Violent Woman Savagely Wttacks a Young Girl and Her Little Brother

    Recently, a video has been uploaded to YouTube capturing the events of a middle-aged African American woman - who eventually was identified as Shania Bryant - assaulting a young girl and her little brother. The context as to why this occurred has not been revealed as of yet, but, regardless of what it is, is it honestly justifiable towards attacking kids? There are may things that are disturbing about his video - the actual event, the cheering spectators, and it being recorded for amusement. I have linked the video here. Viewer discretion is advised.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iOFzXZtj9IY

[Note: The video may be taken down later on like many others due to a violation of terms and services. There are multiple other sources publicly available.]

   Before going into what I'd like to discuss, I would like to point out that, since this video's upload, several hundred people are now on the initiative to see that the woman beating the children will be put to prison. They have even attained her home addresses, Facebook, etc. It goes to show how a riled up force on the Internet can achieve so much against certain things. Not to take this lightly or sarcastically as this has been proven effective on multiple occasions.

 In class, we have discussed race crimes several times over - like the events at Ferguson, for example. We have gotten deep into the fight of "whites against blacks" and have mentioned "blacks against whites" from time to time usually to remind ourselves that it's not just one targeted at another. The video I provided was not only to garner attention towards this event, but to provide as an example of blacks against whites. I would like that it not put the whole African American race into a negative light, but to unveil one of the many racist crime acts that occur today. One of many that people like to ignore.

  Regardless of race, ethnicity, etc, hate crime is inexcusable. One instance should not overshadow another depending on the race - all issues must come to light. Although, today's media broadcast through television could care any less. As a result, most people tend to overlook black against white hate crimes. The only time it would be remembered would be through ideas of African Americans being violent conceived through thoughts racial and stereotypical thoughts. However, such issues are gaining a reputation on the Internet hoping to cover all instances of hate crimes which is a good thing. Reflecting on these issues, good ideas to discuss would be "Why are hate crimes occurring?", "Why is the media ignoring certain issues?", "Why is America called a place of equality and freedom when people today are battered and bloodied by racism, prejudice, and social tension?"

Pixels Worth Thousands

  Can you imagine a few hundred pixels on your computer screen being worth thousands? One could imagine looking at their wallet full of money and then glance at a virtual item and say, "Like something so unreal could be worth more than the actual cash I have." Well, there's that chance that it could be. There are actually quite a lot of virtual objects that would lead to somebody breaking the bank if they were to purchase them. Here are a few examples:

Platinum Baby Roshan (Dota 2)

Value: $2,300+

Golden Frying Pan (Team Fortress 2) 

Value: $5,000+

Spaceships (Eve Online)

Value: $11,000-

Atrox Queen Dinosaur Egg (Entropia Universe)

Value: $70,000

  

  Quite the sum of money for virtual items, huh. Deriving from this topic, one could go into the virtual economies of video games - usually MMORPGs. However, I would just like to display this and marvel at it while giving a bit of a  personal background in relation to it. It is simply amazing what virtual items can bring gamers towards.

   A while back, I decided to get into the economic aspect of a game I played for quite some time. That game was Team Fortress 2. This economic aspect was just trading and haggling for something worth more than what you already have. Then you could go on and on until you meet riches. A goal for all traders was to achieve this Golden Frying Pan. It carried so much hype around it when it was released that the first person to received one was spammed with hundreds of random invites and messages asking to trade. From his offers, the highest set the bar for the price range it currently is at now - $5,000; however, it will not stay at that price forever.

   The real scope of the matter is that one is trading virtual items worth $0.25 to $10.00 in order to reach another virtual item worth hundreds. From that, they riskily trade up for items worth thousands. It's a lengthy but intriguing system to see people work their way up to riches through thousands of deals. 

Speedrunning Video Games

   Doing things fast and as fast as you can is always interesting. People can run in track to aim for the top in competitive communities and so can gamers in video games. However, they are not actually running but using the skills they've devloped in order to achieve the fastest times they can in beating a game. It is not something to take lightly though. People who are fervently interested in speedrunning video games are genuinely serious and devoted to it. They will spend countless hours to perfect methods in saving even less than second of time to achieve new records.

   There are three main categories for speedrunning: Any%, the fastest completion; 100%, the fullest completion; and Low%, the minimalist completion. Some games allow for more specific categories to be input towards a run. The Any% and Low% category are virtually the same; however, the Any% category requires beating the game as fast as you can and in any way you can. That of course includes major glitches and the like. Before attempting a run, there are preparations set beforehand to achieve the goal of completion - aside from choosing a game they are competent at, of course.

1.  First, they plan a route to take. In a simple sense, a route is the path taken from on position to another - point A to point B. A runner must take into consideration how to approach certain areas in order to avoid unnecessary events that, if confronted, waste time. So, they research and perform multiple trials and errors. Of course, there will be games that have a multitude of possibilities more extensive than that of a linear game, such as Pokemon. All that brings is more research and testing.                                                                            
2.  Second is sequence breaking. Here, runners choose or attempt to avoid certain segments in the game such as cutscenes or items. These events may be integral towards the establishment of a games plot, but they are still avoided. This is where the term sequence break comes from. Stemming from this are glitches. They manipulate the game in ways unintended and can be extremely difficult or fairly simple. 

   An example of glitching for faster times for those of you who have played Super Mario 64 is beating the game with only 16 out of the 120 stars. Usually, 70 is the minimum but by utilizing several precise glitches, one can beat it with only 16. Imagine all the time it saves if you were to speedrun it! Here's a video for reference.

   Similar to using glitches for runs are Tool-Assisted Speedrunning, or TAS for short. The runner utilizes several tools to create optimal events for speeding through events. One prominent tool is the save-state. It is used as a save point to rewind back to in order to revise minuscule mistakes. TAS runs are mainly used to attain perfection. The tools are utilized to perform actions that can be impossible to achieve normally as a human. Because TAS runs require the usage of tools and the like, it is often forbidden from being used in regular speedruns since it would be regarded as cheating. For this reason, they devolved into their own TAS speedrunning category. 

   Now, what else besides seeing how fast you can beat a game or how much you have mastered it can you get out of speedrunning? Millions of dollars apparently. Not for one's self, however, but for several charities. Speed Demos Archive is a website dedicated to video game speedruns. They host two annual speedrunning marathons to raise money for several causes. They are known as Awsome Games Done Quick and Summer Games Done Quick. Here, multiple people just sit down and speedrun video games. They have fun and raise money while they are at it. If you love video games, their streams are amazing to watch and you could even donate too. 

Was staying up worth it?

    When you ask yourself "How much sleep do I need?", do you consider an answer based on what is healthy or what you can handle? If you were to give an answer regarding health, a natural answer would be eight to nine hours. What we can handle, though, can bring about an array of answers. Place yourself in the position of someone who attends school with relatively challenging classes  or extra curricular activities that keep you working through the day and night. Given these circumstances, I know of some people who would reply to the questions that they could handle maybe five, two, or as little to no sleep at all to keep going through the next day. I would say the same since I do what just that and I'm sure some of you would agree to. However, do we really know how badly this would affect us?

    The chart above gives us a general idea of how much sleep we need. Multiple charts differ, but this allows one to gather a relative understanding of how much is suitable. As a teenager myself, I would always say that eight hours is perfect. Even six hours would be good. Maybe even four? We'll wake up the same, right? Well, not necessarily. Even an hour difference in sleep times provides a change in performances the next day be it noticeable to you or not. However, finding how many hours of sleep you need for optical performance best determined by self evaluation. A careful analysis of how you perform one day after a recommended amount of sleep compared to one with your own set hours, such as two or four, is the key.

    Personally, my sleep schedule is two to four hours per night. Four out of eight, huh? I can go through a day with just that amount of sleep? Well, yes. I assume it is because I have grown accustomed to it. I've learned to naturally deal with it to the point where I am not as tired as I should be. Now then, I know some of you may be thinking of REM sleep cycles as to my successful manipulation and you may be right even if my clocked hours don't fit so perfectly. However, I think it's weird being able to do this for as long as I have. Lately, I have gotten concerned about how my sleep is affecting my performance since I have been struggling with things I used to do with ease. These afflictions are symptoms of something know as sleep deprivation - something I'm sure we all have learned about one way or another.

Symptoms of sleep deprivation include:

• Decreased attentiveness
• Trouble with memory retention 
• Loss of concentration
• Impaired motor skills
• Increased stress
• Lack of better judgement
• Increased risk of health problems
• Weight gain
• Lack of motivation
• Mental impairment 

    I've been experiencing a few of these for a while now due to my chronic lack of sleep. However, I only became truly aggravated when I began experiencing a decrease in the ability to retain memories or knowledge. I began to forget simple things and I realized I was forgetting them. It's not to say that it's the only symptom I've been dealing with, but it's just to let you know that only when something really prominent hits somebody does that truly enforce the person to begin to act against it.

Anyways, cheers and have a good night.