Oldest ancient city, found!

Pavlopetri, Greece
About 5000 years old (3000 BC), the ancient sucken city was found in 1967 by Nicholas Flemming, marine geologist from the UK. It was left alone for about 30 years till summer of '09 when another archeologist, Jon Henderson, was doing digital survey and because of the sand shifting they discovered the site was a lot bigger than they thought with at least 15 buildings and over 9,000 square meters. Some finds include:

graves and pottery from Mycenaean period - 1600 - 1100 BC

rock cut tombs, large ceremonial hall, and pottery from at least 2800 BC

It is possible that the adventures of Troy and Laconia from Homer's story would have ported here.
Looks to have been abandon around 1100BC but the cause of the cities destruction is unknown.

I researched a bit online but I found out about this originally from "New Scientists" magazine. There are quite a few new discoveries including using "dark matter" as a possible energy source to travel in space O_o and stem cell debut set for 2010.

Child Poverty in America

In my Sociology class yesterday, we talked about social class, that ended up helping my English paper. During the class we talked about alot of things but one that really stuck with me was that America is considered the richest country in the world. Poor families are considered to have $24,000/yr or less, yet this would be a doctors income in other parts of the world. US consumes about 90% of the resources consumed globally and yet in my book was a chart of the countries with poverty-stricked children and the US was ranked 2nd...2nd right next to Mexico.
Mexico - 21.3%
US - 18.4%
Italy - 14.3%
Japan - 12.9%
Canada - 11.5%
Germany - 10.4%
France - 6.7%
Sweden - 3.2%
Denmark - 2.1%
The next big group is woman, but a good thing my teacher mentioned is that 80-90% of people in poverty are only in poverty for 3 years or less. Usually people that fall under bad times and get out of it. Out of all the usual things we think of for poor people (lack of education, family upbringing, drugs/alcohol, debt trap, etc) are things rich people also face. The only thing was that rich people have social connections and resources to draw on. Weird.

ARDI - Oldest human ever found

I think if I ever posted regularly it would have to be monthly outside of class. There just is not that much that comes out in a week that I have time to track down.

Dunno if anyone else heard but the old bones found in Ethiopia in 1993 were recently confirmed as the oldest humanoid remains ever found, 4.4 million years. The bones are confirming that even predating Lucy, 1 million years younger fossil, that we stood up right and likely were never like chimps in that we scampered on all fours.

It is kinda old news now but it is really interesting. She is being called Ardi which stands for her species, Ardipithecus ramidus.

I might end up doing a extra credit report on her for my History of Religions class. If I do, I will post more.

computer nerd!

Alright, something interesting to blog about for me would be techy stuff. I grew up a techie with my uncle (masters) and grandfather (bachelors) being computer programmers and my dad as a graphic artist that owns his own business. I remember when I was five, I sat with my grandfather and learned to reboot my first computer by putting in the next floppy when the computer said to while grandpa went outside to smoke.
My current computer could be better but it is just one step at a time right now. Next, I plan on updating my case as the stats are not that bad. I just updated the video card and motherboard so now it is on to style ^_^.
It took awhile but I picked out a baby pink case with bright blue LED lights, 2 front usb, audio jacks, and a eSATA. Same dimensions as my last one and it comes from a reliable vendor, newegg. I am soooo excited! With these 2 usbs, I will have a total of 9....^o^ woot!
Lets see...what other techie girl stuff....
I recently found a girl tech girl kit that has two small jeweler's screwdrivers, pliers, etc etc in pink so that is going on my christmas list.
I really have not done much research into the techie world lately. I know there is a new e-reader coming out called the "nook". I really like that idea, but I do not know if I can switch to good old fashion "hold me" books to e-books. I would love to play with it and maybe one day I will wear out my copier by transfering everything into pdf format (probably one day ^^), but not now.
With the "nook" you can download full books to your computer anywhere and the clarity is amazing. With this version, versus Amazon's Kindle, you can borrow and share books. They have not released the details, but it looks fun.

Ranting

I had a BAD weekend. I am the awkwardest person in the world with guys. I had to work alot this weekend which normally is not a big deal, but I made the mistake of assuming >.< and ignored him a bit...now he is pissed. I hurt him and he will not talk to me. I know this is a time old thing but I am clueless about guys.
That and grandparents and my uncle have been having medical problems. Parents are ready to form a strike to the electric and water companies and my little brother is only one semester out of school, but spends all day sleeping and playing on the computer. He has no drive to do anything else and I am asked to help him....O_o I just said I was clueless about guys. Usually my approach is very blunt and there.
I still need to write my Sociology chapter work, finish my final english paper, research topic proposal, History of Religions chapter to read, have not done any laundry or cleaning of any kind, scholarship paper I have been needing to work on, and friends that are all moving away or joining the military are not helping.

ONLY thing good...I lost weight. I need chocolate....

Scholarship Thing

I found a scholarship I am going to write a paper for and I have a good argument, but I cannot find any good cons. I plan to force some friends of mine at work argue against me.

It is about nationalizing the banking system. If anyone has any good "no way!" arguments I would like to hear it.
The government should not tell people how to live there lives and ideally just maintain protection from foreign and domestic violence, but power is power and money has become globalized power.
The government talks about tax breaks and tax refunds but it does little. When the government bails out big business it does not trickle down and the situation is only stable at best but not fixed.
I suggest we cut out the middle work and nationalize the banking system. I DOES give the government more power with the control of money but if done correctly, the people can still say what they want to use it for and when things get tough financially we can actually say "the government" is responsible. The idea of check and balance in politics is that everything is regulated fairly if not slowly in progressing our way of life, but that order cannot be maintained without power. As I mentioned, money is power, but even if some have forgot, the people control the government. When a big business gets in trouble, strikes happen but little can be done because they are free. The government does something then it is on. Maintaining the flow of money in the government, again if done correctly, it will give the government more money to work with capital gains and arguments can be more direct in congress as regulations instead of the associate degree guy in the bank office looking at a useless fico score to stamp "approved" or "disapproved" on a home loan.

Suggestions and arguments are welcome!

Writer's Block and Expectations

I did get a good start on my interview paper and I could finish it tonight, but the last week I have been in a 'blah' mode. My story has suffered and reviewers who have not reviewed before are reviewing to ask me to get on with it, lol. I feel guilty and I wish one day to be done with school and focus on such things that personally matter to me.

Do not get me wrong, I like learning but learning is continuous and I could always take a class here and there after my degree to expand my ideas. Right now, the goal is to get my degree.

In some of my classes we have talked about what age society expects you to do what. I think I am in the transition of figuring it out still but I have to still let go that I will not be perfect and on neutral at 25. In fact, it will likely take me four more years to get my degree (27) and even then everything does not fall into place.