Evaluational Evaluation Saturday, October 22, 2005

http://www.collegian.psu.edu/archive/2005/10/10-24-05tdc/10-24-05dops-letter-07.asp

Claim: PSU should add more seats or sections for classes that do not accept enough people.

Reasons:

"Smart" Saturday, October 22, 2005

This is the first blog I've written from home. Yesterday, my brother brought us home for our grandparent's 50th anniversary party. The drive home is almost 3 hours. First we listened to Dane Cook's new CD. But after that we started talking about how people say other people are smart or dumb and how the world is getting smarter. I really don't think that you can just say that someone is smarter than someone else. Some kids from high school told me that I was smart because I'm good with technology. That doesn't really make sense to me. Kids that don't know the first thing about computers and don't get as good of grades in school, I think, are at least equaly as smart. We just have different interests and areas of expertise. Also, I don't think the general population is getting smarter because of technology. Yes, people are learning new things. But at the same time, people are forgetting the old things. People may now know how to synchronize their pda with their cell phone, but how many people are still good at running a farm? My examples may not be the best, but hopefully you catch my drift. I thinks it's possibly that the general population is getting 'dumber' because we rely more and more on technology to do everything. This blog probably would have worked better when we were discussing definitional arguments. My brother mentioned, and I agree, that the only way that you can really measure "Smartness" is based on how 'clear' the person's mind is.

Final Project Discussion Friday, October 21, 2005

11:23 AM Tsumaranakunai: So what kind of topics were you thinking of?

11:24 AM justinwyne: no clue

11:24 AM Tsumaranakunai: Heh.

11:24 AM Tsumaranakunai: I guess there's always terror to fall back on...

11:24 AM justinwyne: but i was thinking something like euthenasia is easy to talk about

11:25 AM Tsumaranakunai: Yea, euthenasia would be a pretty interesting topic, hadn't thought about that one.

11:27 AM Tsumaranakunai: Also, I was thinking about abortion.

11:27 AM Tsumaranakunai: Arguing pro-choice or something.

11:28 AM justinwyne: that would work

11:29 AM justinwyne: so we're supposed to answer: interest, who cares, and what to accomplish

11:31 AM Tsumaranakunai: Does he mean accomplish as in actually get something in the worl changed or just changing someone's opionion?

11:31 AM Tsumaranakunai: Probably the latter.

11:31 AM justinwyne: yeah

11:33 AM Tsumaranakunai: So, for my abortion example...The interest is reproductive rights, who cares is women and religious/moral groups, and what I want to accomplish is convincing the latter groups that abortion isn't just killing babies.

11:35 AM justinwyne: Euthenasia, who cares is... everyone? Pople that have relatives/friends that are 'vegetables', Dr. Kevorkian.

11:35 AM justinwyne: Accomplish: Convincing people that it's wrong.. i think

11:36 AM Tsumaranakunai: Haha, how passionate are you about this?

11:36 AM justinwyne: lol, obviously not very

11:37 AM justinwyne: i think it's hard to strongly take one side for any argument

11:37 AM justinwyne: cause i think of only accepting one side is like saying i know everything about the topic and my choice is clearly the best

11:38 AM justinwyne: that's probably why i'm going to suck in this class

11:38 AM Tsumaranakunai: That's not necessarily a curse. It's good to feel strongly. You just have to remember to eventually address counter-arguments.

Evaluational Argument Evaluation #2 Thursday, October 20, 2005

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Evaluational Argument Evaluation #1 Wednesday, October 19, 2005

Movie Review: The Wedding Crashers

Claim: The Wedding Crashers deserves 3.5 stars.

Reasons: "Sometimes a movie comedy just clicks."

Noted Counter-Arguments: None.

Stigmergy Remix Tuesday, October 18, 2005

Stigmergy is used to explain how termites work seemingly together while working independently. While each termite is doing its own thing, it seems that a colony of independently working termites are aiming for the same goal. It is as though they thought out a plan to build a colony assigning each termite its own jobs. Instead of formulating a plan like construction workers would do, insects respond to just the surroundings.

Back to school Monday, October 17, 2005

Back to school on a monday again after a good weekend home. Some friends and I stopped to visit our high school teachers on friday. Going into the classrooms was odd. Everyone was so loud. High school kids seem annoying.