From Service Dog to SURFice Dog

Today I was doing my usual look-through of www.cuteoverload.com and although all of the pictures are extremely cute,  a video of a dog on a surf board especially caught my attention. I clicked on the link and eagerly watched. Some depressing music started playing and it said that Ricochet was born into the “Puppy Prodigies Neo-natal & Early Learning Program.” Now, confused at why the dog was on a surfboard and skeptical at what I was going to see, I kept watching.

As soon as I saw Ricochet, I was hooked. The cutest puppy I’d ever seen. She was going to help people with disabilities and her training began the moment she was born with obsticle courses and intense obedience drills. As she got older her training progressed, but when she started to prefer chasing birds over opening doors, her trainer sadly had to take her out of the program. This behavior could be dangerous when helping disabled people and they can’t take that risk.

After that training stopped, Ricochet suprisingly showed interest in surfing. This sparked the trainer’s imagination and she quickly utilized this new talent to again help disabled people. Her first fundraiser was for 15 year old quadriplegic surfer Patrick Ivison. They tandem surfed together and if Patrick fell off, Ricochet was right there to pull him back on the board.

Looks like dogs aren’t only man’s best friend, but life savers as well.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGODurRfVv4

“No, I did not blink…I’m just Asian!”

Digital cameras these days come with lots of helpful features: red-eye reduction, auto-focus, smile detection, and face detection are only a few of the many. While most of us find these features to be beneficial, others surprisingly find them as racist! How could a digital camera be racist, you may ask..?

Joz Wang and her brother bought their mom a new Nikon Coolpix S630 digital camera for Mother’s Day. While testing it out on each other a message kept flashing on the screen, “Did someone blink ?” No, no one had blinked. At first they thought the camera might be malfunctioning, but they soon found out it was just using the face detection feature. Face detection lets you know if people are blinking while you’re trying to take a picture so you won’t end up with any of those embarrassing ”eyes closed” pictures we all immediately delete.

Nikon isn’t the only brand that has displayed an occasional bias toward Caucasians. Face detection  is supposed to make photography more convenient. It has also found its way into computer webcams, where it can track a person’s face during a video conference or enable face-recognition software to prevent unauthorized access.

As one can see, this feature can be quite the life saver…unless you’re Asian. Which is ironic because you’d think that Nikon, being an Japanese company itself, would have thought about this issue before releasing the product…

“America’s New Favorite Sport”?

When we think of sports that have shaped America’s history the first two that pop into our heads are probably baseball and football. Although men, as well as woman, can enjoy watching these sports only men really get to play them. Other than softball, woman are over looked as competitors when it comes to baseball and football.

In 2003 “Lingerie Football” was introduced. Originally used as a half-time event during Super Bowl games, these woman brought in many viewers. Although, I have a feeling the level of skill and talent probably wasn’t what the audience was interested in.  Uniforms consist of helmets, shoulder pads, elbow pads, knee pads, garters, bras, and panties, so not much is left to the imagination. The game is full contact and is similar to indoor football leagues. Appearance isn’t the only thing the woman are held accountable for though. They do actually need to know the rules and how to play the game.

Personally, I think this whole idea is pretty degrading. Granted women can techniquely play on men’s sports teams, the chances are very slim of them making a team at that level. I do find many women’s sports to be quite boring to watch, and being an woman athlete myself, I think that makes my opinion pretty unbiased.  But why not make a regular women’s football league? Obviously money is not an issue if they can fund this one. I’m pretty sure any girl-on-girl action will grab the attention of many men anyway.

This whole idea of Lingerie Football is really reminiscent of the media/entertainment world today. If women want attention they have to be beautiful and half-naked. Skill or talent alone simply isn’t enough.

Saying this might be a total contradiction to my whole piece, but I would still probably play Lingerie Football simply because I love to play football. This might be the mind set of many of the woman out there, but I’m sure a lot of them wouldn’t be opposed to playing fully clothed either.

http://www.lingeriefootball.net/

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