Blog Post #3

 The Eight Values of Free Expression

Freedom, a fact that every American now takes for granted is something that was given to us long ago with great foresight from our founding fathers based off of eight key principles. 

1. Marketplace of Ideas
2. Participation in Self-Government
3. Stable Change
4. Individual Self-Fulfillment
5. Check on Governmental Power
6. Promote Tolerance
7. Promote Innovation
8. Promote Dissent

These principles are still upheld today to a varying degree and are highly important for our society during the time we are in, the age of information and globalization. 

As such, I believe that the most important principle of the eight today stands to be the seventh principle, promote innovation. Only 25 years ago the world was a drastically different place, the internet was just starting to get going, video games and anime were becoming more popular, processing speed was low, and some important technologies in our world today wasn't known back then.

In between 2000 and 2024 many amazing technologies have been made and discovered. From CRISPR to AI like chatGPT to the technologies of the iPhone,iPad, and windows computers like windows 10 they were all created or discovered in the last 25 years. 

This of course is thanks to innovation, the principle I would say that is promoted the most in America. 

America is beautiful, it promotes cooperation, teamwork, and allows individuals to follow their own desires or the "american dream" as one may put it. From this basic concept, innovation thrives and is created in large amounts, which can be seen with how most, if not all, technologies listed above were created or discovered by individuals or companies from the United States. 

In America's goal to uphold the eight values of freedom, I would say that America created the perfect breeding ground for innovation the likes of which has not been seen before in history, and the catalyst for why the world is accelerating at such a rapid pace when it comes to technology. 

Even with something as simple as social media, the rapid pace can be seen from the innovation sparked in America: chatroom services were the most popular in the 1990s followed by platforms such as facebook and skype, and then today the world of social media is dominated by services such as X (formerly Twitter), Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, and Discord. This has even spread outside of the social media category with helpful programs like zoom and slack to help out with school and work.

I must say now though that I personally resonate with the fourth value of free expression more than I do with the seventh. While around the world the seventh is being shown at a miraculous amount, I personally don't have the drive to be a scientist discovering something or being a designer of a product. 

The creative way is the way for me, specifically, game design. Games have been a hobby for me for a while and as I love playing them, I want to create fun experiences for other people too, and this perfectly aligns with the fourth principle. Due to the self-fulfillment and enjoyment I had from playing video games in the past, I am trying to replicate that same feeling for others in the future. 

However, at the end of the day, rather you be a scientist innovating the world to the future or a creative designer leading a charge for self-fulfillment, all of these principles are found in our world today in some way or another. Some may be smaller than others, but they are all still visible and are still upheld with the concept of freedom created by America.

Blog Post #2

 Supreme Court Reflection Part 1

In school, students learn about the supreme court and its basic functions, but it is rarely deeply dived into like it is done in this video, and as a result I found numerous topics discussed in the video surprising and eye opening about the supreme court. First, I didn't realize that supreme court justices got private time to look at every case. My honest impression of the supreme court was that they had a public court session about the topic where they made their opinions and then discussed among each other afterwards, but in reality, it seems more that they can make their opinions before the trial by themselves. 

The comment made by justice David H. Souter about the 3- or 5-year rule was quite bizarre to me. Like just imagine showing up to your new job on the first day and someone telling you that just give it 3 or 5 years and then it's actually all right, that's crazy. Not to mention that he mentions that you start to do your work properly when you forget that you are at the supreme court, which makes sense in a way as you do feel kind of anxious and pressured when in a new job, especially one of this high importance, but it just seems so out of this world to me. 

From this video alone, especially with the comments about the job, I have gained a newfound appreciation for the justices and what they have dealt with, as before I thought it was easier than it actually is. Hearing that the court wasn't respected before Marshall and caused me to also ponder why Marbury v. Madison was so influential that it caused the public's opinion to change about the court. 

I also never realized that the court decided to not allow congress to free slaves and said that blacks could never be citizens, which I guess goes to show how some history is not talked about in school. 

Finally, for the last interesting topic in the first part, I thought it was interesting that not only did every justice come into conference with their decision already decided, but how that decision sometimes changed. I feel like because this decision sometimes changes, it shows how the supreme court is doing its job properly, as its not only decided through private analysis some of which could be heavily biased, even though it is not supposed to be.

Supreme Court Reflection Part 2

The first point of interest I had from this part of the video was about the oral discussions that occur. I found it quite intriguing that the justices sometimes will use the attorneys discussing the case as a "post box" for talking with the other justices and making sure they see this argument they might not have before. 

Also mentioned by Burt Neuborne, lawyers usually only argue before one to potentially five judges, and basically never nine, so it is always a different experience when they are arguing before nine. I feel like I understand how much of a difference it would be, and to be quite fair I thought that lower cases at the state courts were discussed before possibly seven judges, so to find out that jumping from the state court to federal is from five to nine is quite a surprise to me. 

I do find that the justices usually asking different lines of questioning to be quite good and proper for the court to have as it allows multiple perspectives and decisions to be considered, but as a result it does indeed cause some stress onto the lawyer having to juggle the many different lines of questions in the small frame of thirty minutes. 

The releasing of opinions practically only at the end of the term in June was also quite eye opening to me. I thought that opinions were usually released a couple of weeks or a month or so after the case was discussed, but there is a lot more time between the discussion and release due to the drafting process of the opinion that I hadn't known about. Also not known was the fact that justices could switch sides during the writing of the draft opinions, as I thought it was generally only used as an explanation to the public rather than one from one justice to another. 

Overall, I found the most important part of both videos that I learned was of the huge process behind every decision in the supreme court. In the classroom, I had only learned about the process of a case getting the supreme court, but no the process of the court itself, and after hearing of the process of our highest court in America, I stand by my opinion that I believe the supreme court is doing its job correctly. 

Though some decisions may seem outrageous at times, I can thoroughly believe that this was come to a conclusion after a long process that has practically removed many biases from the overall decision.

Blog Post #1

 Top Five Sources of News and Information

Before I begin discussing my top sources of news and information, I think it is important to clarify that I don't watch or read the news that much. 

Most things I care about happen online, mainly video games updates, patches, and new releases, etc. As such, most of these sources will be about information for the topic of video games, with a few in here being about where I get my "news" from the real world from. 

So, if anyone finds themselves needing to find good sources of information for the topics I am about to mention, personally I would recommend these sources in the following order.

    1. YouTube

While most people recognize YouTube as a site for fun video content ranging from funny shorts to vlogs to gaming videos, there is still a part of the platform that provides educational content to viewers. 

In some of my free time I will go onto YouTube just for this content from channels like Veritasium, Tom Scott, Oversimplified, ChannelFrederator, The Game Theorists (along with its many other sister channels), and RealLifeLore. There are many other channels I haven't listed that fit into this category of content simply due to the sheer number of them. 

However, all of these videos end up causing my curiosity to spike when I see the subject of the video, and still end up leaving me satisfied knowing I learned something from the video ranging from science to a simple fact of 107 that I didn't know about my favorite TV show. 

On another hand, I also learn of news for my favorite pastime, videogames, from channels such as Rival, Ryscu, Vandril, Valorant News - TacticalRab, and Orbital Potato. 

Typically, I view these channels on a daily basis especially since I play most of the games they cover. However, that's not to say that I don't watch other channels for news content on various topics relating to video games either, as I definitely do, but once again there are just too many to list. 

Generally, I like this source of content as it is very easy to watch and learn the content, so as seen from my two lists above, there are many channels you can watch to learn information on YouTube, and as such I would recommend everyone to check them out!

 

    2. Steam

For the main place where I find news about games I play, I go to Steam. Steam makes the process of finding news quite convenient for games that you care about that are on the platform. Simply under the store tab on either the steam application on your computer or the steam store on the web browser, you can find a separate tab that will take you to your personalized news page (shown below).

On this personalized news page, all news relating to games in your library or on your wishlist are shown for you to view based on when the news came out (newest to oldest). 

Also, from this page you can switch to an overall news page not personalized to you, but based on top sources, and another news page relating to the official Steam blog. On top of this, there is a search feature you can utilize to single out a single game for news just about it alone! As a final addition, when the Steam application is launched it also opens a separate tab called special offers that offers news as well! 

Overall if anyone is searching for news about any game that is happens to be on steam, I would always highly recommend the platform for its great user interface and easy accessibility for players to see the information!

    3. Family and Friends!

For my third source, it is one that is very close to my heart: my friends and family! 

While not always that accessible, I still always find my friends and family giving me some knowledge about what's going on in the news. Like I mentioned before, I don't pay attention to the news much, but my friends and family definitely do! 

As a result, they talk about news a bit and I learn some of what is going on from their conversations some of which they ask my input on. So, while this may be a source that is not commonly used every day due to lack of contact, helpful applications like Discord, Skype, or FaceTime changes this and allows myself to hear about the news from them a lot more than I usually would. 

Of course, I would also recommend everyone to talk to their family and friends about the news, it is always helpful to hear other's opinions on topics as it will usually give you a new perspective on things.

4. MSN

MSN or Microsoft Network is another way I gain news about the real world. 

Personally, I use Microsoft edge for a browser now as it takes up less CPU usage than Chrome, and also provides me a benefit for searching (the Microsoft rewards program), but that is beside the point.

On startup of Microsoft edge, or whenever a new tab is opened, a snippet of MSN news is shown like in the picture below:

This source is highly relevant to the user as well as it allows you to customize what news you see on this page with the personalize tool shown on the far right. It also shows some important information about where you are like the temperature outside and the weather. 

With all of these wonderful and easy to access sources of information on startup, I would also recommend all to check out Microsoft Edge for its news. Finally, all of the news shown here on new tabs can also be found at msn.com so that anyone using any browser can find the same information.

5. Apple News

My last source is by far my least used: Apple News. Every once in a while, when I am on my phone, I will go to the farthest left screen to the see the weather or what is special about the day, and as a result I see some trending news stories and top news from Apple News.

Other than this, I don't really use Apple News, but some news stories like the phone falling out of an airplane and surviving have been quite interesting reads that I found out about from Apple News. 

In the end, I don't feel like I can recommend it as I haven't used it that much, but from the stories I've read, it seems quite interesting so it may be something worth checking out.