Counterintuitive Spring 2024

“Apple devices are not the most technologically advanced nor robust in its market. Apple sells its products more like fashion gadgets than electronic devices.”

When Steve Jobs the co-founder of Apple Inc. took over the company as a CEO, he had great and innovative vision for the company. He thought that computers should be more technologically friendly, and the design has to be very elegant. Just as the introduction of the Macintosh, the mouse click made it easy for average computer users to surf the web without having to remember codes, the introduction of the iPhone in 2008 changed not only the physical aspect of mobile phones but also how consumers use them.

Before the iPhone, mobile devices were known as those rectangular objects with keyboards and screen that displays some images, basic map, and camera with low pixels, the iPhone came along and revolutionized the era of modern smartphone. Introducing it’s touchscreen phone, consumers could now start typing right on the screen, and it only took a swipe to the right to unlock the phone. with the iPhone came features called Apps, a friendly ecosystem that displays Music, Map, Photos, Videos. Contrary to the traditional scrolling up/down, left/right, and click “OK” on the buttons to access something on the phone, a simple in click on the app right on the screen displays it. This was a huge innovation for Apple, it made made cellphones tremendously easy to use. The big contribution of Apple Inc. in the era of modern-smartphone is undeniable one of the greatest of this century, this anyhow doesn’t define the company as the most technologically efficient and advanced in the industry.

As we all have heard, the company is releasing its latest product named the Apple Watch. The product has been on the spotlight the past months, it has many innovators that can’t wait to purchase the product and the late majority is waiting on the smallest drop on the prices. One of Apple product innovator Sean Udall, also CIO of Quantum Trading Strategies and author of The TechStrat Report, told Benzinga, he has been looking for a smart-watch and now thinks he finally found it. These were his exact words on comparing the watch to the previous ones, “The difference is, this watch looks good! The styling looks good. There’s a ton of band choices. I’m actually really impressed with the look of the watch.” No where in his interview, he mentioned the superiority in technology. Don’t get me wrong the Sapphire glass on the Apple watch was a great move, but this doesn’t explain why in February 2014 Samsung Gear was said to have only 2millions sales while Apple Watch has already a prediction of 20millions sales by the end of 2015.

Work Cited

Peterson, Geoff. “Apple Computer.” St. James Encyclopedia of Popular Culture. Ed. Thomas Riggs. 2nd ed. Vol. 1. Detroit: St. James Press, 2013. 122-124. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web. 29 Mar. 2015.

Bedigian, Louis. “The Apple Inc. Watch Versus Competitors: What do Analysts Think?” Benzinga NewswiresSep 23 2014. ProQuest. Web. 29 Mar. 2015 .

ValueWalk: Apple Watch Vs. Samsung Galaxy Gear. Chatham: Newstex, 2015. ProQuest. Web. 29 Mar. 2015.

Why Physician Assisted Suicide Isn’t About Pain

Today, many terminally ill patients are searching for a way to end the suffering and agony that controls every facet of their lives. The recent controversial answer has been physician assisted suicide, or “death with dignity.” Death with dignity allows for a terminally ill patient to end their lives before their ailment reaches a more serious, even more debilitating state. Alzheimer’s, Multiple Sclerosis, and end stage cancer are all terminal diseases that cannot easily be stopped. Death with dignity is a completely humane process and has a overwhelmingly positive effect for all involved. Unfortunately, some believe that physician assisted dying is morally wrong.

Mary E. Harned, staff counselor of the Americans United for Live organization is one of those people. Mary, in her British Medical Journal entry titled The Dangers of Assisted Suicide explains that “euthanasia advocates wrongfully claim that assisted suicide is “needed” for those terminally ill patients who face, or fear, great pain. But most experts in pain management believe that 95 to 98 percent of such pain can be relieved.”  First off, alluding to death with dignity supporters as euthanasia advocates is misleading. Euthanasia and physician assisted suicide are not the same. Mary actually disproves her own piece of misinformation by giving a definition of both terms at the end of her article. According to Mary, physician assisted suicide, “specifically involves the help of a physician in performing the act of suicide. Such assistance usually entails the prescribing or dispensing of controlled substances in lethal quantities that hasten death.” While euthanasia “involves the killing of one person by or with the physical assistance” There is a huge difference between assisting someones wishes, and just killing them. Those who support death with dignity simply believe that suffering isn’t humane, and something should be implemented to prevent end of life suffering. Even accepted and successful movements, such as Animal Rights Activists believe in this simple principle as well.

Even more telling than that, is her belief that the reason people choose a death with dignity is because the pain is too much to handle. It’s fair to say that nearly everybody knows that even the most severe pain can be relieved by drugs. Doctors can prescribe anyone with pain some sort of medication to ease the pain, but those painkillers don’t change the fact that the patient still has stage four lung cancer and is going to die within the next two weeks anyway. The reason so many people turn to death with dignity is so that in their dying minutes they are not so heavily sedated by painkillers that they can’t even function, or hooked up to five different life support machines as they lie lifeless on a hospice bed, but so that they can have some sense of dignity,  feel surrounded with compassion from family members, and end the suffering that comes with their ailment.

Works Cited

“Assisted Suicide: 1. America.” BMJ: British Medical Journal 303.6800 (1991): 431. Web.http://www.aul.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/dangers-assisted-suicide.pdf

The Nastiest Show on Earth

Most circuses, including Ringling Bros. Greatest Show on Earth, claim that they treat elephants and all animals in the circus in a humane and loving way. On the Ringling Bros. website they explain the care of the animals as, “the animal care professionals at Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey® believe that a positive, healthy environment is the only acceptable and successful method of working with animals” (Ringling Bros. 2015). They claim the only way to get the animals to perform successfully is to allow them time spent with their mother and reward them with positive phrases as they train. “Trainers teach animals routines that showcase their physical abilities and beauty, as well as their distinctive behaviors. Our training methods are based on reinforcement in the form of food rewards and words of praise” (Ringling Bros. 2015). They are very clear when they explain that each of the animals in the circus are thoroughly cared for and not abused in any way. When the circus trainers teach they young calves the routines they are “tailored to each animal’s natural abilities and individual preferences which we observe during their playtime” (Ringling Bros. 2015). Basically, Ringling Bros. is claiming that each of the elephants routines are only enforcing their acts that they would normally perform in the wild as well.

If elephants are treated like family and only trained through humane tactics why do they not allow fans to watch the training process? This would surely be much more entertaining for viewers than watching elephants stand on one leg. There has to be something circuses are hiding from the public. Ringling Bros. makes a strong case that positive phrases and treats may successfully train some animals like dogs, or cats. Elephants on the other hand are wild animals that are meant to roam up to thirty miles a day and be close with their family of elephants. Some elephants that perform in the circus can weigh up to 7,000 pounds and usually tower over any trainer trying to dominate the animal. When circus handlers attempt to train animals of that immense size solely positive phrases and treats simply just do not cut it. Elephant trainers are constantly being accused of abusing the elephants by bounding their legs with chains and using bullhooks to get the elephants to cooperate. This makes more sense because to get the elephant to follow the routine they must be abused because of their immense size and nature. “The wild animals fare the worst, and elephants top the list in the inherent cruelty that circus animals experience, simply because their size makes transport and housing so confining and unnatural for them. Their training protocols are geared to ensure that the public will never see the underlying abuse, and therefore circus owners remain assured of their wide profit margin after each city stopover” (Humane Review 2012). It is inevitable for circuses to train elephants in harsh ways due to their size, this is the reason that elephants need to be kept out of shows.

What circus owners do not tell the public is how each individual elephant is “broken” in order to learn each routine. Trainers “positively” use abusive tactics in order to break the elephant. An animal activist group explains this process as, “All four of their legs are tied together so that all they can do for up to 23 hours a day for up to six months is stand on a concrete floor…this is emotionally and physically devastating to a young elephant” (Peta 2015). By tying the elephant’s legs together it is preventing the elephant’s natural desire to walk and roam. This is the opposite of the Ringling Bros. claim which states that their acts only enforce the elephants natural acts. Also, Ringling Bros. claims that elephants stay with their mothers for the first two years of their life to adjust to the world. Animal Rights activists prove that claim wrong when they expose the heart wrenching process that goes into the birth of a elephant calf. They explain, “the very young babies taken from their mothers early so that they can learn the fear of humans and the pain that human handlers can inflict at a very early age, while our species is still able to dominate them” (Humane Review 2012). This is the only way that the circus trainers can implement dominance over the young elephants, and maintain it throughout their lives.

If Ringling Bros. along with any other circus used humane tactics to train these wild gigantic animals they would feel no need to hide the training process from the public. They claim they use positivity to train and domesticate the animals simply for the profit the circus shows bring in. When in reality elephants are being tortured on a daily basis to perform unnatural acts. We are feeding into it by attending and giving our money to circuses and zoos, this is why the public needs to be aware of the brutality that goes on behind the scenes so that elephants can be free to roam in the wild at last.

Works Cited

Mals Fare Circus Elephants Endure Much Abuse Learning “Entertain. “The Circus — A Nightmare for Elephants.” The Circus – A Nightmare For Animals (2012): 1-4. Humane Review. 2012. Web. 28 Mar. 2015.

“Animal Care FAQ.” Animal Care FAQ. N.p., 2015. Web. 29 Mar. 2015.

Sheridan, Judy L. “Ringmaster Defends Elephant Care: Kelly Miller Circus Comes to Aledo.” Weatherford Democrat. N.p., 16 Mar. 2015. Web. 28 Mar. 2015.

Humans rely tremendously on memory because it impacts everything, including the way people feel, think, and behave. It’s true that people often tend to embellish stories and over exaggerate to capture an audience’s attention, yet we’re usually aware when we’re doing this. When people recall memories and talk about those experiences with people, we have confidence in our ability to recall past events and recite what happened in clear detail. However, there are many times when humans recall false memories, without acknowledging it. “People tend to think of their memories as a transcript, a rough history of events from some early age until the very moment they are experiencing. But human memory is far more like a desert mirage than a transcript—as we recall the past we are really just making meaning out of the flickering patterns of sights, smells and sounds we think we remember. (Eveleth) So, how are we able to believe false memories?

The creation of Photoshop, image-editing software, allows images to be realistically manipulated. Photoshop can change the appearance of someone online VS. the real-life appearance of a person, political campaigns through fake imagery, and the way humans remember things. It’s much easier for a person to believe physical evidence which matches a person’s experience, rather than listening to a person talk. People often believe Photoshopped images to be true because those memories get cognitively stored in the brain, while other factual information is lost. The images don’t distort the past, but they do effect our current and future behavior. It’s also much easier for a person to remember a fake memory from the past by using a childhood memory and Photoshop software. The process of manipulation and implementation of false memories is very possible and counterintuitive to believe, considering people have confidence in their memory abilities.

Work Cited

Eveleth, Amy. “How Fake Images Change Our Memory and Behavior.” FUTURE. BBC, 13 Dec. 2012. Web. 29 Mar. 2015. http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20121213-fake-pictures-make-real-memories

Vancouvers Saving The Addicts

“Vancouver’s program Insite isn’t treating the users addiction it is actually sustaining it.”

To many the idea of giving heroin addicts clean needles, medical supervision and free heroin for treatment is down right idiotic. How could someone possibly be treated for drugs if they are still using? In Ernest Drucker’s article, “Insite: Canada’s landmark safe injecting program at risk” he claims as to why the program is an asset not only towards helping treat the users addiction but also to the city of Vancouver.

Drucker gives us some research findings by the British Columbia Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS and published in lead- ing peer-reviewed journals. Their finding are:

Chris Skinner wrote this article and published it as a webpage at this link. His sole belief is that Ancient Aliens assisted the Egyptians in building the Great Pyramid of Giza and others. We can tell through his provided “evidence” that his argument doesn’t sit on solid ground.

His first entry is:

You know those big stone structures out in Egypt?  The ones  which were supposedly built to house the remains of dead pharaohs???  The ones you thought were built by the Egyptians?Well, you are wrong!THEY WERE BUILT BY ALIENS!Let’s take a look at some undeniable evidence….The only thing that isn’t filler are the last two lines:

“They were built by Aliens”

A bold starting statement just to grab attention, so far lacking any proof or backup.

 “Let’s take a look at some undeniable evidence”

I’d like to see where he is going to find “undeniable” evidence when everyone is aware that his theory is merely speculation that a small amount of people agree with.

The next body of Skinner’s page is:

First, look at this diagram:

The pyramid is highlighted in red, and its two diagonals are extended beyond the end of the pyramid to the north-east and north-west.  The mass of squiggly lines above the pyramid is the Delta of the Nile River, and, as you can see the two diagonals encase the Nile neatly and entirely.  IS THAT A COINCIDENCE???

Yes,  I’m sure that the way the Egyptians did this was to have someone walk hundreds of miles to the end of the delta and hold a really, really long piece of string while someone walked all the way back to the site of the pyramid.  Then,  those two people stood there while two more people repeated the process on the other side of the Pyramid.  Just so that they could build a big building in such a way that its diagonals lie on those two lines.
NOW THAT IS LIKELY????

Here is what really happened: A couple of aliens, flying high enough over the earth to be able to see where the Nile Delta’s origin is, easily saw what orientation the pyramid would need to be in order to have its diagonals  lie on those two lines.

In response to the first paragraph, the only thing to be said is yes it is a coincidence. I’m not sure where the author is taking his argument, maybe this is building on something. But adding the first paragraph to his argument is a mistake, unless he later provides why the fact that the pyramids diagonals aligning with the delta proved to provide any kinda of benefit to the Egyptians or said “Aliens”.  This is like saying the sculptor of Mt Rushmore needed Aliens flying high above earth to find the cliff big enough for proposed sculpting. It just so happen that the Great Pyramid of Giza was built on the diagonals, that diagram looks to me like it proves that the Egyptians wanted the Pyramid to look-out on to the delta. Following that, the second paragraph is then null because if it was a coincidence then they wouldn’t have to measure anything. Again, what would they have to gain by having the diagonals align with the delta?

He goes on to say:

Second piece of evidence:

The big dark shape on the upper left of this diagram is the great pyramid.  If you look at the compass rose in the bottom right, you can see that the pyramid is lined up exactly with the magnetic North Pole,  a difference of only 16 minutes, or some absurdly small number like that (there are 60 minutes in one degree).  COINCIDENCE?   How could the Egyptians possibly have built their pyramid facing the exact magnetic North Pole without even having a compass?  FYI, a compass was not invented for a few thousand years after the ancient Egyptians were long gone?  IS THAT LIKELY????

This is how it really worked:  Those aliens, abundant in their knowledge and drowning in technology, came along and using their compasses,  they landed on earth and found the actual magnetic north and south poles.  THEN THEY BUILT THE PYRAMIDS!

I don’t think the author has done much, if any, research on the ancient Egyptians. It is a known fact that Ancient Cultures were affixed to the night sky. Their whole lives and religions often revolved around stars and astrology. It is easy to navigate at night using the night sky and a star map and an enlightened astrologist of course. The fact that the Pyramid aligns to the north is no surprise considering “the Egyptians were masters of aligning buildings, temples and especially the pyramids to fixed stars, apparently in an effort to bring about sympathy between terrestrial structures and the stars with which they were associated” (Hand, 7). In addition, Egyptians were never, nor are they now “long gone”. The authors evidence lacks solid and factual backing. These are all speculations made by the lack of research and knowledge of these peoples’ capabilities.

At the end of his article, the author shotguns more claims which can easily be debunked.

“What about the fact that the Egyptians had not even invented the wheel yet,  but the blocks that they had to carry to build the pyramids weighed about 2 tons each? 4,000 lbs.?  What did they do… use cement?   In fact, they used so much stone, that if you took all of the stone they used and cut it into 1 foot square blocks, it would extend 2/3 of the way around the earth!!!”

I’m not sure where to begin with this one. Even if the Egyptians had wheels or logs to roll the stones on, it would prove to be impractical due to the sand and dust covering the ground. Instead, the Egyptians used “sledges” as a sled, like pulling someone on a sled in snow, to transport the blocks. As for Skinner’s second statement here, the truth seems plausible, such that the stone cut into square-foot blocks would extend two-thirds the circumference of the earth.

“Did you know that the height of the pyramid (481 feet) is almost exactly 1/1,000,000,000 of the distance from the earth to the sun (480.6 billion feet)?”

Did you know that this argument is almost exactly irrelevant? This is almost as vague as the first argument of his article. What would any ancient Egyptian or Alien have gained from this “proof”? If it were common knowledge that all extraterrestrial life forms needed to build a structure one-billionth the distance from earth to the Sun, then this might strike as good evidence. Unfortunately, the distance of the building to the Sun would lead to a different conclusion, one not relating to Ancient Aliens’ involvement.

And finally, my favorite:

If you take the perimeter of the pyramid and divide it by two times the height,  you get a number that is exactly equivalent to the number pi (3.14159…) up to the fifteenth digit.  The chances of this phenomenon happening by sheer chance is remarkably small.  Did the ancient Egyptians know what the number pi was?  Not likely,  seeing as it was a number not calculated accurately to the fourth digit until the 6th century,  and the pyramids calculate it to the fifteenth.

No ancient Egyptian who designed the pyramid sat there in his hut and said “I want the perimeter of the pyramid divided by twice the height to equal x“. The author at this point is desperate for additional “evidence”. He is reading far too much into things that aren’t applicable. Pi was calculated because pi is a number found almost everywhere. In architecture, engineering, even Egyptian pottery contained pi. They didn’t know it, but it was there. Just like science was magic before we knew how to explain it. They didn’t calculate pi by building the pyramid, pi is there because the pyramid was built using the most convenient way to stack blocks. The same way the Mayans and Aztecs built all of their ‘pyramids’.

The author’s evidence supporting his claim that Aliens assisted the Ancient Egyptians in building the pyramids is vague, far-fetched, and almost as if he wanted to ignore the real evidence. The Ancient Egyptians were people capable of such building. It’s not like the Pyramids and keypad entry or titanium foundations and electrical lighting. The facts are all there, but Chris Skinner made-up his own facts to “prove” the Aliens’ involvement.

Works Cited:

Hand, Robert. The History of Astrology — Another View. 1 Mar. 1996. Web. 29 Mar. 2015. <http://www.lightforcenetwork.com/sites/default/files/Copyright%201996%20robert%20hand.pdf>

There are many new researches popping up that apparently show multivitamins are “useless”. One showed that they did nothing for heart health, another found that they did nothing to mitigate or prevent cognitive decline, and another showed they did not decrease the chances of an early death. These studies were all done not too far apart from each in as far as time goes. So if these supplements don’t do anything to aid a person’s health, how did they come into existence? How would people have started to believe in them in the first place?

Multivitamins may not be wonder pills that can save everyone’s life all the time but to say they are completely useless is a bit excessive. As director of nutrition for WebMD, Kathleen Zelman said, these multivitamins can plug in nutritional gaps. By this she means that if a person’s diet is lacking in some kind of mineral or vitamin regularly, a supplement for that mineral every now and again of that mineral could help pick up the nutritional “slack”. For example, if a person’s regular diet has little to no iron, they may consider taking iron tablets to get their necessary does of iron.

Even though she feels this way, she suggests that people try their best to get all their nutritional needs from foods. Vitamins deficiencies are not random. This means that a certain group of people are likely to have similar deficiencies. For example, studies can show that young women tend to be low in iodine which is crucial for brain development in a fetus. Mexican American women and children are more likely to be iron deficient. This goes to show that people in certain often have similar problems and some supplements are recommended and useful for them.

Works Cited

Shute, Nancy. “The Case Against Multivitamins Grows Stronger.” NPR. NPR, n.d. Web. 29 Mar. 2015.

Zelman, Kathleen. “What Vitamins and Supplements Can and Can’t Do.”WebMD. WebMD, n.d. Web. 29 Mar. 2015.

Happiness can hold a place in someones life without meaning being attached. There are many ways to achieve this type of happiness as well. People who are happy tend to be the ones that think life is easier, they usually have enough money to buy most of the things that they desire, and they are mostly physically fit. A happy lifestyle can be associated or defined as lack of stress or worry.

Knowing this it is easy to make the accusation that it is better to live a happy life.Those who live happy lives will not be as stressed out or worrisome. For example we can look at a commonly viewed reality television show, The Real Housewives of Atlanta. These women live extremely lavish lifestyles that they appreciate. They are stress free and happy, their lives portrayed on the show are exactly what they would’ve imagined.

Those who live a life of meaning have issues such as higher stress levels due to things like arguing a lot. Though they claim a meaningful life is so fulfilling they also experience extremely high levels of anxiety. For example having children is associated with a meaningful life but studies show it correlates to a lower percentage of happiness according to the parents. Why does everyone automatically associate meaning with happiness. If something said to being meaning to ones life lowers their happiness it obviously can be achieved aside of meaning.

There is a difference between getting what one wants and getting what one needs. Getting what one needs fills the void in their life, that void will be filled with happiness. It is unnecessary to have the drama and stress of meaning go along with it. Happiness revolves around the present and living in the moment, something a lot of people need to learn how to do. By slowing down and living in the moment so many things and opportunities can come out of life.

Works Cited 

http://www.overcomingbias.com/2013/07/happiness-vs-meaning.html

http://aeon.co/magazine/psychology/do-you-want-a-meaningful-life-or-a-happy-one/