Sara Inoue

     One business strategy I was stunned by was planned obsolescence, which is a technique that is certainly not sustainable, yet too common in contemporary society. The product is planned and designed by the manufacturers to have a limit so that consumers would come back. For example, Japanese houses are said to last around 30 years; however, it usually takes 30 years to pay back the mortgage of the property. Houses are designed to deliberately deteriorate so that people would keep buying new houses. The same goes with terminator seeds which I was completely unaware of. The DNA of the seeds is tinkered so that only one plant grows and is terminated. This strategy procedure creates a cycle so that consumers would have to come back for more. From these examples, I was able to learn how the efficiency of marketing concentrates on profit rather than the quality of products. Although businesses need their profits in order to grow, it made me wonder whether these houses are wo...

     "Top of the Pops", a British music chart television program by the BBC, was broadcasted weekly between the years 1964 and 2006. The host of the show, Jimmy Savile who was seen as an eccentric TV personality, had been sexually assaulting hundreds of people throughout his life. Surprisingly in his peak state of his career. It is sickening to think how many people he has mentally and physically damaged. According to a report from the Guardian, a female victim is believed to have told the Metropolitan police she was assaulted in Savile's campervan in a BBC car park. Nevertheless, no action took place and the police file cannot be located. Many of his other claims are unsubstatiated, which should have been disclosed when it was an ongoing situation.       After doing a quick search on Jimmy Savile, most of the articles did in fact delineate on his cases. There were articles that interviewed victims and the quick search became an hour long probing. I wa...

     We had an unusual class, where students were tod to spread out and a set of "rules" were displayed on the board. The activity "rules" were clear; yet, also broad in a way that changes could be made easily. Before starting, Mr. Paterson introduced this game as a means to scrutinize our creativity, which was probably one of the main reasons people started thinking in ways that could make their answers unique.  I found it interesting how Mr.Paterson showed us one common way of doing this activity by drawing a 3x3 circle format. This example became a big clue for the majority of students, which made them start off by drawing the same 3x3 circles.       I realized that the first rule, which was to draw 9 circles in a square pattern, did not specify the structure of the square. Therefore, I decided to set aside the idea of drawing 3x3 circles and drew 4 circles in one straight line. As long as there were four circles in the corner, I perceived it a...

     Today was quite different than our usual class. Tables were set up and we sat in groups of 4, with strange materials. There were 20 raw spaghettis, 1 yard of tape and string, and most mportantly a marshmallow. Having no clue of what was going on, Mr.Paterson assigned us a challenge, which was the Marshmallow challenge. Our mission was to build some sort of tower so that the marshmallow would be held on top. our group worked pretty well, in the sense that we started building the tower as soon as the 18 minutes timer went on. We started working on the base of the tower, so that the thin spaghetti strips would support the levels on top. I personally thought that the base woud be stable if we made it a square, but after a quick talk we realised that we should use the spaghetti strips wisely, as well as the tape. Cautiously taping the strips together, we found that the easiest way to make a tall, and strong tower was to tape more paghetthis to the bottom area, to strength...

     James VI of Scotland became the king of both Scotland and England. As England became bigger and stronger, he gradually shifted towards business that benefited the UK. Even though the two regions were not a union, Scotland was dragged into England's wars with other countries. This left the Scottish people unhappy and disconsolate. Until in the 1680s, James married a catholic wife, which lead to the fight between William, who was not catholic. It was quite difficult to catch up regarding the disputes between members of the royal family, but the main point of Mr. Patersons' talk was that the Scottish and British have been hostile for decades.      England and Scotland continued as two separate states sharing a monarch. I was shocked to find out how the 1979 election completely broke the purdah by changing the rules last minute. Even though there was 38% of voters wished for the independence of Scotland, it had to be more than 40% in order for it to go thr...

 Ranked 5th in GDP ranking for 2021 was the UK, and they were able to maintain their economic rank due to Scotland's resources.  95% of the UK's oil, gas, and fishing, 100% of the wave power of the UK is in Scotland's waters. Other resources such as coal and forestry are also provided from Scotland. If Scotland became independent, it would be one of the richest countries, kicking out the UK in GDP rankings. In addition, they would have the right to take back the sea boundary that the UK has been moving ever since the order in 1987 (Picture below) . The only setback is that the British government has been mobilizing the media to get Scottish people to vote against their interests.        From previous classes, I knew that BBC was owned by the British government and presented heavily biased content. Yet, I was still shocked about the weather map used in their weather reports. Even though the two areas in Scotland, Stornoway, and Edinburgh are 200 miles a...

     After watching yesterday's documentary, I realized how much the knowledge I gained from previous terms, had affected the way I viewed the documentary. For example, snippets of news reports were included when giving evidence of media manipulation. Before taking Mr. Paterson’s lessons, I would have conceived every information as trustworthy. Not only did I see the media as a platform to rely on facts, I was completely unaware of the fact that there was also deceitful information. Before the internet, people were informed through newspapers and radios; which were owned by rich people who had the money to buy the radio and news companies. Due to this, wealthy people were able to control the media and the information put out to the audience. Net Neutrality is the idea that internet service providers, must treat all internet communication equally, allowing individuals to put out information freely. We looked at websites such as Indymedia, information clearinghouse, and fai...