Meaning of life AP

For my class Journalism we have been learning about photography and how it shapes people opinions of a certain view or opinion of something. For example we were told to choose a photo that we found meaningful through ever decade up to year two thousand. I found it interesting how a lot of people had different photos so that meant that these different things stood out more in time to specially them. For this Action Project we were told to take a photo of a subject then interview them about what they thought the meaning of life is.

.............................................................................................................................................................





“I believe the meaning of life is to find something you enjoy and try to pursue it as much as possible while maintaining a realistic lifestyle based around it. For example, I really like to fish so when I purchased another property in Indiana I want to make sure that there is some body of water on it. There is a great property but there is no water on it so I put a lot of time into making a new one. I went so far as to hire contractors of the heavy machinery to dig out these large sections of land that I thought would be good and it ended up being perfect.”



OL 2019 “Old Man Fishing”

This person believes that this is the meaning of life. I know that he really enjoys fishing, and I know it’s a real achievable thing for him to do every couple weekends. I’m not trying to say that fishing is his meaning of life ; I’m just saying if he truly believes that is to find a goal and pursue it. I think he’s done a good job of it because I know all the work that he’s done to have this place so that he could go and fish and kayak and other nature related things. I kind of agree with his meaning of life statement because I think it’s a good idea to find a goal and set your course to that goal, and I just can’t be blindly wondering and without drive. I always think it’s important to have anymore even if you don’t know what yet says smaller ones and build up to one big one.

I think this image released the five senses. Sight: you see a man fishing, and you can see what looks to be a storm coming in the background. It gives you a sense of being in rain or shine this person will pursue his activity. Auditorily, you might be hearing or things such as water hitting on the brake wall. You can see in the image that some of the water in the lake is already kind of spinning and crashing already, so you have a good audio sense of that without even hearing it.

At this time of the year there’s not many people out there it’s a real spot in the summer forever and bring the boat out but at this time of year everyone put their boat away so it’s almost dead silent on the lake. Somethings you can smell are most likely someone burning their chop down wood because when it starts getting cold a lot of folks do that around there and always hits you. Again this changes depending on the season, for example in summertime you smell barbecues and boats exhaust which isn’t a bad thing I’m just saying it alternates depending on time. No obvious and if you can't feel anything through this image because it’s an image but you can get a real sense of wind hitting you . it’s starting to get colder out maybe some water and splash up and hit your leg or something, it's not hard to imagine these things but again you just can’t physically feel something through an image. I really don’t know what it would taste I couldn’t picture any taste happening during this task.

This is an image of my father fishing. This was taken in Walkerton, Indiana next to a lake. This was. taken on Friday October 18th. I tried to capture this image using a slow shutter speed, and I tried to focus on the subject and not so much the background. It was a pretty dark day, so I had to make sure that the subject wasn’t too dark in the photo, but I didn’t have to use flash or anything it turned out fine. If I were to change one thing about this photograph I would probably change the camera I was using. I always use an iPhone camera, but I wish I had one of those actual good cameras, but iPhones are pretty good. It would just be a lot more easy to affect the shutter speed and aperture through a more high end camera. Another thing I wish I kind of thought about more was the rule of thirds. I could’ve lined it up better, but I was more focused on the focus and the Aperture. I spent some time messing around with some of the adjustment settings in the photo app on iPhone, and I achieved kind of what I was trying to. I was trying to make the background seem darker and keep the subject kind of brightly lit, but I don’t know if it’s that easy to see or not. I also wanted the background trees to be more colorful while trying to make the lake in the clouds match. I wanted the main attraction of the photo to be the clouds then see the subject then the water and then It all kind of blends together. I think instantly most I will get drawn to the clouds because it’s an interesting color that not many see every day.

AP #1 For Econ

For my first senior year class at GCE Lab school we are learning about money and how it works. We talked about opportunity cost and we talked about supply and demand. Out of all classes I think this relates to real world interactions the most. I can see that in the future all of theses topics like compound interest. Which I think is a good idea to teach about real things like this.

   

	Entry	Mid	Senior
2018	66,970	114,200	287,000
2019	70988.2	121052	295610
2020	75247.492	128315.12	313346.6
2021	79762.34152	136014.0272	332147.396
2022	84548.08201	144174.8688	352076.2398
2023	89620.96693	152825.361	373200.8141
2024	94998.22495	161994.8826	395592.863
2025	100698.1184	171714.5756	419328.4348
2026	106740.0056	182017.4501	444488.1409
2027	113144.4059	192938.4971	471157.4293
2028	119933.0702	204514.8069	499426.8751
2029	127129.0545	216785.6954	529392.4876
2030	134756.7977	229792.8371	561156.0368
2031	142842.2056	243580.4073	594825.399
2032	151412.7379	258195.2317	630514.923
2033	160497.5022	273686.9457	668345.8184
2034	170127.3523	290108.1624	708446.5675
2035	180334.9935	307514.6521	750953.3615
2036	191155.0931	325965.5313	796010.5632
2037	202624.3987	345523.4631	843771.197
2038	214781.8626	366254.8709	894397.4688
2039	227668.7743	388230.1632	948061.3169
2040	241328.9008	411523.973	1004944.996
2041	255808.6348	436215.4114	1065241.696
2042	271157.1529	462388.336	1129156.197
2043	287426.5821	490131.6362	1196905.569
2044	304672.177	519539.5344	1268719.903
2045	322952.5076	550711.9064	1344843.098
2046	342329.6581	583754.6208	1425533.684
2047	362869.4376	618779.8981	1511065.705
2048	384641.6039	655906.6919	1601729.647
2049	407720.1001	695261.0935	1697833.426
2050	432183.3061	736976.7591	1799703.431
2051	458114.3045	781195.3646	1907685.637
2052	485601.1627	828067.0865	2022146.775
2053	514737.2325	877751.1117	2143475.582
2054	545621.4664	930416.1784	2272084.117
2055	578358.7544	986241.1491	2408409.164
2056	613060.2797	1045415.618	2552913.713
2057	649843.8965	1108140.555	2706088.536
2058	688834.5302	1174628.988	2868453.848
2059	730164.6021	1245106.728	3040561.079
2060	773974.4782	1319813.131	3222994.744
2061	820412.9469	1399001.919	3416374.429
2062	869637.7237	1482942.034	3621356.895
2063	921815.9871	1571918.556	3838638.308
2064	977124.9463	1666233.67	4068956.607
2065	1035752.443	1766207.69	4313094.003
2066	1097897.59	1872180.151	4571879.643
2067	1163771.445	1984510.961	4846192.422
2068	1233597.732	2103581.618	5136963.967
2069	1307613.596	2229796.515	5445181.805
2070	1386070.411	2363584.306	5771892.714
2071	1469234.636	2505399.365	6118206.276

Lincoln yard is seeing stars AP #1

Something that is happening around Lincoln Park is the Lincoln Yards. This is a big project that is being constructed by the group Sterling Bay.Their idea also behind this project not only creating a new Chicago but also bring jobs to their area. The agenda given to supporters noted Sterling Bay’s intention to create more than 10,000 construction jobs in addition to 24,000 permanent jobs, according to the company. Another thing to remember is at the moment the land is mostly industrial or vacant. If Sterling Bay builds Lincoln Yards it will become, some of the most valuable residential    and commercial property in the city. Property owners there would be paying tens of millions of dollars in property taxes.

A person that was interviewed wants to be known as CL and he happened to be affected by this project going on. The first interview was with an individual who wishes to go by CL. Three questions were asked to Pat and CL they are same three questions and there view opposed each other which was intended.  First ,(OL) ”Do you think this is a realistic project ?”. (CL) “Yes, I think it is although I do think it will take a lot longer than they planned on. I was building a two story house and the projected timing on completion was a year and a half but it ended up becoming three.”

(OL) Do you think it will create jobs ?” (CL)”Yes I do think it will create many jobs this is a huge project and I know they will be looking for a lot of people who have backgrounds in constitution.”

(OL)” Do you think this will affect your day to day life ?” Already Stanley’s is a food store that sold fresh fruits and vegetables from has closed. A quote from the owners were " we saw the writing on the wall and elected to close it now" so honestly I wouldn’t be too surprised if other smaller businesses might close down which is unfortunate but just a reality of capitalism.”

Next, Pat who lives about 3 minutes from that area so near his neighborhood he had some good opinions on the matter. (OL)”Do you think this is a realistic project ?” (Pat)”No, I honestly think this will go the same way as the spire building downtown. This was a project by Shelbourne Development Group. It was planned to be a 1,865 foot building supposed to be started in 2007 and done in 2012 and the project went bankrupt unfortunately cool idea though.”(OL) “Do you think it will create jobs ?” (Pat)”It would for sure create jobs for construction workers if they deals go through but you also have to think about when the project ends then you have 10,000 people without work.” (OL) “Do you think this will affect your day to day life ?” (Pat)” Yes it would, I go over there to get food at Trader Joe's and all I can see there if there was this new development is a lot of traffic. Also some of the roads back there are not super well paved.”

The reason the Lincoln Yard project has many mixed opinions. Some think that it is a good job making opportunity and good way to gentrify the old factory area. Others think that the money given to the company from the government is not smart and should be spent in other places. The fact is that the government will make so much money from the taxes of the places that it has a chance of making the cash back. To be honest, this is a huge project and there are many hidden expenses when building things. Some small issues that can possibly take hundreds of thousands of dollars.

This project amazing idea and it will change Chicago forever. This because other big companies like sterling bay will see this massive project and then think maybe they can do the same in another vacant area. Like everything there clearly is some opposition from racially related issues to just not wanting change this can be overcome though.

(image of lincoln yards) 

Koziarz, Jay. “How the $5B Lincoln Yards Megaproject Will Transform Chicago's North Branch.” Curbed Chicago, Curbed Chicago, 19 July 2018, chicago.curbed.com/2018/7/19/17576244/lincoln-yards-development-sterling-bay-details.

SUPREME© court

District of Columbia vs Heller 2008


For my class Policy we learned about the Supreme Court and the many cases they handle a year. The one I choose to focus on was Heller v District of Columbia. The main issue with this was that the Second Amendment relates heavily to the right of self defense. With that finding as anchor, the Court ruled that a total ban on handguns in the home is unconstitutional because the reference to arms in the amendment had to include a category so common as handguns. It also said that trigger locks on guns and having guns assembled prevented them from being used in self defense. This also affects the self defense purpose of the Second Amendment. Since handguns are in common use, their ownership is protected as well.

The District of Columbia Code made it illegal to carry an unregistered firearm. This also banned the registration of handguns totally.There was a way around it though, the police chief could give him a one year licence for a firearm. This case is about how the correct license to carry a firearm. This case was historic because the DC law challenged the second amendment and the legality of defending your home. He wasn't bringing the gun out, it was only at his house. The main question of the case was. “Do the provisions of the District of Columbia Code that restrict the licensing of handguns and require licensed firearms kept in the home to be kept nonfunctional violate the Second Amendment?” This was a quote from Affords law Center which really thought related to the text.

The defendant, the District of Columbia, passed the law to try to stop a big increase in gun violence in the city. The lawyers for the plaintiff Heller at all were financed by Robert Levy of the Cato institute. They thought it was good case to make it to the Supreme Court because it was so outrageous. An interesting fact is that Levy never owned a gun.

DC v. Heller was aimed for a group that would be diverse in all ways such as backgrounds such as gender, race, economic background, and age, so they selected six plaintiffs from their mid 20s to early 60s, 6 men and women, four of the where white and two of them were black so basically a spectrum of different people.. This was a very smart thing to do because they are choosing people from so many different lives and not all a liberal or conservative crowd. The main plaintiff was Dick Anthony Heller. Heller felt as if his constitutional rights were violated. He felt that the second amendment was totally disregarded.

According to Justice Scalia he wrote for majority opinion about guns and that there should be a full ban on all hand guns would violate the second amendment. Also he wrote how having to keep your gun with locks on it or disassembled is as well unconstitutional. “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” This is quote from the second amendment of the US Constitution.

The first item in the ruling was about, “ 1. The Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a militia, and to use that arm for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home. Pp. 2–53.” (DC v. Heller, 2008)

This ruling has affected society today because handguns are often used to protect people in their homes. Here are three examples from recent news stories.Charges filed after victim shot at armed robbers, killing 1, in self-defense near Truman and Oakley."I was scared": Concealed carry permit owner shot man in self defense.Las Vegas police say early information indicates a homeowner was acting in self defense when he fatally shot an intruder.

In my opinion, nowhere does it say you need proper license to have a firearm, but previous rulings said that some regulation is necessary and acceptable. The question was whether the regulation is so strict as to prevent the basic right from being exercised.

I think you should have a license if you are out with your weapon but if it is at your house locked up it is not necessary. Heller was in the right here and whole case against him is unconstitutional.

This case was pretty recent in 2008. Some things this court case really made clear was to prohibit firearms from the felons and the mentally ill. Forbid firearms in sensitive buildings such as schools and government buildings. Impose conditions on the commercial sale of firearms. These are all current issues of concern for everyone whether they support guns or not.

Overall I think that this case was a great example of a confusing issue of having the correct licence with the firearm. It shows how even if you are protecting your house, beliefs, or land, you have to have to correct certification for that firearm.

Trigger lock

Former Justice Antonin Scalia

Supreme court

Christensen, Anna. “District of Columbia v. Heller.” SCOTUSblog, www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/dc-v-heller/.

“DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA v. HELLER.” Legal Information Institute, Legal Information Institute, 26 June 2008, www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/07-290.ZS.html.


“FindLaw's United States DC Circuit Case and Opinions.” Findlaw, caselaw.findlaw.com/us-dc-circuit/1581885.html.



Rose, Veronica. SUMMARY OF D.C. V. HELLER, 7 Dec. 2008, www.cga.ct.gov/2008/rpt/2008-R-0578.htm.

Total Redesign

For our last unit we learned about urban planning and how people can choose specific designs for center areas whether good or bad. We learned about redlining and more of the political view of urban planning. For this Action Project we had to make a resign of a building or area that needs some fixing up. I choose an area less then 10 min from my house. I pass by it ever day and never really think about it. It turns out it use to be a school and now its a training area for the CPD. I feel like my new idea would make more sense for a developing area such as this.

 This is my model of an old area in my neighborhood. Right now it is used for a CPD training ground and used to be a school. I feel as though this has a lot of potential for retail and food places. I designed specific areas for specific purposes here. For example I have two bus stops going east and west. There is a train station under it for easy access. There are huge glass panels providing a lot of the interior light. There is also green roof, which can absorb carbon dioxide, and you can potentially grow some fruits and vegetables there. There is also a parking that costs more than other places so people think about walking or taking the bus or train there more. The reasons I want to change things is because I walk by this place when I walk home from school and I see is falling apart and everything slowly breaking. It's a shame that it just sits there and people want to develop massive projects like Lincoln Yards and not and not places like this. Some places that inspired me is the Irvine spectrum center in Irvine CA. This is because they made everything lit up by the sunlight there was no ceilings in the mall. Another thing that inspired me was New City I wanted to make a more green open with more shops version of that. For the SDG 11.2 is about safe transportation so I have a train system under that mall and and 2 bus stops. 11.6 is about reducing carbon footprint so i have 2 giant roof gardens. 11.7 is about safe green places there is the roof tours and also around the mall there will be benches and tables. A quote from Mr. Breen who lives less than block away form this and has seen this building all his life; "That has been there all my life, I would like something new there that can devolve the neighborhood more". A few of principals for future cities relates is to is walking. This is a great spot to walk to because it is located within a 5 min walk from North Ave.  This area is very "bikable" as well with the bike lanes implemented on the streets and the many bike racks available for anyone to lock there bike.  This is also going be very connected to the road. We are going to open that side road because there is already a light there so it is convenient. This will decrees the traffic on larbee and change it to Larabee .


Area
 450 x 980 = 441,000 ft2

volume of parking lot
100 x 150 x 70 =1,050,000 ft2

volume of mall
417 x 375 x 50= 7,820,000 ft2

volume of glass pane
 3.14 x 37.5 ^2 x 200 =884000/2= 442,000 ft2


Original

The Resign

Google Maps, Google, www.google.com/maps.



UN. “Goal 11 .:. Sustainable Development Knowledge Platform.” United Nations, United Nations, sustainabledevelopment.un.org/sdg11.

All images created by OL, 2019 

AA

The Injustice of 'nam

Policy is a class where we have been learning about the different roles of government. Whether that be executive, judicial, or legislative. Most recently we have been learning about the different wars and how policy greatly affected them. Our assignment was to choose a war America was in and decide if you thought it was a just war or not. I choose the war in Vietnam which was a very controversial one. Here is why.

The Vietnam ”war” took place in Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos. This took place in the years of 1955-1975. The US entered in 1964 by sending what was called advisors but were, in fact, military personnel. Military forces who fought in it were South Vietnam, US, Viet Cong, North Vietnam, South Korea. Cambodia and China. A unique thing about the war was that nearly two-thirds of the American men serving the war were volunteers. The war which lasted for approximately 20 years, is the longest war in the entire U.S history. During World War II, there were reportedly 40 days of combat per year for 4 years, while during the Vietnam war, there were 240 days of combat in 1 year on average.

One of the main causes was that North Vietnam was trying to invade South Vietnam. A major underlying cause was the spread of communism. President John F Kennedy called it a “domino effect”. If one country falls, all the countries after it will fall with communism. I think this war is unjust because there were no threats to the United States. I feel if there was no backing by the communists and it was just a civil war, it would have been a better idea but with all that support from the Chinese communists, it was a mistake for the US to get involved.

The US Congress was never involved in this and it turns out that Lyndon B Johnson did it on his own by executive order. This was justified because of the War Powers Act. The War Powers Act is a congressional resolution designed to limit the U.S. president’s ability to initiate or escalate military actions abroad. This act requires the President to notify Congress in 48 hours of sending armed forces to military action and forbids armed forces from remaining for more than 60 days, with a further 30-day withdrawal period. LBJ used it to enter the war.

There is a major flaw with this though. If something were to happen where the US might need to get involved this act might cause a roadblock for US troops. This could potentially make things worse without the US knowing what is going on. Also, this can potentially cause many civilian and innocent people to die.

Something I found which was also really interesting was apparently there was a letter from Ho Chi Minh. This was a telegram from him to Harry S. Truman about how he didn't want a conflict with the US. The US didn’t want to lose their ally, France, so they ignored the letters. A quote from Howard Zinn about Vietnam is “In 1953, a congressional study mission reported: "The area of Indochina is immensely wealthy in rice, rubber, coal and iron ore. Its position makes it a strategic key to the rest of Southeast Asia”. This shows how they were also thinking about what they would gain if they invaded. I feel like this relates to the whole Iraq oil wars which I won't go into now.

So overall I think this war was unjust. There was a big communist threat so they wanted to get rid of that and kind of show everyone that this is what happens to communist. Also, I think they were thinking about how much they could profit off this land with all its resources. Finally, if the war powers act didn't exist then the president could send troops anywhere without having the Congress discuss it.




We see how the various policies of the Congress and the desire to take the resources of Viet Nam got us into this conflict and the result was negative for the US.




Zinn, Howard. A People's History of the United States. New York. , 2017.





Editors, History.com. “Vietnam War.” History.com, A&E Television Networks, 29 Oct. 2009, www.history.com/topics/vietnam-war/vietnam-war-history.






Gates , John. “John M. Gates.” John M Gates, discover.wooster.edu/jgates/vietnam-the-debate-goes-on/.

Circuit Bored

I am "currently" in a class called Urban Planning. We are learning about things such as how electric currents work. We had a field experience to the Museum of Science and Industry and learned about the Tesla coil. This also related to the book we are reading "The Devil in the White City" which the building is from that time p  For this Action project we had to build a circuit board and relate it to the internals of a smart house.
  

overall I think this unit was very cool. The math wasn't too difficult and I saw how The Devil in White City and the information about electricity actually worked well together. Some times it feels like more of a stretch but with this unit, I feel like it worked.