Nikola Who?

Every time I mention the name Nikola Tesla, most say “Who’s that?” I am in total shock that most people do not know much about Tesla and they should! So who is Tesla? What is so important to him.To me, he is one of the best inventors and scientist that the world has ever known. Tesla was born on July 9, 1856 in a asmall village of Smiljan, Croatia. He was the one to create the foundations for many technological devices in today’s society, like the television and radio. He also created the alternating current system that made universal transmission and distribution of electricity. This power system is still used today in the industrialized world.  He created the Tesla coil, the foundations of radar and radio broadcasting, before they were even created. Without him, many of the inventions today may not even be existed.

I found that Tesla was a very interesting character who had many phobias and mental illness. He had obsessive-compulsive disorder and he had the ability to perceive things just by the thought of them. It was hard for him to distinguish real life from these images, which caused him to have constant paranoia. By learning how to control and manage this ability, he was able to use it to his advantage; he could perfect his invention in his mind before ever building them. In my opinion, this ability is one of the most amazing things that I have heard of. I find it ambitious that although Tesla had phobias and a mental illness, he was able to contribute greatly to the world today.  

Also, I found it very interesting about his ideas and speculations. He had claimed that he invented a death ray that was capable of destroying about 10 000 airplanes at a distance of 250 people, communicating with other planets, and claimed that he could split the world like an apple. Furthermore, he was the first to discover terrestrial waves, where he figured out how to light up 200 lamps without any wires from a distance of 25 miles.

In the end, Nikola Tesla was one of the most important inventors that have greatly impacted the field of electrical engineering. If people are able to remember Thomas Edison and his direct current, then they should be able to know about Nikola Tesla’s alternating current. We should learn and remember who Nikola Tesla is because we are surrounded his ideas and inventions  that are important to us.

Picture source: http://www.teslasociety.com/pictures/ntesla12.jpg

Sources:

Magill, Frank N. “Nikola Tesla.” The Great Scientists. Connecticut: Grolier Educational Corporation, 1989. 136-141. Print.

"Nikola Tesla (1856 - 1943)." KerryR.net. Kerry Redshaw. Web. 7 June 2011. <http://www.kerryr.net/pioneers/tesla.htm>

"Nikola Tesla Biography."  Biography.com. Web. 2011. 18 May 2011
<http://www.biography.com/articles/Nikola-Tesla-9504443>

So you Think you Can be a Journalist?

Brian Baker is a community reporter form Bloor West’s Town Crier, and great example of what it takes to be a good journalist. I read his article, “Higher income equals higher education”, which is an excellent hard news story. This makes it a good piece of journalism because Baker has an informative and well-written, yet simple, lead and follows the inverted triangle format, where all the important information is written first. I also found no traces of bias in the article and there were many quotes from people, like a Statistics Canada official, Lynn Barr-Tellford, Ontario University Student Association executive director, Adam Spence, OUSA’s president, Jeff La Porte, and the national chairperson of the Canadian Federation of Students, Ian Boyko.

From Brian Baker, I found that in order to be a good journalist, you must be able to create articles without being biased. A journalist should be telling the truth and facts about the story, without taking any sides to the story, to the people. They should also check their facts, two or three times, so their article is showing the truth to the readers.

Journalists should also have a thorough understanding and knowledge of the news and current affairs going on in their community and around the world. This is very important because they will be able to find the stories they want to write about. A journalist should also have excellent research and social skills so they will be able to interview people and gain knowledge on their story. Journalists should also have a strong attitude and go out there to find stories and challenge authorities.

Lastly, in order to be a good journalist, you must love the field of journalism. A person who wants to be a journalist must be interested, enthusiastic, and have a desire to tell their stories to others. Being passionate about something you love, will only bring you success and happiness.

Picture Source: http://www.genuinejobs.com/telecommuting/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/freelance-journalist-jobs.jpg

Crowfunding

I’ve never heard of crowfunding before until now. Once I heard the word, I literally thought it was about funding crows for some kinds of reason, but it’s not crows we are funding, but stories! So crowfunding is when journalists propose story ideas and citizens can pledge contributions to the stories they want to see get reported. If enough people chip in on an idea, it gets investigated and then the story is published.

The concept of crowfunding is really easy to get, and very interesting. I think that it’s a great way for journalists to be able to write their stories, especially when they do not have enough funds. It gives them the opportunity to do what they love, and it also benefits the people who are reading it. For newspapers, magazines, and books, we all only read the things that interest us the most. I think that crowfunding is a great concept because it allows everyone to read the stories that they want to hear, and I, for sure, only like to read things that interest me the most.

Although crowfunding is an interesting and easy concept to understand, the question is: will it work? I think it will work as it continues to grow in today’s society. When I went to the website “www.spot.us”, I saw that people are actually chipping in to some stories that they want to see reported. Though, there is some controversy about crowfunding, where some people support and others don’t. Some believe that crowfunding is a democratic media, while others say its news sold to the highest bidder.

In my opinion, I think that crowfunding should be considered as a democratic media.  Journalists only pitch their story ideas and write them if the people want to see them published. Democracy is, as the saying goes, “by the people, for the people”, which is what crowfunding does.

Picture Source: http://smallbiztrends.com/2011/01/is-crowdfunding-next-big-financing-thing.html

Wonder who wrote this?

Anonymity is when a person can tell their stories and thoughts without including their name. Being anonymous can be a very good thing. It allows people not to jeopardize their names for their stories. For example, if someone were to witness a crime and were to tell the police what happened, they may want to keep their identity anonymous, especially to the criminal. The person may feel much safer to be anonymous.

Anonymity can also be a great advantage to those who write great stories! It makes their story much more interesting and mysterious to the readers. Many people may feel more curiosity and excitement if there is no author. Not only that, but their story can be very meaningful and helpful to others. An example is a book that I read called “Go Ask Alice” whose author is anonymous. The book is a diary of a teenage girl who had a drug addiction and it was a testimony against drug use. It was a powerful book that leaves a mark on generations of teen readers; that left a mark on me.

On the other hand, being anonymous can be a disadvantage since the person lacks the creditability of what they write. Not only that, but there have been many problems where stories and comments were vile, crude, or controversial from anonymous people. Most of us here know what I mean; there was at least one anonymous comment that you knew wasn’t right to say. 

I think that anonymity should be only used for your safety and when you want to share something that is honest and would be meaningful and helpful to others. If they want to be anonymous, then there must always be a reason for it. For instance, if I was the author of “Go Ask Alice”, I would share my diary to help other teens, but I would want to keep my identity to myself because I don’t think I would feel comfortable if everyone knew it was my diary.  

Other than that, being anonymous is just an excuse to hide in order to say something that people may not approve of.  As the saying goes, “If you have nothing nice to say, don’t say anything at all” and that rule still applies even when you’re being anonymous.

Picture Source: http://www.rhlaw.com/blog/9th-circuit-unmasks-anonymous-online-speakers/

Pssst, do you know the answer to this question?

Cheating. It’s something that everyone will witness, hear about, and maybe even do. To be honest, I have done it once when I was in elementary school. You can write the answers on your eraser or arm, you and friends take sneak peeks at each other’s tests, keeping notes in your pocket, and taking or copying someone else’s work. We all know that cheating is bad, yet why is it such a rising epidemic in schools?

Today, having a great education is one of the most important things to obtain in our society. As a student, I don’t want to get a bad mark on an assignment or test. I want to have high achievements and I know many others feel the same way. Failure is something that scares a lot of students that some of us resort to cheating in order to prevent it.

In Mary Ward, cheating is totally different from other schools. In honesty, I think it’s much harder for students to cheat. The Test Centre won’t allow the back of the graphing calculator, for it may contain cheat cheats and they make sure that we only have the necessary supplies for doing the test; no back packs, no drinks, nothing but pencils, pens, erasers, and/or calculator. Also, the people beside you may not even being doing the same test as you so you can’t take a sneak peek. 

In my opinion, cheating is when someone does not have the confidence in themselves to achieve in something. Students can prevent from the temptation of cheating by building up the confidence that they can do it. For me, if I ever fail a test or assignment, I will be upset about it but I learn from my mistakes and next time I’ll get it right. Every student should always try their best and be honest, because an honest work is more gratifying than cheating. Besides, school is a place for learning and as Vilfredo Pareto says, “Give me a fruitful error any time, full of seeds, bursting with its own corrections.”  

Can I order a Baby with blue eyes?

What is a designer baby? According to the Oxford English Dictionary, it is defined as a baby whose genetic material has been artificially selected by genetic engineering combined with in vitro fertilization (IVF) to ensure the presence or absence of specific genes and characteristics. In other words, parents can modify their children’s genes for desirable characteristics, both medically and cosmetically. After choosing, they go through IVF, which is an advanced reproductive technique that fertilizes eggs with sperm in test-tubes outside a woman’s body.

In Vitro Fertilization

One benefit of designer babies are Pre-implantation genetic diagnosis (PGD), which screens embryos if they have some kind of genetic disease and the selected embryos are implanted into the mother. They can replace and detect defective genes that are responsible for diseases, like Huntington’s chorea, cystic fibrosis, muscular dystrophy, and much more. As a result, it prevents their child to inherit any kind of hereditary disorder. It also allows parents to have their ideal child. They can choose their eye and hair colour, sex, body type, how tall they will grow up to, what kind of illnesses they will be resistant to, and possibly their IQ and personality!

In order to have a designer baby, you can go through in vitro fertilization with pre-implantation genetic diagnosis, which will cost around or even more than $30 000! As you can see, the process of making a designer baby is very expensive and only wealthy families can afford it. I find this unfair because since this procedure isn’t available to everyone, the rich can choose to survive, while the people who are not able to afford it would have to face genetic defects and, possibly, death.

The result of genetic manipulation would cause segregation where there are those who are genetically modified, super humans, and those who aren’t. The normal people would have to compete against super humans who are meant to excel in everything. This would create a society of inequality and discrimination. It not only raises problems in our society, but also conflicts with our religion. Many people may believe that it is morally wrong to play God. As a result of all these ongoing problems involving genetic manipulation, it can lead to great chaos in our world, maybe even war.

As you can see, our society would be greatly affected by genetic manipulation, but more importantly, it also affects our families. How would people feel if they found out they were a designer baby? Would they feel like objects that were bought? They might also have an identity crisis because who knows if their parents modified their personality, like high intelligence or sports ability. I think this shows that parents will only love you if you were a certain way.

In the end, we’re not ready for designer babies. It creates conflicts in our society, religion, and in our families as well. These aspects of life are very important to me and I surely don’t want any problems in them.  

Sources:

http://www.actionbioscience.org/biotech/agar.html

http://www.bionetonline.org/english/content/db_cont1.htm

http://www.ctvbc.ctv.ca/servlet/an/local/CTVNews/20101108/bc_ctv_investigates_making_babies_5_101108/20101116?hub=BritishColumbiaHome

http://www.prochoiceforum.org.uk/ocrreliss7.php

http://www.readersdigest.ca/mag/2001/09/designer_babies.html

Picture Sources:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/sfmoms/detail?entry_id=36512

http://www.thepregnancyzone.com/age-fertility/in-vitro-fertilization-combining-an-egg-with-sperm-in-the-laboratory-dish/

http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/03/11/1047144972401.html