Drone Response

Caden

2-24-13

Drone Response

I think that drones could be very helpful in many situations however they could also be very dangerous for good and for bad.  Drones could make life much easier for many people.  I do believe that drones are a good way to go to war and risk a lot less men's lives in the process however we can’t get used to just flying a drone around because we won’t be able to have drones flying around as we are being attacked.

I find it interesting that drones are so easy get and then you could easily equip a weapon of some sort to it.  Now obviously it’s would be easy for someone like me to attach say a gun to a drone.  But someone that knew what they were doing it make it much easier for them to simply buy the drone online and then attach a weapon to it.

Videogame Response

Caden

1-6-13

Videogame Response

My father could definitely relate with Mr Vack’s story about legend of Zelda and I could to a certain extent.  Because of the internet it is now very easy to simply look up the answer to a puzzle in a game rather than actually spending hours trying to figure it out by yourself.  I used to just look up the answers on the internet but now I really try to not do that because it takes all of the fun out of figuring it out yourself.  
However I haven’t played games like The Legend of Zelda in a very long time.  The game I have been playing most lately has been Minecraft.  Minecraft started out and still pretty much is a basic sandbox game in which you can do anything you want with.  There isn’t really any story behind it and i’m don’t think there ever will really be a story.  I can’t really explain why it is enjoyable and nobody could explain to me why it was fun but i understood when i played it for the first time.  
If I were to make a video game i would want to make a game that you could basically everything.  Of course making a game like that isn’t necessarily practical.  However I do think it would be an amazing game if a large group of people spent a lot of time on it.  But to make a game with that much content would require a system with enough power to run it without lag.  So such a game is very impractical but it would be very fun.

CEJ #3

Caden

1-28-13

Raising Minimum Wage Would Ease Income Gap but Carries Political Risks

By Annie Lowrey
The New York Times
February 13th 2013
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/13/us/politics/obama-pushes-for-increase-in-federal-minimum-wage.html?ref=us

Summary

Obama wants to increase minimum wage up from seven dollars and twenty-five cents to nine dollars.  This would be good for many low income workers however this may make it harder to get the job in the first place.  So this will do good for the people that are already making minimum wage but may make the unemployment rate rise.  Conservatives argue that increases the minimum wage makes it harder on job creators.  In Obama’s 2008 campaign he proposed that the minimum wage to be raised to nine dollars and fifty cents.  Under that proposal people making twenty to thirty thousand dollars per year would earn another thirty-five hundred dollars per year.

Response

I think that it would be a good thing if the minimum wage up to nine dollars even though it wouldn’t necessarily have a direct impact on my family at this second due to the fact that my dad is self-employed.  When I get my first job it would be nice to making nine dollars an hour rather than what it is now.  I don’t really see a reason at this second that it would be bad for the minimum wage to increase so I do hope that this does happen.

CEJ # 5

Caden

2-25-13

Human mission to Mars may be planned for 2018

By Elizabeth Landau
CNN
February 21st 2013
http://lightyears.blogs.cnn.com/2013/02/21/human-mission-to-mars-may-be-planned-for-2018/?hpt=us_bn1

Summary

A non-profit organization called the Inspiration Mars Foundation is starting to plan a human mission to go to mars.  Supposedly they are planning on launching in 2018 and be a voyage of 501 days to get there and back.  They are hoping to gain much more knowledge of the planet.  They didn’t specifically say that the voyage would be manned however they did say that they are committed to accelerating America's human exploration of space as a critical catalyst for future growth, national prosperity, new knowledge and global leadership.

Response

I think it would be great if man went to mars in 2018 however I am a sort of spectacle that they will actually send a man to mars that soon.  The main reason that i am not sure is that the people didn’t say that they were having someone go to mars they simply said they wanted to get someone there as soon as possible.  It would be great if a man could get to mars and back in that amount of time.  Hopefully that will be the case.

CEJ #4

Caden

1-28-13

Pakistani Militant, Price on Head, Lives in Open

By Declan Walsh
The New York Times
February 6th 2013
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/07/world/asia/lashkar-e-taiba-founder-takes-less-militant-tone-in-pakistan.html?hp&_r=1&

Summary

The United States are spending ten million dollars for help in convicting Hafiz Muhammad Saeed.  Although he lives quite an open lifestyle in the middle class, he is believed to be the leader of the Lashkar-e-Taiba which placed attacks on Mumbai India in which 160 people were killed.  The United Nations put them on a list of terrorist groups and has imposed a sanction.  

Response

I think it is good that the US is trying to help stop terrorism however they could be putting some of that money towards helping something else that’s going on here like helping the economy.  I do see that it is necessary to stop terrorism but they could put some of that money into research.

CEJ #2

2-5-13

Caden

Powerful quake strikes in South Pacific; tsunami warning canceled

Solomon Islands

By CNN Staff

http://www.cnn.com/2013/02/05/world/asia/solomon-islands-quake/index.html?hpt=hp_t1

February 6, 2013

Summary

There was an 8.0 earthquake in the south pacific and five people on the solomon islands died because of it.  Four elderly and on child died because of a three foot tall tsunami.  This did not threaten the wider region.

Response

I think that things like this are very tragic but may have been avoidable.  However it was the elderly and a child who died so its understandable that they would be the ones most effected.

CEJ #1

1-28-13
Caden

Penny-pinching: Canada cuts penny; is our Lincoln coin next?

Canada

By Cheryl K. Chumley
Washington Times
February 5th 2013
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/feb/5/penny-pinching-canada-cuts-penny-our-lincoln-coin-/?utm_source=RSS_Feed&utm_medium=RSS\

Summary

Canada recently did away with the penny.  Many people are wondering if the US should do the same.  The article states that the US spends in estimated total of 44 million dollars a year on the production of the penny.  However stopping penny production in the US isn’t going very well.  The US has tried in the past because each penny cost two cents to make so we are reconsidering another attempt.

Response

I think that Canada was wise to get rid of the penny because it doesn’t seem to be a useful enough coin to continue making.  I can see where complications would occur when dealing with things such as taxes and pricing.  Despite that i think that getting rid of the penny would be good for the economy.

Ender's Game 1-5 Questions

Ender’s Game 1-5 Questions

Caden

1-29-13

Chapter 1
1)The attitude that encouraged the adults to lie to Ender was
2) What it means for Ender to be a third is that he is the third born child and it is illegal in this society to have a third child. This makes life much harder for Ender in some ways however it also makes him much stronger in the long run.
Chapter 2
1)I think peter was just joking when he threatened valentine because he said he was.  At first it seemed as though he was being serious but later it showed that he was simply joking.
2)Peter acts differently because he wanted to release his anger at school rather than at home and he chooses to let it out on Ender and Valentine.
3)I feel that Valentine is an intelligent, nice, caring person, I think that Peter is a mean, athletic, and angry person.  And I feel that Ender is basically a mixture of the two so he is intelligent and athletic.
Chapter 3
1)Graff saying the evolution works against girls was a lie in order to make Ender not trust Valentine.
2)Personally I that the reason Ender takes Graff's hand is because he trusts him and thinks of him as family.
Chapter 4
1)I think that individual human being being used as tools means that Ender is being used for the greater good and being sort of sacrificed so that others can live.
2)I think that keeping him isolated to keep him creative means that it would be good to make sure he stays away from other people so that he doesn’t gets used to other peoples way of life and keeps him alone with his thoughts.
3)I don’t think that ender meant to break the kids arm but he did mean to hurt him enough so that he or others wouldn’t bother him again.  I think that this is perfectly acceptable.
Chapter 5
1)­­I don’t think that keeping your bottled up inside is a very good thing so it is good that he is not doing so.
2)Ender ends up beating Bernard by making a fake account and saying things that aren’t true.
3)He stopped the bully at his school by accidently breaking his arm. I would think was kind harmful in the long run because it was his excuse that got him put into battle camp.