We're all stuck at home. That is, if everyone lived in the United States. Many countries have dealt with COVID-19 much more efficiently than the US. From allowing US citizens to come home without quarantining them to mass protests against lockdown, America has made some bad decisions focused around the coronavirus pandemic. Let's take a look at some stats.
Just under a third of worldwide cases are in the US, while we have merely 5% of the world's population. Russia, Spain, and Brazil are the only other countries comprising more than 5% of the world's positive cases. Additionally, the United States is the only country with over half a million cases. Well over 1,580,000 people have tested positive in the United States, with Russia being second with around 300,000 people. China, the country from which the outbreak originated, is 13th in total cases and fourth in Asia. They are 162nd in cases per 1 million but don't have many tests. China has under 5,000 current cases, compared to over a million in the US. The US is twelfth in cases per 1 million people, but 35th in tests per 1 million. The only glimpse of hope for America is that we're first in recovered cases. Let's ensure that number grows and the number of new cases shrinks by practicing social distancing and staying home. Of course, these numbers are always updating and without ample testing, we can't know for sure, but they're very worrying. The United States will have a harder and longer time recovering from the pandemic than most other countries. Summary
“Coronavirus Cases:” Worldometer, www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/.
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The Star Wars movie franchise is perhaps the most widespread and well-known film collection of all time. In sixth grade, I received Star Wars Battlefront, a Star Wars game, for Christmas and it was a great game. When the sequel (I'll let you guess the name!) came out, I was excited and again got a Star Wars game as a Christmas gift. Star Wars Battlefront 2 is available on console and PC, but I only play on Play Station 4. The game is infamous for its pay-to-win strategy early on, but EA stopped forcing players to pay for content, and the game is massively larger than its predecessor.
A couple of years ago, I was a huge player of Star Wars Battlefront 2, but I eventually lost interest through other games. With my happy abandonment of Fortnite early last spring, I searched for other games to waste large amounts of time playing. I returned to Minecraft after years away, while Star Wars Battlefront 2 filled my console game gap. Filled with dozens of unique, realistic planets to explore, a compelling story mode, fun and interesting combat, opportunities to play as countless different characters, and monthly updates, the game is amazing. Most online shooter games are in two categories: the Battle Royale, Fortnite-esque type and the quick to play, Call of Duty-like games. Star Wars Battlefront 2 straddles the line between the quick respawn Call of Duty-like games and the story-driven combat of Destiny. Star Wars Battlefront 2 has fast respawns which prevent raging over deaths, and a team wins instead of one player. The combat is based on lots of different modes, ranging from the first team to 100 kills to the first team to blow up the other side's capital ship. One thing Star Wars Battlefront 2 does that Star Wars Battlefront did not is play across eras. In the original, it was just Rebels versus Empire, but the sequel adds four more armies and new heroes and reinforcements. New characters came with new planets, and the regular updates make the game worth its price. Final Rating: 9/10 Summary
It's happening. My last post hasn't aged well. School is out (except for online work) and COVID-19 is a pandemic. It's easy to see how coronavirus spreads so rapidly. Many cases have no symptoms, and lots of people with a minor case just take it as a cold and keep on living their lives. However, what would happen if every single coronavirus infection was symptomatic but didn't have very severe symptoms? What if it wasn't so deadly to the elderly and was never declared a pandemic? What if COVID-19 didn't create paranoia and panic among the world's population? Well, I actually have a few answers to these hypothetical questions.
Firstly, let's look at the common cold. Most adults get 2 to 4 colds a year, and most kids get between 6 and 10. This happens because people largely ignore colds and therefore spread them to other people. If you have the flu, chances are you'll stay home instead of going to work or school. If this potential COVID-19 scenario was real, it would spread more. Some people go to school with minor fevers. In a perfect world, we would stay home with a low fever. But is it a good idea to stay home to stop spread of disease and get rest in our world? Many schools, including mine, punish absences. I understand that you can't let kids off scot-free for skipping school, but if someone gets the flu, then they need to stay home. Let's take a look at my school's policies. To be exempt from certain exams, you have to have good grades and few absences. Every absence, excused or unexcused, counts against your exemptions. 10 absences have a decent chance of earning yourself detention or Saturday school. Additional time out of school and not attending detentions and Saturday school sessions means you can't go to school dances, field trips, and other events. All these rules and others keep colds and the flu alive. I am encouraging schools and school districts to rethink how absences work. We can prevent future epidemics through smarter and more popular policies. “Common Cold Overview.” WebMD, WebMD, 5 Feb. 2020, www.webmd.com/cold-and-flu/common_cold_overview. 1720 was a year of plague for France. 1820 brought a terrible cholera pandemic, and 1920 hosted a massive Spanish flu outbreak. Now it's 2020, and a coronavirus epidemic in China has recently caught the news. But is it really a serious plague?
There are over 71,000 global cases, but most of them are in China. As of 7:00, there were 1,770 deaths. That makes a death percentage of about two percent. But is that actually extremely lethal? The horrid Spanish flu pandemic killed between four and ten percent of its victims. In comparison to coronavirus, it's much more deadly. The Black Death ravaged Europe and killed around a third of its population in the middle ages. The death rate was at least 33 percent, which is a lot worse than today's coronavirus. So far this year in the state of Connecticut, there have been 1,705 hospitalizations related to the flu, resulting in 40 deaths. That makes a death percentage of around two percent, but keep in mind that many more people are infected with the flu. However, the 2019-20 flu season has been exponentially more widespread than previous years. In fact, a couple of weeks ago, I had a fever with flu-like symptoms. Does this mean that the flu will actually become more dangerous than coronavirus? Probably not. The flu generally kills very young unvaccinated children and very old adults. The coronavirus also does, meaning that it likely isn't an existential threat to human existence. Stay safe and healthy knowing that coronavirus isn't the new Black Death. Remember to wash your hands, don't cough into your hands, and stay home if you're sick. Summary
“Influenza Surveillance and Statistics.” CT.gov, portal.ct.gov/DPH/Epidemiology-and-Emerging-Infections/Influenza-Surveillance-and-Statistics. “Coronavirus News and Live Updates: More than 68,000 Cases Globally.” CNN, Cable News Network, 16 Feb. 2020, www.cnn.com/asia/live-news/coronavirus-outbreak-02-16-20-intl-hnk/index.html. Valentine's Day, coming up this week, is a widely celebrated holiday about love and romance. But how the heck did it start?
There is no definite start of Valentine's Day, but Ancient Rome celebrated a love-centered holiday during the month of February. From February 13th to 15th, Romans would drink lots of wine, sacrifice goats and dogs, and whip women with the skins of the sacrificed animals. This festival, called Lupercalia, featured a lot of nakedness and was thought to help people improve fertility. The name of our winter holiday may also be derived from Rome. Twice, Emperor Claudius II executed a man named Valentine on February 14th. The Catholic Church deemed them saints and began celebration of St. Valentine's Day. In the 400s AD, Pope Gelasius I combined Lupercalia and St. Valentine's Day, thus erasing much of the wildness of the Roman festival. Valentine's Day did have more wine than usual, but none of the nakedness followed. However, Lupercalia's focus on love continued. Another romance-oriented holiday was celebrated by the Normans in February. Called Galatin's Day, it was probably confused with Valentine's Day. Now, Galatin's Day is no more. William Shakespeare played a major role in making Valentine's Day more romantic via playwriting. During the middle ages, people gave each other paper cards to celebrate the holiday. Since 1913, Hallmark Cards started producing its own Valentine's Day cards. Now it has become a 17 billion dollar industry, and people everywhere buy their loved ones cards, cookies, chocolate, and flowers on February 14th. Summary
Seipel, Arnie. “The Dark Origins Of Valentine's Day.” NPR, NPR, 13 Feb. 2011, www.npr.org/2011/02/14/133693152/the-dark-origins-of-valentines-day. Tonight is the first full moon of the decade. But that's not just it. Tonight is the Wolf Moon, whatever that means.
Native Americans of North America kept track of seasons by naming full moons. In January, the full moon is called the Wolf Moon because of wolves in northern areas. The moon of February, the Full Snow Moon or Full Hunger Moon, refers to heavy snow and cold weather making hunting hard. The Full Worm Moon, also known as Full Crow Moon (crows coming out after winter) or the Full Crust Moon (snow cover becoming thinner), was named for worms emerging from the ground in March. The Full Pink Moon, or Full Fish Moon, is April's specialty, named for fish venturing upstream and wild pink moss spreading to mark the beginning of spring. May's beautiful flowers are represented by the Flower Moon. The Full Strawberry Moon, called the Full Rose Moon in Europe, signifies the strawberry harvests of June. The event of July, the Full Buck Moon, is about male deer growing their antlers out for summer. August's moon name is the Full Sturgeon Moon, named by fishing tribes because of a heap of sturgeon in water during this month. September has the Corn Moon, a rather self-explainable name. October is 2020's odd one out. This year, the spooky month has two full moons: the famous Harvest Moon on October 1st and a Blue Moon (a second moon in one month) on Halloween night. The strange names begin once more in November, with the Full Beaver Moon to remind everyone to set the last beaver traps of the season, and the final full moon of the year is the Cold Moon. All this talk about moons has me wondering why we even use months. It would be a lot easier to use moon cycles to keep track of time instead. Maybe we should petition the world to change the Gregorian calendar, but for now, onward into the next decade full of opportunities! Summary
Recently, Marvel released a Play Station 4 game based on the popular super hero Spider-Man. The game is extremely popular and received lots of positive feedback. On Christmas morning last week, I opened my presents as usual and happily received a copy of Marvel's Spiderman for the PS4. My dad began playing it the next day and I caught my first glimpses of the successful game. The initial thing I noticed was the realistic graphics. Spiderman looks almost like real life, with buildings jutting out of New York very accurately. Faces are surprisingly well made also. Many games are infamous for unrealistic faces, including virtually every sports video game. The second observation I made was the smooth transition between gameplay and cutscenes. Spiderman's creators used a technique not all games do, but which all games should do. However, graphics aren't the only unique thing about Spiderman. There's also political commentary. The first boss that you fight in the game is Fisk, who lives in Fisk Tower, which resembles Trump Tower a little too much.
The gameplay itself is fine. The combat is straightforward albeit sometimes frustrating when you mess up. The major drawbacks of gameplay are repetitive fights and camera glitches. I've never rage quitted or gotten very angry at the game as I did with Fortnite when I played it. At forty dollars, Spiderman isn't cheap. However, I think it's worth the money. I'm not even close to beating the game and I'm already satisfied. It's a well designed game that I enjoy playing and would recommend it to others. My final word is a 9/10. Summary
It's almost eight o'clock at night, and I know it's the perfect time to write a blog post. What's a better thing to write about than art? Okay, never mind. You don't have to answer that. Anyway, I've been doing a lot of art lately, so it's been on my mind. I go to Durham School of the Arts, an art and academically heavy middle and high school that requires high schoolers to enroll in art pathways. We must keep one for four years in high school, and my arts are Creative Writing and Game Design.
I began writing at a very young age and I decided to keep it up in high school in the Creative Writing concentration at DSA. Last year, I took part in National November Writing Month, an annual challenge to write over 15,000 words in one month. The past two years I've aimed for 30,000 words, reaching the goal last year and on track for success this year. They might not be super high quality, but it's still writing and it's still enjoyable despite the stress of staying on track. My other art concentration is, of course, Game Design, where I'm currently taking Digital Design and Animation II. I've loved games and computers forever. I used to make my own board games all the time, and I can code rudimentary games on a graphing calculator. It was wonderful to experiment and learn about programs like Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator. As my freshman year progressed, I fell deeper into the magic of DDA. Animation and 3-D modeling provided fresh new challenges and learning experiences for me. Now, I'm not going to pretend that I always like learning and tough obstacles, but Digital Design has always had a way to make class fun every day. I hope I will continue to love this class for the rest of this year and perhaps through my junior and senior years. Summary
Right now, an impeachment inquiry is going on in the United States. I've been pretty confused about what started the whole event, so I decided to research the matter. This is what I found.
President Trump has been accused of calling the president of Ukraine to get dirt on Joe Biden. An anonymous whistleblower in the White House wrote a complaint about Trump's phone call with the Ukrainian president. An imperfect phone call transcript included Donald Trump telling President Zelensky of Ukraine to tell him information on Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden, who worked in Ukraine during his father's term as vice president. Incidentally, just prior to the phone call, the White House rejected a move to give Ukraine millions of dollars for defense. Trump, of course, has denied the notion that his call was tied with the money, but a senior official in the administration said that the two events were related. Trump has allegedly essentially bribed Ukraine, as well as seeking help from a foreign nation to win an election. These are blatantly illegal acts, but is there any proof Trump actually committed them? That's what the impeachment inquiry is about. Many Republicans are trying to prove Trump's innocence, while most Democrats want to see his impeachment. To impeach a president, the House of Representatives must first reach a majority approving the removal. Next, two thirds of the Senate has to vote against Trump, and if they succeed, Vice President Mike Pence will take over as president. It seems unlikely for impeachment to carry out with a Republican dominated Senate without glaring proof of a crime. However, as more evidence is being unveiled, the first successful impeachment of a US president is becoming more plausible... Summary
“Trump Impeachment Inquiry: A Simple Guide.” BBC, 14 Nov. 2019, www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-39945744. Today I've been wondering what to blog about, but now I know. It's Spooktober, and that means Halloween is coming up. The wonderful day we know and love kickstarted thousands of years ago and has come a long way. The holiday began as an Ancient Celtic festival which marked the beginning of winter. The Celts had a calendar that began on November 1st, and they believed ghosts came out on October 31st, the last day of their year. Druids, Celtic preists, built massive bonfires for sacrifices and the people wore costumes usually made out of animal heads and skin.
When Rome captured much of Celtic territory, they combined existing Roman festivals with the Celtic holiday. Feralia, a day late in October, was a Roman day commemorating the dead. Pomana, another late October day, was for celebrating the goddess of fruit and trees, which probably led to the modern practice of bobbing for apples. A few hundred years later, Pope Boniface IV established All Martyrs' Day in mid May to honor important dead Christians. Pope Gregory III changed the holiday to November 1st and to include saints as well, and the previous night became known as All Hallows' Eve. In the early United States, southern states began to hold parties to celebrate the harvest in late October. Ghost stories and spooky tales spread across the country by the late 1800s, but Halloween was not celebrated everywhere. Waves of immigration helped improve, popularize, and spread the holiday. Soon, Americans were dressing up in costumes, going to people's houses, and asking for candy. Trick-or-treating partially emerged from impoverished people on All Saints' Day parades begging for cake in England, and wearing masks on Hallows' Eve to protect themselves from ghosts. Halloween parties and movies became immensely popular in the mid and late 1900s, and the holiday finally became ubiquitous. Summary
History.com Editors. “Halloween 2019.” History.com, A&E Television Networks, 18 Nov. 2009, www.history.com/topics/halloween/history-of-halloween You may know 3DS Max as a 3-D modeling program widely used by game designers. I have several months of experience by now, and I’ve realized many things about the program.
Usually, I love working in 3DS Max. I thrive in the blank canvas of the creative 3D program. There are truly countless possibilities that I can make, and that’s one thing I love about 3DS Max. Also, the tools available in the program are very useful for making things like trees, Rubik’s cubes, and houses. After years of playing the popular sandbox game Minecraft, I’ve developed a deep love for 3D creativity. Working with 3D Studio Max in Digital Design has been the best part of my day very often. However, even the best program is bound to have problems. The immense lag I’ve experienced this past week compiling an intricate Old West scene has been infuriating. It takes almost thirty seconds to render my scene because of the vast number of things in it. Sometimes 3DS Max leaves me angry because of other circumstances. For example, it takes a few minutes for the program to boot up, which is always an annoyance. 3DS Max can also unexpectedly crash and delete all your progress, which happened to one of my classmates today in Digital Design. Although 3DS Max is far from perfect, it is probably my favorite computer program I’ve worked with. It offers creativity along with helpful ways to foster creativity. The problems aren’t very abundant, and don’t pose a huge challenge for me. I think I might just really like 3DS Max... Summary
During the past few weeks working in 3-D Studio Max, I began to use compound objects for the first time. Compound objects offer unique ways to group, spread out, and edit shapes in the program. I initially worked with boolean and proboolean, two similar ways to group objects together. There are five main different options which let you easily modify your shapes. The union operand parameter allows two or more objects to be combined without the intersecting sections of the individual shapes. Merge, although similar to union, keeps the overlapping volume. Attach is also closely related to union also; it can combine two shapes. Choosing the intersect mode will only keep the intersecting portions and remove the remainder of the shapes. The subtract option deletes volume of one shape as well as its overlapping parts.
After working with boolean, I moved on to blobmeshes, which can give objects a slushy or blob-like appearance. Next I learned about lofting, a way to make custom shapes with a single line based off a few different 2-D objects. Textplus and procutter were the next compound objects I used. They gave me an easy way to implement text and make indentions in shapes. Then, I used sweep and array to complete my understanding of compound objects. Sweep can create a unique pattern often used for architectural moulding, and array can space out and duplicate objects in a custom way. I fell in love with boolean in particular because of its simplicity and usefulness. It's not complicated to learn how to use, and I easily mastered it. There are so many ways to use boolean, as I listed above. Each of the operand parameters available offer a new idea that's just begging to be made, such as the ice cream cone below. Summary
I've officially finished my fourth week of my sophomore year, and it's certainly different from my freshman year. I got into Durham School of the Arts too late to sign up for advanced placement world history, but this year I'm taking AP US history, arguably a higher-level class. The quizzes are very difficult, which I prefer to last year's relatively easy honors world history quizzes. So far, the class itself has been relatively fun, but the homework is not. I have to write an essay this weekend, and egregious textbook notes feel like watching grass grow. However, AP US history is not my only challenging class. In digital design and animation II, there are a plethora of difficult quizzes, tests, and assignments. I enjoy my honors chemistry class because of the hands-on labs we do often, but it is a lot harder than honors biology. My honors math class is also a little more confusing than last year's. Math is one of the classes I enjoy least, mostly because I just don't like math. To me, it's either too hard or too easy and never just right. English this year has been pretty bland and easy, but English is usually one of my favorite subjects. I like my Spanish class although it is fairly easy at the moment; there are a lot of fun kids in my period. I also enjoy digital design, as we often do 3-d modeling, which I like. In creative writing class, I get to learn new ways to improve my writing and experiment with new genres and such. It's really nice to relax and write for fifty minutes every day, especially a when I'm stressed. In conclusion, there are many new aspects this year in school, and some of them are bad.
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Minecraft is a popular adventure and sandbox game created by the Swedish company Mojang. In September 2014, Mojang was bought by Microsoft for 2.5 billion dollars, but Minecraft has kept churning out annual updates and fun new features. From third to sixth grade, I was in love with Minecraft. However, I took a break from it during seventh to ninth grade, investing lots of time in the game Fortnite which I now despise. Lately, I've gotten back into the game and I haven't regretted a single minute. In Minecraft, there are two modes: creative and survival. In creative mode, you have unlimited resources and can build cities, farms, zoos, theme parks, and so much more. In survival mode, you attempt to survive in a wonderful world of animals and monsters. Through creating potions, traveling to another dimension, and mining diamonds, you can defeat the Ender Dragon to win the game. However, you can continue playing survival Minecraft after you've won. You can find wings and fly around, build a village, and more. I usually play creative mode, but I've beaten the dragon boss once or twice in survival. I prefer creative because instead of having to spend precious time mining cobblestone or cutting down trees, you can fly around and construct cool buildings quicker. Redstone, an ore in Minecraft called red stone that is sort of similar to electricity, is another cool feature. With redstone, people have made all sorts of things including working planes, automatic monster killers, and vending machines. However, the best redstone creations I've managed to make have been automatic doors and automatic farms. In the next few months and years, I hope to learn more about Minecraft and become a better player, builder, and redstone engineer. Final Rating: 5/5 Summary
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AuthorHI! I'm a 12th grader and on this page, I will blog about me and what I'm going through, both in Game Design class and in life. There are a mix of required blog posts and personal reflections, which you can sort, among other things, below the disclaimer and archives. DISCLAIMER
The views and opinions expressed in this blog are solely those of the author and do not represent those of Durham School of the Arts or Durham Public Schools. Archives
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