Copy Machine of Awesomeness

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This post is over 15 years old and may contain information that is incorrect, outdated, or no longer relevant.
My views and opinions can change, and those that are expressed in this post may not necessarily reflect the ones I hold today.
 

Seeing as I don’t really have much left to do around Madison, I decided to go to the Badger Herald office today to do some cleaning around my work area and do some maintenance on the computers to prepare for next semester. Then I made a revolutionary discovery.

I don’t know if I think this is so awesome just because I haven’t really paid attention to copy machines before, but the massive copy machine that we have in the office has an awesome scanning feature. I put a stack of my notes that I took this past semester on a feeding tray and hit the Scan button, and the machine automatically scanned hundreds of pages and compiled it into a PDF file.

I was so amazed at this that I started finding stuff that I didn’t need to scan, and scanned it anyway.

So now, every possible thing that I could possibly want scanned is now digitized in PDF form. Which also means, now I don’t have to keep all my old papers, because they’re all stored online in GMail and Acrobat.com and stored on my external hard drive.

*high-five* for cleaning out old papers.

 

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Topic #110: Describe your first encounter with a celebrity. What celebrity would you most want to meet? Least?

I’ve never actually had a first encounter with a celebrity who I would consider to actually be a celebrity. I have met and made friends with some relatively famous people, but I wouldn’t really consider them to be celebrities, and neither would they.

If you know me at all, you probably already know that the celebrity I most want to meet is Avril Lavigne. I’m pretty indifferent to pretty much all other celebrities, so I don’t particularly have any other celebrities who I would like to meet, or any celebrities who I particularly don’t want to meet.

 

So Far in 2011…

Number of Taco Bell tacos eaten: 24

Number of times I did my own laundry: 3

 

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Teaching Useful Material Fail

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This post is over 15 years old and may contain information that is incorrect, outdated, or no longer relevant.
My views and opinions can change, and those that are expressed in this post may not necessarily reflect the ones I hold today.
 

As of today, I am officially majoring in psychology and sociology and minoring in criminal justice at my university. I managed to meet with all of each department’s advisors and declared my majors within the past one day.

I realize that most people were convinced that I was going to major in computer science, but I decided against that a handful of months ago. The computer science courses at my university were literally the worst classes I have ever taken. The things I learned had almost no real-world use. The homework assignments and projects that we had to do were built so unrealistically that nobody would ever make such programs in the first place, but if they did, they would use a completely different and more logical method. The main reason I wanted to major in computer science was because I thought programming was interesting and I liked working with computers, but the material I was learning in my classes was nowhere near what I like to do.

In other unrelated news, happy Friday the 13th.

 

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Topic #109: Do you think Donald Trump would make a good U.S. president? Compare and contrast Donald Trump with Ross Perot.

I don’t think that Donald Trump would make a good United States president. I don’t know that much about Donald Trump’s background, but I do not think his attitude and way of doing things would lead the country in the right direction. Donald Trump does not give the impression of being an intelligent, calm, collected, and wise person.

I have no idea who Ross Perot is, but based off a short segment I read off his Wikipedia page, it appears like he has past political experience and has gained a relatively large support base. If I was voting for the next president and my only two choices were Donald Trump and Ross Perot, I would most likely go with Ross Perot.

 

So Far in 2011…

Number of Taco Bell tacos eaten: 24

Number of times I did my own laundry: 3

 

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Ask Me Questions on Formspring

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This post is over 15 years old and may contain information that is incorrect, outdated, or no longer relevant.
My views and opinions can change, and those that are expressed in this post may not necessarily reflect the ones I hold today.
 

I am officially done with my first academic year of university. I finished my last assignment of the semester yesterday.

I wasn’t able to get a ride home organized until next Monday, so I’ll still be around Madison for the next handful of days.

In other random news, I intend to answer some questions on Formspring sometime later today or early tomorrow, so if you have some questions, you should ask them.

http://formspring.me/Parkzer

As you can probably see, I don’t answer questions on Formspring very frequently. I think I’m averaging about once every six months right now, but when I do answer questions, I usually answer about a few hundred at once. It’s been over half a year since I last answered questions, so now’s your chance to get some questions in and not have to wait several months for me to answer it.

 

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Topic #108: Describe the worst driver you know. What do you do to avoid ever having to get in a car with them behind the wheel?

The worst driver I know is my mom. She has been driving for decades, but she still engages in dangerous behavior while driving and cannot operate the vehicle in a smooth manner.

I don’t (and can’t) avoid getting in the car with her because she is a family member with whom I spend a lot of time when I am at home. However, if it is an option, I prefer to drive myself when I am going somewhere with her.

 

So Far in 2011…

Number of Taco Bell tacos eaten: 24

Number of times I did my own laundry: 3

 

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Lindsay Lohan is a Criminal

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My views and opinions can change, and those that are expressed in this post may not necessarily reflect the ones I hold today.
 

I completed my last final exam today, but I still have one more assignment that I have to finish. It’s due before 11:59 PM tonight, which is why I’ve been procrastinating on it, but my time is ticking down and I should finish it up soon.

The assignment involves finding a news story related to some aspect of law, analyzing it, explaining how it relates to law, and giving potential solutions to resolve the issue presented by the news story. Apparently Lindsay Lohan was sentenced earlier today, so I’m probably going to write about that.

UPDATE: I finished my final assignment of the semester and I decided to throw it up here, seeing as I haven’t been putting much content up on my website lately because of final exams. I didn’t really plan this paper out so it’s a little bit unfocused, and the conclusion that it proposes isn’t well-supported, but it fulfilled all the requirements of the prompt and it was for extra credit, so I didn’t spend extra time going back to revise it.

According to an article published by CNN on the evening of May 11, 2011, a judge sentenced actress Lindsay Lohan to 120 days in jail for stealing a necklace. This misdemeanor theft conviction is a part of a string of convictions that Lohan has received since her drunken driving arrest in 2007.

A fact presented in this article that caught my attention was that although the judge sentenced Lohan to 120 days in jail, she might only end up staying in jail for two weeks or possibly not at all. According to Los Angeles County Sheriff spokesman Steve Whitmore, due to budget constraints and jail overcrowding, they are required to run sentences through mandatory early release formulas that reduce the sentence down to about 20%. In Lohan’s case, because her conviction was for a non-violent crime, she may qualify to serve her sentence in home confinement.

I personally would have no problem with the early release formulas if they were applied on a case-by-case basis after reviewing each individual’s circumstances. However, being mandated to apply a reduction formula for everybody will inevitably cause problems.

Sentences and their lengths are determined based on the severity of the crime as the society sees it. If sentences are reduced overall, the magnitude of the crime gets buffered, and crimes that should be seen as severe do not hold proper intensity. This affects the convict directly because (s)he may not perceive his/her crime as a bad action to the actual degree that (s)he should. In order to counter this, some judges may start using their discretion to the fullest extent and give harsher sentences – for example, for a crime with a range of potential punishments, judges may predispositionally lean towards the harsher side.

In Lindsay Lohan’s specific case, it appears that whatever punishment she has received and is receiving is not sufficient to rehabilitate her from her criminal mind and turn her into a more moral and ethical person. Because of the huge reductions in sentences, it may be giving Lohan the impression that she can continue doing what she’s doing and not have to face huge consequences. In her public statement, she acts as if she is unfazed by the sentence: “I am glad to be able to put this past me and move on with my life and my career. … I support the judge’s decision and hold myself accountable for being in this situation.”

According to research done on incarceration compared to other forms of punishment, incarceration has the highest rate of recidivism. According to research done on zero-tolerance policies compared to rehabilitation-centralized policies, zero-tolerance policies tend to generally only increase the amount of crime. By placing people in jail in the first place, we are increasing the chances of them committing more crimes in the future and coming back in jail. This ends up becoming counterproductive because the immediate action we are taking to reduce overcrowding will ultimately end up putting more people in jails and prisons.

I think that instead of placing convicts in jail and prison for fractions of their sentences, we should either take an all-or-nothing approach. First-time offenders and non-violent offenders should not be incarcerated at all to avoid exposing them to the jail and prison setting, and instead, their full sentence should be served via other methods. Repeat offenders should be incarcerated for their full sentence rather than having it run through a reduction formula. This will not only maintain the level of intensity of each crime and honor the judge’s decision when a sentence is made, but it will also help control overcrowding. Instead of bringing new people into jail, those spots would be taken by people serving longer sentences.

 

So Far in 2011…

Number of Taco Bell tacos eaten: 24

Number of times I did my own laundry: 3

 

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Devil

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This post is over 15 years old and may contain information that is incorrect, outdated, or no longer relevant.
My views and opinions can change, and those that are expressed in this post may not necessarily reflect the ones I hold today.
 

I have my last final exam tomorrow – an essay exam for philosophy. If you didn’t catch it from a few days ago, I’m cutting down on my blogging so I can focus on studying, which is why my blog posts have been so short lately.

 

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Topic #107: According to a Gallup Poll, nearly 70% of Americans believe in the Devil. Do you? Why or why not? Why do you think 70% of Americans believe as they do on this issue? Do you think this number is higher or lower than other countries in the world? Why? Do you think the devil is behind the choice of this topic?

I don’t believe in the devil because I think the debate of whether the devil exists or not will be extremely similar to the debate of if there are any gods, and the god debate has not convinced me strongly one way or another.

I think that a large number of Americans believe that the devil exists because there are a large number of Americans who believe that at least one god exists. They most likely find it difficult to justify the bad things in this world because they claim that their god(s) is/are all-good, so they credit the bad things that happen to the devil.

I think the 70% in America is about the same as other monotheistic religions, but higher than polytheistic religions. For example, in Greek history, there are many gods, some that are good and some that are bad. As a result, the ancient Greeks did not need to justify the bad things in life by stating that a devil exists; instead, they can credit that to the god of evil or the god of malice. However, in monotheistic religions, there is only one mighty being that controls everything, so it’s difficult to say that an all-good being causes or allows bad things to happen in the world.

And no, I don’t think the devil is behind this choice of topic, but I do believe that there is still a slight chance that some negative force is acting upon us that is gravitating us towards discussing where this negative force originates.

 

So Far in 2011…

Number of Taco Bell tacos eaten: 24

Number of times I did my own laundry: 3

 

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Exams and Nuclear Explosions

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This post is over 15 years old and may contain information that is incorrect, outdated, or no longer relevant.
My views and opinions can change, and those that are expressed in this post may not necessarily reflect the ones I hold today.
 

I have a fifty-question multiple-choice final exam for my criminal justice course tomorrow.

 

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Topic #106: Is Nuclear energy a menace? or the future? Should the recent events in Japan define how we think about nuclear power forever? Why or why not? Are there any major sources of power without risks or downsides?

I think that the disaster in Japan that caused a nuclear power plant to malfunction is not enough justification to stop researching nuclear energy. Pretty much everything good has some sort of consequence or requires some sort of sacrifice; in order to advance our technology, we have to take associated risks.

 

So Far in 2011…

Number of Taco Bell tacos eaten: 24

Number of times I did my own laundry: 3

 

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