Is YouTube a good site for learning?

             I attended a science symposium this weekend and I got the chance to present the research in microfluidics I have conducted over the last year. I had to create a poster and give a presentation to several people in the field including experts. In order to effectively do this, I watched a few videos on YouTube, such as this one, to help me make a good-looking poster and give me great tips on how to efficiently present my work as well. I found the video to be very useful. I was abe to prepare both my presentation and poster faster than if I hadn’t had the video to layout the basic structure of each one of these.

                I have also used YouTube to learn all kinds of other things. A lot of the songs that I can play on my guitar I have learned from watching YouTube videos. Guitar tabs are great source to learn from but to a certain extent because they just don’t provide you with both the hearing and visual components that YouTube videos allow one to have. Even when the quality of the video is not too great, the video does give you a good ball-park area of where on the guitar your fingers should be placed and, also, at when they should be placed there.  I also learned how to build a simple direct current (DC) motor, build a battery using lemons, several Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu submissions, and many, many other things just by watching YouTube videos.

                But is YouTube really a good place to learn? Well that is not a very easy question to answer but I will argue that it is. In the academic and formal realm of learning, it might not be, because it lacks most, if not all, the proper characteristics. But formal learning is only but one subset of the entire spectrum of forms of learning. YouTube videos give you the option to fast-forward, pause and rewind any section or sections of the video. That gives the individual a lot of power because it allows them to learn, only the parts of the video that they want and see it any desired parts as many times as they want as well.

                There are, of course, situations and cases where YouTube might not be the most ideal place for one to learn. For example, if you are trying to learn physics of how the insides of an F-22 afterburner accurately function (which will require teaching from an expert) then YouTube is probably not the place you would want to learn that from. But in this case, the amount of people who would have the required knowledge to even understand those intricate processes that occur inside of the afterburner chamber would be small. And just because YouTube isn’t capable of having videos that can teach everything in the world or just because it is not capable of teaching it in the most ideal quality doesn’t mean that it is a bad place to learn. Like Wikipedia, YouTube can serve as a reference for people to use when they want to learn the basic gist of something. In other words, those learning videos can help point people in the correct direction of whatever it is that you are trying to learn. Thus, I would say it is a great place to have whenever you want to learn the basics of something.     

SpaceShuttleTwo Makes it Possible for Private Citizens to go into Space

A little over a year ago, on December 7^th, 2009 The Spaceship Company, founded by both Burt Rutan and Richard Branson, displayed a new and improved form of SpaceShipOne called SpaceShipTwo (SS2).  This is a commercial suborbital space vehicle that takes off like an aircraft then after detachment the spaceplane, which contains the space crew passengers and pilots, detaches from the mother ship takes off like a rocket into space.  The Spacecraft first reaches a velocity of about 2600mph at an altitude of about 50,000ft before the spaceplane detaches from the mother ship. It will reach a maximum orbital height, also known as the apogee, of about 110km, and it will remain in space for about 6 to 8 minutes before heading back to Earth. The total duration of each trip is estimated to be about 2.5 hours. Now the interesting thing about this spaceplane is that it is going to be a private passenger spaceplane. In other words, people who are not professional astronauts can go into space via SS2 as long as each person pays the $200,000 (USD) fee. 

Both Virgin Galactic and The SpaceShip Company have made efforts for making private organizations to get private citizens into space. I find it really intriguing that a lot of people are taking great interest in this. Space tourism will be made possible for those who can afford it. The spaceport has a 2-mile long runway in New Mexico that was dedicated and named after its current governor there Bill Richardson. In his speech, at the opening of the spaceport, the New Mexican governor said that New Mexico was " no only helping to launch the commercial spaceflight industry but [that they] are launching new jobs and opportunities for the people of southern New Mexico". Essentially, this project is not only allowing private citizens to tour into space, but it is also helping the New Mexican governor fortify his identity and reputation as a great governor by helping create more jobs. And now that the 2-mile long runway has his name on it, it further helps solidify this reputation of a great governor.

How do spaceplanes relate to new digital media? Well, simulations of this vehicle, such as the one in the video above, have made it possibly to simulate the vehicle's trajectory way before it goes into space. The simulation is really amazing because it captures the dynamics of the space vehicle as it makes its trip to space and back very well. This is not necessarily done for mathematical or engineering purposes but rather, it is a way for Virgin Galactic and for The SpaceShip Company to advertise their new product. Many people now will not be able to afford the space tour. It is essentially a tour that only the rich and privileged will be able to afford. This is something that reminds me a little about Facebook. The reason is because when Facebook was formed, it was strictly for college students only: which in this case, were the "privileged" ones. You actually needed a college email in order to be able to create a profile. For this reason, I believe that Facebook became more appealing to people. Now suppose that both these companies grow to such an extent where  more people of the lower classes can afford the tour. Much like Mark Zuckerberg, I believe that both Rutan and Branson will become two very powerful people.

The Power of Anonimity

                Mexico, in the past few years, has become an extremely dangerous country to live in, visit or to just pass by in the past few years. The violence amongst the different cartels in Mexico has grown significantly. In the past few years a there have been countless number of innocent people that have lost their lives in the heat of violence. A lot of news reporters, journalists and other media personnel have fallen victim to these cartels. This makes it harder for the people in the people that work in the Mexican media and press to distribute any news information about the cartels. Therefore, informing the public of what is really going on has become real challenge there. In order to be able to fight against the fears that cartels have instilled into the public if they do leak out information about them, a blog website called “El Blog del Narco” (The Drug Trafficker Blog) has taken advantage of the internet’s anonymity powers in order to be able to give people the news about what is really going on in the country. You can take a look at the website, but I must warn you that there is extremely disturbing and graphic material contained in it, here.

                The author’s of this website tend to appeal to their logos and ethos than their pathos. The reason is because they do not want their biased beliefs to create favoritism. Now, some people might argue that putting all the videos, photos and “sharing” all this kind of information with public can cause and instill more fear into the public and create panic and chaos. The panic and chaos is already occurring with or without the media. If are well-informed about what is going on, I argue that that very fear that the videos perpetuate is what can serve as an impetus for the public to move away from locations where most of the cartel action is occurring. This will allow those people, who do not want to involve themselves with the cartels, have more of an advantage to secure themselves and their loved ones more effectively. It is better that these people know more than they should than they should than it is for them not to know anything at all. Thus, Richard Stallman’s golden rule “that if [you] like [something you] must share it with other people” can be applied here. Essentially, if you like your own security then you should share whatever it is in order to have other people possess that security as well: in this case, the cartels’ videos, photos and whereabouts.