Author: ClaireD

When the US says they don’t torture the prisoners, we say other countries do such as Iran and North Korea. this TedTalk by Laura Rovner is all about solitary confinement and how we can stop it.

First, we do torture people, and it’s called solitary confinement. Officers give them food from food slots on the door and take them to exercise cages, also known as dog runs. They get locked up in a closet for 23 hours a day every day. No windows to see a view, no people visiting, nothing living. Some say that they are losing their eyesight because they only need to see 10 feet in front of him. one of them would lie on the floor for hours just hoping to see someone’s feet walking by. Another made a wasp into a friend, feeding it talking to it like a friend. Some shout through the drains just to communicate.

One man, Tommy Silverstein, who the Federal Bureau of Prisons put in solitary confinement after killing an officer in a “no human contact order” in 1983. He was 31 years old, but now he is 66. He has been there for 35 years. He couldn’t find the words to define solitary confinement, he drew it, and now he is an artist. If we don’t do something he most likely will be there for the rest of his life.

Some prisoners say that the worst thing in prison is solitary confinement. It is because there, we lose who we are and if we are in a larger world. How we connect is by talking to other people, so it can make you think if you even have a self. Some prisoners in solitary aren’t sure if they exist. Over time they start to break down in ways like banging their head on the wall or smearing themselves with feces or committing suiciding. Many cut themselves intentionally just to feel the pain that keeps them in the real world. It can lead to social withdraw, in the beginning, they want human interaction, but over time, it could become frightening.

So we need to watch and if we watch the path will alter, so we can change it. I think that they should have a maximum amount of 10-15 days so it won’t be that much, instead of years and years.

Every year, Greenland’s ice sheet loses 200 gigatons and Antarctica lost 118 gigatons. One gigaton can fill up 400,000 Olympic sized swimming pools. All of the melted ice made the sea level rise 0.55 inches. That places earth in one of the worst climate change scenes. It puts the costal communities of losing their houses.

From aw new study in 2018, the researchers can see how much ice melted from Greenland and Antarctica. Ice shelves are big pieces of ice, but when they melt the sea level is still the same. It is like the base of a tower, but if someone takes it out the whole thing will start to melt. As Alex Gardner, a glaciologist said, “revealing clues as to why about how the ice sheets are reacting the way they are.”

This story is about Eckel. He went to the past on a time travel machine to kill a T-Rex. When he sees the dinosaur, he gets anxious. Before they could aim and shoot at the T-Rex, it had already spotted them and was coming for them. After the dinosaur was dead the leader started to scream at him for putting them at risk. He was warned that if he had killed anything that he wasn’t supposed to in the past, the present would be changed. Yet he kicked some dirt on the side of the road and killed a butterfly.

This shows that he sometimes is a bit careless and overproud. It is because he was boasting that he had killed wild boars, buffalo, and even elephants. In the beginning, I think he was anxious because he was scared that he wouldn’t come out alive. when he was in the machine, he was still anxious because of that thought. Overall, to me, he is careless and overproud.

Graphene was made by two scientists. They made it by placing the tape on graphite. Then when a layer of graphite is on the tape, they folded it until it is one atom thick. It is much stronger than steel and is also lighter and thinner than silicon. That is why many people have high expectations for it. if it is that good, why is it not used all over the world now?

It is because researchers didn’t research enough. they just started to make things out of it. When they put graphene things out on the market, everyone was disappointed. The price of the product was much more expensive, and the products didn’t significantly surpass the others. Now they are starting to research and are trying to improve.

If you like music, you should know who Mozart is. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born in Salzburg in 1756. His father, Leopold was a professional musician in the orchestra. He wrote music and also wrote about violing learning. He began to teach Mozart a few pieces when he was four years old. He surprised everyone when he played those pieces perfectly. he started to compose little pieces of music just out of the desire to make music. They were even more surprised when Mozart started to teach himself how to play the violin.

Leopold had a clever idea to take a tour around Germany, France, and England to show that Mozart had special abilities. The journey was harsh. There were no trains, so they traveled with a horse-and-cart. They suffered from sicknesses and the low-income rate, but they all made it back alive.

When Mozart was 17(1777), he got the job as a court musician for the Prince of Salzburg. It was a great chance because he got paid to compose any type of music genre. He was writing many pieces, but soon got bored with Salzburg. he soon left and went to Paris. It wasn’t very good because the Parisian musical didn’t even take notice of him. he went back in 1779and got the position of court organist. he wanted to quit but he could not. he finally quit but was humiliated at the same time. He didn’t want to work for anyone so he moved to Vienna in 1881.

He started great because the people there loved his music. He also played the piano for the emperor. He also married Constanze Weber, the third daughter of a musical family in 1782. Now, he had a bride and a great reputation in Europe. He started to write more and more piano pieces. Some are still played today. He was most popular in 1785 when a great composer named Haydn told Leopold that Mozart was the greatest composer known to him in person and by name. But that didn’t last.

Around 1786, he performed less and less in public and his fame was declining. He struggled to regain his fame. In 1790 started to look hopeful. He started furiously writing new pieces.

In 1791, he got sick and couldn’t perform. near the end of the year, he had to stay in bed. his wife helped to treat him. he was also trying to finish his last piece. He thought it was going to be his own funeral. he died on December 5th in 1791. He was 35 and was buried in Vienna

This story is about a man that loved a princess of a semi-barbaric king. When the king found out that he liked the princess, he put the man on trial. The king has a trial system that to some may be unfair. It is when the prisoner gets put in the king’s arena which has two doors. Behind one is a hungry tiger that will rip up the person. The other has a woman behind it ready to marry him.

The day of the trial came and everyone was watching. The door opened and the young man stepped out. He faced the king and the princess and used his eyes to ask the princess which one to pick. The princess flicked her hand to the right, so the man walked up and opened the door. A wife could come out or a hungry tiger, it all depended on the princess’s choice.

I think that it could be both because the princess knows who is behind each door. The wife that is going to marry him is her enemy. She could let him marry the woman, or she could let him die. She could have let him die because she could not bear to let the love of her life get married to another girl. She could have also let him live because she thinks that he should get the best. What came out? The lady or the tiger?

I guarantee that you have gotten defensive one or two times before. Have you ever tried to stop yourself from being defensive? In a ted talk, Jim Tamm had a great example of defensiveness with chickens.

A friend of his was going into how chickens can teach us about being defensive. In those chickens, there are green zone chickens and red zone chickens. Green zone ones can collaborate with each other. Red zone ones want to be the best. it will try to make other chickens produce fewer eggs by pecking them. He did this for one year. In the end, all the green zone chickens were all healthy, but what was left of the red zone ones were all featherless and didn’t produce many eggs. Half of them were murdered by the other chickens.

Red zone people can very easily get defensive. Green zone people can also go from green to red. When we get defensive, it can get the whole group to go from green to red. When we get defensive, you aren’t defending yourself, you are trying not to let some fears get to you. Some examples are your significance, your competence, and your likeability.

Some ways to not be defensive are to notice your behaviors when you get defensive. some behaviors are blaming someone else, wanting the last word, drop in IQ, or high charge of energy in your body. that could ring a bell in your head saying stop doing that. Then you could take action in what you are doing.

In the story of Walter Mitty, Walter daydreams wherever he goes. For example, when he was driving, He was daydreaming that he was the pilot of a hydroplane. The wife shook him out of that dream when she said that he was driving too fast. Also, when he went to the hospital He helped out but while he was curing a patient, he started to daydream again. 

I think that the wife may be undermining Walter because she tells him to put on his gloves and he does but once she leaves, he takes them off. The wife also told him to get overshoes when he doesn’t want to. She tells him that he is not a young man any longer so he should get some.

I assume that is ok to daydream but try not to daydream while you are doing something that can lead to something bad. Such as daydreaming while driving a car or helping a patient. 

Now many people have died from COVID-19. We have tried many different ways to stop it from spreading. We are even making vaccines, but that is isn’t it. Robots are now helping us too.

A professor at Trinity College Dublin and his colleagues are focusing on if they can equip one of their robot’s, Stevie, an ultraviolet light that could be powerful enough to kill pathogens, but not hurt the humans. Ultraviolet light at wavelengths between 200 and 280 nanometers is also called a UV-C light. It can cause DNA to change its shape, or act like scissors that cut through them.

Hospitals have machines that sterilize the rooms that are mostly empty because the light can cause sunburns that can lead to skin cancer. Which means that they cannot clean areas in the hospital such as the waiting room.

So, the team started to draw a design for a new robot that could navigate by itself and work alongside humans but what was different is that is equipped with a UV-C light in it. They would this call this robot Violet.

People don’t usually react to someone warning you to stop doing something bad because then you will try to knock out that bad thought wit an excuse. Then how do you motivate yourself to change? This ted talk by Tali Sharot is about how to motivate yourself to change. She said that there are three ways to do that. Progress review, Social incentives, and Immediate reward

Progress reviews, they show you with another person. You will see that and try to be better at it. This also works because of the feeling of pride. You want to be happy so you will do it.

Social incentive is the fact that we can see someone else’s review. You know that you can do it and you can do better. So you will try to improve.

The immediate reward is a reward that you can get now. This works for many things. Quitting smoking and also exercising. It gives you immediate rewards.

That is how you can actually change your behavior without warnings because it will help you more. Could you use these ways to make your life better?