Is Your Addiction Fooling You?

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Is Your Addiction Fooling You?

                Sometimes, addictions are almost unshakable; they are deeply wired into one’s brain and take serious willpower and dedication to be broken.  Some examples would be smoking tobacco, doing marijuana, cocaine, heroine, opium, methamphetamine, or any other drugs, biting fingernails, video games, the internet, just to name a few.  However, I recently shook an addiction, just over a week ago, and frankly, it was easier than hell.  I believe that some addictions are like this; they are bad habits and consume a lot of our time, but all it would take to quit was to just say, “No!”

                My recent addiction was to Bike Race, a stupid, worthless game on my iPhone.  However, despite its uselessness, I was engulfed by it, and I played almost two thousand multiplayer games in the course of a month to a month and a half.  One day near the end of this addiction, I sat down and calculated how much total time I have wasted from my life on this game, and how much I was wasting every week, and every day.  It came out to be about eleven to twelve hours a week, and I was very aware that many days I spent two hours playing.  I simply decided that this would have to stop soon, and a couple days later, I literally just stopped completely.  I went from playing well over an hour one day to absolutely none the next, and for the past week. 

                I’m not sure why it was so easy, but I think it’s because I just stopped thinking about it, and just thinking about returning to Bike Race is quite repulsive to me.  I’ll be honest, over the last week I have played maybe five games because they were with people I just really wanted to play with, but they only take an average of ten to fifteen seconds each, so that adds up to about a minute of total play.  This is how much I should be playing this game.  But really, I am reluctant to play even this much.  I have totally lost interest in the game after quitting it, and I am proud to say that it won’t waste any more of my life.

                I think that a lot of people’s bad habits and addictions are similar to my situation.  They just don’t know how easy it would be for them to stop easily at will, because they are constantly engaged in their habit.  However, if they just mustered up the courage to say, “No!” one time, then they could be done forever, and it would be as easy as that.  I hope that just one person will read this post, and then be able to easily and relatively painlessly stop a bad habit.  That would make it worth the effort from me.

Jailbreaking, Part II

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Jailbreaking, Part II

                In my opinion, Jailbreaking should be legal, and the owner of a device should be able to do anything they want with it, as long as it doesn’t break any laws or harm anyone.  This doesn’t have anything to do with piracy, because I am talking only about the act of Jailbreaking.  For this reason, I am glad that the Supreme Court agrees with my view.  However, I believe that the issue of piracy and such has a very fine line, and I think that some things are clearly very illegal, or at least immoral.  For example, getting a game for free after Jailbreaking because you don’t want to buy it from the App Store or anywhere else isn’t right; that is stealing, and stealing is wrong.  However, in the event that one wants to play Pokemon on their iPod and already has the game purchased for Gameboy Advanced, I think they should be able to download it for free, because they have already paid for it, and it really doesn’t even exist on iPod.  Therefore, this person isn’t stealing, because there isn’t even a way to pay for the game on his/her iPod.  Legality aside, I don’t think this is immoral.  Therefore, I wouldn’t look down upon anyone that does it; I think it should be allowed.

                There are several different ‘companies,’ for lack of a better name (they don’t make you pay for it), which offer their own Jailbreaking software which will navigate around Apple’s restrictions and then remove them totally.  Some examples of these groups are Redsn0w, Absinthe from Greenpois0n, Sn0wbreeze, and Jailbreakme.com.  After Jailbreaking, there are two main ‘replacement app stores,’ Cydia and Installer, which allow Apps not approved by the Apple App Store.  Usually, once one group finds a Jailbreak for a certain iOS version, it quickly gets leaked out to the others, and they all start offering it.  These groups don’t really care, because most offer their Jailbreaks free of charge. 

                There are two main types of Jailbreaks: tethered and untethered.  Basically, the difference is that a device Jailbroken with a tethered Jailbreak must be connected to the Jailbreak software every time it is turned on, but with the untethered, the device only needs to be connected to the software one time.  In short, untethered is always preferred over tethered.  There are currently no untethered Jailbreaks discovered for the latest version of iOS, iOS 6.  This means that any device with this most up-to-date version cannot obtain an untethered Jailbreak.  Also, the latest version of Apple devices, including the iPhone 5, doesn’t even have a tethered Jailbreak that has been discovered.  Customers with these devices must simply wait until a group discovers a Jailbreak, and until then, they are out of luck when it comes to Jailbreaking.

Jailbreaking, Part I

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Jailbreaking, Part I

                If you’ve never heard of it before, Jailbreaking Apple devices sounds a lot more evil and immoral than it really is.  Jailbreaking is just the name, but really all that is happening is that one is using some software from the internet to remove restrictions placed on iDevices by Apple.  Apple’s has good intentions, and requires every application on its App Store to be approved by it, in order to protect customers from anything malicious or dangerous in some way.  However, many people think Apple is a bit overprotective, and turn to Jailbreaking to remove all of Apple’s restrictions.

                The main reason people Jailbreak their iPhones, iPods or iPads is because they want to download Apps that aren’t available in the App Store, for whatever reason.  These often include games by other companies, such as Nintendo, which Apple quite obviously will never make a deal with, because Nintendo is one of their direct competitors.  As a result, no Nintendo game will ever be available on the App Store.  The only other major reason for Jailbreaking is because people want to Unlock their iDevices, which means that they can switch cell phone companies at their will, and are no longer restricted to their contracts.  Actually, Unlocked devices are sold to the public in some areas, such as Canada.  However, these aren’t available in most areas, so people turn to Jailbreaking to solve this problem.

                In addition, many Apps that cost money on the App Store can be obtained for free on replacement app stores that become available after Jailbreaking, and for this reason people Jailbreak to participate in piracy.  However, this is usually not the case, but the legality of this issue went all the way to the Supreme Court.  There are two main arguments in this struggle.  The first is that iDevices are Apple products, and therefore Apple has the right to place any kind of restrictions they please onto the devices.  People agreeing with this argument believe that Jailbreaking is using the device in ways that it was not meant to be used, and that this shouldn’t be legal.  The second argument is that one purchased the device, and they fully own it, so they should be able to do anything they want with it.  People agreeing with this argument believe that they are using their device’s full capabilities, and Apple shouldn’t have the right to restrict this.

                The Supreme Court ruled Jailbreaking and Unlocking of devices legal, basically agreeing with the second argument above.  However, this is still a controversial issue, and the issue of piracy is still handled on a case-to-case basis, as the Supreme Court case deals only with the argument between hackers and Apple.  For example, it is generally agreed that downloading a Nintendo game for free after Jailbreaking is piracy.  However, many Jailbreakers argue that this should be allowed, as they own the original Nintendo games on different systems, and these games aren’t even available on the iDevices.  Therefore, they are basically using a game they already own, simply on a different system.  Is this reasonable?  That is the question.

Global Warming? Bring It.

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Global Warming?  Bring It.

                Tomorrow is my birthday, and eight days later is Christmas.  I can only recall one other year in which there was no snow on the ground on my birthday and Christmas.  I don’t remember what year it was, but I would say it was within the last six or seven years, and the only reason I remember it was because I remember thinking about it while walking up to my grandma’s house on either my birthday or Christmas, and seeing the bushes with all their leaves gone, just a bunch of twigs, but there was no snow.  It just doesn’t feel right!  Maybe, by some miracle of God, it will just snow like crazy tonight, or even just sometime between now and Christmas.  Usually, by now, I would have skied with my dad multiple times, but obviously that hasn’t worked out so far this year.  Hopefully the long delay of snow will result in a long delay in the stoppage of snow in April or even May… Anyway, I’m going to check the weather real quick…..

                Well, I guess there won’t be any snow tomorrow, but it looks like we may get 3-6 inches on Wednesday night, December 19.  However, I will be in Chicago then, so hopefully we’ll get some there too.  By the way, for anyone that doesn’t know, I live in Iowa, which is right in the middle of the largest humid temperate climate area in the world.  That means that it gets really hot in the summer, like, in the 100°s, and it gets really cold in the winter, like, -10°, -40° with windchill.  Quite obviously, I’m talking Fahrenheit.  Except for the -40°, that works either way :)

                I’m attributing this alternation of very early and very late snowfalls from year to year to global warming.  Whether global warming and the greenhouse effect is man-made or not, it’s happening, and it doesn’t look like it’s going to stop anytime soon.  In case you don’t know very much about global warming, I’ll educate you a little bit.  First of all, what is going on right now, is that the temperatures all over the world are rising every year, and it’s getting hotter and hotter, which causes all kinds of crazy weather patterns, more violent storms, droughts, and all kinds of other ecological problems and disasters.  You may assume that the earth will just keep getting hotter and hotter, but this is not the case.  After a while, as the ice caps melt, the ocean currents, which are run by temperature, will stop.  After this occurs, there will be no regulation of temperature by the oceans, and we will go into another ice age.  So really, the end effect of global ‘warming’ is another ice age.  I actually think that will be kind of cool.  I’m obviously assuming that it’s going to happen, and since it is, I would kind of like to see it happen within my lifetime.

12/21/2012, Part II

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12/21/2012, Part II

                In all seriousness, though, I really am dreading the events that will be coming this week fueled by the end of the Mayan calendar on Friday.  We’ve already been barraged by the media in response to the events in Connecticut the other day, which I have from the start tried to shield myself from.  I haven’t watched any news about it on TV, I have averted my gaze from any news about it on the internet; the only information I have seen was from Facebook and Twitter.  All my friends, whether in genuine sympathy or not, love to jump on the tragedy bandwagon.  I think that for many of them it’s purely for attention, or to make them look like better people, but whatever, maybe not. 

                Anyway, one of the only things I’ve read in length about it was Morgan Freeman’s statement, because it was on #Discover on Twitter.  One point that he made really made the whole thing worth reading.  It’s not like it was a very long statement, either.  He said that he hates the way that the media blows this kind of thing up, making the shooter or killer seem like a total celebrity.  We will always remember the killer’s names, but not the victims’.  But the major thing was that this just encourages other psychos to try to top this, as some news networks are saying that this is “the worst killing since Virginia Tech.”  I agree with Morgan that none of these tragedies are any worse than any other. 

                I will be going to Chicago on Wednesday, and we will come back Saturday night.  I’m a little scared because this is a BIG place, capable for a BIG attack in precession of the ‘end of the world.’  I just hope that nothing crazy happens in whatever place I happen to be in, at whatever time.  I think that I’ll probably be okay, because I’m going to a huge music event, so a crazy would probably rather go downtown have more targets.  I should probably check out where this thing is before I say that, because there’s a good chance that it is downtown!  Hopefully, with plenty of prayers across the world, nothing too nuts will happen this week, and hopefully no one will try to ‘make it’ the end of the world on Friday.  I could just see a terrorist attack from the Middle East coming right now.  It won’t happen, they probably hate the Mayans.  They took part in beating them down, so how much would they believe this whole prophecy?

12/21/2012

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12/21/2012

                I believe that the world will continue past Friday, and that there is no reason to think that the Mayans could predict the final day of the world.  Most reasonable people probably agree with me.  But if it did, I would definitely be one of the survivors.  Let’s predict that one percent of the world’s population will be able to continue their existence.  Here is why I would be in that one percent.

                First of all, I am in great physical condition and very healthy.  It makes sense that the healthiest, fittest people would be the ones that would survive the environmental catastrophe that takes place.  I live in a developed country, and have been well fed and nourished my whole life, and I am quite active, so I would guess that I am in the top one percent of the world in terms of fitness and health. 

                In addition, I am pretty intelligent, so I would be at least as resourceful and clever as any other person in the world, thinking of the best way to survive.  It might be hiding underground, it might be finding a gas mask, it might be stuffing my pockets with matches and lighters, stealing all the food I can fit in two carts at Walmart, jailbreaking my iPhone (through hardware, not software), or unhooking the batteries from every car within a mile for whatever I might need them for.  Different situations definitely call for different actions to be taken. 

                Let’s assume, as most scientists would suggest, that the safest place to live would be underground.  This is assuming that there is some kind of contaminant in the atmosphere that would be extremely harmful to humans and other life, even fatal.  I would find out as soon as possible when the world was ending, and hack into governmental communications to find out where all the most ‘important’ people were going in the new underground world.  With my help, we would create an air filtration system that pumps the air we need out of all the crap from above ground.  That would be until I design a way to break carbon dioxide into O₂ oxygen and either diamonds or graphite, or some other carbon molecule or compound.  Maybe just old-school ashes.  Nevertheless, they would soon recognize my value.

                Finally, Jackie Chan would be our martial arts coach, and would be our guide to the two new official world languages, Mandarin Chinese and Cantonese.  I’m getting kind of excited.  On the inside, I really do hope that the world ends on Friday.  If all else fails, Jesus will take me and most people in the world to Heaven.

Reading or Listening?

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Reading or Listening?

                Yesterday on the ACT, I read that some educators think that students should be allowed to listen to assigned literary works on audio recordings instead of out of a book, if they choose.  However, I am pretty opposed to this idea, because I can foresee only detrimental effects.  I think our society is becoming too dependent on technology as it is, and this would only be encouraging further independence within the education system.  I just don’t think it’s the way to go.

                First of all, allowing students to listen to audio recordings of their literature instead of reading them would create a handicap, as they would become more or less addicted to this method of ‘reading,’ which would be preparing them to fail in college and the workforce, where reading is an essential skill that needs to be reinforced as early as possible.  In fact, elementary school students wouldn’t even feel the need to learn how to read, which would make the entire education system fall apart, and would be setting these kids up for disaster in their later school years and throughout their lives.  Our society would quickly grow less and less literate, and would eventually become stupider.

                In addition, listening to an audio recording requires far less focus than reading.  When reading from a book, students are forced to focus all of their attention on reading and comprehending, allowing little to no distraction.  Reading is an active process.  In contrast, listening is a passive process.  When listening to a tape, students would be tempted to ‘multi-task,’ and therefore would be paying little to no attention to their literature, because they are not forced to do so.  Their mind would be free to wander, and not pay attention to what is being read to them.  In the end, they probably wouldn’t get the full benefit out of their assigned literature, and would come to class unprepared.

                Finally, listening to a recording as opposed to reading is much slower.  Reading out of a book is much faster than listening to a story being read to you, which is quite important to students’ schedules nowadays.  The number of activities available to students is larger than ever, and they need to manage their time as efficiently as possible in order to take advantage of all these extracurricular activities in addition to getting all of their homework done.  They simply don’t have time to listen to a tape being read to them.

ACT: Third Time's the Charm?

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ACT:  Third Time's the Charm?

                Yesterday, I took the ACT for the third time.  I took it once in seventh grade, and once in ninth grade, but this was my first ‘legit’ time, because I am now a junior.  The ACT is a pretty brutal test; not because each of the sections individually is so excruciating, but all together the four to five hour test really wears you down by the end.  The test is always taken in the same order; English, math, reading, and science.  And if you choose to take the Plus Writing option, then writing is at the end. 

                In seventh grade, I didn’t take the writing part, but I still felt the full effect of the psychological breakdown that occurs through the grueling hours of the exam.  I felt fine during the English section, because it was first, and math is by far my strongest area (I got a 35 on the math section my first time, and the only two I missed were stupid mistakes), but then came reading, my relative weakness.  It took a lot of effort to get through it, especially since I was pressed for time, as I was the next two times I took the ACT also.  Then came science, which is really just the evaluation of scientific studies, which totally caught me off guard.  In the end, I was grateful that I would be able to take this test many more times to get a better score.

                In ninth grade, I took the ACT Plus Writing.  I was much more conditioned against the mental fatigue, and got a better score, except I got the lowest possible score on the writing section.  It wasn’t because I am a horrific writer, but rather because I didn’t follow the directions.  The writing section always presents a controversial issue, and you have to take a side on the issue, or develop an entirely different solution.  I, however, sort of took both sides, which was apparently totally unacceptable.

                Yesterday, I felt like a professional athlete when facing the test weardown, and I am sure that when the results come in, I will get my best score by far.  This time, I followed the directions on the writing section, and I hope to get a perfect score on it or perhaps one point less.  If I get a good enough score on the entire test, I will be done and never take it again.  However, I’m not easily satisfied, so the score better be high as all hell.  :)

Respect: A Lost Art

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Respect:  A Lost Art

 

                A couple days ago, I learned that Pope Benedict XVI had created a Twitter account, so I quickly found him and followed him.  I think it’s great that he has it in eight different languages, but they are all European, and I think he could get a lot of support from several East Asian countries if he got one in Chinese.  Whatever, it’s not that big of a deal.  Anyway, he also has his own hashtag for people wanting to tweet questions about their faith to him, and he promises to answer occasionally.  To see what people are asking about, I searched the hashtag.  I wish I hadn’t.

                I was astounded by the amount of hateful things that people were tweeting to the leader of the Catholic Church, whom over one billion look to for guidance in their faith.  I would estimate that I read through fifty negative tweets before I finally came upon one that had some legitimacy and asked the Pope a reasonable question, without sarcasm, about his/her faith.  I also searched the Pope’s Twitter name, @pontifex, to see if there was anything respectful there.  More vile remarks.  I then came across a tweet from a priest, who apparently shared my disgust.  Then, when I clicked on this tweet, I saw that it had many reply tweets, probably about ten different people, who started arguing with the priest and giving him the same crap that they were saying to the Pope.  It was all quite sickening.

                Yes, the Catholic Church has definitely had its dark ages since Jesus walked the earth.  There were many evil popes in the era from roughly 1000-1600 AD, who were greedy for money and power over Europe.  However, the Church has removed most of its flaws, and especially during John Paul II’s reign had returned to its former glory when Christ was in the world.  Treating the Church and the Pope with such disrespect, whether you are Catholic, Christian, or not, is totally obscene.  You don’t see Christians going to the Dalai Lama’s Twitter page and tweeting terrible things.  The only person that has to deal with even close to this amount of hate is probably Barack Obama, but I think it’s reasonable to say that the Pope gets ten times as much social media hate as he does. 

                It’s fine to have different views and beliefs, but if you just cannot accept different religions and cultures, you should at least find it somewhere in yourself to be tolerant of them.  If you don’t agree, then just don’t say anything!  Why do you have to be a jerk and say horrible things?  Acting like that is clearly looked down upon in any religion.



Bike Race

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Bike Race

                Two months ago, I got the iPhone 4 for free, just after the iPhone 5 came out.  I quickly became acquainted with the App Store, and ‘purchased’ the best free game that Apple has to offer.  This game is called “Bike Race,” and it is now probably the biggest waste of time currently in my life.  There are single player and multiplayer modes; achieving certain accomplishments earns you new bikes, which have certain advantages over the others.  You can play in multiplayer mode against your Facebook friends who also have the game, and it keeps track of your win-loss record so that you can obtain bragging rights over all your friends. 

                Here’s how the game is played.  The iPhone (or iPod touch) is turned sideways, and pushing the right side of the screen makes you accelerate, pushing the left side of the screen makes you brake, and tilting the device to the left or right causes you to lean forward or backward.  There are many different tracks, and many have little tricks that allow you to finish faster.  That’s all there is to it.  In addition to all the bikes you can earn from certain accomplishments, there are two bikes that you can purchase; the Kids Bike for $15.00, and the Super Bike for $20.00.  Buying these bikes would be totally unfair, but I generally don’t have to worry about that because few people are willing to pay that heavy of a price for a stupid little game.

                At the moment, I have 1247 multiplayer wins.  I would estimate that I win about seventy percent of the games I play, so that would calculate out to about 1780 total multiplayer games that I have played in about a month.  Do you understand why I say this is a serious waste of my time?  Thankfully, the average race only lasts about fifteen seconds, but that still adds up to about seven and a half hours that I have burned on this game in about a month.  Thankfully, as with all other games, I will almost certainly get tired of this sad excuse of a game, and will no longer waste any more of my time on it.  But for now, I am still vastly enjoying my Bike Race experience, and I feel that I am getting pretty close to professional level. :)

Kitties!!

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Kitties!!

                I often wonder what my cats think.  What is the extent of their mental capacity?  How well can they communicate with each other?  Why are they so forgiving?  Are these small animals even smart enough to think about this kind of thing?  I believe that my cats have the brains of infant humans, maybe even very small children, but they have much improved coordination and physical skills over their human counterparts.  They also have the innocence and forgiveness of a very small child; they love their people infinitely and are seemingly infallible creatures of God.

                However, I also think that each cat and other animal has its own unique personality, even if it’s not as distinct as the personality differences between humans.  For this reason, I believe that they are able to think on their own, which would help explain why they are sometimes so naughty; chewing up paper, eating off our plates, drinking out of the toilet, sleeping on the clean clothes, biting cables, etc. 

                My two cats’ names are Smoky and Leafy.  Smoky is a boy and Leafy is a girl.  My mom is a flute teacher, and about six years ago one of her students found Smoky in a forest in the back yard of her brother’s piano teacher’s house.  He was skin and bones; his ribs suck out and he looked days away from death.  She brought him home, and a few days later convinced my mom to have us adopt him.  He is the nicest animal I have ever seen, and I am obviously very glad that we decided to take him.  From our experience with playing with mouse toys with him, we have determined that he has poor eyesight, would greatly benefit from a pair of glasses, and thus was not a very good hunter.  But that’s okay, because now he lives the luxurious indoor life of a housecat.

                A few months after we adopted Smoky, Leafy came to our house, saw Smoky, and meowed at our door all day.  Every time the door opened for my mom’s students to come and go, she would run in, and Smoky would be inches behind her, chasing her around the room.  It was quite a disruption.  She stayed on our porch and yard for five days, through a straight twenty-four hours of thunderstorms, and we finally decided that we would take her in too.  Although I will probably never figure out the exact mental capabilities of my cats, I know that they are very smart, and they bring endless joy to my whole family.

The Science of Writing

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The Science of Writing

                Language arts, especially writing, is a subject in school that comes much less naturally to me than math and science.  I feel much better when there is a clear correct answer, and a methodical way to do things, or to use your creativity to do it a new way, but still knowing that everything I’m doing is right.  It gives me peace of mind that I have completed the problem to perfection, and that I am totally correct.  However, when writing, there seems to be an overwhelmingly infinite number of ways to convey your ideas, and just as many, probably more, ways to write poorly.  Writing is a much more subjective subject, which bothers me, because I sometimes don’t agree with another person, or don’t see what they see. 

                The good news is that I have recently discovered that writing is actually much more methodical and follows a pattern more than I thought, and it is through aspects such as diction, sentence structure, tone and style.  A well-written essay is no longer a randomly thrown-together combination of words that is pleasing to read, in some people’s opinion.  I can now identify the elements of a good essay used by its author, and it is much easier for me to analyze and see why it is well written.  The most fascinating technique, in my opinion, is tone.

                Tone is the manner which the author portrays as he writes, and it is usually very clear, and is directed at achieving his purpose.  The tone shows the author’s personal attitude toward his subject, and whatever he is writing about.  For example, if the author writes with a tone of indignation, he is writing subjectively, and is probably influencing your thoughts to believe that the subject or events he is describing are unfair and unjust.  If he uses a tone of satire, then he is wittily critiquing his subject, and is pointing out, through sarcasm, the flaws of his subject. 

                These aspects and elements of writing such as tone have become familiar to me, and now I think of writing as a much more mathematical and logical process.  After gaining this knowledge, it is much easier for someone like me to write strategically, using these new tools to write more eloquently and more effectively.  I am looking forward to learning even more about specific techniques used by world-class authors to improve my own writing in the future.