Nick Vujicic

Nicholas (Nick) James Vujicic was born on December 4, 1982 with tetra-amelia, a rare disorder regarded as the absence of all four limbs. Because of Nick’s physical disability, he was not allowed to attend a public school. When the laws changed and Nick was allowed to attend school, he became on of the first disabled students to enter into a public school.

After becoming depressed because of bullying, Nick tried to drown himself in six inches of water but didn’t, out of love for his parents. When his mom showed him a newspaper article about a man dealing with a disability, Nick realized he wasn’t the only one struggling and he realized, because of his disability, he could inspire others.

After graduating university with a double major in Accounting and Financial Planning, Nick became a motivational speaker focusing on teen issues and also began a non-profit organization known as Life Without Limbs.

Today, Nick Vujicic has learned to deal with his disability. He has found ways to do daily tasks such as combing his hair, writing (he wrote a book published in 2010), using the computer, answering phones, shaving, etc. He has addressed over three million people in over twenty-four countries on five continents. Nick has inspired us all!

Without Communication, Collaboration, and Creation, the world would not have been exposed to Nick’s organization that he created. If Nick hadn’t begun to realize that he could inspire others through speaking and talking to others about never giving up, he would not have been able to get through to people that their is hope.

Facebook: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

     Did you know that Facebook is the most used social networking site in the world? As of January of 2011, the were 600 million users worldwide. That is more than the population of North America and Russia combined! We must say, our world is obsessed with Facebook! 57% people talk more online than they do in real life! 750 MILLION photos were uploaded to Facebook over New Year’s weekend! 70% of businesses use Facebook for marketing! 48% of young Americans said they find out about news through Facebook! Facebook has become a part of our lives without us realizing how it affects our daily lives. Just look at the statistics.

    Facebook was founded in February of 2004 by Mark Zuckerburg and his college roommates. Before anyone, aged thirteen and older could become a Facebook member, Zuckerburg limited memberships to students at Harvard which was later expanded to colleges in the Boston area, the Ivy League, and Stanford University. Now, seven years later, there are over 600 million Facebook users worldwide.

    What can users do with a Facebook account? Users can customize their profiles with photos, personal interests, contact information, etc. Users can also communicate with friends and family all over the world through messages, chat, wall (friends post messages on the user’s profile page for the user to see, and their status (users inform their friends of what they did, where they went, etc) without having to pay the price of a phone call. Facebook also has privacy settings for users to select who should be able to see the information they have put on the website. Examples of settings you can choose from are: everyone, friends, or friends of friends.

    Although there are positive things about Facebook, there are also negative things about Facebook. When you are talking to your friends on Facebook, you hope it is your friends that you are talking to but you can’t really be sure. It could be someone who says they are someone you know, but really they could be a stranger from half-way across the world. Also, Facebook is an easy source to cyber-bully. It is really easy to talk trash about another person on Facebook without the other person seeing. Communication sometimes loses its effectiveness when you Facebook your friends using words like “g2g, btw, brb, etc”.  When you talk face to face, the person you’re talking to can read your expression, hear the tone of your voice, and read your body language.

    Think about these two questions: how big a role does Facebook play in our lives? What would we do without it?

Promotion for Google Forms

    Are you tired of of waiting for your 100 of your friends, customers, or colleagues to reply to your e-mail in regards to an upcoming event? Do you wish there was an easier way to plan an event, collect feedback, or replace paper forms? If you answered yes to any of these questions, I would suggest you start using Google Forms.

    Google Forms allows you to easily gather information from a large group of people without sending multiple e-mails, making a lot of phone calls, or texting back and forth, by using the form template on Google Docs to create free online polls and surveys. It allows you to list the questions you want answered using text, paragraph text, multiple choice, check boxes, lists, scales or grids. (Other free online polls and surveys generally do not allow this many question types.)

    Google Forms is better than any other online web polling services for a variety of reasons. You can create however many polls and surveys you want for free and anyone can fill out your survey. People can send in their responses through their mobile phone. Analyzing data is now much easier because all the votes and responses are automatically calculated in an Excel spreadsheet. You can choose to get email notifications as soon as someone responds to your poll or survey. There are more question types than any other free online web polling services. You can ask a different set of questions based on the user’s previous responses. Google can record the email addresses of the people who fill out your poll or survey.

    Google Forms is easy for anyone to use, including those who are not necessarily computer savvy like me.  

Improbable Theories about the Mystery of the Bermuda Triangle

Although there are many logical theories that could explain the number of disappearances in the Bermuda Triangle, there are also many theories that are more than a little far-fetched. Probably, the most far-fetched is aliens. The reason for this theory is that this area has one of the highest numbers of UFO sightings.

Other people believe the lost city of Atlantis is in the Bermuda Triangle. In 1968, researchers found stones that appeared to have been shaped and placed near “Blimini Road,” as a wall. In 1970, Dr. Ray Brown claimed to have found an underwater pyramid. In the pyramid, Brown saw a metallic rod. Below the rod was a stand with bronze hands holding a sphere. Brown believes the fractured lines may be electrical in nature. In an altered state, these energy crystals send out rays that either make ships and planes disintegrate or mess up the navigational systems on ships and planes.

    Many people believe that magnetic abnormalities are to blame for the disappearances. Rob MacGregor and Bruce Gernon appear to have found a strange cloud hovering over the shores of Miami. When the flew over it, the cloud began spreading out and matching their speed. The cloud then formed a tunnel with walls that spun in counterclockwise direction. This cloud cause the navigational instruments, compass, and the clock to go haywire.  When they emerged from the cloud, they were almost directly over Miami. The strangest thing about this flight, is that it took only 47 minutes and should have taken 75 minutes. Gernon believed that all of this was caused by an electronic fog.

    Almost every story regarding the Bermuda Triangle involves compass malfunction. The Bermuda Triangle is one of the two places on earth where a compass points true north, rather than magnetic north.

    Another far-fetched theory involves Blue Holes. These are water-filled caves in the   bottom of the ocean that are blue in colour. Many believe “blue holes” are passage ways for UFO’s.

These are some of the more implausible explanations for the disappearances and accidents in the Bermuda Triangle.  

http://www.trueghosttales.com/paranormal/facts-myths-about-the-bermuda-triangle/

http://bermudatrianglefacts.com/

http://adventure.howstuffworks.com/bermuda-triangle5.htm

Logical Theories about the Mystery of the Bermuda Triangle

         There are many logical theories that could explain the number of disappearances in the Bermuda Triangle. Probably, the most logical is that it is an area in which a very high percentage of amateur pilots and sailors travel. Obviously, the more boats and planes that travel in any given area, the more accidents and disappearances there will be. To go a step further, more boats are also going to mean more pirates. Perhaps some of the disappearances were simply due to piracy.

           Another plausible reason for the accidents and disappearances is that the Bermuda Triangle is subject to violent and unexpected storms. These are usually very short, but very volatile. In fact, they are so short, that they can be undetected by satellite surveillance. The area also has a higher than average rate of waterspouts. A waterspout is a tornado at sea that pulls water from the sea thousands of feet into the sky. The area also has a lot of seismic activity which could lead to underwater earthquakes.

           The Bermuda Triangle is located in the Gulf Stream. The Gulf Stream has been reported to move faster than 5 miles per hour in some areas. This doesn’t seem fast, but it could throw an inexperienced sailor hundreds of miles off course if they don’t know how to compensate for the current. This extremely fast current could also hide evidence of a shipwreck by moving the debris hundreds of miles away.

           Scientists have discovered large concentrations of crystalline methane hydrate deposits in the area. This gas is caused by decomposing sea organisms which settle on the ocean floor.  This produces methane gas. If a methane gas pocket ruptures, the water beneath a ship could become much less dense, the ship could sink and sediment could quickly cover it – essentially, the ship would disappear. These explosions are so powerful that even a plane flying overhead could catch fire.

           These are some of the more plausible explanations for the disappearances and accidents in the Bermuda Triangle.

http://www.neatorama.com/2010/08/08/bermuda-triangle-mystery-solved/

http://adventure.howstuffworks.com/bermuda-triangle8.htm

http://bermudatrianglefacts.com/

History of the Bermuda Triangle

    The Bermuda Triangle (Devil’s Triangle) is located in the Atlantic Ocean between Bermuda, Florida, and Puerto Rico. This area is known for strange disappearances of ships and planes that have occurred and are still occurring today.    

    The first person to record strange activity in this area was actually Christopher Columbus in 1493, who noticed that his compass readings were not working properly and that there were very shallow areas in the ocean with no land close by.

    In 1952, George X. Sands wrote an article about the loss of several planes and ships including the loss of Flight 19 which disappeared on December 5, 1945. In 1964, Vincent H. Gaddis wrote an article claiming that the disappearances of several ships and planes that had disappeared in The Bermuda Triangle were part of a strange pattern.

    In 1975, Lawrence David Kusche wrote a book called The Bermuda Triangle Mystery:  Solved.  He argued that the number of ships and airplanes reported missing in the area were no larger than in other parts of the ocean.  Further, he argued that the number of disappearances of planes and ships in the Bermuda Triangle had been exaggerated.  In fact, in 1992, the massive insurance company, Lloyd’s of London, determined that the number of ships sinking in the area was not exceptionally large.  But the myths and fears surrounding the Bermuda Triangle still persist today.

http://www.unexplainedstuff.com/Places-of-Mystery-and-Power/The-Bermuda-Triangle.html

http://www.sheppardsoftware.com/carribeanweb/factfile/Unique-facts-Caribbean9.htm

http://www.bermuda-triangle.org/html/triangle_history.html

The Mysterious Disappearance of Flight 19

          Flight 19 is one of the most famous Bermuda Triangle incidents of all time. On December 5, 1945, five TBM Avenger torpedo bombers disappeared during a navigation and combat training flight.

          It is a bright, sunny day over Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Five experienced pilots have carefully checked their Avenger torpedo bombers and are ready to take off on a routine two-hour navigation and combat training flight. Two hours later, the control tower at Fort Lauderdale receives a frantic call from the flight leader saying that they do not know where they are because they cannot see land. After ten minutes of no contact with Flight 19, the control tower receives another hysterical call saying, “We can’t tell where we are...everything is...can’t make out anything.” A few minutes later, the tower receives the final words ever heard from Flight 19, “It looks like we are entering white water... We’re completely lost.”

          Within minutes, the control tower sent out a rescue plane to search for Flight 19. Ten minutes after departure, the men on the rescue plane checked in with the control tower and were never heard from again. After five days and 700,000 square kilometers, not a single piece of wreckage was found.

          Over the last twenty-five years, more than 75 planes have disappeared and 1,000 ships have been lost in the Bermuda Triangle.


http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A2309852

http://www.history.navy.mil/faqs/faq15-2.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_19

Can Large Concentrations of Crystalline Methane Hydrate Really Sink Ships?

          Scientists have discovered large concentrations of crystalline methane hydrate deposits on the ocean floor. Crystalline methane hydrate deposits are caused by decomposing sea organisms which settle on the ocean floor. This produces methane gas which is accumulated as highly concentrated methane ice, or gas hydrates. The layers of ice then trap the methane gas. However, sometimes these methane gas pockets rupture. If a ship is in the area of the blowout, the water beneath the ship would suddenly become filled with air. Could this sink a ship? Watch this to see what scientists did to answer the question “Can Large Concentrations of Crystalline Methane Hydrate Really Sink Ships?”.

          In the video, scientists attempt to duplicate a 500 ft. freighter with a 7000 ton load. They pump 25% air into the water which should represent a large gas eruption. Then they put the boat where they are forcing the air into the water. After a few minutes, they discover the upward force, due to the flow of the water, is keeping the boat buoyant. They then decide to move the boat to the edge of the bubble field where the upward force is weaker. This causes the front of the boat, the lighter end, to rise up and the back (stern), the heavier end, to sink because the front of the boat is in more dense water then the back of the boat. Once the back of the boat fills with water, the whole boat sinks in less than thirty seconds. The scientists in the video did discover that large concentrations of crystalline methane hydrate really can sink ships. 

          Scientists have also discovered that crystalline methane hydrate can cause a plane to fall from the sky. If the bubbles are dense enough, they could cause the air and methane around the plane to catch fire which would cause the plane’s engines to catch fire and the plane would fall from the sky. 

          If scientists from all over the world can duplicate the results from this test, to see if crystalline methane hydrate can sink ships,  I believe this might just be the answer to the, not so mysterious, Bermuda Triangle mystery.  

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/06/050615000715.htm

http://salem-news.com/articles/august062010/bermuda-triangle-ta.php

http://www.neatorama.com/2010/08/08/bermuda-triangle-mystery-solved/

http://mysite.du.edu/~jcalvert/econ/hydrates.htm

Make a Difference

            Every year I participate in the Walk for Life for our local Pro-LIfe group. A few weeks ago, I started collecting pledges by phoning my aunts and uncles and asking them for donations. Then, on Saturday, after mass at St. Donatus, I asked fellow parishioners if they would like to donate money for the annual Walk for Life. I received donations from about 20 people and raised $350.

This past Sunday, we gathered with approximately forty people to walk around town to advertise our support for life. We carried signs saying such things as “Choose Life”, “Defend Life”, etc. Once the walk was over, we gathered at the hall for refreshments and a short meeting. After all the pledges were tallied, we raised a total of about $1300.

The funds raised by the Walk for Life support many different causes including the Teen Aid School Program, radio advertisements supporting respect for life from conception to natural death, pregnancy counselling and support for new mothers, and post-abortion counselling for people who have previously had abortions and now regret their decision.

This cause means a lot to me because I believe abortion is murder, and I do not think the baby should suffer because his or her mother is too selfish to bring them into the world. Pope John Paul II once said, "A nation that kills its own children is a nation without hope."

Technology Used in Japan’s Earthquake and Tsunami

On March 11, 2011, the Northeastern part of Japan was devastated by an 8.9 magnitude earthquake. The initial quake was followed by approximately fifty aftershocks and a tsunami. The earthquake and tsunami damaged the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. After three reactors exploded at the power plant, citizens within a twenty-five mile radius are advised to stay indoors to prevent radiation exposure. Officials say over 8, 600 people have died and 12, 900 people are still missing.

Japan has the world’s most advanced earthquake early-warning system. There are two types of wave lengths that estimate the distance to the epicenter. The first is a P-wave which does minimal damage. The second is an S-wave which does more extensive damage. The difference between the arrival of the P-wave and the S-wave can be used to estimate the distance to the epicenter. The seismograph can detect warnings about two minutes before the shaking begins. This is just enough time for people to take cover, slow down high speed trains, shut off gas lines, exit  elevators, pull over to the side of the road, and for doctors to stop performing surgery.

The DART system (Deep-ocean Assessment and Reporting of Tsunami system) was used to monitor the tsunami. There is a pressure recorder anchored to the seafloor and a buoy on the surface of the water. Information form the pressure recorder is transmitted to the buoy on the surface of the water. The buoy then sends the information to a satellite that communicates with a control station.

Although the DART system can detect tsunami’s, there are still issues with the late warnings and reliability. DART systems were designed to last for four years, but since they are located in a harsh environment, they barely even last one year. If one of the DART systems becomes inoperable, there is no coverage for the area where the buoy is located which causes more lives to be lost because they do not have enough warning.  

Frugal Google

           Google was founded in January of 1996 by two men, by the names of Larry Page and Sergey Brin, who were attending Stanford University in California. In 1996, Page and Brin began developing a search engine called BackRub. After this search engine started taking up too much bandwidth at Stanford University, Page and Brin decided to rename the search engine calling it Google (the number one followed by 100 zero’s). They decided to come up with the name  Google to have an infinite amount of information on the internet.

In August of 1998, after Andy Bechtolsheim, co-founder of Sun Microsystems, gave Page and Brin a cheque for $100,000, the two men opened up a bank account and deposited their cheque. In 2000, Google began selling text-based advertisements at five cents per click. In 2007, the word “google” was added to the Merriam Webster Collegiate Dictionary and the Oxford English Dictionary.

Ninety-nine percent of Google’s revenue comes from web advertising services called AdWords and AdSense. Advertisers submit ads to Google that include a list of keywords relating to the product, service, or business. When someone uses one or more of the advertisement’s key words, the ad appears in a sidebar. Every time someone clicks on the ad, the advertiser pays Google. With AdSense, a webmaster puts ads into his/her own site. Google’s spiders crawl the site and analyze the content. Google then selects key words relevant to the webmasters site. Every time someone clicks on an ad on the webmaster’s site, the webmaster receives a portion of the ad revenue and Google gets the rest. It is because of advertising that Google made $29 billion of revenue in 2010.

Google Checkout is designed to make online purchases easier. When someone visits a store that subscribes to Google Checkout, he/she can click on the checkout option and Google will help with the transaction. Google charges a two percent plus twenty cent fee per transaction.

Google processes over one billion search requests every day.

Gesture Based Computing

Gesture-based computing refers to the ability to interface with devices through natural human movement. Different devices can recognize a variety of Gesture-based inputs. Touch screens, such as the I-pod touch, recognize multiple fingers/touch. Game Systems, such as a Nintendo Wii, senses your movement with a hand-remote and infrared sensor. Hands-Free Systems, such as the Xbox Kinect, sense your movements using a set of cameras.

The possibilities surrounding gesture-based computing are amazing. Take the design of a building, for example. My aunt is in a wheel chair. She was asked, along with a little person to tour a new facility to see how accessible it was for persons with disabilities.

Some of the things that my aunt and the other person pointed out on their tour, was that one ramp was too steep, some of the door knobs were too difficult for my aunt to open open, the sinks were too high for the little person, and so on. The brand-new building had to be renovated, before it even officially opened, for better accessibility. How much money would have been saved if my aunt and the other person could have done a virtual tour using gesture-based computing?

I believe that someone will come up with something that will allow a user to control everything in his or her house using a verbal command or a simple command such as a clap of the hands.  

The possibilities for teaching and learning are endless. Already, medical students use simulations that teach how to use certain instruments through gesture-based interfaces. In classrooms, chalkboards have been replaced with interactive white boards. I believe that, in the future, there will be much more virtual education.

    I believe that in the near future, our houses and cars will be controlled using verbal commands or a other simple commands. For example, we may be able to tell our cars to lock the doors and, based on voice-recognition software, it will be able to do this without the need for keys.

Interaction, Zoom Data, and Crowd Sourcing

    Human-Computer Interaction involves computer and behavioral sciences, design and other fields of study. HCI studies people and computers together. The goal of HCI is to improve the relationship between people and their computers. HCI is a very complicated process because it involves all aspects of the computer including both hardware and software. It also very much involves human studies such as behavior, psychology, ergonomics, languages and a whole range of other things. It’s pretty obvious how HCI can benefit anyone who uses a computer. The more user-friendly anything is, the more happy the person using it becomes.


    Zoom Data allows the user to look at a picture or an image from a distance and then get closer and closer and more detailed without needing to continually click to find more information.  Google Earth would be one of the more common uses of Zoom Data. The Zoom Data video explains more about how Zoom Data works. Zoom Data will benefit me because it will be easier to keep zooming in to find information instead of searching numerous websites.

    Crowd Sourcing has been defined by Wikipedia as, “the act of outsourcing tasks, traditionally performed by an employee or contractor, to an undefined, large group of people or community (a crowd), through an open call.” Probably the most famous example of crowd sourcing is Wikipedia. Anyone can, and is encouraged to, contribute to Wikipedia. There can be problems with crowd sourcing as Wikipedia has discovered. A couple of years ago, a contributor changed the description of Paul Martin from “the 21st Prime Minister”, to “the worst Prime Minister.” Apparently, it took a few days until this deliberate misinformation was caught by Wikipedia’s editors.

Crowd Sourcing will benefit me because I can type key words into the search engine of Google or Wikipedia and millions of websites about the topic will pop up.