The world is changing no matter what

<--old cell phones vs. newer

We all love reminiscing of what we did before we had high speed internet, cell phones, and all the technology we have now. This site I found tech.msn.com, has an article that is very interesting and shares what is deceased or nearly instinct. Technology is definitely hitting us hard during our century. Looking back I think, I don’t know what I would have done without some of the gadgets I used. We know it can be done, because the older generation than me lived without all the technology and gadgets.
Computers are so much fast now than even ten years ago when we had dial up. Also, do you all remember getting AOL discs in the mail for a free trial of it? You do not see that happening anymore. Getting a busy signal when calling people because they were either on the internet or the other line is very unlikely anymore. Most people now have call waiting or multiple lines. Also, their internet may not be hooked up directly to their main phone line because all people today do not have a landline.
Cell phones have definitely boomed within the past ten years especially. It seem every year Verizon, Alltel, Sprint, etc. have multiple new phones out that all have millions of uses for them besides the basic calling or even texting. Today people use their cell phones for nearly everything, with some exceptions. If you think about it, the next concert you go to compare how many people you see holding up their cell phones during a song to how many people that hold up actual lighters like they did before cell phones were big.
Texting being more popular than actually calling the person to talk does have more of an effect than you think on yourself. If you pick up on texting lingo or even instant messaging lingo, it may put a damper on your grammar. Using the shortened versions of words may look cool and be easier while texting or iming, but in the long run you will continue to use them without even knowing it. If you are careful about it and remember that only using those shortened version of words when texting or iming is fine, but it is when you start writing a paper for school and those words are showing through in your writing.

Examples of some texting/iming words – gr8 =great, l8er=later, b4=before, ttyl=talk to you later

Do you text or instant message frequently? Do you think it has had an effect on your grammar or anyone you know?

Are Gadgets Making us Dumber?

Today we have millions of gadgets that never existed before. The real question is, are these gadgets making us dumber? There can be arguments going both ways for this topic, because it is hard to prove. Many say that new gadgets and technology are making us dumber and others say it enhances what we already know.
A good point that is made in this video, is that we do not have to remember things as much with gadgets. Our cell phones save all of our phone numbers so we do not have to ever remember them. They have speed dial so instead of us dialing the number over and over and having any chance of remembering the numbers, we only have to hit one button. If we can access everything every time, then why is there a reason to take a lot of time and learn everything when it is right at our finger tips on search engines. Also, there are a lot of people out in the world who could not do long division if you just walked up to them and asked them. This is because we depend on calculators so much. I know I depend on calculators a lot, because I was never real good at math, so as long as I got through the classes I could I was good to go without a calculator later on in life.
Another good point brought up in the video is that the term of smart is going to have to change soon. All of the gadgets today helping us, the meaning of smart may change by either gaining knowledge of the use of technology or losing it and just relying on it.
Growing up with technology growing so fast may have a good effect to some people. It may help people be multi-taskers and exercise their brain. The downfall of being so into technology and gadgets may be that social intelligence may be lacking a little. When people are always using computers, cell phones, and social networking sites to socialize may be harmful later in life with socialization. Kids that grow up with all of those gadgets and never socialized personally may have a difficult time meeting new people and that may cause them to be an outcast, which could cause other problems like them getting into drugs or other illegal activities to fit in. I know that seems a little extreme, but it could happen.

Oprah's Show Coming to an End

Oprah Winfrey is a very successful woman and has millions of fans that look up to her. She recently stated that she is going to be done with The Oprah Show in 2011. The last show will be aired September 9, 20011. She feels that after 25 years of doing her show, it will be a good time to be done. The show has consumed most of her time and pretty much has been her life for the past 25 years. According to Reel Empire, Oprah has not watched a season episode of hers yet and does not plan to even up to her last show.
Oprah’s friend Gayle King speaks out in this video about Oprah’s show coming to an end. http://entertainment.msn.com/video/?g=5b23f6ea-d85f-11de-a2ad-d26b63a74c6d&gt1=42007 – video link. She speaks out about how she thinks the society as a whole really doesn’t realize how much of an impact Oprah’s show ending is going to have on a whole society. She knew the announcement was coming before anyone and even when she heard it; it was still a big shock. It will be even more of a shock when it actually really happens and is done. According to Gayle, Oprah may be quitting the show, but she is not going to be totally riding off into the sunset and quitting everything cold turkey. She also shares how she is a hard worker and very energetic. She said after Oprah is on vacation for about three days, she is ready to go back to work so it should be interesting to see how she does with all the time off after she is done with the show.
According to the press room of Oprah’s show, Oprah’s program reaches about 42 million viewers each week in the United States. I don’t know about anyone else, but that is a lot of people she is touching. I remember Oprah ever since I can remember and that is probably because her show started just a year before I was born, which was 1986. She was the first African American to have her own talk show and she was very successful at it. She has more money than she could ever spend in her entire life. She donates a lot of it to different charities and gives her audience gifts on the show. She is a very considerate and caring person.
What are your thoughts about the Oprah show ending? Do you think it will have a big impact on society? If so, how?

Star Light Star Bright

First star I see tonight – The 2009 Leonid meteor shower just happened in the early morning hours of Tuesday, November 17th, 2009.
A meteor shower is basically tons of shooting or falling stars in the sky. The streaks of light that fly across the sky are tiny bits of rock from space, according to geology.com. The friction with air molecules heats up the rocks to make them glow so much. Believe it or not, they are smaller than a grain of rice usually and usually burn up in a couple seconds. The ones that are especially bright are called bolides. They are usually the ones that catch your eye the most.
During the Leonid meteor shower, you may have been able to see anywhere from 30 to 300 shooting stars an hour according to National Geographic News. This is depending on if you were in the right place at the right time. Unfortunately, the peak of this meteor was at about 4:45 p.m., leaving it invisible for people in North America and Europe to see. If you went out of town to watch the shower, you definitely were able to see plenty of shooting stars. Enough to get in a few wishes at least.
It was called Leonids shower this year because, they were supposedly radiating from the constellation Leo, the lion. Other previous important meteor showers were named, Perseids and the Orionids. Meteor showers are very nice to look at and watch, even if you are not into science. It is almost surreal watching hundreds of shooting stars, when at other times of the year you freak out if you see just one shooting star. I don’t know if I would be wishing on meteor showers though, because just think of how many other people may be wishing on that same star you were. I guess it could be a test to find out just how lucky you really are. How many of you watched the meteor shower this year?

Online Gaming

Online games may seem like a complete waste of time to some people. It used to always be that adults would blame kids and teenagers for wasting time playing these online games. Now, adults are just as guilty for playing these online games. Even if they are married and have kids, they still cannot give up the games that give them entertainment.
Entertainment is a good reason to play these online games. I never used to play online games as much as I do now that I am in college. Playing online games can be a good stress reliever. After a long day at work or school, it is nice to come home and play Farkle or Bejeweled Blitz. There are many more different online games; those are just a couple that I play on Facebook. As bad as it is to admit, I do play these online games as a reason to procrastinate homework or things I do not want to do at that time. These games can be addicting at times too. You may say just one more game and you do that over and over again and before you know it, you are up until 3 am.
Online gaming is not always healthy, especially if you do not have self control. Self-control is a big deal because if you do not have this while playing online games, you will get sucked into them and may become addicted to them. People may not admit to becoming addicted to online games, but Farmville is a perfect example of people becoming addicting. Getting people addicted to the game has a lot to do with how well the game is set up and the point of it; also the interaction in the game. My roommate is addicted Farmville, she plants her crops at certain times so she is able to be available to harvest them. She plans on doing all of this farming around her work and class schedules.
The numbers of adults that still play online games did surprise me, because I thought that after people got married and had kids they would not have any time to sit around and play games. What are your thoughts about online gaming? Do you think you will still be playing them after you get married and have kids? If you play them now, do you think they are addicting and what are some benefits or drawbacks of online gaming?

Perfect Picture

Cameras have come a long ways in today’s world. Before when they first came out, they were so big and bulky. Every camera owner on a family vacation would have the bulky camera hanging around their neck just waiting to capture a moment to remember forever. Later on as the cameras started getting smaller and smaller disposable cameras also came about. It was a huge deal to some people when cameras were small enough to fit into purses or even pockets.
Digital cameras came out and have been a hit ever since. They obviously come out with newer versions of them as fast as you can take a picture almost. It always seems like when you just buy the newest camera they come out with one that has just a few more megapixels. According to this article from msn.com digital cameras have pretty much maxed out the amount of megapixels they can have in each camera.
The Samsung DualView has a 1.5 inch LCD screen on the front of the camera as well as the traditional larger LCD screen on the back. This would be very handy if there were only two people that wanted to take a picture together. Instead of trying five hundred times to get the two of you centered in a picture, you would be able to tell right away from the front LCD screen. For some people that is the fun part of not knowing what the picture will look like when you hold the camera with your outstretched arms, and for those people they can either keep using the older versions of digital cameras or change the options on this camera.
Another option with the camera is to change the settings of the front LCD screen so it is of an animated cartoon. I think it is a brilliant idea, because sometimes getting a kid to smile while taking a picture is the hardest thing ever. Also, for those who do not want to see what the picture looks like while taking it themselves can just have this feature on. The front LCD screen will also show a countdown for the self-timer. What fun is that you say? I don’t know, I guess those families who just like to take the picture once and get it over with, instead of having someone try and dive into the picture would like that feature.
The back LCD screen has the feature of being a touch screen. Touch screen anything in technology seems to be the new in trend. I do not know how well I would like the touch screen, but maybe it is something a person just has to get used to. What do you think about having a LCD screen on the front of a camera?

Only 150 extra miles and an hour longer of your time

It has been all over the news, the plane that flew 150 miles past their destination of Minneapolis airport. According to the MSN article, Richard Cole and Timothy Cheney were the two pilots who claim to have been on their laptops and became distracted by looking at their schedules. They made it perfectly clear that they did not fall asleep.
It is hard to believe that they lost track of time for a whole hour, even if they were distracted an hour is a long time. It is very scary that they were out of contact for more than an hour with the airline. It is kind of sad that they did not even realize it until a flight attendant mentioned something. How long do you think it would have taken them to realize that they had past their destination? At least the people traveling got their money’s worth. I think it is always nice when the pilots come on the intercom system of the plane and give updates, but obviously that was not a top priority for these pilots. Riders on the plane you think would be wondering what was taking so long, because if you were planning on getting to your destination at a certain time and it was an hour later you would be wondering what was wrong.
Both pilots seem to have a clear record as of flying in the past and are said to be experienced according to their experiences. They were obviously caught not doing their job and it makes you wonder how many times they have been on their laptops on previous flights to this one. It is hard to determine how harsh of a punishment to give them. They were not doing their job, but they were flying the plane just fine to keep it going about 150 miles past their destination landing. The pilots should be punished in some way for not monitoring any of the messages sent from the airlines or other aircrafts. There should be no reason for flying over a city of destination. If I were a passenger on that flight, I would be very thankful to be alive and kind of mad for what happened. I am sure the pilots were very sorry and did not have much to say because they knew they were in the wrong. What are your thoughts about this situation? Do you think the pilots should remain suspended for a longer period of time or have their license taken away?