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The "Zero"-Zero Myths About it are True There are already multiple articles and videos about how obsolete the main Japanese carrier based fighter of WW2 was, but a good pun was thought of so this article had to be written. The A6M Zero was built with many ambitious goals, only some of which would actually be useful. When the Imperial Japanese navy ordered a fighter with such range maneuverability, firepower, and speed Nakajima decided it was impossible to design it with their low budget and backed out, but Mitsubishi stayed in. Many corners were cut and the fighter was made as light as possible and lacking many crucial components. In the beginning of the war, the Zero was much more maneuverable than the allied planes and had two 30 caliber machine guns --somewhat effective for close range combat-- and two deadly 20mm cannons. The 20mm could tear enormous holes in the American  bombers, as seen in the image below. Against the Navy fighters used early in the war, it would...

      When I first started playing guitar, I rented a guitar from HB Woodsongs with a rent-to-own contract, meaning that after renting for a certain period of time, I could keep the guitar. The guitar was a good one, but I found out that I wanted to play more rock and metal, so I chose to buy an electric guitar. After a few weeks of shopping online, I found a guitar that I really liked. It was on Amazon though, and my last experience of buying through Amazon was disastrous. After some more shopping on guitarcenter.com, I found another really good guitar from a good brand. It was the Squier Stratocaster HSS with tremolo. It was only $130 - cheap for guitars. It arrived around 3 days later. When I opened it it was a great looking instrument with a shiny coating. Without an amp, I had to improvise, so I got an adapter and plugged it into a speaker using an AUX cable. Eventually, I got a Blackstar Fly 3 amp. The guitar sounds great on any of the p...

In Influence , Robert Cadilini shares valuable insight on the many strategies used by salespeople to get you to buy something. He includes many examples, studies, and letters from readers. He also shares valuable tactics for countering these strategies.  The techniques discussed are very broad but are all based on one idea; people have fixed responses to certain things. Dr. Cadilini explores this in the first chapter by first describing this in animals. He then describes how this could occur in humans. Each chapter, starting with chapter two, has one strategy. I found the letters from readers to be very good examples.   However, I found that this book was harder to read than most of the other books that I have read. This book was harder to read for a few reasons. First, the book contained an excess of examples. I think that Dr. Cadilini could have made the points just as strong while using just half of the examples. Also, I think that the chapters had subtop...

Self-Driving Cars Self-Driving cars are now on the market and are being used on the streets. Although, there have been multiple cases of crashes from both the computer not being fully functional and abuse by the driver. The software and hardware of these cars is not complete, or ready to be used a lot. Car companies like Tesla and Uber are constantly working on making the cars safer, but they still aren't as good as a human driver. Actually, they are better than some human drivers. Nevertheless, these companies should not stop testing and working on their cars, and should not be discouraged by the fact that there have been accidents that swept all over the internet. People should be more forgiving, knowing that these cars are still being worked tire lessly (ha ha ha?) on and perfected. Also,n that case, most of the accidents we hear about are infact the driver misusing the technology. The accident with the Uber that we all heard about was the driver not being smart at the whee...

Unbroken Unbroken is an amazing book about a pow in Japan. The protagonist, Louie Zamperini, was a famous Olympic runner who joined the united states Air Corps to escape being killed in the war. Louie was not very lucky and ended up with the M4 Sherman of the planes. Louie was the bombardier of a B24 Liberator. The Liberator was a medium bomber made for mass-production. This caused many flaws in the designs and countless american lives were taken for no reason. Louie ended up fighting the ruthless Japan from Hawaii. He suffered a crash over the pacific and very few of them were left. They also had none of the necessary survival tools, as the bag had gone down with the rest of the crew. Louie and his friend, Allen Phillips (Phil), spent 47 days at sea, fighting off the sharks. Their rescue turned out be be a lot worse than being stranded, though. Louie soon faced severe brutality and horror for over two years. The book goes into the truth of what our war with Japan was really like an...

Band of Brothers Band of Brothers by Stephen E. Ambrose is probably my favorite book ever. Band of brothers is about Easy company of the 506 regiment in the 101st airborne division. The 506th regiment joined the hundred and first airborne division just before D-day and lead the outfit to success until the end of the war. Band of brothers will take the reader (WW2 nerd) from rigorous training in Camp Toccoa to the freezing perils of Bastogne, to the fire fights of Normandy. This book goes into detail with the emotional and psychological states of the heroes, as well as interviews with the soldiers. The book brings both the short, exciting aspects of combat and the slow reality of war. I have not become a personal fan of certain soldiers in the company, but become a fan of the whole company. As major Richard (Dick) Winters says, "No I'm not a hero, but I have served in a company full of them"-Band of Brothers. Every young boy was not a hero, but together they were a comp...

Flags of our Fathers Flags Of Our Fathers by James Bradley is one of my favorite books about the battle of Iwo Jima in the pacific. The book is written about the six marines/ navy corpsman in the famous photo taken by Rosenthal. One of the flag raisers, John Bradley, is the author's father. This adds a certain connection between the author and the battle. Flags Of Our Fathers talks about each of the six brave soldiers and some of their past and military career. John Bradley was a navy corpsman who was transferred to the marines to be a combat medic. The book talks about how each marine enlisted and came to the battle of Iwo Jima. This book also goes deeper than some others into the true nature of the pacific war. This is definitely one of my favorite books and is the first WW2 book I ever read. (Warning: this book is kind of violent and contains some graphic descriptions.) -Caleb Frank

Death Traps Death Traps is an amazing book by the American officer, Belton Y. Cooper.  I am not even done with the book, but it gives a great perspective of  the second world war. Belton was a liaison officer in a maintenance battalion of the third armored division. The book goes into detail of Belton and his drivers' adventurers through the most iconic battles of WW2. It follows the perspective of an under armed maintenance battalion from a liaison officer's view. Cooper witnessed much of the war, but not from a fighting stand point. Cooper was a very important officer for the third armored division, running emergency spark plug missions and ordering replacement tanks in deep enemy territory. The author's main job was to coordinate the repair, recovery, and replacement of damaged American tanks. There are not many books that come from this type of view, so it is one of a kind. Please enjoy. -Caleb Frank

In “How to be a High School Superstar”, Cal Newport discusses ways to get into college and study strategies.  In the introduction, Mr. Newport disproves the myth that grades and a lot of AP classes are more impressive to the admissions officers. However, he states that grades are still very important for getting into college. Only if your grades are in the top 75% that that college accepts will that college be a reasonable goal.  Studying for tests is an important part of getting good grades. In his book, Mr. Newport recommends taking good notes. A good strategy for note taking is writing a question and a conclusion for each point. (eg: question: What caused world war 2? conclusion: World War 2 was caused by Germany invading countries that they lost because of the Treaty of Versailles.) A study strategy that he recommends is actively recalling things. It is also important to do well on homework. In order to keep from pulling an all-nighter and falling asleep in class, y...

Imagine not having to type anything to get search results. Now, with Google Home, that is a reality. However, this product has many weaknesses on top of its strengths. This review will explore the limitations and abilities of the Google Home. One of the features that I use the most is the timer feature. The timer feature is useful because my family has a Google Home in the kitchen. when we are cooking anything, we often set multiple timers. Another thing that is useful is the ability to name timers. When there are two timers running at the same time, it is very difficult to cancel one unless it has a name. We have a Google Home in one of the bedrooms too. This is mostly used for looking things up. My parents are from India and have an accent, but our Google Home is able to understand them. Unfortunately, it has trouble recognizing my voice. The Google Home has very good(ish) jokes and great riddles. When you ask for a riddle, the Google Home takes you on an adventure where yo...