Foundations Vol. II

     I sighed after he passed by me. He looked familiar, but I had no idea where I'd seen him before. It was just something about him...his eyes maybe? The shape of his face? I had better things to worry about. "Couldn't even have given me a dollar," I said to myself, "I guess I'll have to wait and get more another time." I sighed again, then stood up. The biggest issue with my homelessness had always been the boredom. I could always scavenge some food up from somewhere, and my car's heater kept me warm enough, but the boredom killed me. So, like almost every other homeless guy I met, I turned to drugs.
     I know the look you're giving me right now, so before you say anything else let me just say that you don't have the SLIGHTEST idea of exactly how boring being homeless is. I had a job, I never had any problems with staying alive, but I could only sleep so much, and every day has twenty-four hours. I worked as a cashier in a Mcdonald's; Before my boss fired me from my office job, I was actually just another desk jockey working nine-to-five.
     So let me explain how I became homeless; my roommate's check bounced and my landlord didn't legally have to tell me. That's it. That's the whole reason. Dumb right? To be fair, I couldn't have covered both payments anyways, so it's not like it would've made a difference. Of course, I couldn't find a place with a shower until I got used to being homeless, and eventually people at work started complaining at the stench. Boom, the boss man fired me.
     Okay, now back to the drugs. I met this one guy, everyone I knew called him Tim. He was kind of a prick, but he had good weed, and that was all that mattered. Never tried to kill me either, so we gradually became friends. I asked him a ton of stuff about his life, and apparently the first time he started drinking when he was twelve because his parents were abusive and his life spiralled out of control from there.
      Him telling me about his childhood always made me think of my own. I never saw my parents much, they were always busy working and trying to get by. They were always pressed for cash and worried about the next payday, almost all of my clothes were bought in a yearly trip to the Salvation Army, etc. Dad died a few years ago of a heart attack, and Mom and I haven't talked since. I kinda miss her, but it's my own fault that I can't see her without feeling guilty. According to my brother Aaron, she's doing all right. Maybe I should see about a vacation to visit them and apologize for everything...

Why All the Presidential Candidates Suck

     Answer this truthfully, are any of the candidates for the election this year actually "good"? Do any of them really seem like the ideal president? The next JFK, the next Reagan, the next Roosevelt? No, they all just really rock at not being good. So why did we go from people like Al Gore, Bill Clinton, Mitt Romney, Barack Obama, Jimmy Carter, George H. Bush, and John McCain, all of whom were at least respectable individuals, to people like Donald Racist Trump, Benjamin Sleepy Carson, and Hillary E-mails Clinton, who are basically just competing for "Least Bad"?

     First of all, the candidates are the only thing that got worse. The media did. Originally, something done by a president/candidate only made the news if it were absolutely horrendous by the standards of the time. The first Clinton was nearly impeached, Nixon made Watergate happen, Reagan funded a terrorist organization. Nowadays, Hillary's shoes didn't match her shirt. Trump's hair makes the news more often than every other candidate combined. Everything each of them says is recorded and makes it to Twitter in about two minutes. However, humans generally aren't entertained by knowing the "good" things about other humans.

     Ben Carson was the first person in all of literally ever to successfully separate conjoined twins (which took a ridiculous amount of planning, time, and knowledge), then did it again just because he wanted to. Meanwhile he's known as the dumbest candidate (admittedly his political experience and knowledge are lacking, but still calling a neurosurgeon dumb is...well...dumb.) The media's portrayal is everything nowadays, and that is why Trump holds such a massive advantage over the other candidates.

     How many of the candidates have been on television more than five times before they ran for office? This one doesn't need Google: Hillary has some experience from being first lady, and Trump has actually been on television shows way too much. This is why, of all the candidates, he seems most honest: most people have heard him talk in a "real life" setting before, and he sounds the same now. Hillary never became actually famous, and no one's heard the other candidate's viewpoints before, so they can't know if the candidates are telling the truth. This also explains why Jeb Bush was doomed from the start: everyone knew his brother's viewpoints and nobody likes him now that he's out of office.

      Secondly, the main candidates are actually awful by comparison. Sure, Bush wasn't the sharpest tool in the white shed (being my personal least favorite president yet), but he was at least patriotic, good at getting attention, experienced with Washington due to his father, and able to rally people behind 9/11 well. Carson's smart, but he's not good at getting attention (the rest goes for most of the candidates who didn't do well). Hillary's experienced, but she had a massive e-mail scandal. And Trump is Trump.    
   
     Lastly, none of the recent candidates have been important compared to past politicians. What's the absolute biggest issue of this election? Maybe ISIS, maybe the economy, but it's really just the same old stuff. Obama had the recession (the economy may be down, but it's slowly getting better,) Bush had the Iraq War. Any memorable presidents had MASSIVE issues to handle when they got in office, and the public until recently had a longer attention span, so it makes sense that they would be more cautious about certain topics for a while after they occurred (y'know...that gives me an idea for another post...). Trump, interestingly enough, completely solved the problem of not having a problem by making a problem: his wall and deportation policies makes it seem like illegal immigration will doom the entire country forever. Creating such an issue drew positive attention to him from people who think it's a problem. He's the only candidate who actually promises major developments people with viewpoints similar to his, and everyone else is too divided among the other options to present real competition.

     Okay, I'm done with this so I don't give myself carpal tunnel any earlier than I have to or bore you guys to death. I hope this gave at least a few people some insight into the election.

Donald Trump (Except the Wall and Muslims)

     The ethics of what Donald Trump wants to do if he gets into office are quite love-it-or-hate-it, but no one seems to talk about anything he'll do that doesn't involve Muslims or Mexicans. So, naturally, as one of the biggest haters of Trump and his supporters in the school, my first reaction to his website was to think it was...honestly not the worst thing ever. I know right? I thought I'd hate it too. Sure his slogan's everywhere, but at least the url doesn't take you to another candidates site. Let's work though his positions in order:

Healthcare

      Healthcare reforms are fun. Every Republican hates Obamacare, every Democrat hates...every Republican and therefore anything that isn't Obamacare. So of course he wants rid of it, and honestly, even though I think Obamacare was a step in the right direction that had a ton of unfortunate issues, I can agree to that simply to remove the controversy and get SOMETHING worked out. Other than this, The biggest parts of Trump's healthcare reform are basically like this:

1. Allow interstate healthcare - I honestly wasn't aware this was illegal, but making it legal is a fantastic idea, ESPECIALLY in Pennsylvania with all the issues about UPMC and Highmark. Usually, just encouraging competition between firms isn't enough to reduce prices by any worthwhile amount, but when 49 extra states-worth of companies are available for choosing, the effects would definitely matter. 

2. Requiring price transparency from all healthcare providers - if Trump becomes president and your doctor looks more tired than usual, this might be why. Though another excellent idea that would at least prevent the shock of a bill after someone's sick, this could prove to be ridiculously hard to calculate in many cases. Assuming that would be taken into consideration though, two points for Trump. 

3. Let states handle Medicaid - Here's where we start falling apart. Though not a bad idea on paper, some state governments have a tendency to suck really, really badly at doing...well...anything. Admittedly though, this would allow access to some resources the federal government could (if we're lucky) use better.  

4. Letting foreign products into the US market - This really shocked me, and honestly made me doubt that Trump actually hates everyone that isn't American (...a little). Though frankly I'm not sure how big of a benefit this would have, it's certainly at least a little beneficial. The FDA will need more inspectors, and medicines from other countries would get FDA-tested so people from those countries would know that they're safe too. 

Veteran-Care Reforms

For those of you who don't know, the VA is extremely sucky. Tons of veterans die from poor treatment, the administator's have taken advantage of company funding more than usual, and most employees hate it.

1. Increase funding for PTSD, brain injuries, and suicide prevention services for veterans - This....works? I mean, it's not bad, but it definitely isn't specific at all. Every politician promises something or other like this.

2. Increase funding for job training and stuff like that - Again, not a bad idea, just really vague. 

3. Transform the VA to meet the needs of 21st century veterans - Again with the vagueness, but in this one it matters much more. What the h*ll does this  even mean? It mentions providing support for female veterans, but that is the entirety of the next point, and doesn't explain at all what this point means. 

4. Better support our women veterans - Staffing OBGYN at every VA is a fantastic idea. That's all there is to that.

Wait...did I make a mistake somewhere? Why did Trump put three numbered lists here? Why are most of the points the exact same? What on earth? I guess I'll do the last one too since it varies a little bit.

1-2 Fire the corrupt.../End waste... - Wow, fantastic. I'd love to see this pulled off. No politician has ever promised anything like this either! Ending corruption? WOW! WHAT A NOVEL IDEA!!! 

Yeah, I'll believe it when I see it, but sure it looks nice on paper.

3. Modernize the VA - Okay THIS modernization point makes more sense. Again, great on paper, but nothing revolutionary or interesting, even to me.

4. Empower caregivers to ensure our veterans receive quality care quickly - Huzzah for buzzwords I guess? 

5. Hire more veterans to care for veterans - This idea is interesting, but honestly hard to perform. The veterans who desperately need jobs likely don't have full doctor or nursing qualifications, so they couldn't apply or wouldn't actually be effective. That said, it's not a terrible idea for ex-military doctors and nurses.

6. Embed satellite VA clinics in rural and other underserved areas - First of all, underserved is not a word and made this hard to understand at all. Okay, tonal point aside, this is another good idea that I don't actually believe will be pulled off. I have no trust.

Tax Reform

Everybody hates taxes, but everybody needs the things the government uses them for. It's a pretty delicate balance, but right now that balance is messed up badly anyway.

1.  Remove anyone who makes under 25,000 or any married couples who make under 50,000 from the tax bracket - He topped titling them, this makes me sad. Digging through tax stats reveals to me that this is honestly the best idea I've read yet from Trump. Though even I am unwilling to figure out how this would affect the employment of the IRS and the government, this alleviation on lower class households would put their money into the economy instead of needing to buy everything on Food Stamps or from craigslist. This relatively low amount of money can make a significant difference in the quality of living for the lower class, without a significant dent in the government's income.

2. Simplify the tax bracket - This would heavily reduce America's tax income. As noted in the previous link, a vast majority of America's income comes from the upper class, and Trump plans to cut somewhere near 15% from the income tax of the extremely wealthy. This cut is a reduction in the area or around 70 billion dollars from the government (compared to likely near 17 billion from the 50% drop). This amount is absolutely more important to the government than to the people who currently have it.

3. No business would pay above 15% annual income - Google provided me with no information on how much of America's tax this makes up, but this might encourage corporations to create more jobs in America. Of course, that is assuming that corporations would want or be forced to put that money towards people, otherwise, this just makes the "1%" more powerful.

4. Removal of the Death Tax - See, I never knew these existed. Assuming Wikipedia is right, they (practically) don't. This only assists the "1%," and actually even less than that, who have an estate over 5 million dollars. On the state level, this only affects people (who fall below an inheritance that isn't ridiculously high) in four states, and this is assuming he could actually get legislature controlling state tax rates.

5. One-time Outsourcing Jobs Tax - There is no statistic on this, and I can't even speculate on what this would be. Good idea, if it makes enough to cover the changes.

Gun Control

Passing on most of this. I do approve the mental health evaluation stuff, but the rest is either love it or hate it. 

Immigration Reform

Okay, I know I said I wouldn't go into this, but I promise I'll only go into the economics of it and not start screaming over more love-it-or-hate-it ethics. First and foremost, even I will agree that it does in theory work out relatively well economically. Removing an entire group of people from the employment equation would reduce unemployment in America, but it would lead to Mexico getting even worse, which is an issue that would have to be dealt with eventually. Okay, going off this before I make it extremely debatable. 

Chinese-Trade Reform

The undervaluing of the Yuan is heavily debated. No one actually knows if it's still actually undervalued since it has gained about 33% of its value in the past ten years. Whether he is right or wrong on this, the accusation would definitely anger China, and possibly make them cease trade with the United States. In addition, increasing the value of the Chinese Yuan would increase the cost of any item produced in the country drastically, leading to some heavy inflation in every other country as well. Everything else in that section is just a bunch of promises made by every politician every year.

So, discounting the ethics of the wall and a ban on Muslims, what do I think of Trump? Actually, I have no idea. Almost the entirety of his plan relies on the complete removal of illegal immigrants, which has extremely hard to predict effects on the economy of the United States. The rest of what he offers is just the same thing spat out by every politician to get voters, so it can neither be counted for him nor believed in. In any case, that's all he wrote, and I hope this analysis helped some people see everything about the comedian runner.  

Motivation Thing

So...is this channel just short, animated TED talks? That's pretty cool.

My first thought on viewing was "Umm...what?" My second thought was "Oh so that's why people play video games." So that makes sense now at least.

The biggest question this gave me: why? Why do humans feel the need to progress and improve over what we've done? Why don't we, like every other animal, just worry about exactly what we need to survive?

Technically, we still do: I constantly talk about how important our capability to adapt is, and this shows that at least subconsciously everyone probably realizes it as well. The mental need to develop new skills and improve what humans already know allows them to adapt more into different scenarios - what's the point of learning a language if not to be able to live in the country that speaks it? -  so this is one the major benefactors to our continued survival as a species.

Other than making me feel good about my adaptation beliefs, the knowledge gained from study in this video will almost definitely improve nearly every aspect of humanity (eventually). Currently, most people just get jobs for the money, employers give friends extra money instead of making them actually do stuff, and honestly I haven't seen many smiling rich people (though I don't have any statistics to back that up).

Greed makes sense: every animal stocks up for winter, and humans do the same. This proves that there is more to life than stockpiling, which is great for the future sure, but not great for the even further future. Hopefully, every place of employment (and schools) will take this study into consideration in the future, though I doubt it will make any difference for a while simply because humans typically hate change.

How to Build a Computer

This isn't just a normal "how to put pieces together" computer building guide. This will actually focus on what parts you should look for based on what you need, but first a basic "how to assemble" guide should probably happen. For a standard computer, you really just need to know a few main parts:



In order:
Motherboard - the thingy that lets things send information to other things
Processor (CPU) - processes data (the actual computer part)
RAM - where data that is in use that can't stay on the processor is held
Power supply (PSU) - supplies power
Graphics card (GPU) - basically, a processor specifically for visuals
Hard Drive (HDD) - stores data

Basically the best way to assemble a pc is to connect each part where it looks like it fits on the motherboard. I'm not joking, somewhere around 90% of the time this will work without breaking anything if you're gentle. Okay fine I'll be a bit more specific.

First, put the cpu in the cpu-shaped thing (lift the metal thing on the side of the slot, match the golden triangles in the corners of both, and set the cpu down with no pressure) then put  thermal paste on the cpu like that, and put the heatsink (90% of the time there will be one with the cpu, if it didn't come with one your parts are probably too expensive for a first build).

Now, install the RAM in the motherboard. That's really all there is to that.

If you have a case, now would be a good time to screw the motherboard into it. Line up the screw holes on the motherboard and the PCIE slots with the holes in the back of the case. Use a screwdriver.  

Install the hard drive next. Take a SATA cable, connect one end to the SATA connector on the hard drive, and connect the other to one of the SATA ports on the motherboard (HINT: it's the only thing the connector will fit in). There's another connector on the hard drive, but we'll get to that with the PSU. If you're using a case, find the thing that looks like it fits a hard drive and see if it actually fits a hard drive. If it does, screw in the drive.

The power supply (connector types in link) is the last mandatory step for almost every system there is. Now, all you need to do is connect the 24-pin cable (it's the really really big cable end, or the cable that splits and has a 20 pin and a 4 pin together) and the 4-pin cable to the 4 pin connection on the motherboard (most of the time it's near the cpu because that's what it powers.) You also need to connect either a 4-pin peripheral power cable or a SATA power cable to the hard drive. If you have a case, it should go in the bottom by the back, and a few screws go in the back of the case to hold it in place. Attach the cord to plug the whole computer in whenever you're ready to boot.

If you want to game, you have a graphics card. It's almost guaranteed to have the same type of connector as the one in the photo above, so just put it in the slot it fits in (This is called a pcie x16 slot, it will fit in the things next to this that look the same but smaller, but these can't move as much data at once). If it needs a power connector from the power supply, it'll have a connector like the ones you used to connect the psu to the motherboard before, but with six or 8 pins instead. Just plug in a cable with the same number of pins from the power supply. Use a screw to secure it to the case.

Now, you have to boot the computer. This is actually sometimes the hardest part, and you might even have to read something to do it. If you have a case, take the wires connected to the power button and connect them to the power pins, then push the button. If you're lucky, you can find the panel with the pins and they're labelled on the board. If not...you have to google a manual. They'll look like this though. Once you've done that just push the power button. If you don't have a case, just touch both with a piece of metal. That sounds dangerous, but I'm not joking. You can install windows via usb, or, if you're not nerdy enough to know how to do that (which is fair it takes almost as much effort as building) you can just connect a cd/dvd player the exact same way you connected the hard drive (but to a different SATA port on the board) and install it that way.

Okay, that should be it. Just plug in a monitor and boot it. If it doesn't work when you turn it on, check if you missed a cable somewhere, then unplug it and plug it back in again. Yay for technology!  

Author Conversation

Who's Smartest In Class Response

     Don't worry guys, this time I won't be tryng to prove that the study is awful garbage, and actually agree with it. Women receive worse treatment than men in almost every thing there is, other than (sometimes) from their partners, but that depends on the relationship and the people in it.

     I can't figure this out, to be frank. I've tried every historical analysis to see why men would think other men are smarter, and nothing I can think of fits. The only explanation I can think of that would apply at all is that men may have learned throughout history that it takes intelligence to be bold and speak out in groups, but that doesn't account for nearly that big of a skew in the genders' perspectives, implies women wouldn't have learned that as well. Also, that would imly that Donald Trump is smart.

     That leaves good old sexism as the probable cause. I can't find a solid piece of evidence to back this up, but women being viewed as less intelligent would likely have roots clean back in elementary school. If teachers encourage girls to behave better than men and be quieter, that would at least support the last paragraph's point. 

     This explanation also applies to the part of the page about classroom celebrities: if teachers tell girls to be quieter than the rowdy hooligan guys, that definitely prevents them from achieving class clown status. 

     Whether this behavior has an explanation or not, it's a massive problem with no easy solution. Emphazsizing STEM for girls would help, but it may lead to guys being excluded in STEM programs, and that's no better. However, the current system prevents girls from entering the field, so it seems what elementary school teachers teach students needs looked into.