Graduation: A Product of Henry Ford

Remember the Apollo 13 disaster? An old physics teacher once explained that NASA's engineers used an old part from another rocket to make the Apollo 13 rocket work. There was only one problem: the part didn't work. It failed because it wasn't designed for newer technology. Apply this idea to our educational system: we live in the information age operating under a school system designed for old industrialism, and the design doesn't fit our needs. Much like a factory assembly line, we separate information into fields and force students to segregate accordingly. We are assembled piece by piece, class by class; when we finish that process, the university stamps our forehead with the "educated" label. Then we go out into the real world, where most of what we learned in school no longer applies. Of course I believe in education and its importance, but our current system is no longer good enough. We don't have time to waste training students for nonexistent scenarios! Let's focus on real-world applications.

Videogameaholics Anonymous

My name is Matt, and I have been sober for 6 years. Yeah, actually I'm mostly serious about that. As a kid, I was obsessed with Nintendo's Super Smash Bros. game. I played it for thousands of hours with my sister, desperately trying to hone skills that are now useless to me. I know, I know, it's a bit embarrassing, but I'm happy to report that I have kicked the habit! I look back and laugh a bit at how ridiculous I was, but I'm not laughing so much about the adults who spend more time playing video games now than I did as a kid. I understand that everyone needs outlets for life's stresses, but spending 16 hours a day playing Halo does not qualify as an outlet. It's true that some games offer profitable compensation for high scores and remarkable skills, but even in those cases, isn't there a better way to make a living? Technology has countless applications and uses we can take advantage of that will benefit the human race. Let's play Halo for an hour (or less) today and then get back to work on something more worthwhile.

An Experiment on Collaboration

Open-source projects will replace all businesses in the future! Alright, that's probably not true, but some open-source projects enjoy immense success. We must be careful, however, not to accept something because the majority claims it is true. Wikipedia serves as an illustrative example. All of us Internet-savvy folks know that we can rely on it as a relatively reliable source of information for millions of topics. The selling-point of the website, namely that anyone can edit its information, brings up an interesting discovery: collaboration from multiple separated sources can increase accuracy of information. What happens, however, if said collaboration produces a result not consistent with reality? The accuracy of the result may no longer matter, because many of us have already established Wikipedia as a relatively reliable source. To an extent, we therefore rely on the experience and credentials of anyone who has edited the information. I believe that the majority of Wikipedia is indeed reliable, but even so, please do your own thinking before deciding to go with the crowd.

For Your Entertainment, We Present Today's News Coverage!

"Good" news bores me. When I visit CNN, I want to read about scandal, outrage, and ruin! Oh wait...if I want to be happy, why am I looking for negativity? I skip over the positive and happy in search of the discouraging and depressing? Yeah, that's a great way to motivate myself. The American media has clearly conditioned us to focus on negative information. The shooting incident surrounding the theatrical release of The Dark Knight Rises captured weeks of media attention, while American-built schools constructed for Iraqi children earned minutes. What if the media used their influence to encourage positive change? I'm convinced that thousands of good deeds and positive actions take place every day. Why not cover these events instead? We have the ability to broadcast live video coverage to the other side of the globe. It's about time we use our incredible technologies to propagate responsible and worthwhile messages!

In Which a Man Defends Intellectual Property

As a kid, I remember telling a lawyer that a perfect society would have no copyrights or patents. I was  upset that I couldn't download any music I wanted without paying a price for it! What would happen to the music industry if the government invalidated all copyrights? Communism's basic outcome provides an appropriate parallel: all music would belong to everybody, but a group of select someones would somewhere be profiting at the expense of everyone else, and the right we currently have to dispute such a group's actions would be eliminated. I have recently read a lot about how intellectual property laws of all types inhibit creative thinking and forestall innovation. These arguments do have merit—many individuals and companies take unfair advantage of such laws. However, historical facts repeatedly indicate the importance of private ownership in maintaining rights and liberties for individuals (think of the Middle Ages for starters). Intellectual property laws must be changed in order to keep up with advancing technologies, but eliminating them would concentrate power in the hands of a few and ultimately destroy the individual's right to possession.