The lesson that most impacted my writing was understanding how people constantly mis-use the general and specific when getting a flow to their paper. For example in my rhetorical analysis essay I completely forgot to include an introduction before I stated my thesis. This is a jarring example of only focusing on the specific. During my revision I was able to introduce the weight of the issues and transition on how this introduction related to my thesis with the sentence “These ideas are starting to resurface with the rise of Neo-Nazis (New National Socialist) in online communities.”. Connecting the past of Germany’s history with the present of what is currently happening.

On the same note of my rhetorical analysis, that piece is the one I am the most proud of. For my thesis I was able to clearly state my main ideas which was “In the film Germany’s Neo-Nazis & The Far Right, Evan Williams uses personal stories, professional interviews, and laying out documented information and news reports to show why the threat of harmful online communities is real, and the resurgence of far-right parties, should be taken seriously and the police should be doing something to counter it.” While I was able to use these points further in my essay I am not satisfied with how my topic sentences were stated. They seem very bland and are only used to transition the point. They could be restated to better introduce the claim for that paragraph. However, with each paragraph I was very proud of the “worm chewing” I was able to do with each paragraph. I was clearly able to delve into the idea of how and why the film maker used a rhetorical technique.

The biggest challenge of this class was the writing itself. Since when I usually write something I have a full understanding of not only the topic but also what exactly I’m going to talk about and the points I will touch on throughout. The conflict for me was being able to write within the specific structure of a paper. Since I had no experience with writing an exploratory essay or rhetorical analysis the trouble for me was how to structure my ideas. I preferred to write in a stream of consciousness technique, however I understand the importance of being able to write in different styles since it better helps me to broaden my writing capabilities. I faced this challenge by reviewing how a specific paper should be written. Once I understood how I should be writing it then became easier for me to structure my ideas. It especially helped to have a thesis beforehand so that I knew what I was going to be writing. In the exploratory writing it would be the knot I am trying to untangle. For the rhetorical analysis it would be the different techniques that the filmmaker used and why they are important.

This class will be extremely beneficial for my future. Next semester I will be taking ENGL 211C and it was helpful to be able to further develop my writing competence and be able to better develop my ideas. Since a 200 level English class will involve more writing, the previous practice I had in this class will help me to pass that class. Once I graduate, being able to clearly explain my ideas in a business setting will help to avoid mis-communication and hostility between myself and others. Since in a corporate position employers are looking for exemplary employees, having a solid writing foundation will not only increase my chances of being hired but it will also avoid myself being seen as casual in a business setting.

I have many things to work on in my writing. I would first of all like to better improve my grammar since even in finished papers I sometimes miss commas when they are appropriate. Being able to have improved grammar will make future readers less likely to get lost when trying to read what I have written down. The second thing I would like to improve upon is my getting a better flow to my ideas. Without having flow in a paper it starts to become a mess to read and readers are less likely to finish the paper because they can’t follow the logic being presented. The third thing I would like to improve upon is being better able to explain complex ideas. Since a new reader might not understand the topic I am talking about, it would be crucial for myself to lay a foundation of the idea so that new readers do not get lost. While I could write about the topic and assume the readers level of understanding this would be doing me a disservice. Since in writing I would like to clarify my ideas and opinions to get a better understanding of what I think. If I can’t explain the concepts simply then I can’t justify writing the topics in a complex manner.

This class has been a major help in getting me to identify those weak points and trying to improve upon them. I look forward to my writing becoming smoother and better able to digest for the regular reader.

Before I even begin the argument of this paper I want to address what someone said in class that piqued my interest. The statement was, “The social contract was made a long time ago. It should be changed to reflect how things are today”. That statement, while not extremely detailed, gets behind the idea of societal agreements and social contract; When does the agreement of the past need to be changed to an agreement of the now? The thing about contracts is that they would be useless if they were constantly changing to match the status quo. That’s why there’s always a bit of breathing room before a change is made. The social contract will always have that societal bound of acceptance. I go back to the quote, that I’m reminded of, from Thomas Jefferson, that mankind is more disposed to suffer rather than right the wrongs that they live with. Society is not going to push back from one infringement by the state, it is going to react when the final straw breaks the camel’s back.

For an example of this go back to the 1920’s with the ratification of the Eighteenth Amendment. This amendment completely banned the consumption of alcohol nationwide. With the supposed purpose of stopping commoners and citizens from getting drunk. In essence; under the presumption of promoting general welfare. What was the reaction to this? Let me give a hint with a term called ‘The Roaring 20s’. An entire subculture of Speakeasies, the location of illegal selling of alcoholic products, was created in defiance of the new national law. A split between what the people wanted and what the government enforced.

The text above is how and why a social contract can be “broken” or “unmatched” with current cultural attitudes.

To get a better understanding of my attitudes on the current social contract I want to give a detailed description for the different “parts’’ of a contract. The social contract is the set of written and unwritten standards individuals, groups, and institutions must abide by for a society to function in an orderly manner. This contract is a bilateral agreement which means it binds to both parties once it is ratified. For the social contract with the state both parties have obligations to the other. The state/government has the responsibility to keep ‘the people’ in line for “the general welfare”. This is in the form of fines, imprisonment, and the judicial system. The people have the responsibility to keep the government in line. This is in the form of elections, impeachment, and the democratic system. This is not exactly the same for countries with different political structures . The contract is part express and part implied. For the implied size it is only when one party takes direct opposition to an action that this “behavior” was against the contract that was formed. The opposition through actions will sooner or later be set into words and writing.

To maintain a democratic system compromises must be made which consider both sides and leaves both with an unwanted, but equal, outcome. This leads to the question; Does a decline in social capital, features “that facilitate coordination and cooperation for mutual benefit” (Putman 7), lead to a decline in civil discussion and civic engagement? Henceforth, is the social contract for political discussion, to maintain a healthy democracy, broken?

Putman’s observation with the degradation to the social contract is the decrease in voter turnout “had by 1990 declined by nearly a quarter” (Putman 11). There is a presumption that ‘how can this system be working if we are seeing a decrease in X’. In which Putman would be exactly right in this regard. There would be no other reason for people not voting then a disinterest in the system they are directly involved in through their vote. However, in recent years of the 21st century there has been an invigoration in all types of people to start voting. This either is a slight deviation from the trend because of the current political system or a start of a new trend of how people view the current political system.

These two diametrically opposed trends need an explanation. How exactly are we getting more active and less active at the same time? The answer: the internet.

More and more discussion is being moved into online spheres. Not only is this changing how people communicate, it is also changing how ideas spread. For me personally I’ve had more political discussion online with complete strangers 10 times over than I have ever talked in real life. The key aspect to the internet is anonymity which leads to the battle of pure ideas rather than the content of the individual. Everything about them could and can be hidden. This leads to a relatively new term that we have seen before with campaigns such as BLM and Pride Month, “online activism”. Online activism is similar but extremely different from in-person activism. Rather than seeing a group of people in one location protesting or advocating for one item or another it is a bunch of profile pictures typing or posting on different forms. The thing about this though is not everyone’s social media page is exactly the same. Their information ecology is slightly different to other individuals because an algorithm optimizes for their engagement, not others. So whatever predisposition someone has will be used to bring them further into a specific view.

This is not healthy for discussion. The whole point of having civil engagement is seeing different sides. The point is thesis, antithesis, synthesis or in layman’s terms positions, opposition, combination. What we currently have is a system that promotes a hive mind mentality and it takes extreme effort and will to not only view and see the other side out but to also to understand a different angle. The weird aspect of this is that even though these factors are at play people are still going outside of their phone. They are stepping outside their...

Excerpt from Kewltech’s blog

Can you actually grasp what stopping time to inspect what is coming means?

Imagine a faucet turned on to high as you are filling up the bathtub.  And you want a perfectly warm bathwater.  (BTW this is a magic bathtub where entropy is not a factor.  Ergo hot stays hot.  ** The point is, what is already in the tub cannot change.  Change comes from what is coming in.)  In order to make this perfectly warm bath water, you would like exactly 50/50 ratio hot to cold.  If you could stop time and see exactly how many hot water and how many cold-water molecules coming in, you could relate that to what is already in the tub.  If you could get that granular information about the water, you could slice time more and more, so you can count how water is filling your tub in 1 sec, 1min, 10min, or even hourly increments.  I wonder how kewl that would be.

Each slice of time will represent a finite amount of water expanding out from the point the water comes into the tub to encompass the entire tub.  It is like a series of concentric circles each with its own picture of hot to cold ratio.  It would make sense what you would look for when doing comparative analysis.  Each contributing to the makeup of the water as a whole or as part of a shorter time slice.  If it helps you any, imagine the series of concentric circles as a series of buckets inside of buckets.  You would see how things can change from shorter time slices and see how things lead to the trend or how the trend develops.  I wish I had such a time machine!!

But then you would say, well that sounds really kewl and geeky but I’m not a math wizard.  I’m really a mental midget.  Now what if I represent each of those buckets graphically so you can make decisions.  Maybe some line graphs or hey what about candles that turn blue and red if it is mostly cold or hot.  And maybe some oscillators?  Would that help?

Just a thought.  Perhaps if you watched enough Star Trek like I did, you might be able to understand what I’m eluding to.  Imagine the type of analysis you could do if you had such a time machine.

Thankfully, I’ve watched every Star Trek apart from the original series. I’ll will try to put explicitly to what is implied implicitly. Buckets are the way that you view multiple dimensions on a single plain. In the context of technical analysis, it is the way you view pricing action over time from multiple time frames.

For example, if you are a 2D entity, being able to see the entirety of a 3D object is impossible.

If you are a 3D entity (which we are), being able to see the entirety of a 4D object is impossible. Time can be chosen as a 4th dimension and that is the aspect to which disciplined in technical analysis must be able to see.

For the example given the faucet of hot and cold are representative of the market buying and selling. Unlike in the real would were it is impossible to zoom in and see the individual molecules from the faucet you are able to see the buy and sell action of the market over time. Ergo, the small portion of the price action is going to feed into the overall picture of how price is trending.

Seconds > Minutes > Hours > Days > Months > Years

When analyzing a specific chart, it doesn’t make sense to only stick to one. The context to which price is moving matters as much as the movement in a particular point in time. If you were looking only at a 1 second chart and nothing else, it would be almost impossible for you to comprehend the price action over the course of the year. Hence, your ability to shift between multiple time frames matters as much as your ability to analyze a specific time frame.

The “Time Machine” is the ability to see and predict what is happening on a smaller timeframe that will contribute to ‘filling in the bucket’ of the larger time frame.

This is a script I made for an unmade video that was heavily inspired by Bass Drum Group’s style of videos

So, 8th grader that has been doing percussion. You want to play the snare drum, ok. I guess I can help. The first thing you need to get down is the grip. Traditional which consist of this mess on the left hand and a nice match grip on the right hand. For now let’s focus on the right hand, simple, take the stick, pinch it with you thumb and your index finger. Then guess what you are done all you have to do is wrap the rest of your finger around the stick and boom match grip, just make sure to keep all fingers on the stick, *Especially that pinkie!*. AHHHHHHHHH.

Oops I went a bit ahead of myself this is the stick, the thing that helps you make sounds of all types on the snare drum (or other instruments, lets not worry about that). The few parts go as follows the TIP this is what primarily is supposed to hit the drum, unless specified otherwise hit the head with that. The next part is the shoulder this is mostly used for pings or higher burst shots. The last tow parts are the shaft and butt which make up the rest of the stick. And no the tip does not touch the butt. The special space in the middle of the shaft is an area called the fulcrum this is where the stick is most able to bounce so you can be fast and loud. Also this is where you want to grip the stick.

Alright now that the stick is done. Let’s quickly head to the drum. This is the drum (hits it), it makes this sound. The thing I just hit, It’s called the head, the little circle around it, it’s called the rim you make shots with it, or rim clicks, or rim taps? Idk. This thing is the shell it helps make the drum loud. Then this stuff at the bottom is the bottom head and snares, (“Snare drum” pops up on screen). Ohhhhhh, well the snares make this sound.

Now that I’m done explaining the drum lets move on to this mess (zooms into the left hand). This is called traditional grip. It was used because the drum looked like this and the harnesses well, was a string, not very comfortable either. But we still add a tilt to the drum anyway so the grip does work. The very first thing you want to focus on with this grip is that it comes the bottom of the L you can make with your hand it relies on the grip of your thumb with relation to your index/pointer finger. This is also were the fulcrum of the stick should be located so you get the most out of each stroke. You should be able to only bounce the stick with this part of the grip because that is where most of the actuation comes from. Now you want to wrap your thumb and index finger together this should be accomplished by making a small T with your thumb and the first inner bend of the index finger, *this one*. There should also be a little space near the palm or the left side of the O this is so you don’t crush the stick. The next thing we will be taking a look at is the ring finger, where most of the stability of the stick and grip comes from. You should take the stick and place it on the right side of the fingernail cuticle or right here, you should also easily see it on my hand since it has been callused from repetitive practice. For the middle finger, you should just gentle wrap it around the stick because even though it is touching the stick this is not where most of the grip comes from. For the pinkie just put it comfortably under the ring finger so it is not flailing out. For rotation and placement of the hand, your palm should be towards the drum and not facing the ceiling and then for your wrist it should be slightly tilted backward however it should be mostly straight with the rest of your arm because if you continue *like this* then you WILL develop injuries in the future.

Now for the stroke, when hitting the drum it should be something called a velocity stroke this is when full force is put into each stroke which is the opposite of a feather tap where you could have the most height but the drum still sounds quite. For each hand, the rotation for hitting the drum should come from the wrist however for bigger heights and fast rolls it will will involve including some arm.

Now what you want to do after you have the basic grub of both hands down is to the “fuuuuunnnnn” part practice. This ranges from anything to 8 on a hand all the way to dci warmup packets however whatever you want to do make sure you take the logical difficulty vs skill curb meaning play harder stuff as you get better.

Tuesday Jan 7

Singing is sort of like throwing up today’s lunch. Your mouth moves but nothing solid comes out. Well not really.

I make paper airplanes, because when they crash, I didn’t add to the orphan population.

I used to try and set the snow on fire by peeing on it because it would smoke, but Grammy said that s impossible, so I took a dump on it. She was right that just smoked too.

My grandpa used to take me to the lake and point out the prettiest birds, then he would shoot them with his 12-gauge shot gun. They tasted pretty good too.

I saw Santa ringing a bell outside of a Walmart last weekend and thought wow times are tough, why aren’t the elves doing that?

When I drive into a parking in the middle of the day and see a half-eaten pop tart on the ground, I think man, aren’t the possums the lucky ones.

I was driving to my uncle’s funeral. I thought I hit a deer

I drive to my great uncle’s Joe funeral When I ran over a German Shepard. At Least joe will have a good guard dog now.

Jan 9, 2019

Hopping on one leg feels as if you are in outer space. Being mildly sunburn gasping for air does too

Life is a box of chocolates. I hate chocolates

I was on a bus to Albuquerque and the man next to me had the word FUCK tattooed on his left-hand knuckles and the word PRAY on his right. Those must be two very busy hands.

In the deep cold winter woods in North Dakota On the way to my great Uncle Lou s funeral a ran over a Doberman Pincher. Lou will. Have a great guard dog now.

They say God’s greatest gift to humanity is health, love, understanding and peace. A better gift would have been to give Hilter’s mom cancer in 1887.

We don t like showing up late or being last to get on the airplane, it goes against our “Early Bird” philosophy…….

When somebody says I’ve heard everything, I don t really believe them unless they can prove they’ve been to a lot of forests.

Picture this Sun Beach Sand.
Now picture this Hiroshima.

Taking a long walk and licking at the dew from a few daisies as you go is a refreshing way to start a Sunday morning. I guess Morning mist and flowers has a childlike quality without the jail time.

Mama tells me I can do anything I want. She forgot to tell me bank fraud and ponzu schemes come with jail time and the risk of your closest family members will commit suicide.