Terrrray

Location: Afghanistan

Summary: The UN concludes that Afghanistan is the worst place to be born. “Half the population of Afghanistan comprises children, yet they remain deprived of the most basic necessities like food, shelter, safe drinking water, sanitation, healthcare and education. Forced labour and sexual exploitation make their condition even more precarious.” About 1/5 of the children in Afghanistan die before their 5th birthday because of simple preventable diseases. “The country also has some of the worst child malnourishment, stunting, underweight and vitamin deficiency figures in the world.”

Reflection: I feel really lucky and blessed to be outhere unlike the unfortunate children who are born there in Afghanistan. Some people around me say that they are unsatisfied of what they have now, and I feel that too somtimes. But reminders like this article of how lucky we are living here in comfort, enough to eat, and have all sorts of entertainment. While the others don’t have even the basic needs that people should have. Again, I feel very lucky and blessed to be here writing this on my personal computer.

Vocabulary:

• Stunting: to stop, slow down, or hinder the growth or development of; dwarf
• Accommodated: to do a kindness or a favor to; oblige
• Protracted:  to draw out or lengthen, esp. in time; extend the duration of; prolong

Bibliography:

Summary: Scientists think that we are focusing too much about how to raise the food: organic, land based production… But the issue really lies in how we are distributing and producing these food. How we eat is also part of this matter, “Driving to the store alone and then cooking alone at home has a big environmental impact. Going out to dinner more, or just eating more frequently with friends and family at home, has huge benefit.” The making of the food itself is in fact a great deal but also how we eat and the distribution of the food is also very important.The important things are: how salmon are caught in the wild, what they’re fed when farmed, how they’re transported, how they’re consumed. Considering this can have a positive environmental impact and is also a way to live more sustainably.

Reflection: I think this idea is rebelious against the “popular” way of thinking of things. I didn’t think that by changing the way we eat can also help or damage our environment. Also the scientists made a very good point about how it is very important to notice where the food is being produced. Also they make sense by saying that by catching salmon in a big group is better sustainably than catching a small amount of salmon while using a bait.

Location: N/A

Vocabulary:

• Realm: the region, sphere, or domain within which anything occurs, prevails, or dominates
• Nuanced: a subtle difference or distinction in expression, meaning, response, etc\

Bibliography:

Ecotrust. “Global Study of Salmon Shows: ‘Sustainable’ Food Isn’t So Sustainable.” ScienceDaily 30 November 2009. 30 November 2009 <http://www.sciencedaily.com­ /releases/2009/11/091124152803.htm>.

Picture Credit:

KBS WORLD

Location: South Korea

Summary:

Today I saw on TV that one of the leading electronics company in the world, LG electronics, is making effort to reduce the ‘green house effect’. They realize what the world is like today and is developing towards a better world for us all to live. Recently, they have made electronics that doesn’t require to emit a lot of CO2 while producing. Also making electronics that doesn’t use as much electricity compared to other products. LG brand washing machines have been recorded 1st in the US from 2007 to 2009. LG is aiming to reduce the emission of cabon emission drastically.

Reflection:

I really was touched that LG electronics is doing this and greatly respect them for doing this. It really is great that they also do care about the environment knowing that this potentially may harm their payment and decrease their economy. I hope that other companies can also think about this critically and help the world like LG electronics is doing now. Monster electronic companies such as Samsung, LG, Nokia… etc. should all do this. Then the amount of Co2 emission will actually decrease a lot. I hope the quality of the products they make will not fall. They should try as hard as ever to reduce carbon emission and build up their economy.

Vocabulary: NONE

Picture Credit:

Overall, the debate was rather short and there wasn’t a lot of chance to fully express one’s feelings during the debate. Well, maybe not for everyone but it was definitely like that for me. During the “silent debate” I had my chances to speak my ideas and counter the opponent’s ideas. I liked this because in the “silent debate” as the name suggests no one could talk over one another which made it easier for everyone to participate. There were excellent ideas during this period of time that was displayed for discussion. Not all was perfect as we communicated through computers, it was rather annoying because we couldn’t respond right away with our ideas and the clicking and typing was pretty annoying too. There were, unfortunately, some ideas that I thought were not relating to the topic of “Should our priority be to keep drilling for more oil anywhere or look for ways to reduce our consumption of oil?”.

I thought the “silent debate” was a success and everyone participated about equally in this debate. The debate that followed the “silent debate” where two different group of people sat at opposite ends of the table and debated over this topic, unlike the “silent debate”, was a rather loud debate. I personally didn’t like this because I didn’t have much chance to speak out and share my ideas. There were few people that spoke through all of the non-silent debate and some people not being able to speak because of them. Not saying the people who spoke a lot was bad or has bad ideas or anything but it’s just that other people, including me, should have the chance to speak. Also the non-silent debates were much too short for anyone to deepen the discussion enough to enable the people who were debating shows their true knowledge about this topic.

If I were to conclude this debate I would say, considering both options, to save the oil that we have now for research and development for a new and sustainable source of energy that can replace oil. Of course it will take a really long time for us to find this “energy source” that will remotely have the same effects as oil, since oil is a great source of energy that was cheap and was extremely useful. Oil somewhat is the “best” source of energy humankind has ever used properly. But THE OIL IS GOING TO RUN OUT. We have to understand that oil cannot be renewed. Yes, humans adapt to situations rather quickly than other animals or anything else in the world. But this situation isn’t something that can be renewed or changed easily. This is a serious conflict that humankind will have to face someday. Isn’t it better to deal with this now than later? Rather than worrying everyday and having the society depend on this source that is going to, someday, run out; wouldn’t it be better if we tried to find a new source as we are, today, trying to find more oil? That’s my personal opinion and conclusion to this debate.

Some people use Bot Nets to infect other computers and take control of them.

Bot Nets is a net of computers under one person’s control.

They send spam e-mails and lead the people to believe the file is safe and make them download it in their computer.

Not only that, but the people who are in control of the bots can shut down websites by trafficking the website making unavailable to use for days/ months. This is called DDoS (Distributive Denial of Service).

They take advantage of their computer to extort money, hack into their personal accounts/passwords.

Using the BotNet then you can send thousands of spam messages.

How to make your computer safe from these malicious attacks from the bot nets:

Enable Operation Security Update.

• Switch it on

Firewall.

• Switch it on

Anti- virus.

• There are free options but if you can download the one you pay for. Anti-Virus can delete viruses that have already infected your computer. Also be careful for what you download there might be fake copies of products that may contain malicious software or virus.

Terms:

1. Malicious: vicious, wanton, or mischievous in motivation or purpose. (Dictionary.com)
2. Pervasive: to become spread throughout all parts of. (Dictionary.com)
3. DDoS: Distributive Denial of Service
4. Spam: a disruptive, esp. commercial message posted on a computer network or sent as e-mail. (Dictionary.com)
5. Extortion: the crime of obtaining money or some other thing of value by the abuse of one’s office or authority. (Dictionary.com)

Work Cited

This is a video I made in ICT class about the Millennium Development Goals set by the UN.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WtxJOfDGQQw&feature=youtube_gdata[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CWPXfLwDiLA[/youtube]

I think this tool is very efficient and nicely made. I like how this is easy to use and simple. But it is really slow and the voice really sounds robotic. The software is not automatic on loading the previews which annoys me a lot. This tool should be updated and improved because now they have a lot of choices but it is not as comfortable to use as it sounds, maybe because it is really slow for us and one preview of a change can take forever.  But overall, it is a simple and cool tool to use for presentation or for entertainment purposes.

Picture Credit:

1. “xtranormallogo.png (PNG Image, 225×96 pixels),” http://cache0.techcrunch.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/xtranormallogo.png.

We are currently living in a world where people expect something from you and the image of your body. Most teenagers think they have problems with their body size, and the looks of their body. This is not rare as in magazines and TV people promote body images which are attractive to us. That feat of body image is near impossible but most people are caught up by it and wants to be like them. This forces many people especially teenagers to lead to disorders. There are a lot of effects that takes place because of this, it affects their daily basis as they might not want to eat anymore and also leads to low self-esteem. Terminologies like bulimia, anorexia did not exist few hundred years ago which tells us that this problem began to take place in our generation.

The beautiful people in magazines don’t actually look like that in real life. It is bad for their health to engage in the activities when they try to force themselves to throw up after they eat and do unhealthy habits to make themselves more like they want themselves to look like. “People with a healthy body image are less likely to engage in self-destructive habits such as crash dieting, smoking to lose weight, excessive drinking, cutting, and bingeing and purging.” (Teens and Body Image, Ask.com) It seems that this problem is apparent to both boys and girls. Their parents should help them and not compare them with other people or celebrities. Parents should also not tell them to lose weight, say they’re fat or ugly they should not even joke about it. In some cases even if the person is not fat or too skinny they think they are too fat and keeps losing weight until they reach extreme malnutrition.

Why are the people in magazines and TV so perfect? Well, they’re not. People these days, with the technology they have, can retouch celebrities’ faces and body so that it looks more appealing to the eye. But people and teenagers misunderstands this and gets depressed and their self esteem becomes lower. Teenagers look at their body and are not satisfied because they tend to compare themselves to celebrities who were retouched and made perfect. Media which is causing this should lessen this and family members and the community should encourage the person affected by this for them to recover from that state. All people should be satisfied by their body and how their body works. They shoudn’t blame themselves and try to lose weight with harmful ways.

Sources

Nothing will ever happen if the people do not do anything. Even if the UN decides to do this this will not take effect unless we do something about it. We as individual have little strength and voice in the community. But we do have better chances to help the goal compared to people who are poor and who starve everyday because they have insufficient money. To be honest, my mom and dad play a big role in our church and do a lot of activities in church. They help the poor often and go on trips to donate and build schools for the poor locals in Vietnam. I realized that where we live, Vietnam, is improving but as I see it only where we live is gradually improving. The rest of Vietnam, especially the rural parts of Vietnam is not improving that much. So I want to help the Vietnamese people and support them with what I can do. It is a hard choice to help them. Education lasts, but without food they will not be able to learn or will die of starvation before they even use their knowledge to use. Obviously, food is a reasonable choice but that does not last. Even if we decide to help, how to help is a bigger problem.

My plan is that our church or maybe even different churches can come together and help one another to supply the poor Vietnamese locals with food. Each church can choose a specific region and help them out. The way to do this is that, people going to church needs to be generous and pay a fee for the church to donate to the Vietnamese locals. Of course it won’t be forced, if some people don’t want to pay that is fine too. The plan is that because church members already pay part of their  money to the church, according to the bible the people should offer 1/10 of their money to God (church). But of course some people pay less than that as 1/10 of their money is a lot. Since they already have the habit of giving offering to the church they can simply add on to that and give around 50,000 dong and mark it so that it will be donated to the Vietnamese locals. I believe this will take effect and the church will have a lot of money to donate to the region that they have chosen. This will enable us to supply the region every month with food until they can stand up by themselves. This donation can stop at any time but it would be much better if it went on and on. There might be times when a really generous donation will come and that can be used to even make a better surroundings for them with that money we can build schools or build hospitals.

We will only supply them with the most important and vital things if this plan works and will not spend money for toys or fancy houses. The plan will supply them with the most basic structures and food, it will not be anything in our level of quality. If the food are too expensive, not all people will receive the food. So it will be at the level of instant noodles, rice, cheap ingredients until we earn more and more money to donate. It will start off small but it might get bigger as more people donate. I hope this plan will work well.

What: A donation from the church for the Vietnamese locals.

When: From when it starts and as long as people donate.

Where: Churches around Saigon or Hanoi.

Why: To supply the Vietnamese locals with sufficient food.

Who: Everyone in the church.

How: By donating money to the church and using it for the Vietnamese locals.

I always grew up with more than enough food to eat at any time I wanted to eat. But a lot of people in the world do not have any food to eat. Why is this? This is because there is so much of a difference in the world. There are little balance or equality in the world that we are living in today. We eat a lot of food, almost more than enough, and I heard a lot of sayings saying to finish the dish when eating but some kids don’t want to eat because they are so full. This is the problem. Some other kid somewhere else in the world without food needs food but because of the great inbalance the kid doesn’t obtain required sources for the body to develop properly. Some of them eventually die of starvation. Their parents do not have any money to feed themselves either.

This is why this is so important. Poverty and hunger kills a lot of people. Every day people die from hunger and poverty. This picture of a child, this was the first thing that popped out when I typed poverty on Google. This picture is saddening because none of us who manage to look at this picture through a computer would have this kind of body build. This child is near death, because of malnutrition. What we should do is help these people in need by donating food to them and share the things we already have. Not only donate but help them to stand by their own feet. We should help them to be able to produce their own food. If they rely on the countries that support it wouldn’t be much different from the concept of AID. We know that AID is only increasing the gap between countries and it will not completely eradicate poverty or hunger in the world. It is complicated for me to say what to do to completely eradicate poverty and hunger. But shouldn’t we at least give up what we really don’t need more than the countries in need? We should form global alliances (Goal #8) and together help out the countries most in need. It might be difficult for the developed countries who donated and helped out after this but we should worry about that when we come to it. This problem has been existing for too long, therefore we should, as the UN said end this problem by the year 2015.