LED Light Bulbs

In today’s world finding the most energy efficient and green products on the market is important, for our own safety as well as the environments. With more new and advanced technology being produced everyday it is hard to keep up with all of it. In the case of light bulbs the advancements have been dramatic. Incandescent, fluorescent, and LED bulbs are the leaders in the market. But which light bulb is superior to the rest? I’m here to tell you.

Incandescent and fluorescent light bulbs have been the standard for years upon years. Both are somewhat efficient, and need a reasonable amount of power to light each one respectively. But what is really cool is the emergence of LED light bulbs. Extremely energy efficient and ecofriendly, you cannot go wrong with these bulbs.  LED bulbs do not contain any mercury like its’ fluorescent counterpart. LEDs outperform incandescents and fluorescents, with an average life span of 50000 hours versus 1200 hours and 8000 hours, respectively. More than triple the hours of fluorescents. Along with having a longer average life, LEDs also use 6-8 watts when running compared to incandescent and fluorescents 60 to 13-15 watts, respectively. Using fewer watts makes the LED bulbs emit a drastically lower heat than the other bulbs. LEDs are also very durable; they cannot shatter like the glass bulbs on incandescent and fluorescent.  They can also in very frigid temperatures and are not sensitive to humidity. One of the coolest features about LEDs, in my opinion, is that the can produce any color under the visible light spectrum. There are LED bulbs that you can use in your house along with an app that can change the color accordingly. So it might not hurt to screw in a few LED bulbs and start saving.

Does Music Make You Smarter?

Despite popular belief, recent studies have been shown that music does not affect cognitive thinking. Samuel Mehr, a Harvard graduate student, disproved this popular notion by organizing some experiments with his colleagues. Mehr himself plays saxophone, flute, bassoon, oboe, and the clarinet. Mehr and his company, the Harvard psychology department, put together a research experiment to see if music lessons aided in cognitive thinking. The team incorporated music lessons with visual art lessons and tried to eliminate factors that could bias the result. They randomly assigned four-year-olds and their parents to two different groups, and Mehr taught both classes, which ran 45 minutes and went on for six weeks, to ensure that the difference could not be accounted for by a more charismatic teacher. Instead of overall intelligence Mehr and his crew tested on core mathematical abilities, spatial navigation, and linguistic abilities. The results yielded that music gave the kids a slight edge over kids not in the program.

The test was performed once again with a larger group of kids but could not produce the same result. The study does not rule out that music has no effect at all, but rather suggests more classes to see any astonishing results. Mehr stated, “The take home message from these two particular studies themselves is we should be really cautious about making positive claims about cognitive benefits of music education.”

Ellen Winner, a professor of psychology at Boston College, noted that the direct benefits of music are unclear as of now. But until till that day comes, keep rocking. \m/

School System

The school system seems like it consistently stays under fire, with good reason. There are many things that I would personally change about America’s school systems. From as early as grade school, the subjects that the school teaches are too narrow. If they broadened the choices kids had it would give them the chance to pursue what they enjoy most. The subjects taught in school like math, science, literature, and social studies only train one part of the brain. And sometimes kids are stripped of their creativity. Not every student has aspiring dreams to be an engineer or a teacher, so why make them take the classes needed for those professions.  If students know, or at least have a strong feeling, for what they want to do as a career, classes in grade school should be more diverse. By incorporating more art and humanity types of classes students become more well rounded at an early age.

State testing is another area where the school system lacks. Students are testing in the “major” categories of study: math, science, reading, writing, etc. While those tests do an effective job, they neglect the other portion of students who are not strong in those areas. Those individuals might have strong art skills and very developed senses of creativity. Even the great Albert Einstein himself said, “Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.” With that being said, I think that more schools should incorporate a more diverse list of classes to choose from.

Analog vs. Digital Recording

What form of recording sounds and is actually better, analog or digital? Well analog is the more traditional and the original method of recording. The first ever analog recording device was the phonograph created by Thomas Edison in 1877. Alternatively, British scientist Alec Fermi created the first digital recording in 1938. In 1957, Max Mathews developed the process to digitally record sound via computer.

In analog recording you have one chance that is it. If someone messes up or misses a note they would have to repeat the entire song or phrase until they get it sounding how they like. Sound engineers have to manually cut the ribbon with a razor blade and attach clip to clip to form each song. In digital recording you can edit, cut, copy, paste, anything you please. Missed a note? No problem, they can go into a song and manipulate the whole song to their liking.

Musicians and music aficionados alike, say that while digital recording is faster and less of a hassle, it lacks the human element. Sure everything will sound tight and relatively perfect but it is not as real as analog recording goes. With analog, the sound produced has a large amount of warmth.  While the digital mix of a track is modified and warped through a computer the analog is clean, basic, and what you hear is what you get.

Most of the world has converted to strictly digital for sake of efficiency, time, and ease; but there are still some purists that still believe that analog is the superior recording method and the only way to do it.