The Age of the Stalker

So as I have been suggested to do, I am writing about stalkers. Mainly, how the Internet has aided in stalking people. Not in the criminal sense(although I do stalk Ms. Lamb...ha ha ha....), but in the sense that you try to find out everything about a person. This may sound cool for people you just met, if you want to find out information about them, but it borders on creepiness when you attempt to know everything about people you know already. Or if you stalk someone you like to see if they're in another relationship. Or if you try to be friends with someone just by knowing all their favorite TV shows and music. Just examples. Facebook (the link is probably blocked on school computers) has allowed for the stalking to run rampant. People who innocently post that their favorite band is Death Cab for Cutie and the All-American Rejects run the risk of being barraged by friend requests from people they don't know because of their musical taste. Or people who say that their favorite show is "Bones" run the risk of creepy kids who want to be forensic anthropolgists asking to be their friends so they can use their skeleton for their ninth grade science project. Crrepy indeed. I will sound like a parent, when I say this, but always be careful when putting seemingly innocent information out on Facebook, or the Internet in general. Creepers run wild!

Minimum Wage

I work for nearly minimum wage- $7/hour - when the minimum wage is $6.45/hr. In July, the minimum wage goes up to $7.55 an hour, and my manager will probably just round that amount up to $8 an hour. I'm pretty excited about my $1/hr raise, even though I will be leaving soon, but minimum wage is not exactly the best thing for an ailing economy. First, it creates a gap between the amount of employment demanded and the supply of employment. This gap is referred to as UNEMPLOYMENT! Run and scream everyone! No, calm down. But minimum wage serves a price floor, which means the "price" of employment must sit at or above this floor. Price floors (and ceilings, such as rent control) create a gap between supply and demand. The main purpose of minimum wage, I think, is to appease constituents. Employers must raise prices or fire employees in order to keep costs low, and since prices are difficult and unpopular to rise, employees must be let go. Sorry, oh large and all-powerful government, but your attempt to raise the quality of life actually just gets people fired.

Final Project

First off, I did not choose this music per se. The original music was "Mr. Roboto" but that is copyrighted, thus, I had to change songs. Second, I know this project does not completely match what I said I was going to do, but I explain that later in the video. Enjoy!

Swine Flu?

Everyone has been glued to the television by the recent swine flu scare, but I have been wondering whether this illness is being blown out of proprotion. I know that it has killed many people in Mexico, but in America, I believe that there is little to worry about. It was discovered a few days ago that this strand of influenza lacks an amino acid group that would make it more virile. That means that it is not as potent as we once believed. The scare originally began because the flu can be spread through human contact, but how is that any different that seasonal influenza. I don't think that just becuase Mexico lacks a medical system that can quickly serve all of its citizens, that Americans should freak out and shut down schools. Shutting down schools only leads to people gathering together to use their extra free time. I saw on the news that parents of students whose school was closed organized a baseball game, thus nullifying the effect of shutting down school for a week. Only one American citizen has died and that women had underlying medical issues. And I am not the only one who believes that this is being blown out of proportion. 77% of listeners of a popular morning radio show believe that this flu is being blown out of proportion.

Week 13: College Board is Evil!

As AP season approaches, I am preparing for the imminent death that is AP Testing. If you don't know, College Board creates a new AP test every year, for every new subject. And they charge you $86 per test. Oh, and they also write SAT tests every year, and administer them about 6 times per year, for about $40 a pop. Thus, it is nearly impossible to avoid paying College Board money. A college-bound student must take either the ACT or the SAT and many schools require SAT Subject Tests, also a product of College Board. And then, companies such as the Princeton Review and Barrons, write books that supposedly help students pass the SAT or AP tests, and those cost about $20-$40 a piece. All in all, the cost of just getting into college can climb into the thousands of dollars, even before tuition and application fees are assessed. According to their website, College Board is a non-profit organization. However, this article shows that College Board's annual net profits are about $62 million dollars. This begs the question, where does that money go? Do CEOs receive benefits that are written off as "salaries"? Do new, lavish buildings get credited as "overhead"? I wonder.... Hopefully, College Board will attempt a grasp at morality and try to make getting into college more affordable!

Week 12: My Carbon Footprint

On Wednesday, I found out that I have a humongous carbon footprint. I commute nearly 60 miles a day to school, and that's if I don't have to go anywhere after school. On Mondays and Fridays, I carpool, so that means I drive about 240 miles per school week. Over the 180 days of school, I drive about 8640 miles over the school year. That means I use about 8.5 barrels of oil per year and produce 4.5 tons of carbon dioxide per year. This number is probably much larger if my entire driving year is calculated. There are two main reasons, I think, that these numbers are higher than my peers. One, my car is about 13 years old, which could mean than EPA regulations for the engine are less restrictive than current regulations. Second, I live 28 miles from school, 5 miles from the interstate, and about 15 to 30 miles from all of Hoover, the most popular place to shop or eat, and from all of my friends. There are no quick fix solutions to either of these problems and when I go off to college, my parents will have far less spending on gasoline. My younger brother will only have to drive about 3 miles to his school, and I will only be driving up to see them on weekends from college. Hopefully, this will reduce our family's carbon footprint.

Week 11: Bank Overdraft Fees

Besides the national banking meltdown, bank overdraft fees have contributed to Americans' mistrust in banks. Last weekend, I deposited my paycheck in the bank Saturday morning. That evening, I bought something to eat after I got off work. The cost of the food was more than I had in my checking account, and when I was checking my accounts that night, I noticed that my available balance was $-1.16. I panicked and thought I would get charged an overdraft fee, even though I believed that the charge should not be debited from by account until Monday, after my paycheck had been processed. All in all, I was not charged a fee, but the fear of having the fee assessed was enough for me. Why do banks charge fees anyway? Why not just decline the charge on the basis on Insufficient Funds. That would have saved me a ton of worry. According to this article, banks claim that it is impossible to maintain real time balances on many checking accounts due to the amount of debits and credits processing at any one time. Couldn't they just have a screen displaying available and ledger balance? That's what my bank does on their website. And the approximately $10 billion made off of "service fees", approximately one-third of a bank's income, could be used to install new software in their customer interfaces. I hope that eventually, a more open, speedy banking system will be available to customers.