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Posts by Griffin

The End of High School

Discussion by: Griffin.Rowland on Sun, 2010-05-16 20:09 with 0 comments

Kind of like my favorite run at Alta is Keyhole (which is in Snowbird, but accessed from Alta), my favorite times in high school have been outside of school, but most were due to the fact that I went to Judge. For instance, junior year cross country camp was a definite highlight. Being on the cross country team in general was pretty awesome. Skiing was awesome. The summers were pretty fun except for between Sophomore and Junior year. The low points were definitely not due to being in school. Overall high school has been a pretty neutral experience for me. I feel like I've learned a bit, but not as much as I expected. Mostly what I got during these four years was experience and practice.

Accountability

Discussion by: Griffin.Rowland on Sun, 2010-05-16 15:10 with 0 comments

Internet Advertising

Discussion by: Griffin.Rowland on Sun, 2010-04-18 23:20 with 0 comments

Internet advertising has always been a real frustration of mine. I can deal with the subtle ads on google search pages, and a picture of a Chevy in the corner of news articles, but the whole blinking, audible internet ads of late as well as the bars at the bottom of every online video I just can't stand. I don't think I'm the only person that feels this way. Why did ads get this way? Surely annoying people isn't a very effective advertising technique. I have often found myself navigating away from sites with these kind of ads just to avoid annoyance. I think I would be less likely to buy the product the ad is promoting after encountering the ad, so how is it supposed to work? Youtube used to be fairly ad-uninfected, but of late it has caved in order to be able to give more money to it's video posters.

No Point In Changing

Discussion by: Griffin.Rowland on Mon, 2010-03-29 16:01 with 0 comments

As the sixteenth quarter of high school starts, I really don’t feel any different then I did before. I have no real motivation to continue to get good grades except personal pride and parental pressure, but that’s always been the case. The idea of college is not really a motivator for me. I’d much rather have a blue-collar job for the rest of my life, but I also know that my parents have expectations that must be met. There would be consequences for bad grades, and I really wouldn’t like to explore them. So although I don’t have to do well this quarter, I’m just going to try anyway. I really don’t want to be that lazy kind of kid.

Vlogs, Vlogs

Discussion by: Griffin.Rowland on Mon, 2010-03-29 01:01 with 0 comments

The internet's contribution to the modern world has been quite large. In the nineties the it made its mark through sales and encyclopedia-type websites on everything one could imagine. It was a tool for sharing data of a certain sub-published standard. There were ranters that were present, but they were sparse, and there seemed to be a bar that had to be met in order for something to be on the internet. Fast forward to today, the era of online social networking, and literally everything of any quality is online.

Airport Security and AEnima

Discussion by: Griffin.Rowland on Mon, 2010-03-01 01:59 with 1 comments

Better Allocation of Course Concentrations

Discussion by: Griffin.Rowland on Wed, 2010-02-17 01:16 with 0 comments

Today, I was thinking about how an old friend once commented on the application of imaginary numbers in math class once. The teacher's response was, “they're kind of cool, and they help you understand some things later on.” Well, having been to later on, I can officially say that being taught about imaginary numbers did not help me, and although plotting complex numbers on an xy-coordinate system is kind of cool, that's a lame explanation for why we are learning something.

I'm glad I learned about imaginary numbers, even though I haven't used them at all after the final exam. This brought about a more disturbing thought. How much of what I have actually learned in high school will be useful to me after the test. I'm not so much concerned about learning useless information, but missing crucial information on key subjects because too much emphasis was placed on some unimportant subject. Dare I mention senior year Morality and Justice?

The End of Democracy, or Maybe Not

Discussion by: Griffin.Rowland on Mon, 2010-02-01 00:55 with 2 comments

A big headline in the news during the past week has been the recent Citizens United vs. the Federal Electoral Committee decision. I haven't really seen anyone celebrating the decision. Or at least I haven't seen anyone celebrating in person; I have seen pundits arguing about the case on national television. The response of the politically activists I know seems to be of disbelief and anger. The response of everyone else seems to be indifference. Although a lot of people will scoff at this as just another example of the poor state of society today, I'm not sure that indifference is an irresponsible response in this case.

I am not a fan of the decision that limiting campaign contributions is unconstitutional, and am certainly not pleased by the thought of corporations being able to effectively buy politicians through huge contributions, but I wonder wether huge money on campaign adds will actually put an election in the bag. More expensive doesn't necessarily mean better, and if both sides of an election are getting and spending huge amounts of cash, the winner will be the one that uses the money most effectively.

Christian Hardcore

Discussion by: Griffin.Rowland on Mon, 2009-12-21 01:27 with 3 comments

After our religion classes had to listen to recordings of the christian rock songs now in heavy rotation during school masses, some of my friends and I began joking about our school starting to include christian hardcore songs in the mass repertoire. Christian hardcore, for those normal enough to classify modern music into simple rock and rap genres, is a heavy metal offshoot, that derives its musical sound from death metal, but rather than satanic and secular lyrical themes, it uses the New Testament for lyrical muse.

It was only a matter of time before various heavy metal sub-genres started adopting christian themes because modern metal is usually associated with dramatic lyrical themes. Some kids that grew up listening to traditional metal bands liked the sound, but rejected the whole satanic image because of their christian upbringings. When they started their own bands, they used the traditionally brutal sound and delivery of the music to depict gospel images and themes. These bands are used as a form of ministry, intending to bring God into the lives of angry kids.

The Road

Discussion by: Griffin.Rowland on Fri, 2009-12-11 16:13 with 0 comments

You are missing some Flash content that should appear here! Perhaps your browser cannot display it, or maybe it did not initialize correctly.

Cormac McCarthy's the Road is ab fab, muy bueno, y muy interesanté.

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