Closing Time

8 days, 7 hours, 43 minutes, 27 seconds and 1 year left in school!!!!

The school year is coming to the end and even though I can barely wait for it to be over, I know that the experiences and life I've lived will never be repeated again. I'm gonna miss it. This year has been pretty fun. The classes I've taken have been pretty nice (No math HW everyday!) and I've definitely learned a lot from how to be a better writer to doing differential calculus (one of those is going to be more helpful and more fun). This is also probably going to be the end of my blog too and posting things on this, while often difficult and stressful, has been a lot of fun. I'm not sure how great my grammar and vocabulary are on these posts - actually I'm pretty sure its not good horrible, I fixed the times I used "gonna" at least - I've been able to write about some things I'm interested in, whether its politics or my ravings about uncertainty and randomness.

Even saying this, I can't honestly say I don't want school to end. I think I know a too many seniors because recently I have sometimes found that I really don't want to do work sometimes. Of course I was forced to combat this laziness because I'm not accepted into college, I have several AP exams to study for, and school is not over yet. Unfortunately, like everyone else, I'm still at least slightly affected by the phenomenon.

However, I still can't believe that the school year is over already. It feels like just yesterday, I was a brand new Freshman coming in from middle school. Since then, I've made tons of friends, gotten my driver license, and attended so many events. Yet somehow, it still feels like the time has just flown past. I can't believe that I'm only a year way from college and less than a year way from becoming a legal adult. Sometimes I think that I've accomplished a lot and sometimes I think I've done almost nothing in the last couple years. Either way, high school so far has been a very interesting experience. I only have one year left and though I can't wait for college, I know that I will never get go through the unique institution known as high school again.

P.S: Differential Calculus is definitely not fun

Just a random poem (Not a AP Lang Post) Also makes no sense. Oh well

On the beach I saw a man
With a dog he didn't have
and this man I could not see
who had a dog that didn't breath

He Stopped and looked back  at me
This man of gray and sorrow
"Why do you stare at me so"
said the man I see
"Is it that you hate me so
Or envy my misery"

So we stared on and on
Into the bitter night
Watching in the mirror
Looking, without sight
As I watched the man stood
alone, at last, himself


So I stood alone
Surrounded by glowing sand
I saw the man I could not see
Dissolve away at last

I Wish I Knew What I was Doing (or why we're always just guessing)

I recently came across a comic that provided a very interesting viewpoint on the choice I'm going to have to make in the coming years. The comic along with this video puts a comic voice on a very real problem. I know that maybe this year or next year, definitely sometime during college, I have to decide on what major I'm going to do. The direction I chose is going to have a great impact on the rest of my life. Of course I can always change majors (my brothers changed majors like 3 times) afterwards or chose a different job after I graduate, but likely I will try to stick to whatever career path I decide in the next couple of years and its going to decide a large part of the rest of my life.

When I chose the title of this blog, I wanted something that reflected my personality and outlook on life. Taking a suggestion (joke) from my friend, I decided to focus on my inability to make decisions sometimes - or as my mom says, "Stop saying I don't know. What do you want for dinner!". In life, I find that we all too often have to make decisions, always with insufficient data available. We never know exactly what will happen moment to moment or what the ramifications of everything we do will have. Many decision really don't matter that much like what to eat or drink, but these small decisions and large decisions often add up and I often feel like I'm just sort of guessing whats going to happen. For example, we take tests all the time in school. I'll never know for sure what exactly is going to be on the test so I'm not sure what to study. I'm not even going to mention the guessing that sometimes has to occur while taking the test, but even after tests, I've often learned how I thought I did often has little affect on how I actually did. This is just a small example of what every person on earth deals with on a day to day basis, but we still all manage to get by. Our peronal views of the world only being shattered every now and then.

Of course, the decisions we make in everyday life are fairly insignificant. We can mess some, guess on others, and even postpone a couple and we're still pretty much fine. However, the large decisions like which college to go to, who to date (or marry), where to live, or what job to take will have incredibly long lasting impacts. And these are the decisions we have the least information on. At least I can guess what will happen if I don't study for a test. Its impossible for me to know exactly what affect going to a specific college will have on me. After all, Who will I meet? What professors will I have? Will a tornado pick up my dorm and drop me in the ocean? These are questions none of us can even begin to answer. But life is life. Who knows if the next car I ride in will be hit by a truck or maybe I'll win the lottery. But I have a feeling that for the rest of my life there will be one constant, whether its writing lang essays or deciding what restaurant to eat at, I will be thinking and feeling that "I wish I knew what I was doing".

Why the US has such a large debt

The US currently has a debt of more than 15.5 trillion which is more than the country's current GDP (Growth Domestic Product). However, the US has not always had such an overwhelming debt. The US had a pretty stable of debt of less than 2 trillion until the 1980s (corrected for inflation). In fact, in actual dollar terms our debt was decreasing pretty steadily.

However, starting with Carter, our debts have started to increase incredibly. Mostly, its Ronald Reagan's fault. On average, he increased the debt by about 23.6% each year he was president, more than doubling the US debt during his two terms of office. Reagan implemented a plan know as Reaganomics during his office. In response to rising inflation and unemployment, he decided the best way to help the economy would be to cut taxes, mainly for higher earners and corporations. The general effect was to lower taxes on companies and the rich. The idea was that lowering taxes on the rich make the benefits trickle down to everyone else. Also, they believed that the tax cuts would pay for themselves because lower taxes would stimulate the economy and in turn cause higher tax revenues. To pay for the cuts, he also lowered social service spending and increased defense spending.

While the economic effects of these policies are questionable - the economy recovered, but some think its more  of a result from normal economic forces than any of Reagan's policies. It established the idea that you can cut taxes and still increase revenues. It started a trend among following presidents, especially both George Bush's of passing tax cuts while increasing defense spending or engaging in wars. While the governments increased spending through social programs and defense spending, they passed tax cuts instead of increasing taxes to cover these additional expenses; thereby racking up debt.

We started down this road of debt because of the contradicting things people want. Everyone wants the government to build roads, increase social programs, and have a military to protect people. However, they also don't want to pay for these benefits. Thus, to deliver on their political promises, politicians have to resort to creating huge government debts.

Winning at Monopoly (and why its like life)

Monopoly is a classic game that has been the staple of family evenings for generations. Even though like most board games, its a game of chance, there are still many strategies that you can use to help you get your way to the top. Monopoly is a lot like the real life capitalism the game is based on. Winning the game relies a lot on your ability to trade and make deals with other players.

As refered to by the name of the game, the best way to win a game of monopoly is by gaining all the properties of a certain set or color. Once you do so, you collect double on the base rent and also gain the ability to buy houses and cities on those properties. This is important because once you buy a couple of houses, you can collect upwards of 1000 or 2000 for one collection of rent. However, since it is usually difficult to obtain monopolies through pure luck, it is usually necessarily to trade with other players to win. Therefore, the main strategy in monopoly is very similar to real life capitalism. You have to make trades and deals that will allow you to get monopolies and do your best to prevent the other players from doing the same. Usually, other players will pay exorbitant prices for properties they need to complete their monopolies. Thus, the laws of supply and demand apply.You should buy properties from the bank whenever possible, whether you need it or not. You can prevent other people from completing monopolies or trade it with them for properties you need to finish yours. So like real life, its a game of strategy, luck, and your relationships with the other players. If some players decide to prevent someone from winning, they just have to only make mutually advantageous trades each other.

Also, once you get a monopoly in Monopoly, you should attempt to buy as many houses as possible when you think other players will land on it.  That way when others land on it, they will have to pay the maximum rent to you. Of course, there are no absolute ways to win. Playing Monopoly also relies on a huge amount of luck. It is technically possible in one game to buy all the properties on the board without trading if all the other players only land on your properties. Like life, much of winning is still in the luck of the draw.

Alone Together

In Sherry Turkle's Ted Talk, she makes a very persuasive argument about the dangers of our constant use of Technology. She is a professor at MIT and founded and directs the MIT initative on Technology and self. She argues that more and more people today are always alone, even when we're with other poeple. She gives many examples of young even older people who are beginning to prefer texting to face to face contact, even texting while spending time with friends or familiy.

The main argument she is making in her TED talk is that our constant connection to each other via texting, facebook, and twitter is causing us to begin to value these fleeting superficial communication of real talking and real human relationships. She makes the point that we prefer using these technologies because it gives us a false sense of control over our communication with others. The non-real time component of this type of communication gives us time to let us create and refine the image we want to present of ourselves. We want to be able to talk to other people, but on our schedule, under our control. We are also starting using technology to distract us from parts of real life we feel are unneccesary continuously checking our phones all the time even during conversation with peers.

I find that the points she is making in the video are incredibly insightful because it makes me reflect on how often I use my phone and how much I rely on it. I do think that we do use chatting and texting a little too often than we talk face to face or using a phone. However, I do somewhat disagree that we like facebook, texting, and email more because it lets us present the version of ourselves that we want others to see. Personally, I find that this time and permanence of this communication is what I don't like about those technologies. Phone conversations are a lot easier for me to communicate often because I don't have time to prepare something that has to be perfect and I have more control on how soon I can get a response from the other person. Still, I agree with the main point she is making that we have to reflect on how we use these new technologies in everday life. We have to be able to balance it with real life, real conversations, and real connections.

Senate passes bill requiring “Black Boxes” in new cars starting in 2015

         Recently, the Senate has passed Senate Bill 1813 called "Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century Act". While the House hasn't yet approved this bill, a portion of the bill is already causing great interest to everyone. It requires that "Not later than 180 days after the date of enactment of this Act, the Secretary shall revise part 563 of title 49, Code of Federal Regulations, to require, beginning with model year 2015, that new passenger motor vehicles sold in the United States be equipped with an event data recorder that meets the requirements [in this act]." (pg 1068). This will require "black boxes" like the ones used in airplanes to record crash data in all new cars starting in about three years. These Black Boxes are shielded, tamper-proof devices which are designed so that even in the worse crashes, the black boxes will survive and allow the crashes to be reverse engineered.

Of course, this raises a big question about privacy because these boxes can be seen as a step towards a big brother type government. Because the sensor records data such as location and speed, people fear that eventually such data could be used to track people or enforce speed limit laws. The Senate, however, also added several clauses in the law to address theses objections. They stimulated in the law that the data on the devices can only be retrieved by the car owner or the lessee (or by a court order).

However, the inclusion of "Black Boxes", or Event Data Recorders (EDRs) in cars is not an entirely new development with this law. Many commercial automobiles makers have already begun to voluntarily started to include these devices in cars. One report by the National High Traffic Safety Administration showed that about 64% of cars in 2005 had EDRs installed. General Motors, Ford, Isuzu, Mazda, Mitsubishi, Subaru, and Suzuki  have all started including the device in all new cars they build.