Tennis

 Today, since we have a choice, I have decided to blog about tennis. There are two reasons I am doing this: first because I love playing the sport, and second because the Australian Open is going on right now, which is one of the four biggest tournaments of the year.

Tennis is a sport that is played between two players or two teams. You use a racquet and a ball, and the point of the game is to beat your opponent: either by missing less than them or by hitting more winners. The modern game of tennis originated in the late 19^th century in the United Kingdom. It was first called Lawn Tennis, in which they played on grass, and after its creation, it quickly spread among the English upper-classman. After that, it spread around the world.

Rafael Nadal

Since the 1890’s, the rules of tennis have not changed that much. One of the changes though is that on a serve, you are now aloud to have no feet on the ground. From 1908 to 1960, there was a rule that stated that you had to have one foot on the ground while serving. Another change is that tiebreakers have been added. This happened in 1970 mostly because of one reason. The reason they were added was because without them, you could lose a whole match without losing a single point on your serve.  The last thing that has been added recently is the challenge system. This is only at big tournaments and on a select number of courts, but if you happen to be on one of them, you are allowed to question a call that someone has made. They then show a 3D animation on a screen, and if the ball is in, you win the point!

Caroline Wozniacki

The Australian Open is happening right now. It is in Melbourne, Australia and it held during the Australian summer. Therefore, the temperature on the court can sometimes reach up to 120 degrees! Last year, Roger Federer of Switzerland, one of the best players of all time, claimed the Men’s Single’s trophy, and Serena Williams of the US, claimed the Women’s Singles trophy. This year, Rafael Nadal, who is currently trying to capture his 4^th straight grandslam title, is seeded number one on the men’s side, and Caroline Wozniacki of Denmark is seeded number one on the women’s side.

I have been playing tennis since about 4 years old, but not until I was 8 did I start taking it seriously. I have been moving up the ranking lists quickly, even though many injuries have held me back. For the 12’s age division, I was ranked #1 in Texas and #15 in the nation. For the 14’s age division, I was as high as #3 in Texas and #97 in the nation. I would have definitely been higher, but last year, I had two knee surgeries, which put me out for a whole year, no tennis. My knees are much better now, and I am doing very well.

Sources:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tennis

This source was my basis for most of my information, but most of it came from my head since I know so much about it.

http://www.tennisfame.com/museum-grounds/history-of-tennis-in-newport

I used very little of this website to gather background info about the origins of tennis.

http://onthebaseline.com/uploads/caroline_wozniacki.jpg

http://www.clbuzz.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/Australian-Open-Tennis-2010.jpg

http://www.zimbio.com/pictures/UlnhvxTPQ1O/2009+Australian+Open+Day+14/-Gt2BT7lwrU/Rafael+Nadal

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ixLrkP1H1RU

Digital Fortress

Digital Fortress is probably my favorite book of all time. It is a fast-paced, exciting, and a real page turner of a book. One of the reasons I like the book is because it is a science fiction, and he clearly tells you what is and is not real. In the author’s note at the beginning, he states that all the agencies listed in the book, like the NSA, are real and their duties are the same as they are in the book. It shows that he has done a lot of research on the subject and he knows how to incorporate it well in the book.

Digital Fortress starts off in the house of David and Susan Becker, two newlyweds. Susan wakes up and finds David is gone and he has left a note for her on the table. The note says that David has left town but he will be back as soon as possible in order to go on their scheduled vacation. David did not realize this at the time, but he would not be back for a while.

NSA

The person that sent David on this journey was Susan’s boss, Mr. Strathmore. He was the head of the NSA, and David could not say no to him because he was Susan’s boss. The NSA is a government program which is in control of finding valuable information and presenting it to the president. The way they get this information, though, is by reading others emails. Since people nowadays have been worried that others are spying on them, they have put codes on their emails ranging from a couple letters to a billion. Secretly, inside the NSA, there is a machine called TRANSLTR which knows how to decode these emails. This machine has saved many lives, including stopping a bomb minutes before it blew up. This machine has been able to decode everything, that is, until someone made an unbreakable algorithm. He posted it on the internet so people can see it and he is offering the passcode to the highest bidder. If anyone obtains this, they will practicly rule the world, and the the NSA will not be able to read anyone elses emails. Therefore, the US will not be safe from threats.

Dan Brown

So, while Tankado (the person with the passcode) was in Spain, he unexpectedly died, and he had on him a ring which had the passcode for the algorithm. So, Strathmore sent David Becker to Spain to get the ring and bring it back. Through many events and a lot of scary situations with people following Becker, he finally obtains the ring. While this is happening though, Strathmore turns into the bad guy, and he needs the passcode for other personal reasons. After many mistakes made by the NSA, they are in need of getting the passcode so that all of their information will not be released to the public. This information includes all their past missions, information related to secret things, and much more.So to make a long story short, the passcode is given to the NSA just in time to stop the release of all of the highly secretive files from going on to the internet. Its hard to explain in a short synopsis since there is so much going on, but that is the gist of the story.

Here is a trailer for the movie.

I recommend this book to anyone, because it is truelly a great book. I finished it within a couple days because I could not put it down. I would also recommend any of the other Dan Brown books, because they are the same way.

Many newspapers and articles were very fond of this book as well, including the David Pogue of Macworld Magazine who said: “A techno-thriller is only as thrilling as its realness—and if Dan Brown’s gut-churning story were any realer, it plot turns would hurl you against the wall.” Also, the Providence Sunday Journal said it was “[m]asterful…with a gradual acceleration and intensification of dangers that held my attention from the first page.”


Amazon said that "In most thrillers, "hardware" consists of big guns, airplanes, military vehicles, and weapons that make things explode. Dan Brown has written a thriller for those of us who like our hardware with disc drives and who rate our heroes by big brainpower rather than big firepower." Amazon also said that "You'll find yourself better understanding the political battles over such real-life technologies as the Clipper Chip and PGP (Pretty Good Privacy) software even though the book looks at the issues through the eyes of fiction."

Sources:

http://www.oilempire.us/oil-jpg/NSA_seal.jpg

http://www.bookstoreup.com/wp-content/uploads/Digital-Fortress.jpg

http://www.frontrowreviews.co.uk/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/428px-   

   dan_brown_bookjacket_cropped.jpg

The CIA

The book that I finished reading, The Lost Symbol, talked about a man in a quest to find a treasure that had been hidden for ages. Along the way, he encounters many problems, and one of them is the CIA intervening. That is why I have decided to expand upon the CIA.

The CIA is a very secret agency that works on protecting our country by providing information to the President, National Security Council, and other government officials that carry out the National Security Policy. Pretty much, the CIA gives intelligence to leaders so that they can make good decisions. Therefore, the CIA doesn't make decisions, and it is left to the Executive Branch. In order to do this, the CIA achieves this by doing two things. First, they give "accurate and timely intelligence on foreign threats to our security (www.CIA.gov)." The second thing they do is provide counterintelligence related to foreign intelligence when the president asks for it.

To make sure the CIA does everything right when assigned a project, they have to follow a certain set of rules that is overseen by Congress. This is called the Intelligence Cycle, and there are five different steps. The first one is called Planning and Direction. In this step, you make a plan about what you will do and what information you already know. The next step, collection, is when they look for information about the subject, either openly or secretly. The third step, processing, is where they gather information, and put it into a intelligence report. The fourth step, analysis and production, is when they take a further look at the information gathered, and they try to find how it goes together. Finally, the last step is dissemination. In this step the CIA gives the policy maker the final written analysis with the answer to the question. If the policy maker reads over the analysis and still has a question, they have to repeat the whole process.

Foreign intelligence has been around since the time of George Washington, but only since World War 2 has it been on a government-wide level. The CIA was started right before Pearl Harbor because president Roosevelt was concerned about "America's deficient intelligence efforts." While in office, Roosevelt created a Coordinator of Information (COI) which later turned into the Office of Strategic Services (OSS). Then when Truman succeeded him, he abolished the OSS and made it a lot smaller. He realized his error as the threat of the Soviet Union and the Cold War, so he finally reestablished it and made a new group. It was called the Central Intelligence Group, and it was in charge of doing 2 things: provide strategic warning and conduct important clandestine activities. Unlike the OSS, the CIO had access to all-source intelligence. Two months later, the CIA was created, along with the National Security Council, due to the disbantion of the CIO. And since then, the CIA has been growing and growing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9QYZBMIBOck

http://trcs.wikispaces.com/file/view/cia_night_ops_photos_001.jpg/43378231/cia_night_ops_photos_001.jpg
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7c/CIA_seal.jpg
http://cryptome.org/eyeball/cia-dc/cia-dc-cia-hq-south.jpg


www.CIA.gov

I thought that this was a good source to use because it is accurate. It is the official CIA website and all the information is correct. I got most of my information from here, since it had a ton of

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cia

I used very little from this site, but it did give some good information.

Dan Brown

Dan Brown was born on June 22nd, 1964 and raised in Exeter, New Hampshire. He raised on the campus of Philips Exeter Academy, where his father taught, and he was the eldest of three children. Brown's parents were musical, both having been church choir masters, and his mother serving as the church organist. This probably explained why he had a love for music.

At a young age, he also became very interested in puzzles and mysteries, which is the basis to all of his books. Brown used to spend hours and days making diagrams and trying to solve them. Then for special occasions, like birthdays and holidays, his gift could only be found by using a secret map. Sometimes, he would even have to enter the city and get clues there!

After graduating from Philips Exeter Academy, he continued his studies at Amherst College, where he majored in English and Spanish. He later graduated in 1986, and he tried to pursue a musical career. He started off by making a CD, which sold a few hundred copies, then he decided to make his own record company: Dalliance. He later moved to Hollywood to continue his music career, and this is where he met his future wife, Blythe Newlon. At the time, she was working for the National Academy of Songwriters, and she was the Academy's Director of Artist Development. She went out of her way to promote Brown's projects, and later when Brown moved back to New Hampshire, Blythe accompanied him. They got married in 1997.

He did not love write too much, until one holiday in Tahiti. It was here that Brown read "The Doomsday Conspiracy," which inspired him to write thrillers. While in Tahiti, he also started to write his first book: "Digital Fortress."It was finally published in 1998, but it had very little success. After publishing this, he continued on by writing two more books: "Deception Point" and "Angels and Demons." These books also did not do too well, each selling around 10,000 in their first printings. His next book though, "The Da Vinci Code" became an instant bestseller, and it rose to the top of The New York Times Best Seller List in its first week. He even became one of the top 100 most influential people of the year for Time's Magazine in 2004! After "The Da Vinci Code," he wrote "The Lost Symbol" which I am currently reading. He said that he plans on writing a total of 12 novels, so he still has more to give. In 2006, he even had a movie made about "The Da Vinci Code."

Brown currently resides in New Hampshire where he is married to Blythe Brown. He is still writing novels to this day.

More info:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CC6OdkwBIic

Sources:
http://images.hollywood.com/site/dan_brown.jpg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dan_Brown
http://srikanthad.files.wordpress.com/2007/10/dan-brown.jpg
http://www.mediabistro.com/fishbowlny/files/original/time100_dan_brown.jpg

About Myself

Hi, my name's Daniel Weiner. I was born in Houston and I have lived here my whole life. I did not start out at Kinkaid, but I came here in 6th grade and I have loved it ever since.
My favorite thing to do is play tennis. I have been ranked as high as #1 in Texas and #15 in the nation, but last year I was held back a lot. I had to have surgery on both my knees, so therefore I was out for more than half the year!
Over Winter Break, I had a great time. First I traveled to California for a tennis tournament, but it probably was not the best idea. We happened to have perfect timing, because when we got there it was the worst rain they had in more than a decade! It rained for a week straight, so they decided they had to cancel the tournament. We then went to Arizona for another tennis tournament. Here, the weather stopped and we were allowed to play. I did very well, getting to the round of 32 in the main draw, then in back draw I won two matches then lost. This was my first big tournament back, and I was very excited that I did well. This was probably my favorite Winter Break so far, but I am happy to come back to school and hang out with friends.
Another thing that I love to do is read. Mostly I stick to science fiction, but I love biographys as well. Recently I have not had too much time to read for fun, but with this class, I am having a lot of fun.
For interim term, I have some very interesting classes. First period, I have "Listening to music of dead european white guys." Second period, I have Reading for the fun of it, then third and forth period, I have a iphone app programming class. Here, we are learning how to make an iphone app, and if we want to at the end, we can put it on the app store.