Should parents modify their child's DNA?

Human DNA modification can drastically change a person's life. Genetic DNA could be used to create a "Designer Baby", where a parent has genetically customized their child's DNA to have certain genes and have none of another.  For example, a baby, was cured of cancer before he was able to walk because doctors were able to genetically mutate his genes.  They had to do this because his father's side of the family has had a long line of cancer and they didn’t want him to be diagnosed too.  They were lucky to be able to catch it earlier.  On the other hand, it could be used to change the appearance of a child, picking and choosing different traits.  It should be legal for a parent to choose whether or not they want to modify their child's genes (with some boundaries).  I believe that it is very beneficial to be able to change the genetics of one's baby, and  It would be okay for a parent to use this technology to prevent a genetic disease/ tumor but unethical for them to use it to change a looks of their child.

First of all, it is the parent’s decision on how they raise their child, whether being hard on them school wise, or letting them decide their future, etc.  In the same way, they should have all the right to mutate their children’s genetics.  If the family is ready to put their child through genetic customizations, then they should.  The same should be held for such actions on the physical appearance of the child (but I think this is completely unethical.  Children should be born the way they were meant to, not the way they are artificially made.  Their appearance is one of the factors what shapes their life, and changes of that may result in a completely different person.).  Restrictions and laws should be made to keep genetic modification safe.  People should never be able to use this new science to create a difficulty for the child in the future, such as causing a cancerous mutation.  A DNA modification pamphlet should be handed out to every single parent/ patient to read, so that they understand fully what the dangers, risks, and benefits of DNA modification really are.

iPhone 4 On Verizon

At a press conference in New York City, Verizon CEO Lowell MacAdam announced that the iPhone 4 will be available on Verizon's networkstarting February 2011.

-http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/11/verizon-iphone-release-date-launch_n_807347.html

Recently, the iPhone was finally released to verizon after their exclusive contract with AT&T expired after five years.  This contract stated that the iphone was exclusive with att only for five years.  After a few years of iphones being on the market, they became a “hot” item, and apple was just waiting for them to be able to expand to other carriers, such as verizon.  Verizon has a lot better service connect and stability, while att has faster downloading speeds.  The users of att have been fed up with the unstable connection, and have been waiting for the contract to expire so that they could hop onto verizon, as shown by this video.  Living in the bay area, the connection stability is even worse than anywhere else because att neglects to improve their satellites over us.  In my house, when sending a text message, I have to send the text, then jump up and down and hold my phone above my head. And with that, it only works sometimes.  And sometimes is gets ridiculous and I cant send the message and have to go outside. 

Not to seems spoiled or anything, but I thought I was lucky when I got the iphone 4 for att for Christmas.  But now, I am really regretting getting it because that means that I have to wait another two years before I can jump onto the verizon wireless plan and have great service, and a texting with out jumping up and down around my house, waving my hand over my head. 

On the other hand, the antenna problem that everyone was complaining about a few months ago hasn’t bothered me at all, which is great.  I think it is because I have a case over my phone which protects interference with the phones connection.  That is an upside that I wasn’t expecting.  But overall, looking at it from another perspective, having an iphone on att is a great, great thing that many others don’t get the privilege of, so I shouldn’t be complaining at all, even if verizon users are going to get 5x better connection. 

Ipad?

This is a response to Billy's post about whether or not an iPad is a worthy thing to buy:

Why choose iPad ? Many have wondered about this and still have trouble finding why. Well, what is an iPad? An iPad is a tablet computer made by Apple. It is made for reading audio books,watching movies, browsing the web, listening to music, and most importantly playing games. An iPad is portable and a lot bigger than the Ipod touch or the Iphone, but it does mostly the same task like them. A iPad's starting price is 499 

My family recently put together our money and bought an ipad for the whole family, and i cant say i regret it, but at the same time, i cant say it was the best buy i made in a while.  Many people say that the ipad is just a big ipod, why buy it?  Before i bought the ipad, i thought "its a huge ipod, why NOT buy it? who doesnt was a gigantic ipod touch?"  Now, looking back, i think the ipad is way over priced.  I got the 64 giga byte one, and that set my family back almost a thousand dollars, including tax and the cover case.  I think that that is completely over priced for a piece of technology.  I have to admit that when i use it, i completely forget about the pricing.  It is an incredibly useful device.  For example, i wrote my blog about firemens' integrity on it last week, while away from home.  It was extremely cool to do so because it is much more portable than my laptop, and it works almost like one.  It was also easier to type than i expected, on a touch screen

I also use it for games.  The game-play on the huge, sharp display is incredible because i can see the rich colors in a screen many times larger than an ipod touch.  It is also Is much easier to handle because of the larger screen.  I can play, without having to scrunch up my hands.  The ipad is still way over priced, and i think that if Apple brought the price down, many more people would buy it.  The ipad is extremely useful, extremely fun, and extremely unique, but at such an extreme price, i don't think it is worth it.  I would much rather stay with an iphone, which can get 3g connection almost anywhere.

that brings me to my next point.  I don't see the ipad as a useful thing to have on a 3g broadband.  All you could do is surf the web, go to youtube, etc.  But you cant make phone calls on it, unless you have special apple headphones and a calling application.  Even with these, the calling app wasn't made to be used on a 3g network, and it would probably lag.  I don't think it would ever replace a cell phone, unless it got smaller, or maybe less in cost.  I strongly stand behind the iphone, which is the perfect medium between the ipod and the 3g ipad.

Response to sutherland...

I was reading this post about twitter use in class on Mr. Sutherland’s blog and decided to respond:

I believe that since the children of this world are drawn to attention by technology, schools should adapt to their likings in order to teach them better. If schools taught by using technology and such, the students have more of a motive to actually stay focused.  The younger generation enjoys being involved in using computers, cell phones, or any other electrical technology because it is a shield between them and the actual world, and they are able to hide behind their computers or phones.  This allows them to be more confident in the boundaries of cyber space than they would be in the real life.

In this class, the teacher has the students text or twitter their ideas in instead of raising their hands and actually stating their ideas out loud.  This method is good in a larg class.  Many people are left unspoken to during class because there are too many ideas floating around.  Twitter or texting it would organize all of these and make it be able to share the ideas. Also, this is important because in a class, there may be many students who feel unsafe or uncomfortable speaking to an audience in fear of being made fun of for their idea or the way they speak.  Texting in their ideas instead of talking it out acts a sufficient “crutch” to the person, and helps guide them to feel more confident.  This crutch allows people to feel safer in sharing their ideas in class.

I do not believe that this method would work well in out class because some people do not have a cell phone.  Also, since our class is small, people will be able to share their ideas.  Although I believe that this would work for a larger class such as a college because it is difficult to address every one in the class, it is impractical to use it in such a small class.  Plus, ASTI’s community ensures that everyone feels safe and no one is ever made fun of for sharing their thoughts. This method is a great idea, but I think it should only be use for larger groups of people.