small object, LARGE SUBJECT [in process]

Sugar substitutes are found a major part of our everyday culture. They have become so widely accepted, that they sit beside regular sugar at coffee shops, restaurants and even at home in kitchens. The belief is that the sugar substitute has become the answer, that it can sweeten anything with no worries about calorie intake.

In a world in which dieting has become so popular, this idea has caught on. So if tastes like sugar and looks like sugar then it must be sugar, right? Wrong. You can't have your cake and eat it to. It seems like the perfect answer. However, debatable research shows that it could possibly cause many health problems later on, although many of us do not worry about the future because if it is out of sight, it is out of mind. The product that was originally created for diabetics is now used by everyday dieting people. It is a chemically created substance that can be added too and cooked in food and although it is very similar to regular sugar, it has a distinct after taste that assures the consumer of its unnatural qualities.

Some warrants may include that a large majority of people use them and they use them on everything. However, there is a good percentage of people who also stay away from such products because they are unnatural.

e-waste abstract

The thesis of the article, "High Tech Trash" by Chris Carroll is that the U.S.'s current policy of dumping electronic waste, or e-waste oversees is not only harmful to the countries in which they dump, but to the U.S. as well. He begins his argument by addressing that software engineers constantly create new programs that cannot be supported by older computers, therefore they must be thrown out which creates 50 million tons of waste a year. However, Carroll states, the by-products from this techno trash, which includes lead and mercury among others, is toxic to the environment and to humans. He points out that instead of letting it sit in a land fill in the United States, companies ship them over seas to countries like Ghana, Nigeria, Ivory Coast and China where sit in landfills or are burned down to their marketable components. It seemed like a "win-win situation," because "huge volumes of scrap electronics were shipped out, and the profits rolled in." However, he notes the process of exposing the materials is very toxic to the environment and to the humans. Governments and have tried to ban the e-waste with the Basel Ban that "forbids hazardous waste shipments to poor countries." Yet, it has not been issued into effect. Carroll cleverly mentions that the U.S. is one of three countries that did no ratify the Basel Convention that also attempts to employ green-design of electronics and the take-back strategy. Not only did the U.S. ignore legislation but it also refuses to have machinery that will clean up the e-waste in an environmentally safe process. Only a few more and the U.S. would not have to ship it out to other countries. However "under current policies ... it is still more profitable to ship waste abroad than to process it safely at home." Therefore, he concludes, the United States disregard of the legislation and unwillingness to build these machines, might work against them in the end as more and more lead is showing up in products that are shipped from China to the U.S.; lead that can extracted from e-waste. Carroll makes a very important case although he seems to assume that the Basel Ban will not affect the way in which these products are disposed of in the near future.

abstract time.

so i got my ass kicked the other day in class for not capitalizing anything. my bad, really. I'm sorry to those of you who were a bit agitated while reading it. Nancy's totally got my back and that's how i felt. this is more of a conversation, so i write it like this. ANY WHO! abstract time.

the article, "is google making us stupid?" by Nicholas Carr his main thesis is that google has not only changed the technological world but it has also changed the way in which we think. His first argument is that the internet compromises our ability to concentrate--that because of the convenience of the internet, we now search for convenience in everything that we do and find it hard to concentrate on mundane tasks, like reading. he uses evidence from the study of the brain to demonstrate that the brain is constantly changing and morphing the existing synapses and making new ones. his next argument states that because of the way technology works, in a system of algorithms, that is the way in which we think. like Frederick Winslow Taylor's system in which he divided the work of an industry into small jobs so that each employer only had to complete a small task. the person doing the job is limited and so are we as users of google because our opportunities of learning are limited. he assumes, however that this applies to everyone--this google epidemic. it's a cultural assumption that everyone has access to a computer and to new technology. his final argument is that although these new technologies have changed the way in which we think, they have not been malevolent and there is a inherent value we gain from them. the outrage over the printing press was outweighed by its benefits and helped the world move towards new technology, as will google.

i'll tell you what's stupid.

the funny thing is, as i went to read the article, my roommate, who is also conveniently in my class said verbatim, "let's read cosmo instead of the article." i agreed. the confessions portion was interesting, but i have submitted my attention to the article. it is cleverly titled, "is google making us stupid?" i found the full version on google. ironic. i did have a point to why i started off my blog in such a way. i think there are more distractions laying around than just the internet. and you can find tons if you really don't want to do something. i have no problem finding them.

but before i start, i'm going to look for the books on amazon.

the way i see it is a fluctuation or as carr puts it, a "midst of a sea change in the way we read and think" and i honestly don't think it's a bad thing. we need more information now and we need it at our fingertips.

i 100% agree with the point carr makes with his anecdote of Fredrich Nietzsche. the tools that we use to write with absolutely directly affect the language and style that gets written. the essay i had to write and hand to the professor in class is less dense and intricate than the essay that i wrote at home on my laptop. i am able to just cut an paste the paragraph that really belongs in the beginning rather than brackets and an arrow that presents my writing to the professor as messy and unorganized.

why would you want to sit around and read information that you don't need, when you can sift through it to find the core of the information you can use. even if you wanted to go to the library, you have to first use a search engine that will direct you in the right location--a search engine that works the same way google does. like my mom the other day. it was my cousin's birthday, i know he's not much of a talker, so i just texted him. my mom argued with me that i should call him, that "back in her day" if she wanted to talk to someone she had to call them. so i, being the witty person i am and loving to argue, responded that in the past if she said that, i'm sure my grandpa would have said, "well back in my day we had to write letters if we wanted to wish someone a happy birthday." and before letters, there was visiting a person. my point is, she thinks that a phone call would be better than a text message. i argued that well in her time, a letter would have been better than a phone call. but it's just how time changes. a text message is faster, more efficient and to the point. our thought process is constantly shifting and fluctuating, as is technology.

perhaps Carr is right when he claims that the adoption of "new intellectual technologies is reflected in the changing metaphors" we use to express ourselves and our thoughts. and perhaps the internet is "programming us" which makes sense when he begins his article with The Space Odyssey, which is a movie about a computer on a space ship that gains so much intelligence it becomes smarter than the passengers and begins to take over.

the example of the outrage over the printing press reflects my mom's dislike of my text message and the dispute over the internet. i'm glad i can be skeptical of you skepticism, Carr. i'm not disagreeing, maybe it's just not such a bad thing.