Implicit Bias Test

So there is this thing called the "Implicit Bias Test". It was invented by some Harvard student and this test is supposed to see if you are bias towards one thing or another. There were multiple tests that you could take including a race test, a skin color test, a religion test, and a fat/skinny test. I selected to take the skin color test.

For the skin color test, the program determined if you preferred light skin or dark skin. To do this, the test was broken up into multiple parts. The first part was a word/picture correlation where if a word like "happy" pops up on the screen, I had to click a button if it is "good" or "bad". If a picture of a light skinned person popped up, I had to click if I thought that they were light skinned or dark skinned. 

The next part of the test was easily the easiest but the most fun sucking thing about my day so far. There was a set of survey questions that I had to answer. about 17 questions all along the lines of "do you like light skin or dark skin better?". Of course the questions weren't that word for word but they all had that same type of theme to them.

The final portion of the test was filling out a basic "get to know you" type questionnaire. Just basic information like gender, area code, country, religion. I assume that all of the tests get complied and broken down to see if there is a trend between preference of skin tone to gender, area code, country, and religion.

In Response to Plagiarism

Given the option of writing a book response or responding to an article an about Plagiarism, I chose the second option. The article about plagiarism was posted by the New York Times and discussed the way students are copying and pasting works from the web and claiming them as their own.

Plagiarism is defined as "the practice of taking someone else's work or ideas and passing them off as one's own". Basically its copying other people's work. Copying has been the best friend of students since schooling was invented. If I were to ask a student if they would prefer to do an assignment and get full credit or just get full credit, the student would choose the adder of the options.

The post in The New York Times is concerned that it is too easy to commit plagiarism and that students are considering not considering copying from the web as serious cheating. Just look at this statistic;                  

 

 "the number who believed that copying from the Web constitutes “serious cheating” is declining — to 29 percent on average in recent surveys from 34 percent earlier in the decade." (The New York Times)     

 

I understand that plagiarism is a problem but, eventually there will be a time when the specific though you have is already published. That day may not be for many years but with that being said, I think that there needs to be a statute of limitations on plagiarism. In example, if the sentence I want to convey was published 15 years ago, I can use it without it being considered plagiarism.

Book Blog #3

I have no clue how I did it, but somehow I managed to suffer through Burning Blue. I didn't enjoy it that much and it was boring. Still, the best thing about the book was the authors writing style but due to lack of creativity the book was predictable.

My favorite character by far was Jay. Jay is a hacker/loser that gets made fun of because he had a seizure in front of the whole school and peed his pants (another glimpse at the writer's "genius" creativity).

 "Jay understands how it feels to be treated like a freak, and he also has a secret: He's a brilliant hacker. But the deeper he digs, the more danger he's in - and the more he falls for Nicole."



Even though this quote makes this book sound horrible, it describes him perfectly.

Of course the loser guy no one talks to falls in love with the now relatable former school beauty.  *sigh* Hooray for 21st century writing... Currently Im reading another one of my favorite author's books, 1984. I have never found a book that smart and well written other than Animal Farm. which is another one of Orwell's books. Ill talk about that later though.

As time progresses, is the quality of writing going down? Because it seems to me like it is.

Book Blog #2

Burning Blue

 

 

     "A beautiful girl, a hideous crime, and one boy caught in the middle of it all". That is a grabber written on the front of the book Burning Blue. That line makes the book seem fast passed, fun, and entertaining. Unfortunately, that line is terribly, terribly wrong. A beautiful girl named Nicole has acid thrown on her face. She meets lonely guy named Jay who is good with computers and together they try and find out who attacked her. There is however a bright side; the author's writing style.

 

     The author's writing style is interesting and fun to follow. Paul Griffin writes this story from multiple views including Nicole's, Jay's, and segments from Nicole's personal diary and Dr. Schmidt's journal. Doctor Schmidt is the therapist that Nicole sees after being traumatized from the attack. With all of these views, it makes you realize how damaged Nicole is, who was previously thought to be perfect, and it shows the paranoia taking place. Everyone is worried that there could be another attack and since the attacker isn't known, there a many different opinions on who it may be.

 

     In my opinion, this book moves too slowly and even though the writing is great, this book is still a bad read. I plead to you not to read it. Even the idea of a mystery book like this is old news. What makes this book different from all the other "acid attack mysteries" this one is different from the rest because of the view you get from all the different characters. im sure there will be other books just like this in a couple of decades if not a couple of years.