“All or Nothing at All”.

     The song “All or Nothing at All” recorded by Frank Sinatra was released for the first time in 1939, but the real success just came in the rerecord in 1940, when Sinatra already had a famous career. This song has a beautiful lyrics that talk about love. “It's a very simple story. It's a lover who's saying `half a love never appealed to me. If you can't give it all to me, I don't want it. I can't accept less.' ‘All or nothing at all, give me all of your love or give me nothing,' you know, I think that hit a very emotional thing." said Zarroli.

     In 1939 the United States governed by President Roosevelt was recovering from the Great Depression while the World War II was beginning. At that time, Albert Einstein and Leo Szilard were helping the U.S. in the development of the first atomic bomb called Manhattan Project. 1939 was a dark year in the world history, because it marks the beginning of one of the worst period of our society, many people were killed during that year and in the follow year. That is a great contradiction, while Frank Sinatra’s song talks about a true love, countries are wasting their money to develop mass destruction weapons. The mankind has marvelous creation as songs like “All or Nothing at All”, however, the fight to get power is interrupting our development. 

Hackers and Security Systems

Have you ever imagined tech companies paying Hackers to invade their systems? This happened in Tokyo on November 12th and 13th, the Pwn20wn 2014: A recap. It is an event organized by Hewlettt Packard (HP), to stimulate the development of new methods of software’s security against Hackers attacks. The most interesting part is how this kind of event works.

      The organizer of the event, in that case HP, invites hackers around the world for a kind of competition. Hackers form teams, and the organizer gives them the challenge of searching for bugs in its system and in the system of partners enterprises. The team that achieves the goal in less time wins. In the article ”Hackers exploit NFC phone payment technology” from BBC News, the author says that the Near Field Communication (NFC) payment systems, were invaded by seven hacker teams on the first day of the Pwn20wn meeting. “Details of the vulnerabilities have now been shared with the makers of the handsets so that the bugs can be patched and fixed.” Said the author.

      Technology has helped a lot to facilitate people’s life in different ways. There are software devices and apps that provide activities of all types. Nowadays, to make a transaction in the bank account for example, just some touches on the smartphone, and it is done. Therefore, companies like HP have to offer safety products to their clients, also events like Pwn20wn are great opportunities to improve products quality. The reason for this is in the same way that these good hackers got to invade NFC, bad hackers are invading other systems and making money.

Bad Use of Technology.

     Technology keeps transforming the world, providing important solutions to global problems. However, the bad use of technology is causing new problems for today’s society.  

     The internet browser Tor (The Onion Router) that allows people to access the internet without be detected, is a good example of bad use of technology. It was originally designed by the US Naval Research Laboratory to help in the traffic of confidential information, but the network became the main tool to illegal commercial of drugs, weapons, child abuse images, etc. The article “Huge raid shuts 400 ‘dark net’ sites” by Jane Wakefield, Technology reporter from BBC, shows that the use of Tor became a criminal practice, and the police in a tempt to stop these illegal activities arrested 17 people from different countries and closed 400 sites believed to be selling illegal items. “Tor, as well as hosting legitimate sites, is home to thousands of illegal marketplaces, trading in drugs, child abuse images as well as sites for extremist groups”, said Wakefield. She also added “It’s important to remember that the dark net isn’t all about illegal activity. Indeed, its best known tool the anonymizing browser Tor was created by a US intelligence agency to help its operations and to assist people living under repressive regimes. Therefore, technology isn’t bad by itself, it exists to facilitate people lives. Unfortunately, there are bad people that always try to damage society’s order through inadequate behavior.

     The current technology is a result of many years of study and development. As a result, along that time, it brought solution for many complex problems. Thus, it is clear that technology isn’t a problem, is a solution instead, but the way how people use it, will determinate positive or negative impact for their lives.  

Boys vs “Masculinity”.

       Why boys can’t cry? It is not acceptable for many culture when a man shows his emotion. Stereotypes like that come from long years ago and have causing troubles. Many boys are suffering in nowadays society because of these stereotypes.

        The society created some wrong concepts about masculinity that have been damaging the life of many boys. The article “Is the ‘be a man’ stereotype hurting boys?” by Kelly Wallace from CNN, explains how many boys behavior is shaped by the influence of stereotypes about masculinity. “The cultural idea of masculinity, the thinking that men need to be strong and independent, is causing many boys and young men to have trouble bearing difficult emotions” said Michael Thompson cited by Wallace. The men never can show their feelings, because this is a trace of weakness, and a man has to be strong, has to be in control of all situation. “Boys have been socialized in such a way that they are not supposed to experience pain or suffering and that they are expected to be dominant, stoic and in control at all times,” said Jennifer Siebel Newson in a Wallace’s interview.

       Parents, guardians, educators and coaches, have the obligation of teacher boys that there is more than one way to show their ‘masculinity’. Many boys are making bad things for themselves and for society as a manner of express their masculinity. For example, the recent case of Jaylen Fryberg, a popular freshman, opened fire on classmates during lunch at Marysville-Pilchuck High School north of Seattle on last       Friday. Supposedly, the motivation was a breakup of a relationship. This case illustrates how many boys are suffering with a society built by stereotypes, as a result of miss concepts, they are committing violence as a way to show their prisoned feelings.

         Boys as well as girls are human being that have feelings, weakness and fairness. Is needed a cooperation of all to build a society free of bad stereotypes. The schools working together with parents have to show boys how to share their feelings, have to make efforts to let them aware of their life challengers.   

Differences Between Genders

Which adjectives would you use to describe men? Which adjectives would you use to describe women? The difference between genders goes beyond the biological and physicological barriers. Today society has many stereotypes that have been perpetuated through generations, while other stereotypes have been changed.

In the article “Pink vs blue – are children born with gender preferences?” by Polly Curtis from the Guardia it is possible to see that many aspects about the difference between genders are easily explained by science, while other aspects are only understood by the study of stereotypes and its origins.

Stereotypes are within each culture, but the man playing as the leader of the family is most common. This means that the man has to hide his emotions, and showing some sort of feeling is an unacceptable behavior for the man. On the another hand, the woman has to be emotional, and is waiting for her to always be fragile. These are some examples of stereotypes that exist in todays society that were perpetuated through many generations. For example, if a girl is often playing a “boy's game”, or a boy often plays a “girl's game” their parents are the first ones to manifest a negative behavior motivated by the stereotypes that exist todays in society.

Some stereotypes are closed to their own beliefs of the culture. It is important because every society needs principles, and these principles are maintained by the existence of good stereotypes. For example, the figure of family composed by a woman and a man is essential to the perpetuation of mankind, because it's impossible for a couple of men or a couple of women to generate any children by themselves.

There are many positive stereotypes, there are also many negative stereotypes. The difference between genders in todays society exists and always will exist. The problem is when those differences make separation between them, putting a man or woman as superior this can cause prejudices and conflicts.

Educational Style

What is the limit to say if a person is intelligent or not? Is grade school the best parameter to classify the intellectual capacity of a person? The history shows that notable people in their adult life, were considered as not smart in their academical life. The current educational process is too general, and does not work to everybody. In the article “Lisa Ling: What I learned as an average student” by Lisa Ling, is possible to see how is hard for a student that does not has the characteristics that the society looks for.

Known around the world for his excellent job in physics field, Albert Einstein was considered no intelligent enough to get a chair in the Switzerland Polytechnic School. Years later him became the most famous physics scientist with the relative law and another notorious contributions. Unfortunately, schools and universities treat all students with the same model of education giving not space for individuality, those who do not fit its model is classified as not intelligent. Each person has different abilities and capacities, with personal learning style. For example, there are people that can not learn math through conventional ways, but gets it listening music.

The way that parents educate their children is a consequence of educational process, to try warranty their academical success, parents are early enrolling their kids in many activities causing an overloading which is embarrassing them and their better development. “These days as parents, we've become obsessed with paving our children's way toward success. We track their every move; we want them to go to the best schools; we enroll them in programs designed to make them play sports, play music...But I hope we take the time to allow them to figure out what THEY like, what drives THEM”, said Ling.

Intelligence is subjective and has to be treated as so, there is no only one meaning. The current educational style is over-pasted and need to be updated for a more sensitive method, capable to offer the tools for a better self development.

Brazilian's Poll

It is happening this Sunday the Brazilian's poll to choose the president. The next president is already unknown, but surveys indicate that the two women Dilma Rousseff (actual president) and Marina Silva have the preference of the Brazilian population. In the article “Brazil's next President looks sure to be a woman” by Ben Brumfield and Shasta Darlington, CNN is possible to see that this election is going to be very disputed. “But neither Silva nor Rousseff are projected to garner a majority, setting the stage for a runoff between the top two candidates” said Brumfield.

Both candidates have an interesting participation in the political history of Brazil. Dilma Rousseff fought against the military dictatorship, she fought for democracy in Brazil, and she went to the prison for a period of time. Years later Rousseff won the presidential election and became the first president woman in Brazil. Before of Rousseff being president, she works as a chief of staff in the president Lula government, and guided important projects that have impacted positively the Brazilian's life. Marina Silva also has an interesting story life, she grew up in a poor family in the Amazonas state. Silva tried hunger and some disease like malaria and hepatitis in her youth. Silva begun her politics career helping Chico Mendes in the fight against illegal logging, years late she became a senator, and after an environmental minister in Lula's government.

I do not know who will be the next president of Brazil, but I hope that the winner can be able to bring better solutions to Brazilian's life, problems like corruption need to be solved.