Summaries

Hey everyone, I won’t be posting in a while, so I figured I’d leave my final footprint for a couple weeks (I’m going to Florida for vacation). Do you like Coldplay? Coldplay is my newfound band whose albums I listen to constantly. First of all, the music sounds really good, the lyrics really stick in your head. Their songs have real meaning, they are really metaphors, not just words. Each song has to do with some aspect of life. I recommend Coldplay for clearing your mind, inspiring you, and just cheering you up if you ever have to be.

These are some of my favorite Coldplay songs. There are countless others, these just happen to be stuck in my head at the moment.

-Jeff Raymond

2010
02/04
POSTED BY
JeffR
CATEGORY
Music
2 comments

What I’ve Learned From Blogging

I’ll be blunt: I’m not new at writing. Compared to others, I’m a pro blogger. Writing has always been a talent of mine, and with good reason: it’s like thinking, except on paper. I’m pretty good at thinking, too.

Another reason is that my generation was brought up with blogging technology. Pretty much, it was born with us, grew with us, and shaped to fit our needs and desires. Yes, in blogging I succeed. I thrive. And I’ve had other blogs, too, not extremely popular, but way more popular than this one. I don’t dwell on popularity, and really, nobody should. It sort of kills you. You should just blog to write. And through all of this writing, research, conversation, and communication, I can pretty much sum up everything I’ve learned in a few words.

The world wants you to succeed.

This sort of reflects on my religion posts. I can view the world any way I want to. I view it as helping me, so it helps me. If I wanted the world to try to kill me, I would make sure everything got in my way. Universally, life’s what you make it. I’ve learned that not only through blogging, but general life as well. Why, then, does blogging make me feel good?

a) All of the people who support my blog loyally and without exception. I wouldn’t have gotten motivated to actually write.

b) Anyone who comments on my blog to let me know that they’re interested.

c) The fact that writing is fun, for me, mind you.

From this, you can see that having a blog is like having a life within a life. I love both lives. Make sense? Bless you, then, because I can never figure it out.

It’s all about perspective.

-JeffR

2010
01/27
POSTED BY
JeffR
CATEGORY
Blogging
2 comments

New Theme

As you can see, I’ve changed the blog theme a bit. I mean, a lot. I like this one better, though. Although the previous theme was minimal and dark, it was a bit too clunky for my tastes. This is much better: smooth and shiny and round and bright. That’s the way it should be. I’ll post this week sometime, maybe tomorrow, about more technology and how it shapes ourselves.

Do you have a question? Send it to noignoranceblog@aol.com: it can be about absolutely anything, and I guarantee I will answer it well. Thanks and good night.

-JeffR

2010
01/24
POSTED BY
JeffR
CATEGORY
Uncategorized
1 comment

Sixth Sense Technology: Unbelievable

Hi everyone, thanks for taking the time to read this, because you won’t regret it.

My old Blogger buddy Mark thought up of this idea, so thanks, Mark. I’m going to discuss a device that could replace every cellphone, pager, computer and laptop in the near future. First you need to understand the concept that it is based on, though.

You have five senses: sight, smell, hearing, taste, and touch. You also have the information that you collect around you with those senses. We have cellphones we carry with us, which we can use to find information, but it isn’t so much part of you as your eyes, for example. Well, Pranav Mistry, an Indian research assistant and PhD candidate, knew this. He knew we had so much knowledge, and so much technology to access it. He thought we should be able to access it directly, like an entire knew sense with which we collect information. Through several prototypes, Pranav created a device that bridges that gap between what we have and what we can use it with.

Demonstrating his ingenious device.

I found his video on TED.com, which I think I might be addicted to. You might want to check it out, I’ll probably put in on the sidebar sometime. TED is maybe the best way of finding information that is just plain awesome. Here is the Sixth Sense video. It’s sort of long, but once you see how brilliant Mistry is you will not regret a thing. Or read the summary I wrote.

So that’s all the technical stuff, the skeleton, so to speak. But there are some really neat applications of this device. Basically, it’s a projector/camera/microphone/computer that hangs around your neck. It can project information on any surface. So, if you wanted to use the Internet on the wall, you can do that. You can drag and drop windows from the projector surface to another computer, if you want to. It’s all accessible with your fingers. You can open a book and see its ratings from your favorite critic, right on the pages. In these ways, it lets you augment reality. And of course, that is absolutely awesome.

No phone handy? No worry… just use your hand!

It also let’s you mix real life with the digital world. For example, if you motion to take a picture, the camera takes a picture. Again, awesome. It combines everything into one simple gadget that hangs around your neck like a necklace. The gap between our senses and information has been gapped, completely. We can see things with our eyes, and understand with SixthSense Technology.

I hope you all understand what kind of age we live in now. Yes, we can do all that, and the rate at which technology grows is exponential. There’s no telling where we’ll be in the next decade! Thanks for reading, and send in more content.

-JeffR

2010
01/22
POSTED BY
JeffR
CATEGORY
technology
3 comments

Why I am Secular

Discussion about religion, today!

I don’t really like drawings of God except as metaphors… I feel like God is sometimes portrayed as a man, which he is certainly not.

Let me be honest, as always have I: I do not dismiss the existence of God, or any deity, for that matter. I’m just reasonable. And let me tell you, being reasonable is not always good. It’s good for me, because I understand the universe and how things work. For others, they don’t have to be reasonable, which in many cases is better. They have religion to fall on.

However, no matter how reasonable I might be, I won’t be the one to say a higher being doesn’t exist.

You might call me an atheist. Or agnostic. Neither. I am my own religion, my own life philosophy. I don’t like being so reasonable. Although it’s fun being clever in my ways, I don’t it would feel great to be able to fall back on a universal truth. And that’s what I want to talk about. Not to convince you, not to persuade you, but just to help understand.

Steps the Universe took to become as it is:

1) It was created, either in the Big Bang or some other way. Either this, or it has always existed. No matter how, matter, time, space, and energy were created in the forms we know them today. It’s an iffy topic.

2) Huge clouds of hydrogen formed until they collapsed on themselves and became stars. The core of stars pushed matter closer together to make new elements.

3) Eventually, stars would explode because they don’t have enough mass to make more types of matter, and they would collapse, then explode into huge explosions called supernovae.

4) The elements from these explosions eventually clustered around stars, making planets, which orbited around stars.

5) One such planet is called Earth. It had the resources and elements to make a sort of molecule that could form into other molecules which could hold information, or DNA.  It is unsure how this happened, but there are strong theories which support this. All that was needed to make DNA and therefore life was a certain molecule, proteins, generally, and energy, which were abundant on Earth at the time.

6) Eventually, life evolved through natural selection (are you getting all this?) to a form of life known as humans. Humans were not much different from the life forms before them on Earth except that their minds were more complex as to understand, and wonder how exactly they got there.

That is my understanding of everything. But there is no argument. I’m not telling you that it is true, but that is my religion, so to speak. It’s no more far fetched than saying a higher being created it through intelligent design. How could we humans possibly know? But we can wonder, but no idea is more wild than the next. I think I got my point across well, no?

So, conflicting with my last post, I am not an atheist. I suppose you could actually call me agnostic, although I don’t describe myself as such. Secular? Secular is best, I think. Total absence of religion. Yes, that’s perfect. I keep religion out of my life. THIS IS NOT A BAD THING. Perhaps it might be, for some, but being reasonable, I can sum up my moral values in two words…. Why not? … and really, why not? Why shouldn’t you go the extra mile, help someone with something, why not? I found that it’s the best question to ask yourself before you say no.  More into detail: help yourself, help others, don’t do bad things. That’s it. The only object of criticism might be what constitutes as a bad thing. Anything that harms someone or something is bad. I don’t complicate it. It’s very simple to me.

To me, life is just awesome, so why not follow it? So in this way, I’m glad I’m reasonable. I was not always secular. When I was younger I found going to church immensely satisfying as I was Christian, and fascinated by the religion. Through religion, I developed a friendly and healthy lifestyle that I still retain. To anyone who should try to convert me to Christianity, it’s pointless. Go tell a Jew to follow Wicca and then we’ll talk. But being secular is as much of a religion, a creed,  as any other. Except I write the rules.

If you have any questions about this, feel free to comment. I’m dying to know what you all think. Until then.

-JeffR

2010
01/20
POSTED BY
JeffR
CATEGORY
Uncategorized
5 comments

The Honest Award

Would you ever guess? I got an award! I have no clue what’s up with the picture… 

Hi, everyone. Sorry I haven’t posted in a while, sometimes you just get caught up advocating anti-ignorance in the real world you forget about the Internet. Anyway, the point of this post is to formally receive the Honest Award from fellow blogger Kymlee Murhphy, who has a neat little blog http://www.kymleemurphy.wordpress.com. So thank you for that. I guess the award gives me the title of honesty, which doesn’t make much sense because whatever I say must be the universal truth. However, the rules of the award say that I need to list 10 very honest things about myself. I suppose this will be a challenge. I started this blog thinking I would write posts along the lines of newspaper articles, never revealing much about myself in my writing. So this post, my friend, is a one time opportunity. See who’s really behind Anti-Ignorance.  In addition, I get to pass this award off to ten more bloggers who I think deserve the award. How fun! So thanks for the award, Kymlee, and here it goes.

1) I am in high school. I have no college degrees. I am merely fortunate enough to be able to understand the world, which is more than many can do. Yes, I am in high school, and I am a teenager. I started this blog as a place to escape and vent to people on my side of the fence, regardless of background.  I use excessively exquisite word choice as a mask. There are people smarter than me. I suppose the whole point of my #1 is that it’s not always intelligence that counts, but wisdom, which is also known as Anti-Ignorance.

2) I am a vowed atheist. Perhaps you think atheists are bad people.  How can somebody have moral values if he doesn’t believe in a higher being? It’s easy.  You just need to understand the universe. A lot. I was raised a Christian, so I still retain my moral values, yet I have a different outlook on the world. Perhaps I should post on religion to make some clarifications one day.

3) The thing I want to do most, above all other things, is to become a teacher, even though it is so low paying. The rewards seem great. A high school teacher. I want to pass on what I know to the next generation. They are the ones that will shape humanity, not me.

4) I once considered suicide. Instead, I chose to start a blog.

5) I couldn’t think of a #5, so then I thought about lying and making one up. Then I chastised myself.

6) I have had one girlfriend… in 9th grade… for about 5 months.

7) I can’t remember the last time I had a negative attitude. For the past year or so, I realized that life is awesome, regardless of how you look at it, no matter how deep you are in your thoughts.

The eight item on this list:  I have 14 drafts of various blog posts in my draft folder but fail to post them out of pure indolence. (When I post 8 parenthesis, this came up 8) LOL

9) You can call me a tech nerd, if you’d like. You wouldn’t be lying.

10) I just watched several videos on particle physics. And found them intriguing.

That wasn’t so difficult. In fact, I feel better now. Don’t like something about me? Cool. Go away and enjoy life.

Now. Onto the next task. I will pass this award onto ten bloggers who I think are awesome. So here’s to all of the awesome bloggers in my life. You all really deserve it. Congrats. I also recommend you visit these blogs. Ignorant or not, you just might learn something. In fact, you will learn something.

1) Julie’s Self-Improvement Blog

2) Caveman’s Cooking Blog

3) Ian’s Technological History Blog

4) Ben’s Motivational Blog

5) Craig’s Movie Blog

6) Sue’s… Blog

7) Kymlee’s Personal Blog

The eight number on this list) Envirokid’s Environment Blog

9) Bailey’s  Spiritual Journey

10) Someones’s Personal Blog

So… congrats to you guys. Some of you I have known and supported for a while, while others I happened to see them once or twice and bookmarked them. So… each of you now have to do what I just did. Good luck. Next post, I will discuss the advancement of technology further and dive into the hottest technology of 2009.

-JeffR

2010
01/19
POSTED BY
JeffR
CATEGORY
Awards
Lists
Uncategorized
6 comments

Technology!

Tootsie Pop Challenge: not working out. It’s not hard to see why. First of all, the visitors I get are those who truly support my cause. Anyone else just happens to click on a link, see my page, and immediately close the window without taking a second look. I don’t blame them. I do that all the time. Anyway, I can’t do this with that little participation. Maybe one day when I’m famous I’ll bring it out of the back room and wipe off the dust, but as of right now, the ominous question remains as to how many licks it takes to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop. So, without this brilliant idea, what could I possibly post about?

………

TECHNOLOGY, OF COURSE!

With this project in my mindset, I’d like to push attention to the blog The Grok Project, which explores the history and prehistory of human technological advancements thoroughly, and in a way that even you can understand. I urge you to check it out, because it’s pretty neat. The Grok Project is on my blogroll on the sidebar.

Technology is a lot of things, but for too many, and for me many a time as well, is anything really shiny and expensive that you aren’t supposed to touch. No no. Technology as I perceive it is any tool made by humans that helps them survive. Well, as a society, we’ve pretty much covered that. The neat shiny stuff is what I’m going to cover. You might be surprised that the Jetsons might well become a reality, and soon, too. You might have seen this on the cover of Popular Science and discarded it, but you should think twice before you do. It really is cool and exciting too. Don’t get stuck in old ways, the world is changing. That reminds me of a video that really blew my mind. It’s long, but don’t worry, it’s worth watching the whole thing. Prepare to be technologified (I think I need to copyright that).

Okay, so maybe it’s a little overhyped. It’s still cool. This video below also shows that the world is changing fast. Watch the whole thing… it’s worth it.

I apologize if any of the information displayed in either of the videos is outdated or if the truth is stretched a little. Maybe the information doesn’t quite live up to the truth, but it’s still awesome, nevertheless. Now, chew on this question: what technological advancement has done mankind most good? The wheel? The LHC? You decide. 

This little technology unit might take weeks or months, and I’m very excited to teach and learn about the intriguing matter. If you want each of my posts hand-delivered to you, that’s possible. Just subscribe via email by going to the right sidebar and click Subscribe! It’s easy. Do you have any suggestions for what to write about on my blog? Any thought provoking your mind? Send it to me at noignoranceblog@aol.com.  Chances are, it’ll be posted here. Until then, my reader.

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Oh! Sorry. Forgot to sign off.

-JeffR

2009
12/26
POSTED BY
JeffR
CATEGORY
Uncategorized
3 comments

Tootsie Pop Challenge

Oh gosh- I spelt the title wrong! Look who’s ignorant now! I’m ashamed, but I changed it to lessen the pain.

Thanks to a request from Caveman at www.cavemancooking.wordpress.com,  I plan to answer an age old question: “How many licks does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop?” This might make me occupied for some time though. I’m taking all factors into consideration to provide the most accurate number possible. Yes, I know it won’t be an exact number. I looked on the Tootsie website, but that told me what I already knew. I quote: 

“It depends on a variety of factors such as the size of your mouth, the amount of saliva. ect. Basically, the world may never know.”

I’m not disheartened. Poking around this big world we call the internet, I saw that no serious studies have been done on the matter. It’s time to focus on the serious issues of the world. I’m not sure of the exact process yet, but I’m sure several tests will be needed to find out this reclusive number. And you, my Reader, can be a test subject. Yes, you. This is how. And please, don’t cheat me!

Step 1) Go out to the store and buy a pack of multiple Tootsie Pops. Make sure it’s the right brand and not some knock-off. (Unless you already have some!)

Step 2) Find a willing friend (they probably have to be a REALLY close friend) and have them count every ten or so licks you take (you can be the judge of that). Make sure your friend records the number frequently so that your precious knowlege doesn’t fade away. It would also be convinient if  multiple people took count.

Step 3) Take one Tootsie Pop and, careful not to bite it, do as Mr. Owl always failed to do. This is what constitutes as a lick:

a) Your tounge must cover one half of the pop.

b) Vertical motion, bottom to top.

c) DO NOT put the entire thing in your mouth at once.

Give me your result by posting it in the poll below (if the poll doesn’t work for you, either contact me at noignoranceblog@aol.com or comment on this post, either way I will get it) and feel good that you’ve contributed to science. As you can see, the poll is open, so even those who can’t round can particpate. It doesn’t get easier than this. Also, as you can see, I’ve included a space for when you get tempted and fail.

Please, this is more important than you think. Don’t forget to subscribe, and don’t forget to send in more queries. I won’t be posting for a few days,  because of Christmas and such, but happy holidays to all those against ignorance!

-JeffR

2009
12/23
POSTED BY
JeffR
CATEGORY
Food
Polls
2 comments

Switchback

Switching from one project to the next makes me feel uncommited. I’d like to work on something that takes me time and works on my skills as a writer. That’s my aim, by the way. I want to write well. “Operation Global” sounded intriguing to me because, well, I thought of a pretty cool name and filled it in with a cool idea. It was a good idea, I might add. But this blog has the same purpose, so why change it?

If you want Operation Global, just ask. I don’t have the heart to take it down just yet, despite the silly little post that I used as filler.

I had an epiphany. I realized that I don’t care if people read my blog. I feel sorry for them, but I do this for fun. So be it. So yes, Operation Global is dead before it was born, and Anti-Ignorance is being ressurected. Expect more lists, polls, ect. I want to go forward with this without getting bored. Expect a query tomorrow, and expect it to be a good one.

Send queries to noignoranceblog@aol.com to be enlightened. You can subscribe via email using the sidebar. Feedback? Comment. Email. Fun.

-JeffR

2009
12/21
POSTED BY
JeffR
CATEGORY
Uncategorized
4 comments

Poll Closed

The poll has closed, and I am stunned at the number of people that voted and sent feedback to me lately. So thanks for that! So the poll is closed, and I’ll be working on the top five scariest horror films list throughout the week. I have another query in mind I need to answer, I think I’ll get it in tomorrow. It’s amazing, I went from having only a couple of viewers per day to almost 500! I’m not sure where they all came from, but thanks for viewing my blog, and please subscribe on the sidebar. I’ll get a post in tomorrow, I promise! Plus, if you have your own query you’d like to share, please, please send it to noignoranceblog@aol.com, and I will answer it! You’ve got nothing to lose!

-JeffR

2009
11/15
POSTED BY
JeffR
CATEGORY
Uncategorized
2 comments