Summer Time, Starting to Live Earlier? What is Summer Time(Daylight Saving Time)?

  It is summer. The Sun seems to get stronger, and the temperature is getting higher and higher. In addition, the daytime is getting longer and longer. In response to these lighter months, many countries use "summer time," or "daylight saving time." Does your country use this time system? What is it? and, What for is it being used?

[©iStockphoto.com/karen roach]

  What is Summer Time?

  Summer time, which is also called daylight saving time, is a practice of advancing clocks during lighter months so that there is more daylight in the evenings and less in the mornings. Typically, clocks are adjusted forward one hour near the start of Spring and are adjusted backward near the end of Autumn.  In short, we start to live earlier during summer time.

[Wikipedia]

  Summer time is estimated to be adopted in about 75 countries, mainly in North American countries and European ones. The starting time and the ending time differs among countries. For example, the United Kingdom starts summer time on the last Sunday of March, while the United States starts on the second Sunday of March. 

  summer time also differs between the northern hemisphere and the southern one. Southern hemisphere summer goes in the opposite way. Australia, for example, starts summer time on the first Sunday of October and ends on the first Sunday of April.


  When did it First Start?

  The person who first devised such idea was Benjamin Franklin. In 1784, he suggested getting up earlier in the morning so that people can use their morning time more economically and use less candles, which leads to economic profit. However, it was not him who directly suggested adjusting clocks forward and backward.

  It was the prominent English builder and outdoorsman William Willett who conceived summer time in 1905. He was an avid golfer, and he thought he could enjoy golf more in the daylight by adjusting clocks forward. Two years later, he published a proposal, but it was not passed right away. 

  The first time when summer time started to use was during World War I, on 30 April 1916. Germany and its World War allies, Austria-Hungary, were the first to use summer time in order to conserve coal and guard themselves against air-raid during wartime. Soon after that, Britain followed adopting summer time. Russia and other European countries adopted it in the following year, and the United States did in 1918.

  Summer time was abandoned after World War I had ended, but it started again during World War II. After the war, it became widely adopted starting in the 1970s, particularly in North America and Europe.

  Pros and Cons of Summer Time

  The advantages of summer times mostly come from enjoying more daylight. Then what kinds of effect are there with more daylight?

  The main advantage of summer time is economic profit. As Benjamin Franklin said concerning using less candles, more daylight leads to saving energy. If summer time is in effect, there would be longer day time and less nighttime. Moreover, there would be less time when lights are on. That leads to saving energy. 

  Another advantage is that summer time is better for health. Since summer time provides people with more time for outdoor exercise, it could promote people to do more exercise and to expose themselves to sunlight, which is good for health. Being less nighttime, summer time could also reduce depression, which is usually triggered during nighttime. Plus, traffic accidents could be reduced since there is more daytime when people can see clearer.

  On the other hand, there are opponents against summer time who argue about shortcomings. Opponents are usually farmers who usually work on schedule set by Sun. They argue that grain is best harvested after dew evaporates, so going to fields and leaving them early is not that effective. Dairy farmers complain that cows are sensitive to the timing of milking, so they need to stick to the original time.

  The most biggest shortcoming of summer time is its complexity. People should remember summer time and synchronize their clocks twice a year, which is time-consuming. Also, people among many other countries should consider whether one another's countries are using summer time or not since not all the countries adopt summer time. It also takes much effort and time to adjust time within computer system, which could disrupt computer system.


  So, Is it really effective?

  It is not clear if summer time is effective or not. Each country is in different conditions and different circumstances, so the effect of summer time may well differ among each country. I think summer time is also one of the policies which policymakers adopt. It means, therefore, summer time can also be largely effective or ineffective depending on how well the government manages it. 

  So, how do you think? Do you think summer time should be adopted or not?









references

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daylight_saving_time
http://www.timeanddate.com/time/dst/
http://www.socialstudiesforkids.com/articles/time/daylightsavingtime.htm

San Francisco Boeing 777 Aircraft Crash, What Happened and Why?

  On Sunday morning, I woke up, jumped out of my bed and happened to see the television screen in the living room. TV news said there was a big accident in San Francisco. I was so frightened and checked out what happened.

(Reuters)

  What Happened?

  On July 6th, 2013, at 11:28 a.m. wst, Boeing B-777-28EER, which is the aircraft of Asiana Airlines, crashed the runway in San Francisco airport. That was when the plane was approaching the runway for landing. The aircraft first departed from Shanghai, stopped by in Incheon, then flew to San Francisco. 307 people were on board, and the crash resulted in 2 fatalities and 182 injured passengers. The tail section, landing gear, and both engines were seperated from the fuselage and a fire erupted. Seeing that the aircraft was broken down badly as in the photo, it surely was a hugh accident. 


  Why Happened?

  It is said that the plane was approaching the runway too slow and too low, and that the pilot had tried to speed up before trying to abort landing, but everything happened so quickly within several seconds.
  
  It has not been revealed that what caused the accident, but there are mainly two possible causes-pilot error or mechanical failure-as they are usually the main causes of many other aircraft accidents. As one of the main causes, news articles say the pilot of the Boeing 777 doesn't have much experience of controlling the aircraft type, but he has experience of about 10,000 hours of being on aircraft, which is enough time for the pilot to be considered as a veteran.

  It is also said that the control tower of Sanfranciso Airport corresponded with the pilot so slow that the pilot could not take quick measures, but that seems to need more investigation.

  At present, the press seems to put more emphasis on the role of the pilot. According to PlaneCrashInfo, about 50 percent of plane accidents is due to pilot error, followed by mechanical failure, which accounts for 22 percent. Statistically, there are more accidents caused by pilot error, but that couldn't be the clear answer for this accident in San Francisco.

(Reuters)

 
  Behind Stories

  Many stories are coming out about the accident, and one of the touching stories is one about the cabin manager of the aircraft, Lee Yoon-hye. She is being called a "hero" in the accident spot. After the crash, she never lost her control and evacuated every passengers quickly, contributing to saving a lot more passengers. She was a professional itself.

  Another story covers the two fatalities. It turned out that two Chinese teenagers were killed by the accident. One was killed after the crash, and the other is said to be hit by a car after getting out of the plane. Those two girls are described as close friends, and as smart and nice students at school. They were on their way to summer camp when the accident happened. It is so unfortunate and sad that two youths became the casualties.


  Still Under Scrunity...

  The exact cause of the accident has not been revealed yet. Some news media say the accident is because of the pilot, and some say it is because of other factors. Korea and US are joint investigating the accident to find out the original cause of the accident, and Korean investigators would join to decode the blackbox of the aircraft. Although many facts about the accidents are floating on the internet, it is too soon to jump into conclusion. I hope public opinion would not result in witch-hunt, and the actual cause of the accident would be revealed as soon as possible.




references

http://planecrashinfo.com/index.html
http://planecrashinfo.com/cause.htm

Too Cheaper and Weaker Japanese Yen, What has happened and what to do?

  These days, Japanese currency, Yen seems strange - it is too cheaper than before. It has been reported that Yen has breached the 100 yen to the US dollar mark for the first time since April 2009, in 6 years. This is not an "extremely" radical decline. The sign of the decline has been shown since last year's November, and the yen has fallen about 25% since then. 25% changes of exchange rate is considerable enough to make influences, so this problem has become a hot topic.

< Fall of Japanese exchange rate > (BBC)

  Why ?

  Then, Why on earth has yen fallen that much? One of the most pivotal reasons is so-called "Abenomics," which refers to Japanese economic policy by the incumbent prime minister of Japan, Shinzo Abe. The main goal of the policy is to resolve deflation problems which continue for about 15 years, and one of the policies, which is "easy money policy," is said to be the main cause of the decline of yen. 

  Someone would ask a question what the easy money policy is. What is it? The easy money policy is based on quantitative easing by which the central bank spreads money and makes the money flow. By easy money policy, the central bank buys financial assets from commercial banks and other private institutions, thus increasing the monetary base. That could relieve deflation because there would be more money supply which is one facter of inflation. However, if there is too much money, the money price would decrease. In this context, Japanese easy money policy has led to cheaper yen.


  What Kinds of Influence ?

  Changes made by weaker yen can be explained by the impacts of depreciation. 

  When there is depreciation of exchange rate, the price of one currency relative to the price of another decreases, so more money needs to be paid to buy foreign currency. In this context, when companies import goods, more money should be paid to import them, and that leads to profit loss. Therefore, importers would become unwilling to import goods. 
  On the other hand, when exporters export goods, the price of goods would be relatively cheap, which makes the goods more competitive. As a result, exporters would enjoy a demand rise of export goods. Those are the most prominent impacts of depreciation. Other than them, it can be said that there would be more travellers from foriegn countries because of cheaper price of currency, so profits of travel industry would rise. 

(Bloodberg)

  Then let's get back to Japenese yen. Nowadays in Japan, importers are suffering from expensive import goods because of depreciation of yen currency, but exporters are smiling because of a demand rise of export goods. In addition, more travellers are visiting Japan because travellers can enjoy cheaper trips thanks to weak Japanese yen. Because of more travellers in Japan, Japanese travel agencies are busy welcoming customers from foreign countries, leading more profits to travel industry.

  It is clear that there are pros and cons of depreciation of Japanese yen, but it is also clear that too much fluctuation of exchange rate doesn't usually lead to advantages but lead to considerably big loss. That's why the news that yen breaches 100 threshold mark against a US dollar is becoming a big issue, and it would be better that such issue should be resolved as soon as possible.


  Solution ?

  Japan is suffering from long-lasting deflation, so Japanese economic policy called Abenomics tries to resolve deflation, but such policy causes weak currency problems, so it seems that detailed solutions which can adjust those two problems at the same time should be made. Japanese prime minister, Abe says that they are considering purchasing foreign debts, but it seems that this plan should be made carefully. 

  When it comes to financial issues, there are both short-term financial issues and long-term financial issues. Resolving what should be resolved right now is important, but I think the most importand thing is considering and dealing with issues in the long run since long-run issues eventually make a biggest impact on economy. I hope Japan would make wise solutions for this problems. Let's watch how Abenomics would work.






references

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abenomics
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-22279105

Boston bombings, Ricin letters, Plant explosion. Panicking Situations throughout the USA.

  When I check news homepages in the morning, new massive incidents are happening every day for this whole week, and the thing is, all these tragic incidents are from America. Boston marathon bombing terror, poisonous ricin letters and plant explosion in Waco, Texas. Only one tragic incident like them is panicking enough but three of them consecutively happened in America. America must be in such a chaos. So, what exactly happened in America? What are the three? I'd like to summarise those three.

(Reuters)

Boston Marathon Bombing Terror

  On Monday, April 15th, two bombs exploded near the finish line of the marathon course in Boston. One bomb exploded first, and then the other exploded after around 30 seconds. It was during the 2013 Boston Marathon, and it was Patriot's Day of America. 3 people died, more than 170 people were injured by the bombs. the bombs ripped while amatuer marathoners were coming to the finish line. That was after a few hours of professional marathoners' finishing the course. It seems that the targets were random people, not professionals. In addition, It is said that pressure cookers filled with shrapnels were used as bombs. It has not been found who did this and why it happened. As of Friday, two suspects have been captured by CCTV and FBI is struggling to find out who they are.

(Reuters)

Deathly Poisonous Ricin Letters Case

  On Tuesday, April 16th, There was a statement that letters containing lethal posion ricin had been sent to the White House. The letters were addressed to US president, Barack Obama. After the first letter was acknowledged, it turned out that two other letters had also been sent to a US Senator and a Mississippi justice offical. Fortunately, the letters were blocked before they reached the President and the Senator. Since there were similar cases in the past, the letters could be blocked by strict mail-screening.

  On Wednesday, which was the following day, FBI arrested a Mississippi guy in connection with the letters. It is said that there is no connection with the bombing terror in Boston.

(Reuters)

Fertilizer Plant Explosion in Waco, Texas

  On Thursday, a fertilizer plant exploded in Waco, Texas. It has been reported that between five and 15 people died, and there are up to 200 casualties as of Friday. The emergency services officials said that the explosion is an accident, which was caused by ammonia. Beside casualties it also destroyed numerous buildings including houses, a school and nursing home. Emergency services are finding survivors after the blast.


  Seeing those three misfortunes, the whole United States of America seems in shock and chaos. Those three are not related to one another, but they are happening altogether, which seems truly weird. With those disasters, I am little bit worried that America can't currently consider other issues which are outside the countries because White House is too busy to care about them other than caring for domestic issues. North Korea, for example, could take advantage of this chaos of America since North Korea and America were in a tense situation, but America is now less committed to the situation. 

  Sometimes, America seems the safest country in the world, but sometimes America seems the most dangerous country. However, I think the reason why America is considered an amazing country is that America takes measures really quickly after something happens and quickly but strictly prepare for prevention against same thing's happening. I think it is to be admired.

  I feel so sorry for those who are suffering from the misfortunes, and things get better as soon as possible. I hope FBI would find out who did the terror and bring them to justice quickly. I'd like to present my condolences to the casualties.

Multiple accounts of SNS(Social Networking Service), how do you think?

 

 "How many Social Networking Service accounts are you using?"

 

  It can be said that almost every single person who can get access to the internet is using Social Networking Service which is so-called SNS. As more and more people are using SNS, new kinds of SNS are showing up. 

  Since each SNS is a bit different from one another, people use many other kinds of SNS with many other purposes. For example, people use Facebook usually to connect with their "already-known" friends such as family members, schoolmates or co-workers. Facebook users usually show how they are, what they did and what they are doing right now, and friends can catch up with one another by checking their posts.

  For Twitter users, they also connect with already-known friends, but I think they usually connect with randomly new people. Because of that, Twitter users don't really care about people with whom they connect, so they tweet what they think without any deep consideration. In addition, those who see other people's tweets don't take them that serious and don't really care seriously.

  For bloggers, there is a tendency for bloggers to try to look more professional than when they are on other kinds of SNS, so they deeply consider what they are going to write down, which sometimes takes quite a long time. For blog subscribers, they can get quality information from bloggers' posts.

  Other than those three, there are many other kinds of SNS and I am also using various kinds of it including the three above. The interesting thing that I want to think about is, the characterstics of people change based on which SNS they are on, and more interestingly, I found that people use multiple accounts of one kind of SNS. That is, people have two or three Twitter accounts or multiple Facebook accounts. For me, I don't have more than one account of certain SNS, but I wanted to think about why people would do that.

  I think there are pros and cons of having multiple accounts. For pros, I believe, they can manage their social network more easily. When I leaf through my friends list on Facebook or Twitter, there are hundreds of friends, which sometimes makes me think that is "too much." This could be handled by having multiple accounts, each of which has different groups of friends. Since each account has different groups of people, what users see on news feed would differ, and they could post considering the group of friends. 
  When it comes to twitter, since users connect with mostly random people, they can manage friends more easily by having multiple accounts. Plus, when users would like to start tweeting and friendship again on twitter, they can just make a new account and start again.
  I think one of the reasons why people have multiple accounts is that it is not that complicated to make a new account. people can easily make a new account only with an e-mail address. Because of that, people just don't hesitate to do it.

  It seems that using multiple accounts is a really good thing, but I would like to cast this question. "Can I show 'completely real me' on SNS if I have many other accounts of SNS?" I would say no. It is surely great that people can manage their friends easily by having multiple accounts, but in reality, relationship is not that a simple thing. In everyday's life, we interact with many kinds of groups of people, and based on who we meet, our identity could differ. With multiple accounts, however, people can manipulate what they want to meet on the internet, and they would avoid situations in which they have to show what they don't want to show to other people. In the end, everyone on Social Networking Service would only show their edited characteristics, and friendship would become such a light thing. When something complicated happens, they can just delete everything, make a new account, and start again, which is never possible in reality. 

  In the past, this "managing people" stuff was usually the problem of public figures. Since they are being shown to people publicly all the time, they had to consider which is to show and not to show, and they had to manipulate their images. These days, however, it seems that everybody on the internet is becoming public figures. People are aware of the audience, and they show their edited characteristics and manage their images. Wow. I think this is so interesting.

  In my opinion, I don't think it is a great idea to have multiple accounts and divide my egos based on my accounts, but I also think that could be useful "only if" people wisely use the multiple accounts. Why do we bother to split your characteristics? Well, that is entirely "my personal" opinion. 
  
  So, How do you think?

Hyper-tension throughout the Korean Peninsula. What is going on?

  Today, North Korea blocked the entry of South Korean workers into Kaesong Industrial complex, intensifying high tension between South Korea and North Korea. I feel that the tension is extremely high these days, and it even seems to get worse and worse.

  Tons of news articles pop up on the internet, and before I totally understand what is going on, another incident continually happens. Therefore,  I would like to summarise what has happened and what is going on throughout the peninsula at this point.

•   The first spark happened in December, 2012 when North Korea fired a three-stage rocket. What made it worse was that North Korea's firing the rocket was violation of a ban on North Korean ballistic missile tests, since the rocket was also related to the long-range missile technology. As a result, Many countries condemned the launch of the North Korean rocket including the UN Security Council. 

•   Another big spark happened in February, 2013. North Korea carried out a third underground nuclear test, which was said to be twice as big as the previous test in 2009. That deeply intensified the tension between South Korea and the North, and moreover, between the North and the UN. That was followed by the sanction over the North Korea by the UN Security Council. After the sanction, North Korea showed their anger with it. 

•   Last week on March 26th, North Korea ordered artillery and rocket units into "combat posture" to target US bases which are in Hawaii, Guam and the mainland of America. In a few days, as the reaction of that, American military showed their training of American stealth bombers flying over South Korea, followed by North Korea's urgent operations conference.

•    Yesterday, on April 2nd, North Korea stated that they will restart Yongbyon nuclear reactor, which was closed in 2007, and it seems to reoperate this Autumn. 

  As seeing above, North Korea is continuously carrying out their manoeuvres, violating agreements made with other countries, leading to more intensive tensions. 
 
 
  Beside the issues of North Korea's nuclear missiles, it seems that the North is also carrying on suspicious moves. On March 20th, the computer networks of broadcasters and banks in South Korea were paralysed by an unknown computer virus attack from hackers. The source of the network attack has not been clarified yet, but it is being assumed that the attack is from North Korea seeing that the tension between the South and the North is extremely high.

  In my opinion, North Korea would keep carrying out sensitive deeds, so South Korea would have to strongly react to the threats from the North. South Korean President Park Geun Hye said that South Korea is resolute in taking strong action against the threat. I really hope South Korea would do so. 

  As a result of the high tension, financial supports from other countries to North Korea seems to be taken back. If South Korea also withdraws their support to North Korea, the resource of North Korea would be depleted in the end, and the North would end up with stopping going onto the next step.

  I think the collapse of North Korea could happen from the inside of North Korea. It is said that more than the half of North Korean people are suffering from famine. I think it could happen that starving people would end up furious demonstration, leading to collapse of North Korea. That is just my little piece of comment.

  While North Korea is keeping their hostile attitude, the South cannot be sure what would happen, so I think South Korea should keep watching all the time. I hope these issues would be resolved as soon as possible. Let's keep watching how it would go.




* I referred to webpage of BBC News which is : http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-11421928 Check this webpage out for more information.

* Image sources are following below : 
http://www.alternavox.net/18717/world-notes-violence-against-women-addressed-by-un-koreas-exchange-threats-maduro-becomes-acting-president-of-venezuela/
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2013/03/12/why-north-korea-loves-to-threaten-world-war-iii-but-probably-wont-follow-through/
http://news.in.msn.com/international/us-denounces-north-koreas-nuke-threats