuries are one of the most dangerous ones. Although head injuries are very dangerous, many players tough them out because they fear their injury might thwart their team's success. These false decisions that players make could sometimes lead to much bigger consequences.  Just 4 days ago, a high school football player died after he received a head injury. For a long time, companies have been inventing many things to prevent injuries and make football a more safer sport.
In this article, a major invention has proved its usefulness against head injuries. When a player takes a big hit to the head, this head impact sensor emits a yellow flickering light that indicates a possible head injury that the player could have suffered. Dr. Jeffrey Kutcher, director of the Michigan NeuroSport Program stated that "These technologies can be useful if used cautiously, as long as you don't overinterpret what they mean". He also said "It could be really dangerous to rely on this too much." I believe no matter how many more inventions come out in the future, football will never be a completely safe sport.  If players don't make right decisions, football could be a very dangerous, even deadly sport. Because of this reason, there are many parents who don't want their kids to be playing football. But football is still the number one sport in America. The main reason for its popularity is just many kids play football just for the fun of the sport. But I believe there are also many kids who get pressured from their peers, like their parents, into playing football. I think this is because there is a stereotype with football players that makes them an "American". Football was born in America, so someone becoming a football player makes society see him as patriotic.

Do you think football players are considered "American" by the society?

Smartphone Addictions

If someone pulled out a gun on a crowded train that you were on, will you notice? These people who were on the train where a 20-year-old San Francisco University student got shot did not. The shocking truth comes when we see the security camera footage. The killer  is seen multiple times with a handgun in view. He waved the gun a couple times and at one point even wiped his nose with the it. No one nearby had seemed to notice until the blast actually went off. Read the article here.

This article astonished me with the addiction so many people has with their smartphones. As the iphone and other smartphones are coming up with attracting new applications, and with the prices going down so that a lot more people could afford them, the number of people being addicted to smartphones are increasing. Everyday in New Trier, I see a huge number of people walking down the hallways and going down the stairways staring at their phones. This article states that 73% of people who has lost their phones feel panicked. People who are addicted to smartphones have very hard times overcoming as they suffer from anxiety when they lose their phone for just a couple minutes. I think smartphone addiction will be a much bigger problem in the future as smartphones distract so many people during process of doing things.

Do you think smartphone addiction is a problem? What do you think think people can do to stop the addiction?

Danger in exchange for convenience?

Austin Dawkins was faced with reckless conduct today after he accidentally set fire to his wife by turning on his lighter near his truck's gas while he was in the process of refueling. The gas station surveillance camera shows the burning flame shooting out from the nozzle and burning his Dawkin's wife right after Dawkins ignited it with his cigarette lighter. Read the article here.
Dawkins's wife's surprise must have been unimaginable but Dawkins's must have been as bad.  I confidently believe that it never crossed his mind when he woke up today that he would end up setting his wife on fire in a gas station. There was an another incident that also took place today where a man opened fired in an airport, killing one TSA officer and injuring many more. I also believe that no one at that airport thought an incident could ever happen at such place. I have always thought that airports were a safe place and same with gas stations. This made me reconsider the dangers that are hiding in our world. With everything in society being so highly-developed now days, our lives were made much easier, but those developments has also caused society to be a more dangerous place than it was before. Back when there were no airports or gas stations, life must have been very inconvenient but I think it was much more safer than it is now.  I think inventions that we use daily, inventions that we think is so safe, have the potentials to be fatally dangerous.  For example, cars are with a doubt, one of the greatest inventions that has made our lives so much more convenient but I can't imagine the number of deaths they have caused.
Do you think the developments in society has also made it more dangerous than before?

Why do we watch horror movies?

  As Halloween approaches, horror themes are inevitably seen more and more in everyday life. Houses will be decorated with spooky designs, and there will be horror movie marathons going on television. When I saw on TV the Friday the 13th marathon starting this weekend,  I began to wonder why is it that so many people likes watching horror movies. Horror movies range from blood splattering slasher films to silent chilling supernatural films. As a movie fan myself, I have watched many kinds of horror movies and I do enjoy watching them. In this article, it is said that some people watch it simply for the physiological ride and others watch to understand the archetypal fears, what the population fears as a whole.
I think the second reason given in the article, the archetypal fear, represents America in a way. As the article states, horror movies after 9/11, which affected the country as a whole, were mostly centered on the them of torture which could have meant for the audience to comprehend the incident. Another example, the article says, zombie movies might have gotten popular because of the spread of influenza. I think this theory makes sense because naturally we all want to be in a large group, so that we can feel safe, and fear is one medium that will have us connected because fear is shared as a common feeling by many people.
Why do you think people watch horror movies?

Is it the kids to blame?

During yesterday's lockdown drill, no one in my advisory(including me), took the process seriously. We didn't take it seriously because we all knew that an incident that would require and actual lockdown would most likely not happen in New Trier. During the drill I heard my friend talking about schools where a teacher dresses up, holds a fake gun and walks around the school to make the process more realistic during the lockdown drill. Everyone who heard the story looked honestly surprised. This story made me think that New Trier has created such a safe environment, so safe that it has also made the school an isolated enviroment.

This article tells a story about an 11 year old student who brought 400 rounds of ammunition, a handgun, and multiple knives to school. The boy was intending to kill another classmate who called the boy’s friend gay. The school was locked down for about two hours until the student was taken down by school officers. Recently, the rise in the number of school-related incidents are becoming noticeable. The same week when the incident in the article took place, there had been two other cases where students were accused of killing their teachers. Although it is ultimately the students' fault for committing such crimes but I think in some cases, the parents should take some of the blame. I feel that if the parents interacted and spent enough time with their children, they might have noticed something different in their children and may have been able stop them. I think some of the past crimes committed by teenagers, were caused by the lack of communication between their parents. 
If a teenager committed a crime, do you think they should always take full blame or do you think there are cases where the parents should also take some of the blame?

Cars and our lives

The day undocumented immigrants have waited for 10 years, had finally come last week. California governor Jerry Brown signed a law on Thursday, that will allow undocumented immigrants to get their driver's licenses in the state. Governor Brown hopes other states will follow this and stated that this is only the first step. The new measure which is known as Assembly Bill 60, will go into effect no later than January 1, 2015. Read more here.

I am happy to hear about this because driving cars is absolutely essential in our lives in America. We drive our cars to go to work, to shopping and to school. Without cars, our lives will certainly be limited. Before I got my drivers license, I had to get a ride from my parents to go to most places which made it hard for me to do things. This article made me think of how much American people relies on cars for a living. In Japan where I used to live, there is a significantly larger number of people that rides the train or just ride their bikes to go to school, work, or to shopping. It was normal for people to not drive their cars to do everyday things. There are many other countries where cars aren't essential for living. I personally think that the necessity of cars in America could sometimes make it a place that is a little hard to live in.

Veterans

When we were talking about the project yesterday, we touched on the topic of how some people do not want to talk about their experiences, like war veterans. As I was searching for some interesting articles, one of them caught my eyes because of it’s extraordinary shocking title, "22 veteran suicides a day". The article was about how there has been 22 veteran suicides everyday day since 1999. This means there is almost one veteran suicide every hour. Experts have no doubt though, that there is a huge number of people being missed in the national counting of veteran suicides. Military sexual assaults and combat stress has been the two big reasons of veteran suicides.

An Iraq war veteran who started Stop Soldier Suicide, Brian Kinsella states that "There's probably a tidal wave of suicides coming,"President Obama said there is a need to "end this epidemic of suicide among our veterans and troops." August 2012, he signed an executive order calling for stronger suicide prevention efforts. A year later, he announced to fund $107 million for better mental health treatment for veterans who have experienced post-traumatic stress and traumatic brain injury, which are signature injuries of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

It is extremely shocking and sad to hear that the people who have protected and shaped our country are suffering and taking their own lives away because of decisions they or their colleagues have made. It is good to hear that the government is funding for the health treatment but I wish it had taken measures much earlier.
Read the article here

2020 Olympics

As some good number of people may already know, Tokyo was voted to be the 2020 Summer Olympics hosting city over the weekend. Tokyo was up against two other cities, Madrid, Spain and Istanbul, Turkey. Although all three cities had compelling and persuasive speeches, Tokyo ended up winning the majority of the votes. For the reason of winning, Olympic presidential candidate Thomas Bach stated that "This time the IOC members have decided in favor of tradition and stability." You can find more information here.

To be truthful, as much as I was happy to hear Tokyo getting picked, I was also a little surprised mainly because of two reasons. The first reason was that there already has been a Summer Olympic at Tokyo in 1964. Although there has been two or three cities that held the Summer Olympics more than once, I thought the International Olympic Committee(IOC) would prioritize picking a city where a Summer Olympic has not yet been conducted. The second reason was regarding the ongoing problem of the Fukushima power plant disaster. Some time has passed since the nuclear power plant accident but its still not completely safe. In the next 7 years, I hope Japan will take good steps to deal with the nuclear plant situation, and all other problems so that we can have a wonderful 2020 Summer Olympics.

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