first set

Help Needed..

I wish we went over cause and effect more. I kinda understand it and I kinda don't. There was a question in the midterm that asked "which one of these 5 deal with cause and effect?" I got very confused because they all pretty much dealt with cause and effect, well to me at least. They were all kinda vague on how the cause and effect happens so I really got confused to which answer is cause and effect because all the answers seem to be the right one.

The Cause and Effect section was just really irritating to me because it was confusing which situation is caused and effect. I think there has to be a different way of teaching this section rather then following whatever the book "Critical Thinking" describes and teaches it. Like a video describing it with live actions. That can help and also be very entertaining at the same time.

Well this is my last blog so I want to wish everyone good luck in the final. I have another blog that I post almost daily on so if you want to see what shenanigans I'm up to visit http://hellaiv-wally.blogspot.com and comment me! Also there's a video I'm making that me and Ro Ro made under a day so check out my blog for that also. Good luck everyone!!!

Me and Ro Ro at a HellaIV BBQ.

Almost Done.....

We'll it's almost the end of the class and I, seriously, learned a lot by taking this online class. This class has helped me learned new ways of arguing and thinking critical about certain situations I have came across through. It's like I put more thought into what I am talking, listening, or reading about. I'm always making sure that the premise supports the claim that is being stated, such that the claim makes any sense to me what so ever.

This class didn't just help me for academic reasons, but for also casual discussion's through-out my life. I would be hanging out with a bunch of my friends and then I would analyze what they are talking about. If their premise doesn't support their claim, then I would argue back and literally be like "dude wtf?"

I'm actually really glad I took this class, it was very interactive with the blogs and meeting up with group members you never met before, kinda like MTV's "The Real World". Thanks Professor Perez, I HELLA enjoyed this class.

I thought you guys would enjoy this so I put only the beginning of my Facilitation Project

You Gotta BELIEVE!!!!

Same as being vague, generalizations sometimes are a pet peeve to me. It's usually the fact that you are not being clear on what you are trying to explain. The book Critical Thinking by Carolyn Kernberger has a chapter on generalizations. The section of the chapter that caught my eye was Section 4. The Margin of error and Confidence Level. Off the bat, the first sentence explains how "It's never reasonable to believe exact statistical generalizations." It also gives an example on how town survey's are made, such that if a survey says 37% of the people in the town surveyed yes to wearing glasses, you can't be sure or confident enough that exactly 37% of the town wears glasses. There are some people that are asked to volunteer for survey's but some people, like me, just don't talk and walk away to them. So you can't be sure or correct among a survey like that. There could be a margin of error that we don't know of. This is important to understand because you should not ALWAYS believe what anyone tells you.

This is me being cocky and enjoying my car lol.

Whats is Needed

So I read some of Chapter 15 of Critical Thinking by Richard L. Epstein and from what I read, I thought part 8 was very important.

Part 8 was about the criteria for cause and effect. They have a table about what was the necessary criteria for cause and effect. These included:

- The cause is true
- The effect is true
- The cause precedes the effect
- Impossible for cause to be true and effect to be false
- The Cause makes a difference
- There isn't a common cause

Without knowing the criteria, then there may be a case where the issua of cause and effect wouldn't exist.

For example, a car hits my car that is parked. He goes to the police and insurance company and blames me for the accident. The thing with this that it doesn't meet all the necessary criteria for cause and effect. What is missing is that the cause is false.

Someone at school had an iPad today and I asked to try it out. This was actually really awesome. Not gonna lie, I think I want one.

Confusion Just Became Simple

This makes me wish we had access to this site before midterms hahahah.

The site "Mission: Critical" that Professor Perez refereed to us was very useful. It helped me understand certain things clear and understanding. The examples are very simple as well. They aren't over the top in complications, but rather they are simple to topics that people know commonly.

The Main Menu is awesome. It gives the main topic of each section and a link that leads to the section. Each section comes with examples, definitions, and my favorite, EXERCISES!

These exercises are amazing. I really wish we had this advantage before test or quiz's. They give a question which is multiple choice then it tells you if you were right or wrong. Whats the best part it also explains why, which is the reason I love it. This will definitely be useful for a study piece before the final. Thanks Professor Perez!

My friend took this picture of my car last week. It is now the default on my facebook lol.

Stuff Happens (Noticed that I changed the word to stuff.)

The topic of this blog post is about how cause and effect works. In the link Professor Perez gave us has seem very different from what I normally do in this class. But different doesn't mean bad, I actually enjoy doing this type of thing.

The topic was how cause and effect works in casual arguments. The example given was about how an accident was occurred during traffic. A truck was parked illegally on the bike lane where a bicycle had to swerve around the truck, where a car behind the bicycle had to suddenly stop, and finally the car behind the car that stopped hit the car that stopped.

The thing that caused a chain of everyone to do something different was the illegally parked truck in the bicycle lane. That caused everyone to do something different and effected the last two cars that got into the accident. So overall the truck is at fault.

I was at the game Tuesday, ended up we kicked hella ass.

Revenge of?.....

Appeal to Spite seemed interesting to talk about. The book Critical Thinking described Appeal to Spite as the hope of revenge as an invariably rejection as bad by some people on moral grounds. Here's an example:

Wally: Hey can you help me?
Richelle: Yeah sure what's wrong?
Wally: I think my coil packs burned out, I need to go to the Volkswagen dealership, can you bring me there?
Richelle: Okay I gotchu`.
Eric: (whispering) Dude.. remember he was suppose to bring you the body shop for your car but he hella flaked on you? Why you helping him?
Wally: Dammit Eric!

This is a good example of an Appeal to Spite. Basically, Wally(me) is asking for help even though I didn't help Richelle before. Richelle agrees to help, but Eric comes out of no where and reminds Richelle of why is she helping me when I didn't help her. More or less, it deals with revenge.

I won this game at a Lan thing yesterday. Halo tournament 1st place wooooo!

Truth Commercials? Are they foreal?

So I chose number 3 from the exercise questions on page 195 of Critical Thinking. The question was to find an advertisement that uses an appeal to fear and tell weather it is a good argument or not.

I had found this advertisement I saw awhile ago on tv, here's commercial.



This was a commercial from the anti-tobacco group called truth. In here you see a bunch of fake body bags being tossed around in front of the tobacco industry to show how many people they kill per day. The problem is, how do they get these statistics? If the argument is true, then they have a reason to disrupt the building to show what they are doing. If not, well then it is against Truth. More or less they are trying to show that they should stop selling cigarettes because it is killing around 1200 people per day. But the argument is bad considering you don't know whether the statics are true or not.

I saw this G35 in top of the 7th street garage the other day and I was like DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAMN. HELLA LOW. You can see the dime I put on the front bumper in the picture of the whole car hahaha.

Just like fear from a horror movie

The book, "Critical Thinking" describes appeal to emotion "as an argument is just a premise that says, roughly, you should believe or do something because you feel a certain way". From what I feel, I believe appeal to emotion is a way of trying to manipulate someone to do a certain action within a certain emotion.

There are many different ways to appeal to an emotion, which are: Appeal to Pity, Appeal to Fear, Appeal to Spite, and Appeal to Vanity.

The one that caught my eye was the Appeal to Fear. The book Critical Thinking describes Appeal to Fear as, "a way politicians and advertisers manipulate people." The reason that caught my eye was that this type of appeal to emotion is seen all the time. An example could be the "Truth" commercials. They try to find horrible ways that smoking could effect the future of different people in many vulgar ways.

So I tried one of these Monday. FYI only try it if you are healthy.....

Vague.. The Return of..

So there was one thing I remember talking about in my blogs that I remember i discussed that became a pet peeve of mine. Part C. Section 2 of Chapter 8 talking about Vague generalities. Nothing more irritates me the most but being vague.

The book "Critical Thinking discusses" Vague generalities, like using word combinations such as "very few" or "almost all". More or less an analogy of a oxymoron.

An example would be:

Almost all Honda's have VTEC (Variable Valve Timing and Lift Electronic Control).

This is vague considering using the words almost all. Almost could be replaced by the word some. It's either all or some. Saying almost all just confuses the listener or reader who is trying to figure out the amount of Honda's that have VTEC.

Here's a great picture after a party this morning. I guess it's my DJ setup after the party and it's my in that picture when i was in 8th Grade.

OP-ED CRED lol

The first Major assignment was to be, a consideration of important skills to learn how to analyze. The reason for this is how almost everything is done by analyzing. When is comes to going through an essay or reading book, everything is analyzed. But I found the first assignment really helpful.

When started by trying to understand the major claim. Then we went about going through the premises and claims that help support the main claim. The reason for this is to check if the the whole argument discussed in the editorial is a valid and good argument. We then try to find what type of evidence is included, find a description in the editorial, and discuses to prove if the editorial is strong/valid.

With these type of techniques to analyze anything, you will be golden. These techniques are I would believe are essential in order to have a good analyze of an argument.

Talk about a party, I don't know why but I took a picture of this. Reminds me of crepes.

Validation to the Club Please?

So I remember I talked about before how in a week of discussion, I was comparing something with discrete math. Well in Chapter 8, there is an explanation in party B. "Some Valid and Invalid Forms" that has a diagram EXACTLY like discrete math, so here it is.



This diagram pretty much sums up the whole beginning of discrete math.

Well on to describe this graph, it describes the different with talking in a direct way of reasoning and arguing backwards with all. A direct way is considered valid. The example explained is about how you start with For All S are P, a is S, So a is P. You start from S then you end with P.

An example is All Yellow Cars are Bright. Wally has a Yellow Volkswagen. Thus Wally has a Bright car.

Arguing backwards makes a statement weak: All Yellow Cars are Bright. Wally has a Bright Car. Wally has a Yellow Volkswagen. With that said there are other bright cars that are not yellow, like red and laguna blue. With that statement arguing backwards thus makes an argument weak.

This picture is gonna be a good memory in my life, well not really but a good one. My friend I met a day ago at a party that I realize kicked it with hella of my friends back in high school. WHAT A TRIP!

me and Crackin Candace

It's Best to Ignore Most of the Internet Sometimes..

Chapter 5 had something about advertising withing an online site. The whole point of advertising is to persuade someone in buying their product.

This is going to be my opinion on this so don't take this serious. I honestly believe that you SHOULD NOT believe ANYTHING on the internet unless proven. Regardless if it's Wikipedia, comments or status updates on Facebook, and even pop up or regular online advertising. Just going on Facebook have a lot of advertising that can be questionable. Just today, I saw an ad on Facebook talking about increasing size for a male. To prove the true conclusion for this product for this question, I did a little bit of research. I went on Google to searched up the product and I found many sources, such as forums, Yahoo answers, etc.. Majority of them has claimed that it doesn't work. But then again, I would be contradicting myself if I were to believe the online sources I found. The only best source I would believe would be if I actually try it my self. I obviously didn't buy the product but if to know if the product works, I would have to try it.

This was my awesome dinner today. Happy Birthday Dad!!

False Advertising.

Here's a good example of repairing a statement through advertising. Everyone who uses the internet has seen advertising all over the place; especially pop up ones that irritate EVERYPONE. This picture can conclude what I am talking about.



The message claims I won a prize. I have a new message from "God knows what?" that congratulates me that I won a prize of my choice. First of all, if you click the advertisement, it leads to another website of things to do before you claim the prize. You have to join or do a subscription such as magazines or a blockbuster membership, and then pay for those expenses. Then you also need to have 10 other people do the same. Overall it's a scam and a lie.

In order to fix this, they should have it instead of LIEING, they can say you have to do these things in order to claim something instead of saying you won, even though we all know you didn't win.

WTF?? the maintence light is on...

Repairing argument's can help ones self if someone is contradicting themselves or even being bias. There are also more reasons why it can help. Here are several examples I came up with.

"Emil drives slow. So Emil is a safe driver."

Analysis: So the claim here is that Emil drives slow, this making him safe. The thing is, just because Emil drives slow, doesn't mean he is a safe driver. There can be times he can be reckless like driving in the wrong lane or even swerving like crazy. In order to repair this statement, there needs to be something added DETAILS on how he drives, like habits or stories of how he drives.

"Google isn't working. So the internet is down."

Analysis: The claim here is that the website Google isn't connecting, this the whole internet is down. Doesn't mean because Google is down, means the whole internet is down. What if other sites work? The person would have to check other sites also or even call their ISP to check if its actually down.

Here's me at work, the one in purple with support with Roxxy.

Emotion Motion

An "appeal to emotion" is what caught my eye . It is what emotion is brought up to any premise. It can deal with a statement a person said, or even an advertisement seen on TV or heard on the radio. They can sometimes be irrelevant to the statement in certain ways but there is always an explanation why the emotion is caused from a statement.
A good example can be sadness. "I was eating a home style breakfast at a dinner and it reminded me of my Grandmother. Just reminded me of my Grandmother had cause me to become sad because she passed away a year ago." The emotion is caused by remembrance which brings emotion to the statement.
I found this interesting in how any emotion can be caused through words. It can be hateful to even something beautiful. Every statement can be surrounded by an emotion.

This is me with a really big pig. I'm the one with the hat.

91 Gas FTW

Relevance. I believe one of the most important principles in any argument having any relevance to the discussion. The book "Critical Thinking" by Richard L. Epstein describes "irrelevance" as a premise or premises not related at all to the conclusion.

I think irrelevance is not making any of your points come together within the conclusion. That makes the definition of relevance in upon "having connection at the matter at hand".

Relevance can be a connection to any argument in life. Just recently, I had an argument about different types of gas. So there's 87, 89, 91, and in some places, 93 in America. I was talking about how turbo cars require 91. Then concluded in how they require 91 gas because the turbo boost pressure makes the cylinders go faster, thus requiring 91 gas because of the boost pressure. Talking about turbo boost pressure makes the premise relevant because it backs up the argument.

Here is valentines day, my car found a really hot date.

Don't get rid of the cars!!!!

For the exercises given, I chose the first statement.

The statement is about a person complaining about his neighbor. The complaint explains how the neighbor has too many "beat up" cars in front of his lawn and the person want the neighbor to get rid of them for property value reasons.

It is argument of a complaint about the disheveled way the neighbor has his lawn. It is filled with rusty cars that makes the neighborhood look bad.

The conclusion to solve this "it depends". Yes it decreases the value of the neighbor but it doesn't seem as if they want to have a nice good neighborhood, they don't want to move out of there. So there isn't a point for having the neighbor clean up his/her place. Also, it's his property, he can do what he wants to it, no one can stop him/her from what I believe.

The premises needed is a reason why the complainer wants the value to go up for his neighborhood. If the complainer isn't trying to sell it, whats the point??

It's not really a good argument because of the premises needed but if the complainer is complaining in the first place, then he might need the value of his/her house to go up anyway.

Here's a random one I picked. DJ IY, THE FPS.

Who's the leader now???

I know a lot of people did this topic but I believe in my opinion is one of the most important ones. AND YOU KNOW WHAT IT IS!! Leadership!!!

My definition of leadership is described as a person that physically and emotionally inspires another person or a group. It helps get work going instead of not having a lead of the work you have to do. Without leadership, I believe people would be confused in what they are doing and not accomplish anything.

A good example of leadership is our group project for this class. We all meet together and talked about the project. One person was being a leader in a way she was assigning people what to do. She had the concept down of being a leader and designated others of different work.

In my opinion, leadership is very important. It helps get work done. If it wasn't for leadership, I don't think work would ever be done.

This picture is hella dope. I think the best crepe I ever had. Genki's in San Francisco. (Chocolate ice cream crepe with cheesecake. MMMM CARPET.

Versus Mode

A strong argument and a valid argument are someone connected but they both relate to different things. Like I said in the previous post, the book Critical Thinking gives a description of both arguments.

A valid argument meaning " a statements that the premises isn't true and the conclusion is false at the same time." A strong argument is knowing whether the statements are actually true or false instead of unknowing the actual fact of the statements.

With a valid argument, you understand what the person is arguing about but don't really know if the person's statements are true or false facts. Such as maybe just opinions or even bias remarks.

But on the other hand, a strong argument is a statement that is be proven by facts, evens, and even common knowledge we know as today. More or less, a strong argument can be considered straightforward.

Here's a few of my "little" buddies that I kick it with on a daily basis.

This is almost like Discrete Math.

This section of the book in describing "The Test for an Argument to Be Good" reminds me a lot of Discrete Math (Math 42). This describes truth tables such as (P->Q, P is true).

These are some examples that I came up with:

1. A GTi is a VolksWagen car with a turbo. A turbo increases the boost in a car which then makes the car fast. Therefore, a GTi is a fast car.

2. Limp Bizkit is a music artist that sings with explicit lyrics. Explicit lyrics are more or less inappropriate and vulgar statements. Therefore, Limp Bizkit is a music artist that sings inappropriate and vulgar statements.

3. Dr. Pepper is a good beverage. Good beverages are usually considered tasty. Therefore, Dr. Pepper is tasty.

In the book, Critical Thinking, the description of a Valid Argument is a "statement that the premises isn't true and the conclusion is false in unison." In other words, some statements can be valid but not strong enough to know if the statments are true or false.

Strong arguements are knowing a statement is true and/or false. The GTi exmaple is a good exmaple. We know that a GTi is a car, we know that a turbo increases boost making a car fast, therefore, we know the GTi is a fast car. All of those statements are true.

As again, I like to put random pictures up in all my blogs. Here's a really good one (in my opinion) i took today in my iPhone at Valley Fair with my friend known as "01101001".

DJ Epstein's Discussion

I read Richard Epstein's discussion on prescriptive claims and value judgement. His discussion explains how prescriptive claims is on the same base as objective claims, but explaining more reasoning to it. An example can be someone is driving on the road, then they hit a piece of wood and it pops the tire. With a flat tire, they should replace the flat tire with a spare tire temporally.

A prescriptive claim can lead help to a value judgment. This can help a situation in order to better claim the statement. Value judgment meaning comparing the good and the bad of the situation. This helps in everyday lives in order to proceed with good preparation.

Here's a picture of me working on my car. Can you believe we gotta do all this just to perfectly mount the high beam?!?!?

OMG Being Vague

I usually get irritated by people being vague while discussing almost anything. I deal with people being vague almost everyday. Really Irritating. Whats worse is when its something important, and it is hard to picture what the person is really talking about.

An example can be explaining directions. Last night, I was on a way to a dinner to a place that I have never went to before. The area is around Milpitas and I never really go around there. The directions was explained to "go on this street and look for a plaza." That was the only direction I got from my friend. What made it difficult the street that I had to be on had about almost 10 plaza's. Things that are vague as that response "Go on Jackson and look for a plaza" really irritate me.

This doesn't always happen when dealing with directions. Other good examples that I seen directions that were vague were how to do a homework assignment, how to take off a bulb from a GTi, and even trying to figure out how a person broke the computer.

More or less people being vague happens all the time.

This is my reaction when you explain vague statements to me.

DJ's Claims

The way I think of it, an objective claim is a statement that consist of facts. More or less a statement that can be proven true or false. But on the other hand, subjective claim is the opposite of objective claim. Subjective claims consist of beliefs, opinions, and sometimes bias statements.

Subjective claims can appear anywhere in your everyday life. Couple days ago, a friend of mine was was talking about the Final Season of "Lost" broadcasting that night. He then goes and talks about how this episode is going to be the best episode of any show he seen in awhile. Again without even broadcasting yet, this shows how this is a subjective statement. Him stating that it is going to be the best episode is an opinion statement.

Objective claims can be from anything such as current events. An example could be Obama State of the Union Address 2010. An objective claim from this is that "President Obama gave his State of the Union Address speech in January 27th, 2010."

Like I said I like to put random pictures of the day in my blogs. So here's one from a Costco run for the CS Club at SJSU.

"IY" love

Hey it's DJ IY. Just another guy trying to make it in life! I have other blogs mostly for a car club that I will link later. I'm a computer science major that films, DJ's, work on cars, and just cruise with friends. I was happy to hear that we are required to post blogs for this class. "Hella" exciting!!

Well, about communication experience, I think I'm a little ok with it. I am always going out to people in car meets saying "Hi whats up, name is Wally." Always love meeting new people. I'm want to learn how to become more formal when communicating with people.

Can't wait for this class to kick!!!

Here's a quick teaser what I did today, I usually post pictures up of daily things I do.