Blog under construction (well not really but I’m stumped)
I got luckyand received some constructive feedback these past few days. Since Posterous staff also said they were going to look into why some text colors were off, this is just a post here to say I’m temporarily thinking of re-hauling the blog as I try to improve my writing style.
Good day and talk to you when all this is done.P.S. I’m still available on Twitter and the Forum
Although this answer is talking about the culture of Libertarians in general, I’m sharing this answer because I feel this is also a good analogy to why I’m elitist towards the definition of Hikikomori but it doesn’t mean I’m trying to insist a fan club community where people who don’t fit my definition should stay away from hikikomories and why I encourage non-hikikomories to participate but also I discourage people who don’t fit the label (from my perspective) to stop claiming they are hikikomories:
Libertarians, in my perception, are stuck in what I term a “hairpin bend”. That is, the people who are less wise than them are frequently indistinguishable from the people who are more wise than them.There’s a large class of people who disagree with libertarianism because they’re clueless about economics, misunderstand the basic tenets and make stupid arguments. There’s another, smaller group of people who understand perfectly well how libertarianism works and choose to reject it for intelligent, well thought out reasons. From the outside, both will have roughly the same range of political beliefs.So what happens is some people from the first group will have an epiphany, they will finally get libertarianism and they will become a loyal convert. For some fraction of the group who become libertarians, they will have a second epiphany, realize the various fundamental flaws that make it a fundamentally unworkable system and leave libertarianism for a more mainstream political philosophy.As you get a boiling off of the most enlightened members, the hairpin bend becomes a concentration of a certain type of person. This, in a large part, IMHO, explains the uniformity of personality of libertarians compared to many other social groups.Every time you have a hairpin bend, you tend to see this similar phenomena and it can often be used as a diagnosis for where hairpin bends exist.Note: There may well exist further hairpin bends further up the wisdom chain and it does seem some people have an epiphany back into libertarianism. This is mainly a critique of the “naive libertarianism” viewpoint.
(Old) Being exasperated with people who just don’t listen -> politically correct copy-paste version
Personally, these aren’t much help to me and I constantly break them but they are a set of good reminders nevertheless:Don’t take negative comebacks to heart.
When you are faced with one of life’s more challenging personalities, the best thing to do is to not take it personally. Sometimes it is your self-assurance that is a cause of irritation for less secure people and their response is to try and weevil their way in through criticism. This is never a reason to fall back into old patterns of unhealthy communication styles. Simply reassert whatever your point is and choose to leave it there. It is something they can work on with the full enlightenment on where you stand.
Seek the middle way.
Sometimes if you’re placed in a position of having to choose between differing viewpoints in a group, there might be accusations of arrogance against one division by the other. Always consider the possibility of being able to acknowledge both sides of the argument and finding the middle way to draw the concerns together. You don’t necessarily have to solve the situation but you can be a powerful facilitator to the group finding an answer to its division through your assertive communications. In such situations, inform everyone that the situation is not one for blame, not one for recriminations, and not one for finding fault. Instead, help people to see that there is a chance for compromise by showing them where each has made assumptions about the other or the facts of the situation, while still upholding your own belief or opinion. And suggest that they have another look at things to reach a compromise.
Do not confuse criticism with insults.
Insults are ad hominem (personal conflict like off-topic descriptions of a person) but criticism may change your life for the better because you may use it to redirect your communication and efforts. Stay engaged and active while not allowing the criticism to stagnate you, but use the stirring-up to prompt a flow of more appropriate inputs and outputs…
Should statements.
You beat up on yourself as a way of getting motivated to do something. You “should” do this, you “must” do this, you “ought” to do this, and so on. This doesn’t make you want to do it, it only makes you feel guilty. When you direct should statements toward others, you feel anger, frustration, and resentment.
Remind yourself that you don’t need anyone’s approval.
If you’re especially sensitive to people’s behavior towards you, to the extent that you regularly overreact, it might be because you’ve got a strong radar for rejection. If you pick up on any kind of displeasure, you worry that you’re doing something wrong, and you want to fix it eagerly, anxiously. But just because someone isn’t happy with you doesn’t mean you’ve done something wrong. In many cases, it means that person isn’t happy with themselves, and expects you to fill in the blanks (which is impossible).
Know your emotions.
When our ancestors encountered an enemy or a wild animal on a jungle trail, there were only a limited number of things they could do. They could fight, run away, become paralyzed with indecision, or give up. Each of these responses matches the four emotions just mentioned. But in the much more complicated jungle of modern life, these emotions are often no longer useful, and may actually do us a great deal of harm.
See it as an opportunity to improve — and without that constant improvement, we are just sitting still.
Improvement is a good thing. For example, this criticism: “You write about the same things over and over and your blog posts are boring and stale”, can be read: “I need to increase the variety of my posts and find new ways of looking at old things.” That’s just one example of course — you can do that with just about any criticism. Sometimes it’s just someone having a bad day, but many times there’s at least a grain of truth in the criticism.
Be the better person.
Too many times we take criticism as a personal attack, as an insult to who we are. But it’s not. Well, perhaps sometimes it is, but we don’t have to take it that way. Take it as a criticism of your actions, not your person. If you do that, you can detach yourself from the criticism emotionally and see what should be done. But the way that many of us handle the criticisms that we see as personal attacks is by attacking back. “I’m not going to let someone talk to me that way.” Especially if this criticism is made in public, such as in the comments of a blog or on a forum. You have to defend yourself, and attack the attacker … right? Wrong. By attacking the attacker, you are stooping to his level. Even if the person was mean or rude, you don’t have to be the same way. You don’t have to commit the same sins. Be the better person.
Understand that it’s not you, it’s them.
This can be surprisingly difficult, considering that impossible people have complete mastery of blaming skills. If you’re dealing with an impossible person, you’re probably being told on a regular basis that every conceivable thing is your fault. It isn’t. As the saying goes, “It takes two to tango.” Chances are, the more often they blame you, the more they themselves are actually at fault. Keep in mind that this is not to be used as a way to blame them. Blaming is what impossible people do, and they do it well. Instead, you are only facing the facts, for your own sake. That being said, here’s a simple way to tell: If you accept responsibility for your own faults and resolve to improve yourself, it’s probably not you. Remember, impossible people can do no wrong.
It is not easier to avoid life’s difficulties and responsibilities than to face them.
Even painful experiences, once we can get through them, can serve as a basis for learning and future growth.
Protect your self-esteem.
If you have regular dealings with someone who tries to portray you as the source of all evil, you need to take active steps to maintain a positive self-image. Remind yourself that this person’s opinion is not necessarily the truth. Understand that oftentimes, impossible people are particularly “fact-challenged.” If the attacks have little basis in raw fact, dismiss them. You can’t possibly be as bad as this person would like you to believe you are. Do not defend yourself out loud, however. It will only provoke the impossible person into another tirade.
Guard against anger.
If it helps, consider the fact that your anger is actually a precious gift to the impossible person. Anything you do or say while angry will be used against you over and over again. Impossible people tend to have amazing memories, and they will not hesitate to use a nearly endless laundry list of complaints from the past against you. Five years from now, you could be hearing about the angry remark you made today (which you didn’t even mean in the first place). Impossible people will seize anything that provides them the opportunity to lay blame like it was gold.
You should care if you offend someone.
You should care for others’ feelings but in a positive way, not in a way which weakens you. There is no problem if you hesitate to say something because you do not want to hurt the listener, but if your hesitation is due to fear and not because of genuine sympathy for the listener, then you need to work on overcoming this negative trait within you.
Realize that impossible people engage in projection.
Understand that you are going to be accused of much (or all) of this behavior yourself. If your impossible person gets a look at this text, to them it will look like a page about you. Prepare yourself for the fact that the impossible person’s flaws and failings will always be attributed to you. Remember, in their minds, you are at fault for everything! They will have an endless supply of arguments to support this, and if you make the mistake of encouraging them, they will be more than happy to tell you why you are the impossible person, and how ironic it is that you are under the mistaken impression that it is them.
People with anti-social personality disorders lack the capacity for a conscience and thus have no sense of right and wrong except for how to get what they want.
But they are not always to be found in prisons. They are often very charming people, and make great salespersons — or politicians. Some of them can be very good at it, and they just might end up as elected officials or the CEOs of major corporations. Often times they are also exceptionally intelligent.
Now that there’s a forum, I’m thinking of dropping the chewables type threads on the blog as they are often copy pasted and I don’t add any extra original content to them most of the time. That said I wonder which is more preferable for the readers. Some of the core differences I can think of are:Blogs:Easier navigation and discovery - Posts are auto-tweeted. Don’t require posts to keep on top. Longer staying time - While both are free services I’m registered into and neither contents are backed up on my side, the blogs are more longer lasting because even if the comments fell from spamming the content and position of the post remains the same. Also since my Posterous is also auto-posted in Tumblr, it’s two baskets vs. one.Youtube embeds - While a member on the forum said it’s possible to add youtube tags, he didn’t show me how. Forum:Easier anonymous posting - The open forum doesn’t require providing your e-mail.Forum lay-out - Maybe this is just a biased sample but it seems more hikikomories are willing to comment and discuss things on a discussion board than if it’s on someone’s blog. That said, it’s still no anonymous imageboard though. I know some blogs often cross-post from a blog to a forum but I’ve always felt that it unnecessarily spreads the commentors apart. That said, I am guilty of separating Posterous and Tumblr copies of the blog but I felt that was more of a background and backup issue.
For those who didn’t visit the Posteous pages, here’s what I mean by a chewables thread: Copy-Paste: The adversity of opportunity
Note picture above not from actual link.Link:http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/humanbody/mind/surveys/smiles/ I’ve already retweeted this from Catarina’s twitter stream but I just thought of blogging this anyway to highlight the quiz. That said, I don’t know the accuracy of this quiz (I felt it needed more sincere but clearly fake smile from a personal issue perspective) but I got 10 out of 20 so I maybe it is an accurate and (potential) exercise for Hikikomories.
Introducing the Temporary Hikikomori StopGap Forum
Some of you may have noticed the new forum link below the blog title.Well, that’s a general forum I registered in MyBB as a Hikikomori forum.For more details, here’s the copy-paste details I’ve posted in the forum. NewsFlash, hikikomori forums exist already!Yeah…I can’t say I’ve been in every one of them but for the most part, this forum was a struggle for me.I have zero experiences with being an admin for a forum and I don’t even know most of the options on MyBB. I didn’t even visit the support forums yet and I don’t know if I’ve set anything incorrectly.For the most part though, some Hikikomories felt alienated or discontent with other hikikomori forums and I created this one as a temporary gap. Actually I’m one of the ones who left a hikikomori community but for the most part, I just post on free blogs.To avoid coming off like I’m competing with the membership of other hikikomori forums though, I’m making this a general forum for anyone even non-hikikomories to participate in. It’s just that for the most part, I am a Non-Japanese hikikomori and that’s the community I aim this forum for. Talk of the Differences!Well Hikikomories prefer Imageboards and this isn’t one for one thing.I do provide a “Trash Zone” sub-forum though if you haven’t noticed. I doubt it will inspire people to post anonymously though. Other rules I didn’t include in the main rules link are:*Sub-forums - This was a minor issue in another hikikomori forum I was in and my stance on this is simple. Setting aside my own preference, if you want a sub-forum made, there’s two paths you can go at it. Get enough topics made on a single subject that it fills up these original forums and I’ll make a sub-forum for it which is the more obvious path.(Although for the above, I don’t know if MyBB has anyway to mass-move forum topics to another sub-forum) The second one though is why I’m addressing this. If you want to request a sub-forum, my requirement is that you have a list of topics to fill it already. Be able to do that without flooding a forum like a spammer and you get to keep your sub-forum. Fail to do that in a day and I’ll delete it. Depending on my interest in the topic though, I might extend that to a week or a month and see how it goes.*Post editing - This was often a trick abused by hikikomories in another forum I was in. That’s why here, I’ve set a time limit for how long before you can edit your post. (It should be 30 min. per post if I set it correctly.) As far as requesting for a post to be deleted, I’m normally regretful of deleting posts but it’s your right. I can’t guarantee I can delete anything quickly though depending on how much I got flooded with these requests. *How Temporary is Temporary - For the most part, it’s based on how active I am at visiting and checking up on this forum.I’d like to think I would be an active admin but for the most part, I don’t think that’s possible. It’s not really very motivating to visit a mostly dead forum and if this does get enough members, I still can’t guarantee I would be here to moderate every hour. I’m very inconsistent even with my blog posting which is why I don’t schedule posts ahead of time. It’s more likely though that I may be fast enough to moderate any problematic posts but you’ll just have to determine that from my actions rather than what I say here.Temporary also represents my lack of ability. Eventually you may find a hikikomori forum you wish to moved into because of my lack of skills. All I can say is as long as there’s users here, I’ll try to be active. If you have anymore questions, feel free to ask.
My apologies if this comes off as spammy or Capt. Obvious.
The reason why I’m sharing this article isn’t so much because of the solution or the conclusion provided but because of the way the author started out with a tidbit of his initial personal struggles.
I think part of the reason why marketing-related and business-tutorial blogs have high traffic is not just due to the work on the author’s part but because e-commerce especially general social media marketing simulates how social anxiety feels like to normal people and in that sense, people are drawn to these blogs because it’s the equivalent of a safe haven on how to cope with ones own fears and doubts without feeling lost.
I don’t mean to belittle the whole category like this. Part of the reason why I don’t share lots of articles related to any potential… money making concept is because I haven’t and don’t know how to succeed and I don’t want to share any vacuous advise and this includes blog articles that provide clues on how to improve one’s presentation and communication with people.
It’s still two different worlds and things like dressing well and body language are much more related to real life casual interaction in the long run but what makes some well written online marketing blog article advises help is because for some of us, it’s not lack of confidence or anxiety that keeps us from communicating well and although different, at the end of the day what makes us similar to people who want to market their products is that some of us want to find out how to market our words in such a way that we lessen alienating or causing people to tune out.
Snippets:
We need “hungry” people before making food and having the “best” location.
How well do you know your audience? Seriously, who is your customer?
Do you know which of your readers needs your product? Of those that do…how many can afford it?
Can they consume it in the way you’ve written it? Have you even asked them what they want?
Take for example, my first 2 E-Books here…10 Ways to Monetize Your Blog and The Webrepreneurs Guide to Funding Your Business (both free).
Both are good books in their own right, but neither really fits what I’m doing here…at least not as well as I’d like them to. They just don’t fit the message that I’ve been sending.
On the other hand, there’s Facebook Rockstar, which I launched just a few days ago. I actually didn’t want to make this course…at least I wasn’t planning on it…but I started getting a few requests; slowly at first, but eventually nearly 25% of the people that bought Twitter Rockstar told me they wanted a Facebook Rockstar.
What Do THEY Want - It’s not about what you want.
When I first started Internet Marketing and Blogging, I worked on every great idea that popped into my head. The only one that worked was Twitter Rockstar, and I made that one because I bought a shitty E-Book and knew I could do it better. Every single other project was a flop.
It’s kind of funny though, because out of all of the really cool stuff I thought people would want,I learned they wanted something simple.
Lesson learned…When an Internet Marketers says that you need to do your niche research and learn about the market before you try and sell something…listen to them. They’re right.
I realized that random ass ideas just weren’t going to cut it.
My savvy audience didn’t want something I thought was cool. They wanted something that THEY thought was cool.
These Hikikomoris are web junkies, they spend most of their time surfing the internet. Some of them are gifted with great potentials as programmers and graphic artist. It is such as waste to see young teenagers shut themselves inside their room, much more talented teenagers. So what to do with these teenagers who have potentials? How do we prevent them from rotting away inside their rooms? The answer is Elearning. Since these students became Hikikomoris because they failed to find a university or college to get into, why not bring them to a different classroom? Bring these students to virtual classroom, to be precise. Online learning authors use many elearning tools that can cater to a wide range of students. Surely, this can be appealing to Japanese students.
The problem isn’t really with the diagnosis, but rather the selection. They’re only diagnosing people coming in voluntarily. This seems to me to suggest that these people on some level know they’re sick.
They haven’t investigated a representative sample, but rather hikkikomori who (or whose parents) believe they are sick. Big surprise that 80% of them actually ARE mentally unhealthy. Scientifically, this study is lousy.
Next we’ll investigate people coming into hospitals and conclude that 90% of the average Japanese population currently have diseases.
“Wish you luck, hope you don’t end up in a prison jail.”
“Well…if I do, I’ll make sure to make an experience out of it.” - Adrian Lamo
Hackers Wanted is a very basic documentary. I don’t mean this from a knowledgeable coder point of view but from an average internet surfer knowledge level.
There’s really nothing in this documentary that would shock or surprise people who have a basic understanding of what hacking means (as a dictionary term, not the actual act)
Even the details you might not have heard of won’t give you any nitty gritty insight into the daily grind of a hacker.
You could compare this torrent to many of those Pro-Piracy torrents that get seeded by tons of people but really only containing a clean image ideology of the subject they’re talking about.
That said, this documentary is particularly notable because of the premise behind it:
From Wikipedia:
Hackers Wanted is an unreleased American documentary film.
Directed and written by Sam Bozzo, the film explores the origins and nature of hackers and hacking by following the adventures of Adrian Lamo, and contrasting his story with that of controversial figures throughout history. The film is narrated by Kevin Spacey.
Originally named “Can You Hack It?” The film failed to get a conventional release because of alleged conflicts between its producer and others on the team. On May 20, 2010, a version of the film was leaked to BitTorrent. Adrian Lamo has stated that he had no involvement in the leak.
“It’s ironic that a film about overcoming barriers, about new technologies, about thinking differently, had to come to the public eye by being hacked out of the hands of people who, after making a film about the free flow of information, tried to lock away that information forever. The truth tends to itself.” -Adrian Lamo
According to an insider, the latest version of the film contains additional footage and is significantly different from the one leaked online.[citation needed]
Warning! I don’t understand codecs but even when viewing it with the latest K-lite codec pack, the video will auto-mute around 48:32 of the video. If you move forward past this section, the sound doesn’t go away as long as you don’t have the video playing around this point.
It relates to Hikikomori because the hacker ideal is very similar to being isolated from the outside world only Hackers don’t isolate themselves in a room and many of them actually mingle outside.
Again, from a knowledge point of view, it’s not really that shocking but it’s still a perspective average Hikikomories would want to check out.
Of course for those actual talented Hikikomories, the documentary is kind of obvious if not optimistically portrayed but it’s still something Hikikomories would want to check out in case they never thought through Lamo’s perspective of the world.
I spent roughly half a year doing nothing but reading manga and watching anime. I hardly left our house
I wasn’t contributing to society; I only contributed to the forums at Animesuki.
one part of my recovery is going to the mall…
Last month, I had the scary experience of finally buying an article of clothing on my own. I needed to buy a new set of socks as well a new set of underwear. It was hell, since there were just too many choices.
I recalled Madarame of Genshiken. I was in the same position as him. I felt the pain he was going through… And I decided to adopt his method. When I buy manga volumes, I just choose what I want, regardless of the price. So I bought myself a pair of jeans that cost me 800 pesos.
But it was too much. When I tried to look for shoes next, I was overwhelmed by the variety and PRICE of men’s shoes. At that point, I had it, so I finally escaped from the mall.
…yesterday was Free Comic Book Day in the Philippines.
there I was, in the midst of a crossroad of my life. In order to fulfill my otaku-ness, I actually had to go out of my shelled life. So in the spirit of recovering from my hikikomori-ness, and also for the love of these geeky things, I went to Fully Booked. Two of them to boot.
it was interesting to see several people like me who came alone. Then I started to pity ourselves… Are we such losers that we can only manage to go out alone? Don’t we have friends who share our interests in these things? Are we that socially awkward?
Then I started to feel awkward due to the volume of people there.
…in order to save myself from over-thinking and causing myself more psychological trauma, I quickly took my free copy, bought the stuff I wanted, and left that place. Concentrating on driving helps me from thinking about these stuff.
Year 2009 marked a big step towards my recovering from a hikikomori, largely thanks to the few conventions I was able to attend. One might say that conventions aren’t exactly the best way to cure oneself from social withdrawal, given that one surrounds oneself with quite a number of socially awkward people as well. Then those who aren’t socially awkward tend to just be weird for the most part. But hey, baby steps, baby steps.
During the recently concluded Ozine Fest 2010, a few interesting things happened to me. I’d like to share them in the hopes of either entertaining you or letting you get a glimpse at how the Hikikomori mind works.
Due to certain familial obligations (I have a complicated extended family), I am taking a vacation in Taipei, Taiwan as of this moment. Thus, I am blogging this internationally in a way. But being your regular (recovering) hikikomori, you can pretty much guess that there’s really not much I’m looking forward to do here. And so, research had to be done…
I chanced upon this blog article which discussed otaku hot spots in Taipei. And so an idea dawned on me to try experiencing the otaku culture here in Taipei. They say that Taiwan is still heavily influenced by the Japanese culture, so experiencing the local culture of Taiwanese otaku should be interesting, right?
Attending the Animax press con the other day gave me a rare opportunity to socialize. Gasp! Socialize? Yes, socialize. It’s about time I start making friends, right? It’s all part of the recovery, so I should do something. Plus I need contacts for this blog, so win-win.
But it’s never easy. And that’s where haoson’s role came in. I only need to go along with him and I’m bound to meet new people. He knows a good number of those people there, so with some luck, I’ll get to meet a few. And indeed he introduced me to some. Good ‘ol haoson, I know I can count on him.
I’d advise you to write down your choices as I’m just using this to test Posterous’ new PollEverywhere support.
I also can’t vouch for the notability of the book. It’s not so much that the book is bad but it’s more of a series of exercises to help show you how you should approach certain issues but unfortunately as you’ll see from the number of answers I got right below, all I got from the book was that I’m a poor critical thinker and constantly guessed the exercises wrong. (although this quiz is just a preliminary test for what parts of the book you can skip)
If there’s a plus, it’s that from the quick Google searches I got, this critical thinking quiz differs from the others in that it’s designed to be less of a logic or IQ test and really more on the level of a general quiz even people who are bad at basic math or specific dates can take.
2. Every Monday, your teacher gives you a quiz on the reading he assigned for the weekend. Since he typically assigns at least 50 pages of textbook reading, the quizzes are difficult and you have not gotten good grades on them so far. Which answer represents the best idea for troubleshooting this problem and improving your grades?
3.
4.
5.
A. I had a dream that I got a D on my biology test, and it came true. If I want to do better next time I need a more positive dream.
B. Beth wanted to become a better driver so she took a driving class and studied the Motor Vehicles manual. Her driving really improved.
C. After a strong wind storm last October, all of the leaves were off the trees. That is when I learned that wind is what makes the leaves fall.
D. When Max realized he was getting a cold, he started taking Cold-Go-Away. In four days, he felt much better, thanks to the Cold-Go-Away.
6. You are trying to decide what car to buy. You make a chart that compares a two-seater sports car, a two-door sedan, and a mini-SUV in three categories. What would not be a suitable choice for a category?
7.
8.
9. You read a story in the newspaper about salary negotiations involving public transportation workers. The workers are threatening to go on strike tomorrow if their demands for higher wages and better benefits are not met. What represents an inference made from this scenario?
10. “You think we need a new regulation to control air pollution? I think we have already got too many regulations. Politicians just love to pass new ones, and control us even more than they already do. It is suffocating. We definitely do not need any new regulations.”
11.
12.
A. There are 6 cans of tomatoes in the pantry, and another 14 in the basement. There are no other cans of tomatoes in his house. Therefore, he has twenty cans of tomatoes in his house.
B. Everyone who was northbound on the Interstate was late for work. Faith was on the Interstate. Faith was late to work.
C. Huang lives in either Kansas, Kansas City or Kansas City, Missouri. If he lives in Kansas, then he is American.
D. No one who eats in the cafeteria likes the pizza. My boss eats in the cafeteria. Therefore, she does not like pizza.
13.
14. Your dream is to spend a summer in Indonesia. After some research, you conclude that you will need 6,000 $ for the trip. Which answer represents the best choice for goal setting to make your dream a reality?
15.
16. D. Your boss asks you to finish a report by tomorrow morning, but it is your son’s birthday and you promised you would take him to the ball game tonight.
17. D. www.alincoln-library.com: from the presidential library in Springfield, Illinois, devoted to telling the life story of the sixteenth president.
18.
19. “How can you believe his testimony? He is a convicted felon!”
20. Evidence shows that the people who live in the Antarctic score higher on happiness surveys than those who live in Florida. Which is the best conclusion that can be drawn from this data?
21.
A. I got an A on this test. I was really tired last night, though, and I barely studied. To keep getting A’s, I need to stop studying so hard.
B. Your car is not running well. You just tried that new mechanic when you needed an oil change. I bet he is the reason you are having car trouble.
C. I have not vacuumed for weeks. There is dust and dirt all over the floors, and my allergies are acting up. If I want a cleaner house, I need to vacuum more frequently.
D. The Boston Red Sox have not won a world series in one hundred years. They won the American League playoffs in 2003. The Red Sox will lose this series.
Read the paragraph and answer the following two questions:
I always knew I wanted to be a marine biologist. When I was six, my parents took me to an aquarium, and I was hooked. But it was in college, when I got to work on an ocean research cruise, that I decided to specialize in oceanography. The trip was sponsored by the Plankton Investigative Service, and our goal was to collect as many different types of the microscopic plants and animals as we could, in order to see what, if any, impact the increased number of fishermen had on the marine ecosystem. Our groups was divided into two teams, each responsible for gathering a different type of plankton. Working with the phytoplankton, especially the blue-green algae, was fascinating. We measured the chlorophyll in the water to determine where, and in what quantity the phytoplankton were. This worked well because the water was so clear, free of sediment and contaminants.
22.
23.
24. You want to sell your 3 year old car and buy a new one. Which website would probably give you the best information on how to sell a used car?
25.
26.
27.
28. “We should not change our grading system to numbers instead of letters. The next thing you know, they will take our names away and refer to us by numbers, too!”
