You Don't Have to Be a Psychic to Like This Show

Shawn (Right) and Gus (Left) are the
crime solving team

Set in Santa Barbara, this show sets itself apart from the rest. There are many police/detective shows, but not like Psych, a television series about a man that claims to have psychic abilities. Shawn (main character and "psychic") uses his "powers", while his buddy Gus (other main character and sidekick) uses general knowledge of everything to solve crimes for the Santa Barbara Police Department that are not solvable to a normal detective. From werewolves to aliens, this duo has seen it all. Shawn started a business called "Psych", which is a private detective agency that solves both personal and police crimes using "psychic" powers. Shawn is a silly guy that tries to make everything fun, which often leads into trouble. The main reason he gets anything accomplished is because of Gus. Gus is the smart person that gives Shawn valuable information all the time. Shawn manages to keep his secret hidden only because he and Gus make such a good team. Without their great friendship and their shinanagans, this show wouldn't be even close to the same.

The Weekly Wilkins

        Hello, and welcome to the first ever Weekly Wilkins! This is a weekly blog post dedicated opinion articles that I find. Today's article is Grading the Graders: Human vs. Robot a New York Times opinion article about how "robots" are not as good at grading essays. With that article, though, I will also bring in another article: Facing a Robo-Grader? Just Keep Obfuscating Mellifluously which is about a new machine designed for grading papers more efficiently. 

        E-Rater (the grading machine) grades by looking for grammatical errors, big words and sentence fragments, and gives points accordingly. One thing this machine does not look for, however, is if the information is correct. Which means that, as it is put in the article Facing a Robo-Grader? Just Keep Obfuscating Mellifluously "E-Rater doesn't care if you say the war of 1812 started in 1945". And the machine gives better grades to longer essays, even if a short essay has better material in it. Therefore, it is very easy to trick it into giving a better grade. 

        In the Grading the Graders article, the author believes that the machine is not a good tool because the writers had great writing that machines could not pick up. I agree with him. I think that the E-Rater should only grade papers on grammatical errors, if even that. For now, at least. The robots might get better in a few years, but right now, grading should be left to the professionals: teachers.

Music is evolving faster than you might think

Music is arguably the best thing humans can hear, which is why it changes so often, fitting our wants and needs. Through the years, music has had some drastic changes in order to fit the desires of the common people. probably the most noticeable adjustment for music over the years would the lyrics. The lyrics for songs got more repetitive and similar. For example a popular song today, Party Rock Anthem by LMFAO, has repeating words to fill in most of the song. 

"get up, get down, put your hands to the sound

get up, get down, put your hands to the sound

get up, get down, put your hands to the sound 

Put your hands up to the sound, put your hands up to the sound

Get up, get up, get up

Get up, get up, get up 

Get up, put your hands up to the sound, to the sound

Put your hands up, put your hands up, put your hands up, put your hands up"

The song is filled with lines that do not really have a meaning. All there is throughout all of the song is the same line, which is not so bad if you are into that type of stuff. But a classic song from 1977 (a 35 year difference) called Mr. Blue Sky by Electric Light Orchestra tells a different story.

It is very common for people of different
ages to disagree about music

"Hey you with the pretty face

Welcome to the human race

A celebration, mister blue sky's up there waitin'

And today is the day we've waited for

Hey the mister blue

We're so pleased to be with you

Look around see what you do

Ev'rybody smiles at you"

This portion of the song has lyrics that make sense. The lyrics to this song can be read like a poem and still make sense, while the top example would not. Over the years, bands slowly changed to produce only hit singles with catchy beats and repeating tunes. Overall, time degraded music by making more simplistic and basic as the years go on. Simple rhythms, simple lyrics, simple notes. Although it may seem as if all music is getting worse with age, all hope is not lost. Many bands are still continuing the tradition of quality music, all you have to do is look carefully. 

A day in the life of...

Cat:

• 10:23. I woke up, and then I went to take a nap.
• 11:54. Later, I went to the mysterious box of sand, and I threw sand all over my owner's room.
• 1:06. After I took another nap, I ate some cat food, but it tasted bad, so I spit it out and vomited all over my owner's bed and clothes. time for some sleep.
• 4:46. I just ran away from my owner for no reason. I'm about to run back in.
• 5:22. Time for bed!

Human:

• 7:00. Woke up for work. Lucky cat is still sleeping.
• 4:19. Just got home, cat is still sleeping.
• 4:46. For some odd reason, the stupid cat just ran away from me.
• 6:06. Making dinner for myself, it's going to be good.
• 7:23. Where is that cat now?
• 9:54. Got to go to bed soon, but a good show is on.
• 11:49. Going to bed, but there is cat vomit all over the place!

Waiting for "Half-Life" can take your whole life

Gordon Freeman (the main character in in the Half-Life series)
finding a portal device.

In 1998, a revolutionary game was released by Valve titled Half-Life. That game set the standards for incredible games with the graphics, story, weapons, and realism (disregarding the fact that the main enemies are aliens). Because of all of the rave reviews, many people were waiting for another game to add to the series. And those people waited for six years. Half-Life 2 was then released in 2004, once again exciting the large crowd of fans. The Half-Life series then received many awards such as "game of the year" and "best PC game", which are very deserving titles, according to many. Even after sequel, more games continued to be released for the Half-life series, including Half-Life 2: Episode 2, Portal, Half-Life 2: Episode 2 and Portal 2. The latest game released was Portal 2, being released in 2011. It took Valve thirteen years (from 1998-2011) to release all of the games so far. Thirteen years is a long time to wait to play all of the games, and the final game has not been released yet. Some might wonder if over a decade is really worth the wait. Personally, I think it is because all of the games are very high quality. But, then again, I would consider myself lucky, I didn't have to wait all those years to play; I started playing them in 2010.

Friendship that turned magic

For my first post as a new blogger, I chose to write about something that deserves more praise than it is getting: Ponies. To be more specific, "My Little Ponies". the show has become very popular a few years back, and thus received the honor of another title, describing the widespread group of fans it has. "bronies" is not only the name of the group of fans, but it is also an Internet meme. Bronies (or ponies) are often made into web comics or animations. The immense popularity of the original television series is the only reason why bronies well-known on the internet. click for more information on "Bronies" and "My Little Ponies" on the links provided.