Entry #2: Programming for the Youth

Greetings reader! :-) I'm going to show you a video today and share my thoughts on what it "talks" about.

The following video comes from the YouTube channel of the technology company AMD. You may know it as a company that makes CPU's (commonly called processors), though that's just one of the many things its business involves. If you're familiar with Intel, then you can think of AMD as their competition, in a few ways.

This video talks about multiple things, but what I'm mainly going to talk about is how young children are being taught how to create software programs in some schools.

I think it's really good to teach children this skill. Computers are more and more becoming integrated in our everyday lives, but they aren't just popping out of thin air. There are people behind how they're created and how they work. Thus there are relevant job positions requiring certain skills such as programming.

Aside from it potentially turning into a career down the road, learning how to program can instill and further enhance some beneficial traits that would do good for the youth these days.

Programming can require a lot of effort and patience. A lot of times, you'll have to think what series of steps you're going to have to take with your (program) coding in order to achieve a certain goal. Jumping right into the act might not always be the best course of action. Thus, having children bear through the rigors of making a program can help build a sense of diligence and patience which could follow them for the rest of their lives.

One of the more vital traits, in my opinion, would be having a better sense of logic. With programming, you have to think up a series of logical steps that a computer would have to take in order to achieve whatever task you wish. For the most part, you can't just  have everything happen in one step, like magic. (If it were like that then professional programmers wouldn't exist because mostly everybody could easily be top-notch programmers and program for themselves, and as a result, you wouldn't be able to see programmer job listings. :P) Therefore, having children actually think should assist in the development of their logical capabilities, along with their creativity.

Following on with that idea of things not happening instantly like magic, having a child experience that fact when programming may help them realize that not everything in life, as well, will come to them so instantly, that somethings have to be worked for, and that they have to strive in order to fulfill whatever ambitions they may have.

Some tasks can, in someways, make us better people. I believe programming is one of those tasks. It can be practical for those looking to fill those jobs that need to be filled in order to continue fueling the growing integration of computers with our lives, but it can also be used to build characteristics that follow and benefit us throughout our everyday lives.

That's it from me for now. I hope you found this post of mine pretty insightful and eye-opening, along with entertaining and interesting. Thank you for tuning into my blog. Till the next time! :-)

Backseat Reading

Hello again Reader! :-) Today, I'd like to share an experience I had that may prove useful to you; that is if you don't already do what I'm about to say.

I take the bus to and from school. It's not all the way, but just part of my every(school)day journey to school and back. Anyway, the rides usually take about 20 minutes each.

During which I usually listen to the beats on my music player. It does make the trip more enjoyable, but it's not really the most productive thing you could say.

So during one of my daily bus rides, I noticed a young man, who I assume to be a student, seated a few seats to my left. He was reading a text(?)book. This made me think about how I could be using this idle time to do something productive such as reading some pages that I needed to read through. (Coincidentally, these said pages were for my ENG 101 class.)

Now, that may sound to you, the reader, like such a silly thing for me to realize, but I guess that I hadn't thought of doing it before because I might've felt that it wasn't worth the time and trouble of pulling out a book for the "short" time the trips take, and also that I wasn't going to be able to concentrate enough due to many reasons associated with a bus ride. (I'm not really the best at concentrating when it comes to stuff like that.)

After some thought, I decided to try it out on the way home. After all, when I get home, I usually feel "tired" and feel that I just want to relax; but before then, while riding the bus and walking home, I'd still be in an "active" state. (You could maybe relate.) So why not take advantage of this phenomenon and cut through some of my (school)workload?

So when I got on the bus going home, I sat on one of the backseats, pulled out my book, and started reading it. In the process of reading, I became less aware of my surroundings (maybe except that which was immediately around me) and was able to focus on and read through my book. I was able to read through a substantial number of pages in fact. Aside from that, my bus ride didn't feel like something I had to wait on; not that it was like that before though.

I felt a feeling of satisfaction after doing this. It felt like I had a lighter burden afterwards, and I also just plain good about myself being able to use my time more efficiently. So if you too ride a bus or if you ride a car (as long as you aren't the one driving! LOL!), and if you have some pages to read through for whatever reason,  you could maybe do this as well, if you don't already do so already.

Thank you for reading this, and I hope it does prove useful for you! :-)

Entry #1: On Blogs and Blogging

Hello again reader! :-) This is now my 2nd post on this blog of mine, the 1st being about me introducing myself. Today, with this post, I'm gonna blog about blogs and blogging itself. :-P


My Opinion of Blogs
To start off, here is a Wikipedia article about blogs. I would view blogging, like many other activities on the Internet, as a method of disseminating information, whether that info be important (or not), practical (or not), etc. From highly casual journal-like blogs to purely informative blogs about general topics, they all "tell" something to the reader. This is a good thing in my opinion.

Now, not all blogs would be for everyone, but the fact that they're out there for anyone (with access to them) to read, gives people the option to read about things that are very useful, entertaining, or both. People can catch up with their friends and family through blogs. They can learn new, possibly life-changing things. They can find something to look forward to reading every so and then.

One thing though... Knowing the nature information itself, blogs, just like other information sharing methods, could be potentially harmful. For instance, if a blog post contained false or misleading information, it could potentially mislead a lot of people, possibly in a way that would result in them being brought into harm's way. Sometimes, the writer is just mistaken, but it could also be intentional, and there are some unsavory people that exist on the Web. One kind is called the Internet troll, or just plain troll, which just causes all sort of havoc on different websites, probably just for his/her own amusement. To the left is an image which I believe represents these trolls.

So, it is worth mentioning that when taking in information, and not only from blogs, do so as carefully as you can afford to, or as some people say, "Take it with a grain of salt." When you're the one disseminating information, and not only through blogging, to try to get any presented facts straight and to present them appropriately so as to not be misleading, also to be ethical about posting information and to remember that if you think posting false information intentionally might be funny, that it could potentially cause people real-world harm.


Discussion on Some Specific Blogs
Now, I'm gonna talk about different blogs (or blog posts more specifically) you can find on the Internet. (Well, where else could you find them but there? :-P)

"Ten Corporate Blogs Worth Reading" on Blogtrepreneur.com seems to be quite useful, leading unknowing readers to different corporate blogs that are, as the title says, "worth reading." The style of the blog post itself has a casual, but still professional, feel to it. I guess at least one thing that makes it feel casual is how the writer includes some of his own (or others) opinions. It appeared neatly put together in a list for mat where each recommendation was then followed by a comment and/or description. I was curious what blogs would be recommended on the list, and that kept my interest.

(I'm gonna be honest here. I accidentally went on and reviewed "Ten Corporate Blogs Worth Reading" which I don't think my English professor intended for us to do, and so I thought if it would qualify as a blog post still. Then I noticed how the likes of Lifehacker.com and Gizmodo.com were listed on "The 2012 Bloggies," then thought that if two websites that have content that I regard as articles more than blogs are listed there, then maybe the article/blog talked about in the paragraph above would count as a blog too.)

"Unbrave Eats: Chicken and Waffles" found on the blog Unbrave Girl is very casual, I would say. It was both interesting and entertaining. It had some comedic tones to the way it was written and a seemingly "free" format. I, myself, was wondering what kind of dishes exactly are served at chicken and waffle places.

"Walmart Is Running Out of Guns So Better Go There and Stockpile" on Gizomodo.com is an article/blog post that I didn't like. I was actually wondering what kind of blog post I would list down as one I didn't like, then I remembered a few articles/blog posts I read in the past that I was honestly annoyed by, written by a specific editor. One of them is the one mentioned at the top of this paragraph. The format is nice and everything, but it's the offensive opinions and feel found in that post that riles me up. I really generally don't get into disliking articles or blog posts on the Internet, but there are just some that really annoy me like that one.


Well, that wraps up this blog post of mine. Thanks for reading, and I hope you stick around to read more of my future blog posts! Feel free to post comments and/or suggestions. :-)