Orion

Feb/27/2013

Times Standard staff writer

CEJ#5-local

Summary

What was believed to be the night of February 21, a great deal of copper wire was stolen from the Mckinleyville high school stadium. On Monday the sheriffs office received a call saying that the stadium was damaged with the wire being stolen from the access panels.  The suspects were believed to have used a pulling object and a hacksaw to remove the panels.   The high school is still figuring out the total loss.  The theft of the wire damaged the stadium lights and the cost of the wire itself is believed to be around 1000 dollars and to rewire the stadium is going to cost a lot more according the sheriffs office release.  Anyone with information about the theft is asked to call the office at 445-7251 or the sheriffs office crime tip line at 268-2539.

Response

I think this was a pretty bad thing to do, but copper wire does have many uses.  Whoever stole that much wire is going to get a good price for it.  As for finding the people who stole the wire, I would go around to every pawnshop around the area and find out if anybody brought in a heap of copper wire.  Then, I would go around door to door to the the people that live near the high school to find out if they witnesses any suspicious activity or if they knew who committed the crime or know anything about the person or people who committed the crime. Then  after that, if I had gotten no leads, I would move into the high school and ask the children in the school if they knew about what happened.  After reading about what happened on the Times Standard, I actually asked my brother who goes to Mckinleyville High School if he knew anything about it, but he said no. 

CEJ#4-STATE

Orion

SFC

2/13/13

Carolyn Jones

Lone Birds of Their Species Winter Here.

Summary

In the Bay Area, every winter the sky is filled with millions of migrating birds:   mallards, avocets, Canada geese, western sandpipers and one Tufted duck.  Tufted ducks live in Asia, but every year, the same duck  ditches his flock and flies to Oakland.  While many of his friends wait in Thailand, this duck paddles along the Lake Merritt instead.  Hes not the only bird that's off track though.  San Francisco is the home of a Eurasian wigeon, and Monterrey Bay holds an arctic loon that should really be in Japan.  John sterling, a wildlife biologist in Woodland said that  "These weird birds can show up unexpectedly, at any time. To see one can be totally mind-blowing,"

Response

I thought this article was pretty cool because I had known that birds sometimes fly off coarse and end up somewhere totally unexpected for them, but I didn't know that it happened so close to where we live! I thought that it was pretty amazing that the same tufted duck comes here to Oakland every year. This duck is also not even from our continent. It is from Asia.  It's pretty cool that a duck would fly thousands of miles just to come and see us! maybe the duck just likes the weather here, but its still pretty cool.

 Orion

2/26/2013

An Ode to Toast

Toast is good.

 It is the food to break my fast.

It is what I have waited for,

Sleeping without wake for hours.

I hold what is not toast but bread in my hand

And see the whole grains, the type I like to eat.

Then it drops into the toaster to brown to perfection.

And I wait; wait for what seems like hours.

And then I smell what is crispy,

Then from the blade of the knife the butter spreads

And I eat and sit down to enjoy my life which is toast.

Orion

2/1/13

Drones

The concept of a drone kind of scares me.  A remote controlled mini aircraft that is used to kill and spy on people?  This is pretty serious to me.  It makes me think that someone is controlling a drone three miles up into the air watching me through my classroom window; and it would be impossible for me to know it was there.  We talked about a drone that was going to be made that had the appearance and size of a hummingbird.  it makes me think twice about my pets.  What if my cat named Friendly was actually a not so friendly land side drone that my mom uses to spy on me?  This could be possible in not so long of a time.  I heard on the news that in five years, computers are expected to be conscious.  They have minds of their owns.  This relates to Ender's Game because  the "desks" or computers have a fantasy game that kids play.  As Ender beats levels of the game that nobody ever has, The computer creates a new one without any additional programming or human input.  The computer also bases the game off the person who plays it, and the way they play it.  I thought this was pretty cool.  It is also said that the computers know more about the kids in the battle school than the people who created them and even know more about kids than they do themselves. I thought this was interesting.   

Orion

NYT

Brian Chen
feb 4, 2013

CEJ #3-TECHNOLOGY
Summary

An iPad is a tablet, but today one may call it a personal computer.  Reports from Canalys said that one in six people buying a PC bought an apple iPad instead. On Wednesday, a report came out that said that worldwide PC shipments over the fourth quarter increased by 12 percent than last year.  Apple ended up leading the computer market with 22.9 million iPads sold and about 4.1 million Macs sold.  Behind that came  Hewlett-Packard with 15 million PCs shipped and behind that came Lenovo who shipped around 14.8 million computers. 

Response

I wasn't too surprised because who wants a personal computer when you could get a lightweight, easy to carry, fully functionable tablet?  I think that in 10 years, most people will prefer tablets instead of computers. PCs are big and are not very portable in some cases. What if you don't have a backpack, well then you don't bring your computer. With your Tablet you carry it in your pocket with very little effort. I think the only thing that makes a computer better in some ways is that you have a bigger screen and that some websites do not have a mobile version witch makes the format all messed up when on a tablet. And in some websites I think are easier to work when on a computer instead of a tablet.  For example I enjoy Facebook way more on a regular computer than on a tablet because there are some things easier to access and a lot of times I find myself stressing over the fact that the page I'm on is all messed up because Facebook didn't recognize I was using it from a Tablet instead of a computer.  Is there a bias? I don't think so because the article contains mostly facts, and not much opinion from the writer.

enders game questions chapters 1-5

Orion

thu, feb 7, 2013

Ender's Game Questions Chapters 1-5

chapter 1

1) They lie to him because they want him to become an I.F guy.  They wanted to see what he would act like and be like if he didn't know that he had the potential to be the next Mazer Rackham.

2) it is sort of negative towards his parents because they probably feel like their fist two children were not good enough for the IF.

Its negative towards his brother Peter because one of the reasons he bullies Ender all the time is because he knows hes not good enough.

I think its positive towards Valentine because she really loves Ender and I think she likes the fact that she is the person that ender can lean on and that she is the person that can be there for Ender. if Ender was not there she would only have the ruthless and violent Peter.

It may be good for Stilson and his group because with Ender being a "third", they will have someone to pick on.

chapter 2
1) I think deep inside Peter was joking and that he really loves them both.

2)Peters behavior was different because he found that the only time to tell Ender that he was sorry was when he was sleeping. But Ender was not actually sleeping and overheard what Peter had said.

3)I think Ender is one of those quiet kids who if hes messed with will explode and really hurt someone like he did to Stilson in chapter one. I think Valentine is very loving and will stick up for someone if she has to. She always stood up and cared for Ender when Peter was hurting him.  I think Peter is very cruel and has fun in hurting things and people like Ender.

chapter 3
1)He meant that over time people came to look at woman as people who don't do any dirty work, and shouldn't do any dirty work.

2)I think he includes this action to make it seem like Graff is a friend to Ender, so that he can get Ender to come with him easier. I think that if Graff makes it look like he is Ender's friend, then Ender will feel more  comfortable and willing to go with him.
chapter 4
1) I think this means that normal people like Ender's parents and millions of other people are just there to possibly run the economy and there are scientists to figure out thing and create new things to then give to the IF to actually be the ones to save the world. The IF uses people for their technology and their jobs to have the money and weapons and all that they have for their selves   to be able to fight off the buggers again one day.
2) They're saying that if they isolate him from his family and the outside world, and keep him busy, he will not get caught up in emotions and be able to push forward and keep being creative. If is stuck in the same environment for time on end he will eventually adopt the system and figure out what its really about. If he figures out what they're really doing to him he will explode and will never cooperate with them therefore basically losing him.
3)  I don't think he meant to break the boys arm because he and the other boy were not experienced in null gravity. This tells us that Ender is the kind of kid that when messed with will really hurt someone if he has to. I think that its okay to do despicable things for your survival because i would rather do something like Ender did to the boy rather than be picked on and not have a name for myself.

chapter 5
1)I think its not very healthy for him because if he holds it inside all the time, he will eventually explode and it would definitely cause some chaos. the positive fact is that maybe he could make some friends who also show their homesickness, but the negative is that some people might think he is weak and then they would start picking on him. the positive of never showing his feelings is that he may be accepted into some group for having the look of some hard bad boy for never expressing his feelings. The negative would be that if he always keeps it inside he would possibly forget about his home and his family witch will make him emotionless in a way which is never good.
2)Ender beat Bernard by being a computer genius. He hacked the security system and mad his own file with his own system and wrote a message to all desks that said "watch out, Bernard is watching your butt". This made Bernard very angry all the time which made his friends not like him and then Ender mad his own little group of friends which left Bernard even more angry.  I would say this is unusual because not every kid can do what Ender did. It takes a lot of skill and usually a kid would solve his problem face to face, which ender found a way to avoid.
3)Ender deals with some of his difficulties by humiliating his enemy. This is helpful because it takes some of his enemies friends away from them which makes them a smaller enemy in a way.  He also deals with some of his problems by releasing his emotions and crying. this could be a bad thing, but ender usually does a good job of concealing it. 













            

CEJ #2-WORLD

Orion

2/5/2013

New York Times
David Kirkpatrick

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/06/world/middleeast/many-egyptians-fight-on-streets-to-restore-revolutions-goals.html?ref=world&_r=0

CEJ #2-world

'CAIRO ACTIVISTS FIGHTING TEAR GAS WITH TEAR GAS.'

Summary

People like Mohammad Makbel, 30 years old,pushed forward when many others fled from the advancing cars of the 

armored riot police. In Cairo, after the removal of former president Hosni Mubarak, violent street protests 

have destroyed tourism,cut foreign investments, increased poverty and ruined the hope of returning stability.

Makbel, a two year veteran of street protests said that "whenever people lose hope, the clashes grow worse, but the people in power still act as if there is no crisis, still firing more gas", "so I am going back in". More than 50 people have died in the last two weeks of these clashes. "the street kids are the ones who have suffered the most at the hands of the police".

Response

I think this is really terrible for a couple of reasons. One, all this fighting is bringing nothing but destruction in their country, and its giving them a bad reputation, and its destroying many innocent lives, many who are children. I think that what the government is doing is wrong and that they should see how its affecting their country and her people before they had set all this fighting in motion.