The Arcadia Electronic Skeet Shoot Game System

The best gift I have ever received, and likely will ever receive, is the Arcadia Electronic Skeet Shoot Game System. 

I received this gift when I was 10, and prior to Christmas that year, I had no idea this game even existed.  None of my friends had it, I had never seen a commercial for it, so the look of surprise and confusion on my face was most likely priceless.  I was clearly excited, because what 10 year old kid doesn’t love to have a plastic gun in their hand.  After seeing that all the presents were opened, and making sure Santa had gotten his fill of milk and cookies and his reindeer were satisfied with the carrots we left by the fireplace, I knew that the first thing I had to do was rip open this box and shoot some animated ducks.  I also got another cartridge to shoot at fighter jets, but I didn’t really use that too much because who wants to shoot at jets when they can shoot at ducks.

            In order to really enjoy the game, you need to find a good wall.  A good wall is one with no pictures or anything to create a glare.  Now of course my mom, or Santa, had given me this gift in hopes that this game would be played in the basement.  Well, with the many pictures on the walls in the basement, this just wasn’t possible, so I took my talents upstairs to the family room, where I had already scoped out the perfect spot to shoot ducks.  The wall next to the TV was the best wall in the house, with nothing hanging on it and high ceilings, I knew this was where I could do my best work.  This didn’t last for long because the sounds the game emitted were too annoying for my parents.  This prompted my dad to rearrange some pictures in the basement. 

            I pointed the Arcadia projector at the wall, put the cartridge in, and went to town on those ducks.  Now this game was difficult because the ducks pop up randomly.   Sometimes they’re on the right, sometimes they’re on the left, sometimes they’re up top, and sometimes they’re on the bottom.  Since it was cold out and there was no snow on the ground, this was the new activity for my friends and me.  We would have competitions to see who could shoot down the most ducks in the allotted time.  Soon after Christmas, my friends were telling their parents that they also wanted an Arcadia system, so all of my friends ended up getting them, and the competitions continued at other houses.

The Speech

Throughout my life, there have been many moments that I am proud of, however, there are also a few that I am not so proud of.  When I was in 8^th grade, I was running for the Treasurer position for the Student Council of my grade school, Saint Maximilian Kolbe.  I had worked on my speech for a week, knowing that I was running against a few other people so my speech had to be great.  I had read my speech so many times that I had basically memorized it, so that I would not have to look down at my paper and I could look at my audience.  My parents had helped me write a speech that was well done.  I was ready to go.

I walked into the “multipurpose room” of my school on the morning of the speech and felt like I was going to do incredible.  I had a big breakfast so I was energized.  I was very excited because I was as prepared as possible.  All of the people that were voting, the 6^th, 7^th, and 8^th grades were all present.  I was a little bit nervous because of the big group that was out there, but I felt like I would still perform well.  After the presidential and vice presidential candidates said their speeches, it was time for the treasurer candidates. 

I went second, and of course the guy that went before me had one of the best speeches I’ve ever seen.  When I say it was a good speech, I mean there were magic tricks, there were jokes, and there was audience interaction.  It was pretty perfect.  So then it was my turn.  I still felt like I could win, so I walked up to the podium.  I started my speech, got through about the first ten words, and then everything went wrong.  For some reason, on that one day, my body decided it would be a good day to crack as much as possible.  This got some smirks from the audience, and it made me feel like a fool.  I couldn’t believe that after all of my preparation, I was just squeaking my way through a speech.  I finally finished and I was still trying to stay positive although I had just sounded like Elmo in front of over 100 people.  Two days later, the results of the election were announced over the public address system.  Of course the magic comedian won.  Talk about rubbing salt in the wounds.

Relational Database Model

A relational database model organizes data into tables that are related in some way.  These tables are also called relations.  Each relation has a group of named columns with any number of unnamed rows.  The columns match up with an attribute of the relation.  Attributes are characteristics of an entity that an organization is interested in.  The rows each match up with a record that contains data for the entity.  For example, an employee relation’s attributes could be their ID number, Name, Department, and Salary.  A well-structured relation has as little repetition as possible, and users can edit the relation without errors or inconsistencies.

            The pros of the relational database model are organization.  With the help of the relational database model, companies can easily access information that they need.  If a company’s database is well organized, they can look to the database in order to get the desired information.  The relations should be titled something so the company knows what is included in the relation.  In order for the company to be as productive as possible in their use of databases, these relations must be well structured, as was defined in the first paragraph of this blog.

            The cons of the relational database model are that some of the attributes of the relation could be left out.  This is because in order for this to be well structured, they want to have the least amount of columns as possible so that they can be compact.  These attributes that are left out could be telling of the record.  For example, the column that is left out could say something like “inactive”, but if no other records have anything in this column, then it will be left out.  There is no use in having one column just because of one record having something in the column. 

            Companies can use the relational database model to quickly find information that they need.  If a company knows what they need and they are knowledgeable about their database, then they can browse their data warehouse until they find what they need.  If a company is good at structuring their relations, then they will be very successful.  This technology is very good but it is also difficult to know what you are doing.  The ability to acknowledge the relationship between two different attributes is a very unique trait that takes a long time to develop, so in order for companies to benefit from this technology, they must be willing to invest a lot of time to research the effects of one attribute on another.

Evolution of Dance: The Viral Video

My favorite YouTube video is “Evolution of Dance”.  One of my friends from home showed it to me about three years ago when we were home for Christmas Break, and since then I have watched it many times.  This video has been viewed over 154,000,000 times, and is currently #7 on the list of most viewed YouTube videos all-time.  It is the second most viewed YouTube video that is not a music video.

This video can be classified as a viral video because it has simply been passed along through word of mouth.  My dad heard about it in a email chain from one of his coworkers.  It appears that the video was shot using a camcorder because the quality of the video does not appear to be clear enough that it was shot by a professional.

The video features one man, a comedian named Judson Laipply.  In the video, he dances to a series of songs ranging from Elvis Presley’s “Hound Dog” to Jay-Z’s “Dirt Off Your Shoulder”.  (The full list can be found here.)  I find this video very entertaining because he is a very good dancer and it is evident that he put a lot of work into this video.  When I first saw it, I thought it was going to be stupid because it was just one man standing on the stage so I thought that there was no way it could be amusing, but I was wrong.  He did a great job selecting songs and dances that everyone would know.  I showed the video to my mom and she loved it because she said she hadn’t seen some of those dances for years.  She then sent it to her group of friends. 

The fact that this video has so many views in just four years is incredible to me.  I always wonder what is going through Judson Laipply’s mind because he has become so famous because of a video that was 6 minutes long.  Due to the success of “Evolution of Dance”, he uploaded the official sequel in January of 2009, called “Evolution of Dance 2”, which has been viewed almost 13,000,000 times.  In this video, he is wearing the same outfit that he wore in “Evolution of Dance”. 

According to Laipply’s Wikipedia page, on June 16, 2010 he announced that he will release of “Evolution of Dance 3”.  He said that he wants to include much older music and possibly another dancer.  I don’t like the idea of having another dancer, because these videos are clearly entertaining enough with just him.  This video has been a perfect example of a viral video, and I’m sure Judson Laipply is not complaining about its success.

Guest Speakers

On Tuesday, September 28, we had two guest speakers in our Systems Analysis & Design class.  The speakers were Brian McManus, Director of IT at Under Armour and John Wolff, the Assistant Vice President of Global Data Services at Legg Mason.

Brian McManus was very interesting.  He started out with a video that he says they present at all of their big sales meetings.  It showed all of the athletes that they sponsor.  I was unaware that Under Armour had that many athletes.  Brian asked us if we would rather be shown a PowerPoint presentation or have an interactive presentation where we would basically have an hour long question and answer session.  We decided that we would rather have a question and answer session, and he told us all about Under Armour’s marketing campaign and how they go about signing their athletes.  He has worked there for 7 and a half years, and it seems like he has bounced around the company a lot, so he was very knowledgeable about everything in the company.  Someone in class asked him how Under Armour reacted a couple of years ago when their Super Bowl commercial brought too much traffic for the site to handle.  He said that in the future they are not going to do any more Super Bowl advertisements because they do not want to spend that much money on a single commercial.  He said that they can reach a lot more people using banner advertisements on websites such as Facebook for millions of dollars less.  He also talked about how they use social media as a way to see how customers feel about their customer service.  Since Brian has moved around the company, I can see that I could do a lot of things at a company and still contribute.  He said that unless you show them that you can’t do something, they will put you in new positions, which can show how valuable you are to a company.

John Wolff talked about his work life, and it seemed to be very different than Brian’s.  John has worked at Bank of America, which is a large company, Legg Mason, which is a medium company, and he started his own company.  I thought it was most interesting to hear about his experiences at the start-up company, because at some point in my life I hope to come up with an idea for a company to start. He said that it was a good experience, but you must make sure you have an alternate source of income in case the company has some periods of economic difficulty.

Both of the speakers were very knowledgeable and it was definitely beneficial to hear their stories.  It was good to hear from two people who seem to be successful in what they are doing.  I’m glad that we got to listen to their stories and I hope to hear from more people that can teach me about the professional world.

Social Media Revolution

Social media is the most powerful source of information in the world.  In the YouTube video “Social Media Revolution”, there is a quote that says, “We no longer search for the news, the news finds us,” which is very true.  I am constantly finding out about things happening in the world by logging onto Facebook or Twitter.  People are constantly tweeting or updating their statuses about how they feel about decisions in politics, sports trades, actions of celebrities, etc. 

According to an article in The Huffington Post, “Newspaper circulation is down 8.7% in the US” (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/04/26/newspaper-circulation-dow_n_551628.html).  The video also says, “In the near future we will no longer search for products and services, they will find us via social media”.  This means that businesses will have to rethink their marketing strategy to include a greater presence in the social media.  Companies may have to start hiring younger people who may be just out of college and know how to get the word out about the company.  This past summer, the company I worked at created a Facebook page to increase the exposure of the company and to release video testimonials of customers who had a positive experience.  As the prevalence of the internet increases and the economy continues to struggle, companies are trying to think of less expensive ways to market themselves, such as decreasing the amount of print advertisements.

The video also said that Facebook had 100 million users in 9 months.  This means that people may be overusing social media and are relying too much on it.  People are also posting things on these websites that they may not want other people to see.  I constantly find myself talking to someone and they mention something that they have done recently, but I already know because they have posted this information online.  An article titled “Twitter Your Way to Getting Robbed” is about people posting too much on Twitter about their location so other people know exactly when they can enter a house with nobody home.  People should be more wary of what they are posting. (http://mashable.com/2009/06/01/twitter-related-burglary)

In the future, these social media outlets will depend on people like me to increase the exposure of the websites because my generation is the most knowledgeable about these sites.  I can definitely see these sites developing more applications that are more suited to businesspeople and companies because they will see that these companies are a good way to make more money.  It will be up to us to determine how much longer the social media will continue to run our lives.