Sunday, December 22, 2013

New Years Around the World

December 31st is coming up soon, and when the ball drops at midnight we will welcome in the New Year. We all have our traditions that we follow to welcome in the New Year and I thought it would be fun to explore different New Year's traditions around the world. 

Just to generalize most countries will welcome the New Year with parties, fire works, and resolutions. But there are interesting traditions that welcome the New Year around the world.

Ever since 1907 in the US thousands of people gather in Times Square in New York City to watch the ball drop as the clock reaches midnight. And even if you aren't there physically, you will be virtually, by turning on the your TV to watch the party.

In Japan New Years is the largest and most important holiday of the year. Before New Years Eve, Bonenkai or year forgetting parties are held to rid the worries and concerns of the year, so that your clear for the next. At midnight on December 31st Buddhist temples ring their bells 108 times to expel 108 different types of human weakness. People clean their house, car, and their soul, by letting go of past grudges to start the New Year fresh. It is also popular to send friends and family New Years Cards. On New Years day it is also Tradition to wake up early to witness the first sunrise of the New Year.  

In Greece New Years is also on the festival of St. Basil, who was a founder of the Greek Orthodox Church. During the festival St. Basil cakes are baked and eaten, and through out the batch some cakes will be backed with a silver or gold coin in it, and if you find it is supposed to signify a lucky New Year.

People in the Netherlands welcome in the New Year by burning Christmas Trees. The burning is meant to get rid of the old make way for the new.

In Spain it is tradition to eat 12 grapes at the strike of midnight. One grape equals one happy month in the upcoming year.

Columbia it is tradition to walk around the block with an empty suitcase to hope for a year filled travel. Or how I look at it could also be a year with no baggage. 

What I have learned form my Mom and her side of the family, in the Philippines it is tradition to eat round fruit or any thing in the shape of a circle at midnight. The round fruit are meant to represent coins and bring prosperity to the New Year. I don't know if the next one is as popular in the Philippines, but my family has does and you take any coined money and throw it around the house after midnight, and I'm assuming it is for the same reasons as listed above.

In Brazil after the fireworks are over at midnight, people run to the beach and skip over seven waves so that the sea goddess will open new paths for the new year. And with each skip a wish is made.

So there just some of the many interesting New Years traditions that take place over the globe. If you want you could adopt one of these or come up with one of your own traditions, regardless, goodbye 2013 and Happy New Year.

Sources



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Civil War in South Sudan

The recently formed country of South Sudan gained independence in 2011 and was admitted to the United Nations as the 193rd member. The country since then has been facing infighting in the country. On Sunday the 15th of December fighting broke out between two groups of rival soldiers within the capital city Juba and left hundreds dead and injured. Fighting continued into the Monday morning. The South Sudanese, President Salva Kiir declared a curfew from 6 pm to 6 am in Juba. The President has said the fight was started by soldiers who are loyal to Riek Machar the former Vice President before he was dismissed by Kiir in July. Kiir and Machar are political rivals as Kiir has accused Machar of starting a coup. Kiir and Machar come from rival ethnic groups, Kiir is a Dinka, while Machar is a Nuer.

Machar has stated that he did not order the attack in Juba and he said that the current president was “inciting tribal and ethnic violence” and that he should resign, according to the BBC. The Dinka and Nuer have a long history of fighting each other and it is believed this rivalry is being manipulated by different factions to gain more power.

The tension and fighting has escalated since the fighting outbreak in Juba. On Sunday December 22nd, Bentiu, the oil producing capital of South Sudan in Unity a state in South Sudan was taken under the control of a military commander who is loyal to Machar. Bor, the capital city of Jonglei a state in South Sudan, is also the scene of fighting between government troops and those loyal to Machar. Machar Loyalist are also said to have gain control of oilfields in Unity, which would affect the economy of South Sudan, because 99% of the country's budget comes from the oil it produces.

The UN has plans to help to diffuse and clam the situation, as South Sudan is the newest member of the UN. UN already was heavily involved in South Sudan. During the Juba fight, 20,000 civilians took shelter and continue to stay in UN bases. The US, UK and many other countries have evacuated their citizens and other nationals out of South Sudan. US and UN aircraft have come under small arms fire while evacuating foriegn citizens and staff. UN peacekeeping forces are being moved from the Congo and into South Sudan in order to aid with the situation. 

It will be interesting how the situation will last and how involved UN forces will be in South Sudan as the violence continues.

Sources

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Emerging Space Race

On December 15th China completed their first soft landing on the surface of the moon, the Chang'e 3, and as become to third country in the world to soft land onto the moon, the other two being the US and Russia. China has not been the second country to get a man on the moon, as this landing is was unnamed and contained a rover to explore the surface of the moon. But this is still important as this is also been the first time a country has soft landed on the moon in almost forty years, the last being the Luna 24 launched by the Soviet Union in 1976 and the last manned moon landing was the Apollo 17 launched by the US in 1972.

For many years the US and Russia have been the leading nations when it has come to space flight, but recently China has been rising as a power in space among the other rising space faring nations in Asia. China's space program is ambitious, launching their first astronaut in 2003 and planing to establish their own space station in Earth's orbit by 2020. China also plans to have their own manned base on the moon, which is more possible after their successful soft landing.

China is not the only rising space power in Asia. China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, and South Korea are all competing with each other to get the upper hand in space. Japan has launched cheaper rockets for satellites and this year South Korea has launched their first rocket into space. While this year India has their sights on a much farther target.

On November 5th, India launched a space craft headed to Mars and will land on the Red planet next September. If India's mission is successful, they will be the fourth space program to reach Mars, behind the US, Russia, and Europe. The craft is carrying an orbiter, that will orbit Mars and collect data and take pictures of the planet.

China and India have ambitious goals of their space programs and maybe their missions can push further exploration of our solar system and beyond.

Sources
China's Moon rover and Space Program
http://www.theguardian.com/science/2013/dec/15/china-moon-rover-makes-tracks
http://www.theguardian.com/science/2013/dec/20/china-jade-rabbit-rover-space-politics
http://www.forbes.com/sites/brucedorminey/2013/12/14/chinas-space-agenda/
Asian Space Race
http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-12-11/india-and-china-move-ahead-in-the-asian-space-race
India's Mission to Mars
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/01/india-mars-mission-mangalyaan-leaves-eath-orbit
Picture Source
Chang'e 3 Moon Rover-http://www.space.com/23997-nasa-spacecraft-china-moon-lander.html




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Sunday, December 15, 2013

Poverty Line or Wall


I saw this image a while ago on Reddit and it also popped up on other sites. The image is titled "Literal poverty line in Brazil". As from the title and the picture, you can clearly see the difference between the two living conditions. On the left of the image, the buildings are small and cramped together. While on the right of the image, they live in towering buildings, with their own pools and tennis courts. I looked up where this was located in Brazil and it was Paraisopolis, Sao Paulo. You can even use these coordinates on Google maps to see it for your self (-23.614497°, -46.730708°). If you zoom out it is very clear to see what are the rich and poor areas. 

Slum or poor areas are every where in the world, I just found this image weird that the two were so close and very different from the other. The two seem to represent the most extreme of both sides of the spectrum.

Another cool example I found of a visible poverty line was an image taken from Egypt. You can see the obvious difference between the rich and the poor. The rich are living in nice and clean apartments, well lit street and clean streets. And the poor are living in half built brick buildings with no windows. The buildings don't even go above 4 stories. There are hardly any people out on the street on the rich side of the line, they are all most likely enjoying their pool and AC, while on the poor side everyone is out and about, because it is probably the same temperature inside as it is outside. Looking at the amount of people out and about on the poor side of the line, it looks like that there are more people then there are space for them to live in. But the most odd and ridiculous part of this picture is that the split between the poor and the rich is a wall, a freaking wall that is three stories high and extents out into the river by eight feet!

There are just two cases I have found when comes to these "literal poverty lines" and they give this feel that you either look up at the top and say "I want that", or look out to the bottom and think "thank god I'm not down there." 

Sao Paulo
Egypt




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The Universal Food

Food, I eat food, you eat food, that guy on the bus eats food, that guy living on the street wants to eat food, North Korea says they eat food. we all eat food. With our world being connected as it is, it can't be too hard to find out what the most eaten food is in the world, the item that would represent the food item of the world. 

Now according to top-food.net, (by the way some of the things on the list, to me at least same odd) the most eaten food in the world is the glorious chicken. This makes sense, considering that as of  2003, the population of chicken in the world was at 24 billion, compared to the human population with about 7 billion. With those numbers every one in the world could about 3-4 chickens. Chicken is obviously popular around the world. So many people use the phrase "it taste like Chicken" when asked to describe the taste of some exotic meat to their friends, and that because it seems to be the most universally known taste.

A good portion of the items listed, are more of how the food is prepared, like pizza, bread, and pasta, while I was looking for the base food item. The 3rd one the list on top-food.net is rice, which I think should be the second one instead of pizza. China and India, the most populous nations in the world have rice as their most eaten food, which makes it pretty popular. Rice is a staple house hold product everywhere. Every household has a rice bag setting in their pantry, weather they use it for making a delicious rice dish or use it to dry out their water damaged phones.

If you find your self to be hosting a party of guest from around the world and don't know what to serve, just play it safe and give them a blow of rice and chicken breast. 
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The Odd Shape of the International Date Line

The International Date Line is an imaginary line in the middle of the Pacific Ocean that splits one day of the calendar with another. The International Date Line  is good for practical purposes, but it is based on another imaginary line, the Prime Meridian.

The Prime Meridian and the International Date Line are on opposite sides of the globe.  Both of these lines were determined and standardized in the International Meridian Conference in 1884. Prime Meridian became 0 degrees longitude and the opposite was the 180 degrees longitude or the 180th meridian. The International Date Line is mostly based off the 180th because most of the line passes through open water except for a small part of Russia and some Pacific Islands, but if you look at a map you can clearly see that the International Date Line doesn't even follow the 180th meridian from the North pole to the South pole. It angles off into other directions and makes weird shapes and finally meets at the South pole. It is hardly a line.

The reason the International Date Line is an oddly shaped line is because of politics, economics, and some other stuff nations like to argue about. Even though a small tip of Russia passes over the 180th meridian into the west part, it is on the east side of the International Date Line instead of the west, the same is said about the US State of Alaska, with the most west part of the state being put on the west side of the International Date Line. these situations make sense, because who wants to live in the same country as another person, but your one day ahead and their one day behind, that would just be confusing and cause some unnecessary problems.

Some countries have changed their position on what side of the International Date Line they were on. For some time when the Philippines was under Spanish control, the island nation was on the west side of the International Date Line, so that Spanish America and the Philippines would be on the same  date, around the 1840s the Philippines switched to the east side of the International Date Line, so that the country could be on the same date as China and the Dutch East Indies, which in all honesty makes a lot more sense, considering the distance between Central America and the Philippines.

The most recent change to the what side the a country was of the International Date Line was on December 30th 2011, when Samoa skipped the 30th and jumped to the 31st by crossing over to the east side of the International Date Line. Samoa, 121 years ago was originally on the east side of the date line, but the King at the time was convinced by U.S. traders to switch, because trade would be easier between the two nations and making Samoa have the same date as American Samoa. The change was brought along because over the years the nearby countries Australia and New Zealand have become closer trade partners with Samoa, compared to the US, and a large number of Samoans live in Australia and New Zealand.

There are probably more examples of situations like these, but these are just a few. If anything can be learned from the International Date Line it is that no matter what rules are made there are always exceptions.

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Sunday, December 8, 2013

Olympic Perpration

The Winter Olympics is coming up next year in February of  2014 in Sochi, Russia, and all the top athletes of every nation will come to compete in the winter sports. Everyone is hyped up to watch the opening ceremony and watch the top athletes compete, but other nations are going through a lot preparation to host their upcoming games. 

The 2014 games being held in Sochi has had the biggest budget spent on any Olympic games, costing at $50 billion. For comparison the games in Beijing were $40 billion and the London games were $19 billion. Most of the money was used to help build infrastructure in Sochi, because about 85 percent of the infrastructure of the city had to be built from starch. 

Brazil's Rio de Janerio won as the next host of the summer Olympics in 2016 and the country has been preparing for their new arrivals for some time now. The government has put in $25.9 billion  into the making sure the city is ready. Brazil has already completed most of the Olympic arenas and venues for the games. The Brazilian government has upgraded the cities mass transit system, renovated buildings covered in graffiti and gone into disrepair. Brazil hopes to use the games to help boast their country's economy.

Pyeongchang, South Korea was given the right to host the 2018 winter Olympics and according to the IOC (International Olympic Committee) the city is well on track to completing their preparations. The city is located in a provenience near the Demilitarized Zone of the two Koreas and the organizers have stated that they will use the games to promote peace between the north and the south.

The next the city that will be hosting last of the known upcoming games is Tokyo, Japan in the 2020 Summer Olympics. The government plans to use the Olympics to promote health and fitness in Japanese school and public. It is said they will have make Japan more accessible for disabled people, because of the Paralympics that are hosted alongside the Olympics.

The games are not only a way for countries to showcase their top athletes, but also used to promote peace, culture, and health. 

The Olympics


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Enter the Smog

On Friday, December 6th, the Chinese city of Shanghai suffered its worst case of smog. The smog has closed down the city, schools are not allowed to let students out, flights delayed,  and sporting events canceled. People have been advised not to go outside and government vehicles have out numbered the number of civilian vehicles as they watch the smog. The smog is expected to be around till Monday.

Shanghai is not the only city in China experiencing the unsafe smog levels. Beijing and Guangzhou have also been notorious in having smog in the city. The smog also moves closer into inland cities of China, instead of just sticking to the big three on its eastern coast. The smog is attributed to coal burning, factories, and car exhaust from the cities.

China is known for its unsafe levels of smog that plague the cities, for example when Beijing came under attack during the 2008 Olympics, because of its high levels of air pollution. However the cities of China are not the only place that suffers from heavy air.

Smog affects many major cities across the globe. Even here in the US cities are periodically affected by Smog. Most of the the areas in the US that are affected are those in the state of California and on the east coast.

Smog has attacked cities as long as we have been industrialized and there a ways to combat and reduce smog across the world. Car exhaust is a huge contributor to smog across the world. By creating cars that produce less CO2 and that are more fuel efficient smog can be prevented in major cities like Beijing and LA. There is the obvious of creating factories that produce less CO2 and using clean energy instead of fossil fuels. Of course there are other solutions that will get rid of smog in the short term.

The Chinese government has invested about $277 billion dollars into rockets that will make it rain. These rockets will create artificial rain that will help clear up the smog in cities.

One way or another we will have to combat the smog either with weapons that create rain in the short term or reducing the amount of CO2 we produce.

China in Smog
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/12/07/shanghai-smog_n_4402477.html
http://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1376388/smog-set-lift-eastern-china-experts-say-solution-long-way
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn24700-could-china-combat-smog-with-artificial-rain.html#.UqUx1tJDto0
Locations in the US
http://environment.about.com/od/smogfaq/f/smog_faq_four.htm






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Bitcoin, a Global Currency

Bitcoins has quickly become a new and powerful currency. Bitcoin is an all digital currency which was first introduced in 2009 by an anonymous person that went by the name of Satoshi Nakamoto, and in 2010 left the project. The project however continued because of Bitcoin's open source code, allowing any one to contribute and participate in the project.

Bitcoin is like any other currency in the world, like the US dollar, Euro, Yen, or the UK pound, stored in your wallet, or in the case of the Bitcoin, in your digital wallet, except there is no central authority that facilitates Bitcoin and has completely anonymous transactions. You can acquire Bitcoins in 4 different ways, first accepting them as payment, donations, buying them, or making your own Bitcoins by mining them. Mining is the term used to describe the creation of new Bitcoins. Anyone can sit up a server which through a long and lengthily process unique Bitcoins are produced. Once a Bitcoin is produced the miner, can keep it for them self, sell it, or use it.

The value of Bitcoins have increased dramatically since its creation. On December first the Bitcoin reached its height, at $1203 and as of now it is $726 per Bitcoin, according to blockchain.info, a popular online Bitcoin wallet. 

$726 is still quite a significant amount of money for one Bitcoin and may continue to rise or fall, depending on how governments plan to handle it. Because of Bitcoins decentralization, many organizations are wary of it. Just as of last Thursday, Decmember 5th, China has restricted banks from accepting Bitcion as a currency, which in return had the value of Bitcoins drop from its over 1,000 dollar value to its current $726 value. 

The Bitcoin has become popular, because of its high value. At football game at Auburn University, broadcasted by ESPN on November 30th, an attendee held up a sign that had scanable QR code, and on the sign it read "HI MOM SEND Bitcoins". The attendee ended up receiving 22 Bitcoins, which at the time was about $24,000.

Another man recently seeing the value of Bitcoin, now has to dig through 4 feet deep of garbage in order to find his fortune in a dump in Newport, Whales. John Howells in the middle of summer through out a hard drive containing 7,500 Bitcoins, worth about 4 million Pounds, or about 6.5 million Dollars. Howell had his laptop set up to mine Bitcoins in 2009 and were stored on his hard drive. Now it is almost impossible to find and will likely be lost in the dump.  

Everyone is going crazy over Bitcoin, but it is hard to determine if its value will continue to rise and be recognized as a legitimate currency.

The Bitcoin
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