"I think producing meat is terrible because it contributes to climate change"

Did you know that the main issue for climate change is the methane gas emission produced by the oil industries and cows? So I think producing meat is terrible because it contributes to climate change in many ways. Besides producing methane gas emission, meat requires a lot of water and land causing deforestation and over consumption of water. This contributes to climate change but more importantly destroys the natural environment.

Deforestation because of meat production is taking away the homes of many animals and it is affecting the ecosystem. Many kinds of life are at risk and are close to extinction. One main reason to burn trees and cause fires in order to have land is meat production as farmers need land to raise the cattle. We could prevent deforestation by controlling meat production and opting for vegetables and fruits production that requires less water to produce than meat. This means we need to change our consumption too.

Another important fact to consider in order to balance the ecosystem and help fight climate change is the water consumption requiredto produce food. Did you know the global average water footprint or the total amount of water needed to produce one pound of beef is 1,799 gallons of water? As a comparison the water footprint of soybeans is 216 gallons, corn is 108 gallons. Shock is reasonable for the amount of resources needed to produce meat compared to veggies and fruits.

Considering all the information above I think we need to be aware and conscious of what we consume and what we need to do to support the environment and to heal the Planet. Right now we are destroying the environment in many ways because of consumption and we can not continue like that because studies show us it could be too late to heal the Planet in the future because species and life are in danger of extinction.

World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF)

The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) is an international non-governmental organization that works in the areas of conservation, research and environmental recovery. Founded and located in Switzerland the organization has many awards like MTV Australia Good Karma Award and Peabody Award. They aim to conserve nature and reduce the most pressing threats to the diversity of life on Earth and build a future in which people live in harmony with nature. Here are five things you should know about WWF.

1. Forest Work
First, I will start talking about the forests and what WWF is doing for the forests. To begin with, forests are home to all kinds of life. Over 60 millions indigenous people live in forests, many birds, mammals, insects, and many other kinds of life live in forests. The crystal clear waterfalls that are perfect for a refreshing afternoon swim are found in forests too. More than that, we all depend on forests, starting with a vast array of resources, food, water, wood, medicine, and the air we breath. But threats to the world’s forests are growing. Expanding agriculture, due to an increased population and shifts in diet, is responsible for most of the world’s deforestation. Cheap wood and paper is responsible for most of the degradation of the world’s forests, the largest threat to the world’s forests. WWF is working to address the threats to forests: "By 2020, we must conserve the world’s forests to sustain nature’s diversity, benefit our climate and support human well-being." WWF said according to the https://www.worldwildlife.org/initiatives/forests.

2.Food
The second topic is about food and WWF actions about it nowadays. "Drive sustainable food systems to conserve nature and feed humanity." It is well said because nowadays we are devastating the world to feed humanity. It’s time to reconsider food. Around the globe, food production, distribution, management and waste threaten wildlife, wild places and the planet itself. Make sure we can control our food waste, production and distribution. In the near-term, food production is sufficient to provide for all, but it doesn’t reach everyone who needs it. By improving efficiency and productivity while reducing waste and shifting consumption patterns, we can produce enough food for everyone by 2050 on roughly the same amount of land we use now. Shifting consumption patterns could be challenging because of culture, and other lifestyles. WWF works to secure a living planet that will sustain a more affluent population. From refining production and distribution to combating waste and environmental impacts, we want to improve how the world grows, transports and consumes this precious fuel.

3.Climate
The third topic is climate and what WWF is doing about it. "Create a climate-resilient and zero carbon world, powered by renewable energy" words from WWF for https://www.worldwildlife.org/initiatives/climate.
Already, freshwater supplies are shrinking, agricultural yields are dropping, our forests are burning, and rising oceans are more acid. And the reason is the warming climate. Clean energy, new technology for roads, airports are the answer for it. And nations around the world are committed to delivering on a landmark global plan to curb climate change, known as the Paris Agreement.
For decades, WWF aims to reduce the emissions that drive climate change. WWF is helping accelerate climate action from national governments, and from cities, states and businesses to deliver on the ambitious temperature goals of the historic Paris Agreement. And hopefully technology supports humanity to produce clean and renewable energy for the future.

4.Wild life
For the fourth topic we will go through wildlife and WWF actions and plans for it. Humans are behind the current rate of species extinction, which is at least 100–1,000 times higher than nature intended. We’ve seen an astonishing 60% decline in the size of populations of mammals, birds, fish, reptiles, and amphibians in just over 40 years, according to WWF's Living Planet Report 2018. And the impacts will reach far beyond the potential cultural loss of iconic species like tigers, rhinos and whales. WWF has been part of successful wildlife recovery stories ranging from southern Africa’s black rhino to black bucks in the Himalayas. And this, in turn, is helping to protect rich and varied ecosystems while ensuring people continue to benefit from nature.
"We protect wildlife for many reasons. It is a source of inspiration. It nurtures a sense of wonder. It is integral to the balance of nature. In our work, WWF focuses on saving populations of the most ecologically, economically and culturally important species in the wild. Ultimately, by protecting species, we save this beautiful, vulnerable and utterly irreplaceable planet we call home." WWF to https://www.worldwildlife.org/initiatives/wildlife-conservation.

5.Oceans
And the last topic is about the oceans. The ocean covers more than two-thirds of our living planet’s surface and is home to spectacular ecosystems and treasured wildlife. The ocean sustains the lives of billions of people, regulates our climate, produces half the oxygen we breathe, and fuels the water cycle that produces rain and freshwater. But after decades of overuse and pollution, these services are being interrupted. Hundreds of thousands of marine mammals, seabirds, and sea turtles are captured each year, along with tens of millions of sharks. Half of all coral reefs and mangroves are gone and we are overfishing the oceans. WWF is working to build a more resilient ocean by improving how we manage what goes in and what comes out of the ocean, all while protecting important regions, like the Arctic, and threatened ecosystems like coral reefs and mangrove forests.

Kakao - App review

KakaoTalk is a fast & multifaceted messaging app. Very good for communication. Send messages, photos, videos, voice notes and your location for free. Make chatting extra fun with an array of emoticons and sticker collections. The app is for everyone of all ages and all genders. It is mostly used in South Korea.
This app is very good because of the quality for calling, texting and making video calls. It has a stable connection, the layout is dynamic and even for sending files it is a good platform because it supports large files.


The Good

Even if you experienced calling friends from an app, Kakao is perfect because they made features like calls faster than the competition, high quality and speedy, also you can join groups calls or just one on one call. Emoticons are available and stickers collection to express yourself when texting others. You can even multitask available during your call. You can use your cellphone while in a voice or video call. You can use it on your computer or Android and Ios. Send files, post your pictures and your experience to share with your friends and family. Multimedia files like video, voice message, pictures, docs and others are good to send in high quality and even large files. Compared to the competition this is one advantage because most of competitors do not allow users to send large files.



The Not-So-Good

You can have Kakao in any language, but since the app is created by South Koreans, it is very adapted to South Korea culture. So, things like layout, stickers and design are different than most of competitors which use a simple layout and design making it more simple and easy to use. If you aren't Korean you will need to get used to it because it is more complex to learn how to use all the features.You can send and share all the file types using Kakao, but sometimes you need to be very patient specially for large size files because it will take some time to upload it and send it.

In my opinion, Kakao is very good compared to the competitors like WhatsApp, We Chat, Facebook, Instagram and others because you have most of the features all in one app and even in a better quality and faster speed. You can share and post your videos and your own experience, you can add friends and family to your account and the app will suggest new contacts according to your use. Also, it is very good for communication. Imagine having WhatsApp and Facebook and Instagram all in one app: this is Kakao. And since the company is growing they are improving updates and new services to Kakao users like Kakao taxi (similar to Uber and Lyft) and Kakao coin to make payments using their own coin. I highly recommend Korean users to use Kakao because of the quality and the features. And if you are not Korean probably you will probably have a hard time finding people who use Kakao so it could be unnecessary for you.

[Infographic] Michael Kim top 3 apps 2020

 My first time using cellphone apps was back in 2006. I started using apps to communicate and socialize with people like Icq, Orkut and a few others. A few years later, I started using Facebook. The apps I used to use lost market value and Facebook took over.Nowadays I still use Facebook, which is very useful for many things. The company has improved a lot in a few years and now you can do more things like sync accounts, marketing, research and many other things compared to years before that you could just share photos.

Also, we have many more options for cell phone apps compared to years before. Nowadays my 3 favorite apps are Instagram, Kakao and Spotify. The first app, Instagram was bought by Facebook and it is a social media app to share content with people. The second app, Kakao is a Korean app for communication, sending text messages, making voice and video calls, sending photos and videos and even sharing on your profile. I like Kakao because it has a really good quality for everything it does. And the last app, Spotify, is an app for listening to music, where you can stream music for free. It is a good platform where they suggest new music according to what you have been playing. 

Read this following infographic to see the details and more information about these three apps.

    

                                                    

Why Saving Matters

 Nowadays saving money is so important that it could change your life in different ways. You can retire early if you save enough fast, you can help others, and you can have many other positive benefits with your savings. In this blog, I will tell you about three reasons why saving matters. To begin with, saving money is part of a lifestyle. Creating habits to save money and calculate is essential. Also, you never know the future, you could get hurt, or lose your job, so this is another factor why saving is so important. People someday are is a good moment of life financially and sometimes are not. Everybody are vulnerable for up and downs. If you have savings, you probably will find new opportunities to invest or to work on, so save money because you never know when new opportunities will come and better be ready for them

First, habits to save money, what to say about them? That is why it is important to develop a habit when it comes to saving money. The most effective saving habit is known as "pay yourself first".

 

Once you have a lot of savings new possibilities will come to you. For example, buying a house with your savings will allow you to have your own place and not need to pay for rent anymore. You will be able to become financially independent to do whatever you want to do once you save enough and you can enjoy a good life. Possibilities to make more money could appear if you have enough money saved to invest. According to the lifestyle you want, you can pick the best investment to work on and have your own business too. Talking about investment and business we have many possibilities and it will change according on how much you saved too, so it is very variable.

Considering all the factors that I mentioned you can see why it is so important to save money for different reasons. The reasons that I mentioned are only a few, but there are many more reasons to save that I even did not mention. It is about your lifestyle and your choices that will help you to save money or not. Putting on your mind that you will spend only with necessary, essential things, is a way to start saving money without doing math. A good mindset and good habits will make the difference on the numbers at the end and of course it is also important to keep tracking the numbers too. If you spend on everything you want it will be hard to save money even if you have a high income.  The point is to think about what you really need and set goals to have a balance for a living and savings.

Describing A Graphic: Americans Are Streaming Billions of Songs and Videos

“Americans Are Streaming Billions of Songs and Videos”

The graph shows a huge increase in audio and video streaming demonstrating that; the system is changing on how people watch videos and listen to music compared to years before. Since the 1990,, we have change all the time on how we watch videos and listen to music. At that time we used to have discman, cd players, walkman, mp3 and other devices and format to play video and music.

Music industry changes in many ways and streaming is increasing, disc, cds, mp3, smartphone, different softwares and platforms in less than 30 years and we don't to stop to change that because of technology.

Technology is improving and changing industries. The graph reveals information about the changes in streaming since 2013. There has been an increase in streaming of  10 times more in 2019 compared to 2013. Music and video streaming are increasing non stop and the reason could be the softwares and the devices people are using nowadays. We are living times where that we can learn from YouTube by streaming a tutorial video or movies. 

As the graph shows, audio streaming has also been increasing over the years. 

In fact, thanks to apps like Spotify we can play music from any artist in the world anytime we want. The last five years a lot of apps started to appear on the market. Software and applications for video like Youtube, Vimeo, Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat are software and platforms that are streaming video.

In 2013 there were 106b streams and in 2019 there were 1,147b streams, increasing approximately 10 times more. 

With fast internet, smartphones, and a lot of options to stream video and audio I think we will just continue to increase the numbers of streaming songs and videos. I agree about the data on the graph and we can predict that we will continue to enjoy the convenience on how to watch videos or play music.  Compared to years before, it is more and more easy to watch videos and listen to songs online by streaming from anywhere. Indeed, music streaming increased sharply between 2010 and 2020. I think it was a significant increase in the 2020 due to the pandemic and this industry will continue to see a rapid increase.

Bape A Bathing Ape (Newsletter)

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Remote Work

    

        Nowadays workers and companies are facing huge changes in the business world and remote work is one thing that is changing for many companies and employees around the world.. Remote work (also called telework) describes any type of work that doesn't have to be performed in a traditional company office. Remote workers can do their jobs anywhere in the world—including their home, a co-working space, traveling, etc. —where they have access to high-speed internet.

Letter to the editor

Video Games to help avoid Covid-19 spread

        "Video Games as an effective way to avoid Covid-19 spread"

I am writing to express my support for the article "Video Games as an effective way to avoid Covid-19 spread". I believe  video games can indeed help and support the population against the Covid-19 spread while they have fun and stay connected socially. I strongly agree that video games will help us deal with the problems we are passing through the Covid-19 because we can play with friends and other people that we might not even know to stay positive and satisfied at home during this lockdown.

        Firstly, people staying at home for a long period  doing nothing could be very harmful for mental health due to overthinking and focusing on negative news and problems we are facing on this lockdown. Personally, playing video games in these times will help me to stay positive and satisfied when I don't have many options to socialize and do outdoor activities.

Also, video games can be a good activity to build a good mindset for overcoming problems and be optimistic, especially during the hard times we are facing right now.

        I hope people will notice that video games are not a waste of time especially when we don't have many options to live a social life because of the lockdown. They should see the benefits video games could bring to society and to their personal lives. Personally I think playing video games could be a game changer for our society right now; people will stay home playing video games to save the world from the spread of Covid-19.

        I hope my ideas can help all the people avoid the spread of Covid-19 and while staying at home spend a quality time playing video games to improve some of the benefits of this activity.

Sincerely, Michael Kim.

Tetris for fun

Tetris for fun

If you never heard about this game or never tried it, today is the day to learn about it! Tetris is called a falling block puzzle game. In this game, we have seven different shapes called tetrominoes: S-shape, Z-shape, T-shape, L-shape, Line-shape, Mirrored L-shape, and a Square-shape. Each of these shapes is formed with four squares and by rotating the pieces  and combining them you need to form a full horizontal line in order to clean your screen, every time you complete a full horizontal line the line will disappear.

Using simple commands this game will help you develop useful skills, such as how to think fast and give fast commands
 at the same time. It will make you act and think fast and also synchronize your brain to your body. I played this game for many years and I had a lot of fun during that time. The most fun thing was to play against different kind of people because this game is for everyone, it doesn't have a specific kind and involve everyone like children, adults, men and women.

Tetris is a well known game because it is very famous all over the world. The game is played by people of all ages and it has different modes. You can play against players, or play by yourself. Going online you can even play against many players at once. The rule to survive is to clean the map by completing a horizontal line with the pieces and not accumulate many lines, and once you accumulate many lines and the lines hit the top of your screen you lose the game.

Playing against others the objective is to survive for the last and playing by yourself is to accumulate many points and while the time pass the game will get faster so you will need to think fast to rotate the pieces and be able to combine them to a perfect horizontal line.

The elements I will review for this game are: the gameplay, the game history, and the difficulty to learn and play.

-Gameplay

I like it because it is very simple and it is very fun at the same time. Basically you will use one skill but you need to use it very well. The skill is to be creative by rotating the pieces to make the horizontal line and you need to be fast, so you need to have a good synchronization between your body and your mind.

-History

It all began with a puzzle-loving software engineer named Alexey Pajitnov, who created "Tetris" in 1984 while working for the Dorodnitsyn Computing Centre of the Soviet Academy of Sciences, a research and development center in Moscow created by the government.

 -Difficulty

It can get really hard to play at fast speed, because you need to give the commands faster each time.

I think everyone from everywhere can learn and play Tetris. I would recommend you to try it because it is very fun and very simple. It won't take that much time to play and also learn. You can play whenever you want it.

It helps release stress, connecting socially and staying mentally sharp are some of the advantages to play Tetris and have fun at the same time.

My personal experience with this game involved three main points. The first one, is that I evolved an ability to be mentally sharp because the game made me be creative to combine the pieces and think fast making me use my mind having fun at the same time. The second point, is that I brought people to have fun with me and we had a good time playing the game and spending some time together even far from each other because we were able to play it online, so it was good for my social life also. And finally, I understood better how to play other games because of Tetris, the game gave me a solid start on how to play games and compete to others having fun. For many reasons, I think it was positive to play in many different ways and I would recommend to others try it.

Noodles to survive - Food

 Noodles to survive

Hey guys, I will talk about the first dish that I have ever cooked in my life.

You guessed it! It was noodles! And it was easy, simple and practical. 

Noodles are famous around all over the world and personally I think it is delicious.
It is a simple dish to cook but also it can taste really good if cooked well.

One thing you need to make life easy and be able to survive with low cost, anywhere and in
any situation, is to know how to cook a good noodle.
There are many cultures and different styles when you talk about noodles.
I have been to different countries and I've tried noodles in most of them;
For example, I've been to New York, Tokyo, Seoul, São Paulo, Guangzhou and ate noodles
from all over. I can tell you that in order to cook noodles, you use  the same skills
but totally different flavors and it is an awesome advantage because you can alternate
the flavor and the taste, using the same skills.

I made this choice because I decide to learn how to cook something and people
recommend that to me and they said it is really easy to learn that.
I felt insecurity because it was my first time trying to cook something,
but everything worked very well. 

Basically the skill for cooking noodles is boiling water, then putting the noodle or ramen or
pasta in the pot, then adding the sauce that you chose, for example,
homemade tomato sauce, then you can remove the water or have it in a soup style with water.
You can also add more ingredients as you want. Flavors like chicken, beef, veggies, spicy,
seafood, curry and many others are available for your choice.
Next I will present you some pictures of the options available for noodles.

Now, I will tell you on how to cook noodles and share my first experience cooking this dish.
The ingredients that I used were water and one dollar noodles.
I used a panel to boil water and after the water was boiling
I put the noodles with the sauce that came in the package,
then I cooked for 2 minutes and it was ready. Here is a photo from the
noodles that I cooked for the first time in my life.

After cooking my first noodles I was confident I could survive anywhere in any condition.
It was a game changing experience for me forever. 

Hope I inspired you guys to cook noodles and  take all the advice here.
If you never try to cook noodles, share your experience with me in the comments.

Skydiving in California.

Skydiving California (Tracy)

The place is called Skydiving California and it is located in Tracy close to Silicon Valley.
The picture above is from 13.000ft and that is the altitude fun jumpers like me use to jump from.

We built a circle in a head down formation, which is a modality called freefly.
To introduce a little bit of skydiving on this first day, it is important to know there are few
different modalities for skydiving; for example, belly jump, XRW (canopies and wingsuits),
wingsuits and swoop. In freefly you can reach the highest speed on freefall.
For people who are not skydivers it is a tandem jump in which one instructor will carry you
attached to you.

Tracy is a good spot for skydiving because of the winds, they are very stable not changing so much in directions and speed, and those two factors are important for safety while skydiving.

Also, the dropzone is one of the most famous in California because there are high quality jumpers and instructors from all over the world working there. The skydiving community in Tracy is considered a global community because we have people from many different countries like in Silicon Valley. Personally I like the vibe and the environment in Tracy, it is very friendly and organized. I recommend Tracy for all the people around the Bay Area, it is one of the most trustable places to skydive.

Skydive Taft (Taft)

Skydive Taft is a famous place to skydive for fun jumpers and professional athletes. High skill athletes and high performance skydivers like to go to Taft. The reason is because this place is well known for having the best skydivers from all over California; Professional jumpers from Northern California and Southern California get together at Skydive Taft because this place is located in the middle of California. The place is a beautiful desert and it is close to Bakersfield.

Some of my personal views and shots from Skydive Taft for you to check.

As I mentioned before, there are different styles for skydiving.
In the first picture we are doing a freefly jump, in the second picture we are doing a tracking
jump and in the last picture we are doing a belly jump and also a star formation.
The main difference between the type of the jumps are body position, direction and speed.
To understand better the direction of the jump you can imagine someone falling from the sky
straight to the ground or you can fall and move forward at the same time.
Those are some of the basic lessons and it could get way more complex including transitions
from directions, speed and body position. Skydiving is a new sport; for example,
freeflying modality started in the 90's and after Gopro launched the sport could debrief itself
and evolve a lot from there to now.

Skydive Elsinore (Lake Elsinore)

This is a skydiving place located in Lake Elsinore between Los Angeles, San Diego and
Orange County. The place is well known for the good structure, excellent professionals from
the skydiving community and the good service. The President of the Skydiving Association
used to jump in this dropzone. They have different types of airplanes, that is the biggest
difference compared to the other dropzones. The view is beautiful from above,
you can spot the lake, mountains and the city at the same time.
Here is a shot from a canopy flying above.

After the freefall comes the canopy flying. Here is where it becomes dangerous.
As you get closer to the ground, you need to be aware, because the goal is to land safe
and on the target.

It is a fun and beautiful ride while under a canopy, but you need to focus on the traffic
from other jumpers, wind, speed and distance. There are different techniques to land and
there are different types of canopy , so each canopy has its own technique.

So that is my skydiving experience from North to South in California. 
Hope you liked to learn a little bit about skydiving and glad to share my own skydiving
experience in California with you. Enjoy the ride.