My News

While some folks prefer online instant news, I like to read the paper when it is available. I enjoy reading the front page articles. Sometimes an articles headline will catch my eye and I will proceed to read these articles as well. This is what I like about the newspaper; I find myself reading and learning about things that would normally not interest me. One of my Sunday morning routines is to turn on the television, have a bowl of cereal and read the comics and sports section.

In an effort to learn more about politics and the changing world, I occasionally read the world section of the newspaper. This usually lets me know how lucky I am. I read of 40 dead here, 30 dead there from genocide, terrorist attacks, or disease; all of which I need not worry about.

Ode to Golf

An ode to Golf. A Worldwide Golf Museum is exactly what this nation and world needs. Located near the prestigious Augusta National Course in Augusta, Georgia, this golf museum will attract golf lovers and not all the same. Close enough to Atlanta, guests will be able to drive from this Southern metropoilis to see the great golf wonder. Par three holes, biographies, and an overall timeline of golf through the ages using videos, diagrams, models, and interactive exhibits will attract visitors old and young. This new museum will co-exist with the Augusta National Course. With a facade like that of a golf clubhouse, exhibit rooms of golf from different eras, and actual par 3 holes, golfers from the Augusta course will be excited to come learn the vivid history of the game. While most people know that golf started from sticks, the first balls were indeed stones, and the first real golf links is the Old Course at St. Andrews, this golf museum will show the other side that not everyone knows. The evolution of the golf ball from stone to dimpled high-flier, biographies of those influential golfers such as King James IV to Tiger Woods will all be displayed.

A visit to the Museum of Tolerance

One example of an exhibit that I felt was effective in getting a message across to the visitor was the Holocaust exhibit at the Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles. Here, the focus of the exhibit was to put the visitor in the environment enabling them to feel compassion for those who went through extermination camps. By putting me in a mock extermination camp environment, I was able to nearly fully understand the extent and horror of those camps during WWII. The Museum of Tolerance set up the entrance to this exhibit like a prisoner would enter an extermination camp. Men and women (visitors) were initially split up and brought into 'shower' rooms. These life size rooms without windows, made of concrete were where the first videos of actual prisoners going to the shower rooms could be seen. Next, we walked into a dark, dimly lit hall with models, exhibits, videos, pictures, and diagrams lining it. The walls were made to look like barbed wire fences of the extermination camps. It was an erie experience. Another thing the exhibit did was make us take a baseball like card of an actual prisoner. As we walked through the exhibit, we were able to put our card into the diagrams where information would be revealed on our prisoners' biography. In some cases the prisoners died half way through the exhibits. The exhibit nearly gave me chills. I have images of the pictures and exhibit models vividly engrained into my mind. The history of the holocaust and details I learned that day will not be easily forgotten.

Pope John Paul II Aplogies

Pope John Paul II issued over one hundred apologies over the course of his papacy. This was an important step for the Catholic church. These apologies allowed the world to see the Church's new compassionate and rational view on actions of the past. With apologies ranging from Galileo to the Holocaust, Pope John Paul II covered many unresolved situations and put the Catholic church on the right side of these mishaps. From these apologies, one will present itself as being the best representation of the Pope's sincerity.

Critical Thinking in the Engineering Curriculum

Engineering Critical Thinking.

The main goal of the Viterbi School of Engineering is to produce engineers who have a solid foundation of applicable knowledge in math and science with a general understanding on how the world works. This in mind, there is not much an engineer can do in the way of critical thinking. There is absolutely no leeway in math and science, as the facts are facts. There is no getting around the minute details. Thus, on the smallest of levels, there is no critical thinking in engineering.
Taking a step back however, critical thinking can be seen nearly everywhere in the field of engineering. With mechanical engineers trying to build cars or civil engineers trying to build bridges, how do you think any improvements were made over the last century? Critical thinking. Change in the field of engineering only happens when someone says "Wait, that can't be right. This would make it work so much more efficiently." When questioning the design of the product itself, critical thinking is what fuels technoloigical change. Thus, without critical thinking, engineering would be a dead field; everyone would be able to do it.
Critical thinking is always good as it facilitates for change. In the early stages of engineering, with such a regimented set of prerequistes, critical thinking is hard to come by. As of now, there seems to be as much critical thinking as possible. If there isn't, more critical thinking is always good.

Nazi Germany and Pope Benedict XVI; an Author's View

Author Daniel Jonah Goldhagen presents an article which compares and contrasts the similarities between Pope Benedict XVI and Nazi Germany. Not knowing where Goldhagen is coming from to write such a random article, I read further into the article. As a young boy of 14, Ratzinger (later Pope Benedict) joined the Hitler Youth. This was his own choice as he was raised in an anti-Nazi family. Through the war Ratzinger served in the military. With such involvement in the Nazi party, how is it that Ratzinger never saw the horrors of the Nazis themsevlves? Did he see the atrocities and look away? To answer these questions, I read on to his later life as Pope Benedict XVI.
In a speech to the people, he talked of an "imperial church" and talks of "other religions as not being true religions or paths of salvation." With these two thoughts alone, it is clear there is some similarity between the Nazi way of thinking and the Pope's. However, one cannot even begin to believe that the Pope's closed mind toward religion is anywhere near as irrational as the Nazi's closed mind toward race and people (which led to exterminations). There might be some connection on some small scale, but in no way at all is the Pope going to act like a Nazi.
Goldhagen made this analogy to show that there could be some connection between Nazi Germany and its ways and Pope Benedict XVI. This analogy is not reinforced however. The reference made to the Pope's hope of an imperial church is construed to look like the Nazi hope for the extermination of people not of Aryan descent. These two might be similar in that they are trying to unify something. The way in which this objective is to be reached is completely different in both cases however.

wireless router

Do you ever get tired of having way to many computer cords, not know which cord goes where, or maybe don't even have a plug for a certain cord?

My idea would help solve that problem. A wireless router would plug into your computer and every accessory would then wirelessly connect to the router. This would create a clutter free computer environment; never before possible.