Blog Post #4

 The first ever video game created was called Tennis for Two. It was created by William Higinbotham in 1958 on an oscilloscope. It was meant to be a fun little party trick for people to see on an otherwise non fun device however, it would be the spark for an industry that would eventually become bigger than even Hollywood. 

The first ever computer designed for the sole purpose of playing games was the Magnavox Odyssey. It was created by Ralph Baer in 1967 and it was capable of playing very simple games and sold about 700,000 copies. One of those simple games was Pong. Pong was developed by Atari and obviously took inspiration from Tennis for Two. Pong was the first globally successful commercial video game and is what a lot of people think of when you think of "The First Video Game".

https://www.wonderopolis.org/wonder/who-invented-the-first-video-game

Atari would be the king of video game development until the mid-80s when Nintendo would launch their own console, the Nintendo Entertainment System or NES. Nintendo would develop higher quality games like Super Mario Bros and Duck Hunt and would take over 80% of the market space until the late 90's. In the late 90's Nintendo would see some competition from Sega and their Genesis console but ultimately Nintendo would win and keep making consoles. Sony would challenge Nintendo in 1995 with their PlayStation console and it was such a success that Sony would stick around with their consoles until the present day. Microsoft would get into the video game console wars in 2001. Nintendo, Microsoft, and Sony would have a 3-way console market war until the present day.

Video Games can have negative effects. Spending long hours staring at a screen and only moving your hands is bad for your mental and physical health. You can end up not developing proper social habits if you stay inside and not talk to anyone just playing video games. You can end up with poor mental health if you do not get proper amounts of vitamin D and exercise. And speaking of needing proper exercise if you do not get exercise you will develop all kinds of physical health problems. 

Video games have provided a gateway for people to experience stories without relying on their imagination. You can see new worlds that you would never see in your usual day-to-day lives, you could experience stories that you yourself are influencing instead of watching, stories that you can experience without having to imagine what is happening. For me personally and a lot of designers, video games are a career. I use them as a way to express myself, I pour all of myself into the games I make and it is very beneficial to me as a person. 

Pictured here is me presenting a game that I made. Sure games can have negative effects, but just like anything, the negative effects can be offset with moderation. I put a lot of work into my game. I learned how to network and learned the inner workings of the business and marketing world all because of video games.

Post #2 Supreme Court

 I think the most important thing to take away from the video is the fact that the Supreme Court only accepts one hundred of the 7000 total applications on average per year. They are a very elite court, most of the applications they see are ones where they are trying to overturn a lower-court decision. They also only get these documents once a week so it is a very slow process. I also think that it is important to stress just how many "weekly" tasks they do. They hold weekly meetings to discuss what cases to take on, holding weekly meetings for the cases that they have already decided to take.

Another really important thing I want to discuss is why they turn down cases. They do not choose cases based off of personal opinion. They choose the cases to take based off of their precedential value. If a case is not that important in terms of precedent they will not take it.

The most surprising thing that I learned is that the Justice's have their own small team of clerks and secretaries. I think it is fun to think about the Justice's just having their own little team instead of a team of secretaries that takes care of them. I also was surprised to learn about this random fun fact for their meetings, they have to shake each other's hands every time they meet. It is because they believe that touching each other's hands is important, it makes it easier to not hold grudges with other people.

The video changed the way I feel about the Supreme Court. I already assumed that they were a slow-moving group but I never knew just how slow everything was. I know it is because of the fact that they need to for Judicial Restraint's sake.

Blog Post #3 Most Important Values

     The value that resonates with me the most is promoting tolerance. I come from a Right Wing family and as a competitive Super Smash Bros player I hang out with an extremely Left Wing crowd. The most important lesson that this has taught me was to be tolerant of both opinions. Freedom of Speech protects hate speech, which at the end of the day, is just someone's opinion no matter how bad it sounds. Learning how to handle people's opinions no matter how incorrect is something really important to me when I am getting to know someone. Today's political environment is also really divided so people really need to learn how to listen to people who are different from them. We need to promote tolerance from both sides of the political spectrum. Every political writing today comes from just trying to shock value their side and show that they are correct.

CNN

Fox News

The values that I believe to be the most important for society are participation in self-government and individual self-fulfillment. I believe that in order to have a functional constitution and government there need to be people who actively want to be in those positions, you cannot expect high-quality work from someone who does not want to do a job. The founding fathers had to create the idea of Judicial Review so that people would want to be on the Supreme Court instead of being forced into a role they did not want to have. You would not ask someone who does not like soccer to go score goals. 

Here is a link to our notes where we got the Judicial Review Fact
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1WEW-Q08GIiY-jKrGANMUfLKPJQacKyzuqtIwAk_Lz8A/edit?usp=sharing

I also believe individual self-fulfillment is important. America was founded on the principle of being able to do what you want. I also believe the widely-known idea of "The American Dream" is the foremost example of fulfilling your personal dream. You should be able to accomplish whatever you set your mind to in America. Celebrities can come from anywhere and America prides itself on its ability to make celebrities. I also believe that this one coincides with the value of the marketplace of ideas.

America is a "hot pot", for everyone's ideas to come together and help each other attain their goals and these 2 values build off of each other. Alongside the value of the marketplace of ideas, I believe that promoting innovation is also brought up from this value. I like to think of individual self-fulfillment as a major value that encapsulates the 2 minor values. 

Lastly, I want to talk about the structure of these values. I think calling them the 8 values is a little insincere since there are some that are way more important and encapsulating than others. I think that they should be called the 4 or 5 values depending on what you would consider major and then have some as minor values. I do believe they are all important just not equally important.

Blog Post #1 Top 5 News Sources

 I am not super interested in the news right now. I have nothing against people that are very much into politics it is just that I have to spend my time making games and doing work instead of politics. Most of what I hear about politics is from other people because I do not actively seek out politics.

#1

https://www.youtube.com/@Channel5YouTube

I guess my most trusted news source would be Channel 5 with Andrew Callaghan. Channel 5 is a YouTube channel where the host, Andrew will travel to the most extreme rallies of both of America's political sides and interview people. He will go to Black Reparations Rallies and then next week he will be actively traveling with the Truckers convoy. He is completely unbiased in his questioning and I really enjoy just seeing all the different kinds of people. I was originally unsure whether to call this a "news source" or not but it is definitely the form of politics I interact with the most.

#2

https://www.foxnews.com/

Fox News is not somewhere i actively go to get my News. However, when I am home from college my parents love leaving fox news on the TV so I whenever I want to have a conversation with them I will undoubtedly have to listen to "The Five" or whatever is on. I like to think of myself as a moderate if I had to give myself a political identity so getting right wing opinions is important in order to be a balanced person.

#3

https://twitter.com/home

I have no idea if I should refer to it as Twitter or X, because of the fact that I am so used to calling it Twitter I am just going to stick with that name. I do not actively look for political posts on twitter but they always find a way to show up. I am very distrusting of any political post because 99% of the time they are not posting the full story and are just trying to get more likes or get people on their side. However, I guess I would call it a news source because of how it makes me semi aware of things that are going on in the world.

#4

https://www.instagram.com/

Instagram is kind of the same as Twitter to me. I do not actively look for politicized posts but they always find a way to appear on my screen whether it be through friends reposting things or just them getting recommended to me on my "For You page". I believe Instagram and Tiktok are usually extremely liberal with what posts they want to recommend me and in order to be a moderate I think it is useful to get these kinds of posts and make me at least aware.

#5
https://myfox8.com/

The last place I get my news from is local news. I originally was not aware of any local news because of the fact I would not go out of the way to find it but, in one of my classes right now, at the start of every class, we are required to research local news and write how we are feeling about it. I really enjoy the positive posts instead of reading about a shooting.