Post #6: First EOTO Reaction

    From a casual hobby to professional cinematography to military use in wars, drones are an integrated portion of modern society. In class, we listened to everyone speak about a technology as they taught the class something new. One that stood out to me was the drone. I own a drone myself that I fly from time to time. I have also watched videographers on YouTube make short films and other media with drones. While I am not the most knowledgeable in the topic of drones, I know more than the average person. Because of this I was intrigued to hear more about drones.

    While we know the everyday drone that you can fly around and most likely record video with, the drone extends that by a decent margin. The military use modern unmanned planes to attack the enemy. The main point of focus for my interest in this presentation was just how far back in time the "drone" has been used and what its early uses consisted of. The use of hot air balloon "drones" that would carry a bomb far away from the user and drop it on the enemy was especially fascinating to me. The idea of the unmanned vehicle has been in humans' minds for more than a century now, and that is quite a crazy thought. When I think of the drone, I think of modern technology that was not around even 20 years ago. This simply is not the case, as drones have been around since at least the late 1800's.

Post #5: Anti-War

    The world has seen its fair share of wars and conflicts between countries. Wars are fought for many different reasons, but sometimes it is simply out of hatred. I would be willing to bet that most people are anti-war. When I say this, I do not mean that they are anti-America or anti-veterans, but instead that they do not support the wars themselves.

    War, for the most part, hurts the countries involved. Not only are a countless number of lives lost in these wars, but the economies of countries that fight in wars, usually decline. War is not a flattering or glamorous thing to be involved with. It is incredibly messy and harmful so obviously there are going to be a multitude of people that speak out against these acts.

    Although most people are anti-war, we rarely hear anything about it. These speakers that fight against the wars are often hard to find. To seek them out you must look further than normal and find their websites. You will not see too much anti-war speech on your big network news outlets like Fox or CNN. Unfortunately, this is not all that surprising. Anti-war voices have historically been silenced or punished. I honestly do not know why governments are resistant to listening to anti-war voices in countries of the people like the United States of America. It is a saddening truth that we like to stick our nose into other countries' business and make it our own. Looking back through history, this much is evident. But with almost every single war that the U.S. has fought, its people protest it. They only want for it to end and our soldiers to get sent back home. Unfortunately, I do not have a concrete answer because I do not believe that there is a good answer. I think that governments of countries find themselves in competitions for who is "bigger and badder and meaner and better". They get so caught up in this that they forget about reality. That is my best answer for why governments are so pro-war, even when their people preach the exact opposite.

Post #4: EOTO Video Games

    Video games make up such a large portion of our modern culture. Whether it be an Xbox, a Playstation, or some other platform of gaming, your house probably has one of them. Sixty-four percent of adults and seventy percent of those under eighteen years old play video games regularly in the United States. Although they are a massive entertainment and media source, video games were not always played on a large scale like they are today.

    With the first video game ever created, titled "Tennis For Two", the history of video games begins all the way back in the 1950's. Tennis For Two was the most agreed upon "first video game" according to definition. The game was designed by Willy Higinbotham and built by Robert Dvorak. Tennis For Two's name said it all. The game featured a net in the middle of the screen and a ball that could be "hit" back and forth by two players. This game was pretty impressive for its time and could simulate wind strength and gravity. For many, this marked the beginning for the history of the modern ideology behind video games. Most of the "video games" that came before Tennis For Two were simply computer scientists trying to show off their coding skills and were not meant for the casual entertainment uses that we usually think of for gaming. Tennis For Two was specifically made to entertain people rather than to be a computer science achievement.

    While Tennis For Two was the first recognized video game, it pre-dates the first home console by fourteen years. The very first home gaming console was the Magnavox Odyssey and was released in 1972. This console would most certainly be unique if it was released today. This console came with physical items that would usually be seen with a board game or card game. Paper money as well as dice would accompany this console. The items were meant to enhance the odd "video game" experience that it provided. The console could not produce any sound. The only thing that the machine produced was a few white squares and a vertical line. These visual elements mixed with the physical overlays allowed players to play different games.

    The impact that video games have on the world is much bigger than anyone would have thought. Especially not those who witnessed the industry struggle to stay afloat in the 1980's. Nowadays, the video game industry is a multi-billion dollar industry that reaches more than sixty percent of adults in the United States alone. Through these games, developers are able to tell stories, bring people together, and give us a way to simply relax and wind down after long days of obligations. It truly is the most interactive entertainment media in the world, and it is only growing from here.

Post #3: The Value of Free Expression

I have always loved our country's value of free speech. Whether it be the ability to publicly criticize the government or to simply share our thoughts on any topic, this freedom, that I see as an absolute human right, is integral to our society. As Americans, we can often look at our own government and our own country and be critical of it. Sometimes, I think that we do not truly appreciate the freedom of speech that we have. I look at other countries that do not have such freedoms, or at the very least do not have the extent of such freedoms, and I do not see their people treated with respect. Their governments will silence them, sometimes in horrible ways, to maintain control. Freedom of speech is non-existent in certain countries. An example of this would easily be North Korea. You will either die or most likely be tortured if you speak out against the "Dear Respected" Kim Jong-Un, as a citizen of North Korea. 

To any American, that reality seems so unreal. This is because our right of free speech, that even I call a "human right", is not seen that way everywhere. We are incredibly fortunate to be in a land where we have the ability to check our government and our own citizens as we the people.

There are many values of free expression, but I think that the hardest one for us to swallow is promoting tolerance. What this means, at its core, is that we the people have to allow the First Amendment to protect things like hate speech. It protects people's rights to be racist, sexist, and many other terrible things under government law. At first glance especially, this seems like a terrible thing to do. Why allow people to act this way in the first place? To me, it is their choice to be horrible to others in these ways. I think that under the First Amendment, as long as they do not incite violence upon those they discriminate against, their hate speech should be protected. It doesn't feel right, but in the end this method produces the most just course for society. 

I say this because I truly believe it. I think that allowing hate speech, in the legal sense, is the best course of action. Now allow me to explain why. Without government interference in this matter, we come to a path where we the people have to punish these speakers ourselves. Now obviously we cannot simply throw them in jail or deal out any consequence such as that, but I think that the people actually wield a much more powerful weapon. We as individuals have the power to tell our fellow citizens that there will be consequences if they do not stop their actions and change their ways. If you have a friend that begins to make constant racist remarks, you have the power to tell them that you will not be their friend anymore. If someone makes a scene by discriminating against another in your establishment, you have the power and the right to ban them from your establishment. 

Because of the lack of government involvement in this matter, it falls into our hands. We have the power to state what is acceptable and unacceptable in our society. For me, when it comes down to it, this formula of tolerance is the best way to handle hate speech and other vulgar actions. We see terrible acts committed by our own everyday, and everyday we punish them because the power lies within our own society.

Post #2: The U.S. Supreme Court

 Before reading this article from the History Channel, I did not know a great deal about the U.S. Supreme Court. Now that I have read it, I don't know how I have gone so long knowing so little about a crucial part of our government.

As stated previously, I really haven't known too much about the Supreme Court. So, in turn, I learned a lot from reading this article. To not simply write out a "laundry list" of information I learned, I will write out the most intriguing piece of information that I learned.

I had previously believed that the Supreme Court Justices were simply put in place by the president. I have now learned that the U.S. Senate can deny these choices from the president if they so choose. I think that this is quite fascinating and really shows that the checks and balances formula exists in almost every system and every choice of our government.

The most surprising bit of information in this article was that the number of seats has fluctuated so much over the years of its existence. I thought that it was fascinating how there was a system where the number of Supreme Court seats was a range of anywhere from five to ten seats. Eventually, in 1869, Congress set the number of seats to the mighty nine that we know today.

This article has given me a decent amount of information about the Supreme Court. I feel that with this newfound knowledge of this system in our government, I have a deeper understanding and more respect for the Justices that sit in those nine seats. It takes a lot of hard work and dedication to have that honor.