Post 5: Leader in the Comunity

I would like to welcome everyone to the final post in this series. Until now we have focused on the more personal side of this discourse community. This post being the last, we are going to focus on a leader in the community. Now the leader that I have chosen for this profile is none other than the Ontario born and raised, Canadian men’s Olympic archer Crispin Duenas. Now I do not know much about him, so all of my information and background on him is coming from his Olympic biography.

Crispin Duenas was born on January 5th, 1986. He grew up in Scarborough, Ontario and now lives in Toronto, Ontario. He got in to archery at 13 years old and since then has competed in a list on international events and competitions. His more notable games are; Rio 2016 Olympics, Toronto 2015 Pan Am games, London 2012 Olympics, and lastly the 2008 Beijing Olympics. In 2013 he also gained Canada’s first medal at the World Archery Championship in 42 years, coming in third for a bronze medal. And to top it all off his career high world ranking is fifth (Canadian Olympic Team Official Website, 2016). Now he has had a spectacular career but that is not the only thing to focus on with him.

What makes him a pillar of this community is not only his Olympic and Pan Am games involvement.  He is also a high school substitute teacher in math and physics (Canadian Olympic Team Official Website, 2016).Not only has he earned an Olympic and Pan Am games spot while being a substitute teacher but also has done so with a degree in physics from the university of Toronto and a Bachelors of Education. Now there  is one thing that he did that I personally find very incredible. The one thing is that, at the pre-Rio 2016 Olympic Excellence Series he played guitar with another famous Canadian, that other Canadian is none other than astronaut Chris Hadfield (Canadian Olympic Team Official Website, 2016). It is knowing all this that I consider him a pillar of the archery community in Canada.

 

References

Canadian Olympic Team Official Website. (2016, September 19). Crispin Duenas. Retrieved July 29, 2018, from https://olympic.ca/team-canada/crispin-duenas/

 

The Unreasonable Conflict, Post 4

     Well now it is time to talk about a conflict I have hinted at multiple times in previous posts. So just to refresh everyone I hinted at it in the very first post of this Discourse Community Analysis  set of posts. That conflict is which type of bow is better. The community is split in two, Those that prefer classic bows, the recurve and longbow, and those that like the modern bows, compound and crossbow. Now I do fall on the side of classical bow styles but I can see the advantages of the more modern types. The only problem with this conflict is that it can not be resolved as it is all up to each individual’s opinion. Since I can see advantages to both that’s what I will focus on showing you.

     So let’s start with the side of this conflict I fall on, classic style of bows.  Just to recap what the classic style of bows are; there is the longbow which is one of the older bow styles out there and there is the recurve that was used heavily by the Mongols to great effectiveness. I am going to try and keep this as unbiased as possible. Classic style of bows have been around the longest meaning that they have withstood the test of time. They do require more skill and strength to use but that is part of ancient design they use. Now I hear you all saying that the crossbow is also of the same time as the recurve and longbows, but I am focusing on modern crossbows for this.

     Now the more modern bows consist of the compound and modern crossbow. Both of which uses pulleys to give the shooter a mechanical advantage when drawing the bow, allowing them to draw heavier draw weights and to hold the bow drawn longer. This also means that they can shoot really far with minimal effort. That distance and minimal effort makes them very popular with hunters. Now the problem that this conflict has is that it is all opinion based.

     To finish this post I am going to finish with how this conflict is hard to solve. I have commented on this twice before in this post. So to solve this conflict you would have to break down people’s opinions. Removing people’s opinions is not as easy as it sounds. So with that I am going to leave you to think about that.

Hunting with bows, Discourse post 3

So today we are looking at a trend in the archery community. Now this trend touches on another discourse community, the hunting community. So where will will start this journey, well where else but the start when bows were the primary way of hunting.  Now that was a long time ago. Only recently when I was in a bow shop did I see it starting to make a comeback as a new challenge for skilled hunters.

So with bow hunting coming back to the surface in hunting, it seams like a good time to look at what bows there are to use without getting into the conflicts of which is better. The oldest and probably that hardest bow to hunt with is the traditional longbow as there is no assist in holding draw for longer periods of time and they have the lowest draw weight. To add to that challenge you need to be very close to your target to hit it as longbows do not have a very long range. Moving up the range scale is the recurve bow. The recurve has a longer range and can have heavier draw weights because of its design it is easier to draw heavier weights. Next comes the compound bow. With the series of pulleys it uses you can hold very high draw weights and hold them for long periods of time. It also has the advantage of range because of the draw weights. Lastly there is the crossbow. With its design like a rife mechanically hold the bow drawn once you have pulled the bowstring back. It has slightly less range to more range then the compound depending on the size. It is also the preferred choice of most hunters wanting to get away from rifles. So as you can see as you get more modern the bows have higher range with lower strength on behalf of the shooter.

So how does all that relate to bow hunting. Well, depending on your choice of bow, it depicts how close you have to get to the target and how long you can hold the bow drawn. If I were to take a longbow, I would have to get very close to my target to have a high hit chance. Now compare that to if I took a crossbow. With a crossbow I could sit in a tree stand all day with the bow ready to fire and the safety on. I could also be at a fairly long range from the target too. So I hope that this post gave you a little bit of insight into the world of hunting with a bow. The advantages of each type of bow for hunting

The skills in archery. DC post 2

Welcome back everyone. This post will be talking about the skills,knowledge, and aptitudes archery can help you develop. I will also describe how they could potentially be transferred to the working world. So, if you thought that archery was just for hunting or recreation, then please, read further you may learn something new.

Let me start off with what archery can help you develop. There are a number of things that archery teaches you and can help you develop. Some of the most obvious ones are strength and patience. Strength because you need to be able to pull the bows string back against the stiffness of the bow repeatedly, this is kind of like lifting weights, sometimes you are also required to hold the bow drawn for a period of time. It also is a good way to help build patience. This building of patience is different for everyone, for bow hunters it will be waiting for the best shot, for competition shooters it will be the right moment to release the arrow as to be as accurate as possible. Recreation shoots build up their patience in a different way. When shooting at a range, you must wait till the range master says it is safe to go collect your arrows.

Some of the more subtle things archery helps you with are; breathing control, attention to detail, focus, and more. Breathing control comes from the same idea of shooting a rifle, slow your breathing to steady your shot. Focus from needing to pay attention to what you are doing and keeping your eye on the target, a slip of focus could result in a miss at a crucial point. Finally, attention to detail, This one is more aimed at those that go as far as to make there own arrows as they need to be straight and the fletching, the feathers at the end of the arrow, are very particular.

So how can all this be applied to jobs well, I will tell you! Almost all jobs need some level of focus or attention to detail. Breathing control is good as it will allow you to control your breathing in those stressful times to calm yourself. Now strength is an important one for me, being that I am going into a field where I will be moving heavy parts of machinery, but it is also a good one for most jobs that require lifting. Finally there is patience. This is just good to have in general regardless of your field you need to be patient some time or another. Hopefully you all learned something new. Next time, the focus is trends in the archery community. So till then be patient.

Post 1: The beginning of a archer

Hello everyone, some of you may already be familiar with my blog and others may be new. The next series of post will differ from the structured posts up until now. For the next set of posts I have chosen a Discourse community that I am part of to share with you. I am part of multiple communities for example the online gaming community or the music community. Neither of those communities have as much of my affection as the archery community does.

I have been apart of the archery community for many years now. I was actually brought into it by a long time friend of mine and his dad. It all started when they took me to a SCA (Society for Creative Anachronism), their website can be found here http://www.sca.org/, event in which I did many things but most notable was when for the first time ever I was handed a bow and some arrows when I had never shot before. That experience did not end there but it progressed to where they needed one more contestant for a competition for the age group I fit into, or they could not hold it. I was asked to join, even though it was my first day shooting a bow. Well at at 12 years old and have only every shot a bow for about the 2 hours of practice I had that day I came in second in the competition. That is where my journey into this community started.

Since that day,  I have bought my own bow and arrows, and English Longbow for those that now bows, and shot many times always improving. I have been drawn deeper into the community by my love for the middle ages and their use of bows and by wanting to eventual be good enough to bow hunt.I do not play a large role in the community as I just shoot when I have the time right now. According to my parents, whenever we are in outdoor store and I disappear I can always be founds looking at the bows. I personally prefer to shot the old style recurve and longbows, which were what was used in the middle ages, but also can see the uses of compound and crossbows. All of this though gets into a later posts topic so I will save it for then.

Reading Blog #10 (262 words)

     Free college tuition, for those that finish high school with a minimum of an eighty percent average, would encourage students to try harder in high school. It would allow more students to attend college, as they would only need to worry about books and the extras they might need. I know that for me, this would have been very helpful. My first ever college course was in welding. The program itself was over two thousand dollars, then I also had to spend around eighteen hundred dollars just for the tools and gear that I would need. I would have only had to spend that eighteen hundred and not over three thousand in total.

     Put yourself in the position of a student whose parents are not going or are unable to help them, with the cost of post secondary education. If you had to only get an eighty percent average in high school to get free college education, you then would be able to go to college without having to take a year off to work and save up money. It would reduce your stress and in turn, allow you to do better in college.

     If students put forth their best effort, got the eighty percent average, they could get more than just free tuition.They would have a better chance of getting into the colleges that they want.. So instead of having to settling for a lower choice on their list, they could have better chances of going where they really want to go. Not only would it be financially better but academically better.

Reading Blog #9 (297 Words)

Human cloning is by far, extremely dangerous and unethical. To start cloning anything, let alone a human, bypasses the natural cycle and order of life. Natural selection will play no role. Life as we know it, will end. Every living thing that is born dies from natural causes, diseases or accidents. If humans interfere and start cloning humans, genes that make certain people less susceptible to diseases and the natural order of life will be disrupted. In theory, humans could be genetically bred, or cloned, to be invulnerable to all disease.

Another thing that makes cloning inherently dangerous is that any world leader, bent on control and power, in other words a megalomaniac, could use human cloning. They could create a mindless army of super soldiers that would do their every bidding, without a hesitation or second thought. This is only the tip of an iceberg. Below the surface, human cloning on that level would put the world into a dystopian future on a scale only seen in movies.

Finally, cloning is dangerous because if the clones end up being better than human, they might decide that their creators, we humans, are imperfect. That we have no place on the Earth. If that were to happen, we only have to look to our past to see what the future holds. The colonization of North America and the oppression of the natives, the Holocaust, the Rwandan genocide. If clones were to deem us unfit for the Earth, it is a war that humans can not hope to win. It would be a war fought against an enemy that can regenerate its forces endlessly. They possibly be stronger, smarter, faster, all around genetically superior. Human cloning could be the end of the human race and all that it is.

 

Reading Blog #8 (288 words)

     As odd as it sounds, persuasion has not been in my bag of tricks recently. I have not needed or even felt the need to persuade someone. The last time I was persuaded was over the break. The person who persuaded me just so happened to be my mom. It was about when I was going to be going home. The original plan was that I was going to be coming home on Saturday morning. I had changed my mind when I heard that their friends were coming earlier than expected. When I heard that, I decided to come home Friday night.Mom did not agree. She thought that the original plan was a much better idea. She made me realize that leaving in the morning was a better idea. Mom said that I really should have another night sleep as I hardly slept the night before. Then she hit me with driving in the morning would be easier than at night. Admittedly, I already knew that, but felt I would be in the way if I stayed. In the end, my mom ended up convincing me to stay. The tactic she used to do this, was mostly using  my own way of thinking against me. Using my own way of thinking seem to be my mom’s predominant way of persuading me. Be it about how to do something for a project or why I should leave at a different time, it always comes down to mom using my thinking against me. That is one of the ways that I try to persuade people. When you uses another person’s way of thinking to persuade them, it can almost seem like you didn’t do anything to persuade them, at all.

Reading Blog #7 (263 words)

In this terrain, it comes under Canadian shield which have the Igneous and metamorphic bedrock type. The physographic region was very old, apprometaly 4 billion years age. It has bumpy landscape and it is very resistant to weathering It has Mountain topography the north. It consist of Coniforous trees and have thin soil and it is freezing. Outi-l based needles of the trees and have acidic soils. The water flows from the topography due to mountainous region. It is Contious or Range. It have Aquatic vegation more compared to the other lake.

 

     I found this location description very difficult to read and understand for a number of reasons.The hardest part about this blog, was that the location descriptions are not very legible. Poor penmanship creates a significant issue with the audience’s ability to read and understand what the writer is trying to say. Another thing that made the description troublesome, was it filled with spelling, grammatical, and punctuation errors. The quality of the information is not the best. There is information missing and some information is just hard to decipher.Some of the information missing includes what types of animals, what types of birds, and weather details. There was no mention about if any birds were seen or even heard. The weather details were vague and uninformative. One discern of the things that the assignment wanted us to do was to describe what we saw, heard, and smell but the one I picked to work with, did not follow those guidelines. that all that much. The accuracy of the information is hard to discern because of the spelling errors and that it is also hard to read.

     The biggest improvement I have to suggest is that even if it is easier to write in cursive, it is easier for most for most people to quickly and accurately read standard typed scritp. I would also suggest that more technical wording be used instead of freezing  and bumpy, words like that could be replaced with hilly or the actual temperature. Another thing that I would suggest is that field notes need to be able to be read by anybody

Reading Blog #6 (265 words)

     The website that I am reviewing is, “All About Birds”. This website was created by the Cornell lab of ornithology. For that reason, I was able knock off multiple CRAAP categories in one go. The reputability of the research, content and studies that Cornell and other major universities like; Purdue, MIT and Caltech produce is why I trust them. Upon further reading through the website, I was able to find when it was written, August 2016. Knocking off the last category, how current the article is it is. Altogether the website passes the CRAAP test and is very reliable.

     The website contains a wide range of information.  On the main page, of the Barn Owls section, is the overview. Within the overview you can find the description, range of living, the scientific name, diet and habitat. The scientific name of the Barn Owl is Tyto alba. It lives in the grasslands and eats small mammals. All of that information is found on the overview page. The next page in the Barn Owl’s section houses all of the identification information.  Some of the information that can be found in this section is the color, size and physical appearance. The next two sections contain information on the life history and a map of where the Barn Owl lives. The last section on the Barn Owl is the sounds section which contains various clips of the Barn Owl’s various hoots.

     After this review of the website, I feel that this website along with others, will give me all the information that I need to complete my species profile.

References:

Davis, M. (2016, August 24). Barn Owl Overview, All About Birds, Cornell Lab of Ornithology. Retrieved February 22, 2018, from https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Barn_Owl/overview