My ePortfolio, final edition

http://apseport.weebly.com/

The price of gas is going to go up, so deal with it.

Every time I hear a political debate pop up, the price of gas always seems to come up sooner or later.  For some reason people think that it's the president's fault that oil is a scarce resource and that its supply is quickly running out.  Now just to set the record clear to anyone who doesn't know even the most basic principles of economics; when the is a shortage of a good, i.e. more demand than there is supply, price will go up.  So because we are consuming oil at an ever increasing pace and since it take a couple thousand years for the planet to make just a little bit, we seem to be running out and this is driving prices up through the roof.  We just have to deal with it and get on with our lives, and if it's really that much of an issue trade in your big sedan/ SUV/ minivan for a nice, small, fuel efficient car.  Pretty much everyone else in the world is doing it, can't hurt to give it a shot.

And while we're on the price of things, lets take a nice little tangent and talk about the economy.  Simply put, two years of trying to fix things will not take care of a mess that was eight years in the making.  Not that I think that trying to increase our budget when we are already a couple trillion dollars in debt is a good idea.  But the economy is going to take a while to get back on its feet, and messing around with it is not going to help.  Right now we need stability.  Any and all confidence in the US economy has evaporated along with our country's credit worthiness, and only if the government sees sustained stability will the confidence that the US markets once had ever come back.  Unless foreign investors think that US businesses are a good bet will they ever be willing to give firms the money the need to get back on their feet.  At the end of the day, being impatient won' change anything.  We need to wait.  It's that simple.

To arm or not to arm, that is the question.

By now, I’d assume that all of you are intelligent people who take an interest in what’s going on in the world.  Thus, I also assume that you all know about the rebellion that’s going on in Libya.  And that big question that going through the President’s mind right now, is whether or not to arm the Libyan rebels.  At first sight, it sounds like a pretty darn good idea, after all these are common people who are fighting against an oppressive regime.  Sound familiar?  We, along with virtually ever other country that has been a colony or oppressed at some point in history by authoritarian governments, have pretty much done the same thing.   And since when has the US not jumped in to save ailing countries in their pursuit of democracy? 

And the downside, we may also be secretly supplying guns and whatnots to Al Qaeda.  Oh and because the French are doing it.  Supplying guns that is, so get your mind out of the gutter.  Though in retrospect they probably are doing it too, otherwise they wouldn’t be French.  Anyway and the UN says we can’t do it.  Yup, the UN says we can’t help downtrodden and oppressed people fight against their oppressors.  But we can authorize an air campaign, which in fact is exactly what it sounds like.  And fear of another Osama Bin Laden is preventing the US from taking any concrete action, despite the fact the lawmakers are pressing harder and harder for some form of involvement.  In fact despite the fact that the White House made a decision on military policy in Libya, no one seems to know what it is.  Guess we can do little more than site back and wait.

Our love of the absurd and the ridiculously idiotic

By now many of you would have heard of Fx's Archer and if you haven't you owe it to yourself to watch this ridiculously idiotic but incredibly hilarious sexual spy comedy that parodies everything cool about James Bond but somehow seems totally awesome nonetheless.

As you can see, we have the super spy ( guy in the middle)  the hot other spy ( the girl with the gun)  and various other bumbling characters who make this show a complete riot.  In a nutshell Archer' activities include shooting people, banging women, screwing up missions, screwing women, shooting people who get in his way, having sex with more women and having his ass saved by his colleague Lana (mixed racial girl with gun in the picture), and then making sexually inappropriate remarks about her large hands.

Anyway, my question is, why do we love this utter idiocy.  It's nothing new, people have been ripping on Bond for years.  So why do people watch it every week?  Why does stupidity sell?  Is it because we love living vicariously through these utterly absurd characters or simply for the sake of meaningless laughs?

Auto-tune, it's a WMD.

In case some of you guys don't know what auto tune is, it's a software that "corrects" any inconsistencies in a vocalist's pitch.  So if you're singing a song in a studio and you make a tiny error that's not a big deal, but you wanna make your song perfect without having to sing it all over again you use auto tune.  Unless that it you are a modern pop/rap/hip-hip/any-type-of-music-bought-on-a-large-scale.  And if you lot are wondering why I'm only bringing this up now, considering that auto tune has been around for nearly a decade now just click this link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CD2LRROpph0.  It literally drove me to the brink of madness and only the sound of AC/DC's riffs and Elton Johns voice could bring me back.

Now I honestly think that if a singer can't sing without a computer, then he/she shouldn't be singing in the first place.  And while I think that the use of auto tune here and there, in tiny tiny portions is okay, and sometimes the song is better off for it.  But in recent times it has gone totally out of hand.  I don't think that anyone my age or younger actually knows what a real singer sounds like and if asked to name one they will probably name someone like, well I wouldn't know.

Anyway what I'm trying to say is that, where is the line?  In music produced out of a computer rather than with the artists hands "real" music.  Is a computer a legitimate instrument?  And is there any talent involved in letting your voice be changed by a program?

Free speech for all even if someone gets hurt.

A particular Kansas church has garnered some notoriety for its hateful protests at military funerals.  And during the past week, the Supreme Court ruled that these hateful protests at military funerals were protected by the First Amendment by an eight to one majority.  My question to you all is; is it okay to hurt someone just so you can be heard, and is it legally justifiable?  I am neither condoning the actions of the protesters nor bashing the Supreme court’s decision, in fact I believe that the court got it right. 

The simple fact is that once we start stopping people from saying whatever they want where does it go from there.  I realize that I am beginning to sound like some ridiculous radical whose only voice in the world is on internet blogs.  Oh the irony.  But as someone who has witnessed countless debates and read of dozens of case on the issue of censorship, I must ask; who are we to decide what others get to say?  Who are we to decide what others think?  Where is the line between protection and control.  I do not claim to hold all the answers, but I do think that ,despite what any decent person would think, these hateful, despicable and horrid protests must be allowed to continue.  

Mr. Watterson please come out of retirement.

"Weekends don't count unless you spend them doing something completely pointless."


This is a quote form Calvin and Hobbes, now I couldn't find the strip but I'll try again later and hopefully post it next week.  But I thought this little quote was perfect for this weekend considering that its State Paddy's Day.  But this also reminded me of something a friend of mine said " If you have too much work to do, the only logical thing to do is not to do any work at all."  


And while this quote will make us all laugh and think of the times we had mountains of work and all we did was sit around and do nothing I want to say that it has some deep and highly philosophical meaning behind it but there isn't any and that's what is so great about it.  It's has no real point to it, and that's exactly what it's trying to convey.  And I realize I am now getting to be a bit repetative so I'll leave you all with just that.

Math is a Religion!

Pretty funny huh?  I always loved this one.  Not because it explain the mystery of mathematics, but because it explains, in a comical fashion, my disbelief in religion.  I see no logos in religion.  Sure there might be this allmighty, supernatural being that created the world, but you can't prove it now can you?   Now I realize I may be offending quite a few people with this, but I'm afraid to say that you will not get an apology out of me.

All religion does is exploit the weakness that is inherent in humans.  Whether said weakness may be a fear of death, a lack of purpose, or anything that we want in life but don't have.  Religion is willing to comfort us and tell us that if we spend enough time praying (which to me seems completely unproductive) and if we have faith everything will work out just fine.  And when is doesn't (probably because you were praying instead of working) it's because you did not have enough faith.

I wish I could continue this but its 2:10 and I think I should finish up my passion blog too.  "Sad face"

Music, what does it mean to you.

The mainstream bores me.  Its the same old tried and tested beat with new lyrics that all seem to be about fucking bitches and getting some ass.  Its a waste of time, energy and brain cells.  Few artists today can sing, fewer can play instruments.  They all rely on computers to make them sound good.  There is little no talent in the music industry and the labels wonder why sales are falling.  Every time I hear a song thats mainstream I wonder how anyone even remotely intelligent would want to listen to it.  Is the familiarity of hearing the same sound but with different lyrics, or is it because its catchy and you can dance to it, or it simply because nobody cares about good music anymore.  Maybe they just don't know.

Living life deaf

No I am not deaf, not even close and no I do not know anyone who is.  But I do have an ear infection.  What that means is that I cannot hear as well as normal.  So if anyone whispers to me or speaks from the other end of the room I may not hear them properly.  And its a PAIN. 

What being partially deaf does is completely change how I communicate with others.  Since I can't hear perfectly and since I'm not going to ask people to repeat themselves, more often than not, if I don't get exactly what the other person says all I do is simply smile and nod my head.  Or use some other expression depending on what expression the other person uses.  Its not perfect, and I'm sure that a lot of people probably think I'm insane.

But what I found rather funny about this is that ,deaf or not,  most people use the same tactic in conversations.  Haven't we all been in this one utterly boring conversation that we want no part of.  And when our patience is at its end, all of us just start smiling and nodding like dolls thereby eliminating any chance that conversation had of being a good one.  After all there is no conversation more boring than one where everyone agrees.

I believe in Middle earth Link

http://www.zshare.net/audio/860462076eeb73b6/

The Blame Game

http://www.gamespot.com/news/6286915.html?tag=result%3Btitle%3B0

On the 24th of January, less than a week ago a suicide bomber attacked Moskow's Domodedovo airport.  Most suspect separatists from Chechenya.  Yet in light of these tragic events, instead of trying to find who really did this, the Russian media chooses to blame video games. 


As a gamer, I am no stranger to the bad rep that video games have.  My parents have constantly tried to show me that "studies" prove that video games increase aggression.  And I've also seen the US media try to blame nearly everything wrong with society on games as well by using studies that only prove some little amount of correlation and absolutely no causation. Its just sad to see a tragic event like this twisted by those who are simply trying to make a quick buck.  It's the media at its best; when you can't find a solution, create a problem.

Rhetoric in Calvin and Hobbes

For my blog I shall look into rhetoric in everybody's favourite comic, Calvin and Hobbes.  For my first post, I am going to talk about my all time favourite strip.

The strip begins with Calvin's mom screaming at him about some mess or the other (there always seems to be a mess in his house doesn't there) and Calvin in a most typical attempt to get out of trouble makes up this outlandish excuse that involves Venusians who possessed a "diabolical, high frequency device and pointed it..". Anyway Calvin ends up getting sent to his room, dejected and staring aimlessly at this floor and he then says the most hilariously profound line I have ever heard in my entire life.  He says "Mothers are the necessity of invention".  This is an obvious reference to the line " Necessity is the mother of all invention"But it also refers to the fact that every child, from whatever day, age or country, has lied to his mom to get out of trouble.  While mine were never as outlandish as Venusians with high frequency devices this line reminds of me of the crazy antics I did when I was a child ( not that I'm particularly old) and the even crazier stories I made up to get out of trouble. 

Essentially this strip acts like a portal that takes us back to a time where life was simpler and we did not have to worry about the weight of responsibility that lies on our shoulders today.

The grand opening, or not

Welcome to one and all.  I am Akshay, Penn State freshman and student of the LA101h course which, of course, is why I even created this blog.  I have spent hours thinking about what to blog about ( by hours I mean 5 minutes). I thought about doing a blog about business and economics, and being an economics major I guess that would make a lot of sense.  But now that I think about it, it seems like something that would involve lots of effort and time.  Of course I could blog about some TV series (just started the Sopranos) or I could blog about one of my nerdy-er habits like video games or comics.  A significant life choice indeed.  Uh I guess I'll decide later.