THE KNIGHT TIMES - March 2018

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10 The Knight Times Opinion Debate remains on the subject of finals in spring religion courses ANGEL STRINGER Staff Writer The EHS community faced hardship at the beginning of the school year due to Hurricane Harvey and its resulting flood damage. The effects were far-reaching, and among them was a change to midterms, which were cancelled in every class due to loss of time to cover material. While finals will be administered for the end of the year, I believe that the religion final should be cancelled for the students in those spring semester classes. By Episcopal High School’s credit requirement, all students must take four semesters of religion in order to graduate. The courses are a semester long, and due to Harvey, the students that took the course first semester did not have to take a final. So why should spring semester students? Finals are tough, stressful, and count for twenty percent of a student’s average, not to mention the test is at least 100 questions and is subject to a time limit. Rather than Safe injection sites invoke ethics question CAMI PYNE Contributing Editor Heroin and other opioids are taking the country by storm and taking thousands of lives every month with them. Many cities are losing people by the day and are turning to drastic measures to save lives, such as “safe injection sites.” The concept of safe injection sites came out of Vancouver, where one of the biggest heroin problems in the world exists. Since then, cities like Seattle have started a similar process in order to save lives. But what exactly are safe injection sites and what effect do they have on the surrounding communities? Safe injection sites are sites where people can inject heroin safely with clean needles and medical professionals to observe users to make sure that they do not overdose. If they do, to reverse it with drugs like naloxone, an over-the counter chemical that can reverse an opioid overdose. California is presently attempting to pass legislation that would allow safe injection sites that exist in tents with medical equipment and a “bring your own drugs” policy. Seattle is in the process of adding safe injection sites due to its horrendous amount of opioid deaths in the past three years. Three safe injection sites have already been approved for Seattle yet not one has been implemented. Vancouver has over 700 people come in per day to use heroin, and among those, 4,000 people have overdosed yet not one has died. For this Canadian city, safe injection sites are actively saving lives. The heroin epidemic has killed more than 52,000 Americans in 2015 alone. Sadly, this number is rising, along with the rise of the drug fentanyl and the lacing of heroin with it, making it 10 times deadlier. Safe injection sites will help with the fentanyl crisis as these locations will test heroin and other opioids for trace amounts of fentanyl, which could easily kill someone, prior to their use. Ultimately, the sites will bring addicts to their area, individuals who are clearly unstable, causing community members to feel uncomfortable. This could also lead to an increase in crime in an area and a clear and present danger to residents, all while saving lives. It’s up to you… is this ethical? just cancelling the final, I’m sure students would rather take an in-class test or do a project like those during first semester. EHS Knights work hard and are stressed about upcoming exams. Please take it into consideration. Stand out, work hard, be Knights! JOSHUA SMITH Guest Writer No one enjoys standard methods of testing. Whether an essay or multiple-choice test, we would prefer to listen to beautiful music, watch a performance, or hang with friends to identifying the pluperfect tense of “swim.” Yet, testing in some manner is a proven method to evaluate students’ shortterm retention and comprehension of material. If testing is such a good method of evaluating students, then the issue is what reason is there for not giving a test in religion courses for Spring 2018? Some will argue that since Fall 2017 students did not have to take a final for their religion classes, neither should Spring 2018 religion classes. To require Spring 2018 students to take a religion final is not fair. There is at least one reason to reject such an argument. The goal of education, in essence, is not “fairness.” Rather, it is to lead one out of ignorance and to enlighten. Last semester, the best way to reach this goal of education was through the appropriate reductions in workload. This semester, to reach that same goal, no such reductions are warranted. For this reason, it seems clear that final tests in religion classes should be given in Spring 2018. Algorithms changing Wall Street trading strategies JACKSON WILLIAMS Guest Writer Algorithmic trading, high-frequency trading, algo trading, black box trading, and more are all investing strategies becoming ever more prevalent in our high-tech world. Algorithmic trading is automated trading by computers which are programmed to take certain actions in response to varying technical trends and market data. These programs are able to make trades at speeds not humanly possible, use historical data to find patterns in stocks and other financial assets, help predict future prices, and more. For example, some algorithmic trading programs might slice up large buy or sell orders to try to receive the best price. Splitting up the order into smaller orders and executing them at different times helps the Image courtesy of themedallion.ndahingham.com. trader receive a better price and can help hide their trades so others don’t recognize their strategies. Other types of algorithmic trading programs use a specific set of rules to execute trades based on a strategy. This is very helpful because it eliminates the human emotions of greed or fear and follows commands based on rules instead of feelings. Nasdaq estimates that fifty percent of stock trading volume in the U.S. is currently being driven by algo trading. Investopedia claims algorithmic trading and high-frequency trading are dominating the trading world. They credited sixty to seventy percent of U.S. trading to high frequency trading during 2009 – 2010. While there are a multitude of pros to algorithmic trading, people worry they can cause irregular volatility and “flash crashes.” These situations are caused by a domino effect of programs setting off one another. Many programs set stop-losses, which are orders to sell an asset at a specified price in order to limit a loss. If there is a large dip in an asset’s price, an algorithmic trading program would see this dip and sell the asset, making the price go down. As the price goes further down, more algo trading programs sell the asset automatically. While this is also what can happen when humans sell stocks, humans cannot sell these assets nearly as fast as algo trading programs can. This rapid sell-off is what gives the “flash crash” its name. Machine learning, artificial intelligence, increasingly fast computers, and more are leading the way to revolutionize algorithmic trading and the way we invest. image courtesy of digitaledge.org.
Opinion The Knight Times 11 Technology may be to blame for Instant Gratification Generation SOPHIA HENRY Staff Writer Older generations are quick to call us lazy as they discuss their more interpersonal lives without cell phones and social media. They tell us of their fond memories of playing outside, writing love letters, and eating without technology at the table. This was a time before people could hide in their rooms and indulge in binge watching TV shows or gaming until 3 a.m. While past generations may refer to us as lazy, perhaps we are just more efficient or have a higher need for instant gratification. Today, anything can be delivered within moments: packages, food, clothes, flowers, furniture, groceries, answers to Google questions, and even a date. This contributes to a lack of patience as “we want what we want, and we want it now,” without any delay and minimum effort. Commercials are even becoming obsolete with Netflix, Hulu, Youtube (if one uses adblock), and pre-recorded shows; therefore, companies such as ABC and NBC have developed features to prevent their viewers from fastforwarding, but one can always pay more money to skip them. Ramesh Sitaraman, a computer science professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and researchers at Akamai Technologies Inc., who works with companies such as Major League Baseball and Fox Broadcasting Co to deliver faster videos, says that a video should start working within the first “two seconds” or people will begin to “abandon [the] video.” They studied over 23 million online streams and found that after two seconds, every proceeding one-second delay results in a 5.8 percent increase in viewers leaving the page. A society that experiences instantaneous feedback will slowly possess less and less patience. A graduate fresh out of college will join the workforce with disappointment as they are passed over for raises and promotions, and a lack of positive reinforcement may cause a struggle in staying motivated. Without the expected constant fulfillment, millennials feel frustrated as they lack a degree of patience for the “good Intellectual property rights can open tricky legal doors job” to come quickly. This instant gratification replaces lasting satisfaction with fleeting pleasure as we receive constant notification on our phones through text messages and social media updates. Instagram’s recent update even notifies users if people have commented on a photo they simply liked. The diagnosis of attention deficit disorder has skyrocketed in the last decade, and adults are beginning to be prescribed medication. In 2003, twelve percent of American children ages 5 to 17 were diagnosed with ADHD, and those numbers increased to 43 percent in 2011. This means that 5.8 million children in the U.S. have ADHD. One must consider the cause of this enormous jump. Is it our instant gratification culture or a problem rooted in diagnosing kids too soon? Will our short attention spans prevent us from ever learning patience? ISABELLA GOODMAN Staff Writer Intellectual property is outlined as any product of human intellect that the law protects from unauthorized use by others, and can be protected through trademarks, patents, and copyrights. Intellectual property can be hard to clearly define, unlike physical property, because it pertains to ideas and concepts. Since the conception of intellectual property laws, there have been disagreements and controversy as to what constitutes intellectual property and who can reap the benefits. The first article and eighth section of the United States Constitution states that Congress issue copyrights, allowing people the exclusive rights to their creations. There have been countless high profile intellectual property cases where two entities fight over an idea that is potentially worth millions. In 2008, the creators of Barbie went head to head with a rival doll maker, Bratz. With similar designs and increasing popularity, the two went after each other; ultimately, the creators of Bratz were forced There are students at EHS who are making creations worthy of patents and copyright. to both remove all stock from shelves and pay $100 million. In Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh vs. The Random House Group, the writers of the non-fiction book, The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail, argued that Dan Brown’s The DaVinci Code infringed on their intellectual property. While Brown did not outright plagiarize their work, the two claimed that there was non-literal copying of a substantial portion of their book, and more specifically that he copied the manner in which their book had been written. The court decided that although Brown had clearly drawn from their book, he did not necessarily infringe copyright. One of the most famous cases of intellectual property law is the Napster case. Napster was a pioneering, file-sharing site where users could download songs for free instead of purchasing CDs. Popular bands signed to major labels, such as Metallica, were vocal in their animosity toward Napster. The site gained a huge following and as a result, garnered the attention of the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), who sued the emerging tech startup. Napster never owned the rights to the music that users were uploading and sharing; those rights belonged to the artists and their studios. Napster agreed to pay a $26 million settlement, and users now must pay licensing fees. While the idea of intellectual property or a personal disagreement as to who owns it may seem a distant possibility to a teenager, there are students at EHS who are making creations worthy of patents and copyright. In Mr. Duncan’s Computer Science Projects class, students are encouraged to follow their passions in computer science, whether that means creating apps, websites, and algorithms, or mining bitcoin. As a result, some students have questions as to the ownership of their ideas. If they created something in an EHS classroom, with an EHS computer, on EHS Wi-Fi, is it still solely theirs? If their product is believed to have monetary value, is EHS entitled to some form of financial compensation? The answer is a little complicated and would differ on a case-by-case basis. You will not find any clear-cut intellectual property guidelines in the Student Handbook because there are none. According to Mrs. Evelyn Cambria, the Director of Finance and Operations as well as the Chief Financial Officer of EHS, a creation is solely the student’s, and he or she would be encouraged to apply for a patent. For instance, when John Wall (’14) created wearable technology, he was encouraged to continue his work outside EHS. There are several students who have taken their technological creations and projects to college and beyond. Teachers, on the other hand, operate under a different guidelines. If a teacher creates something that is considered to be under the scope of his or her job, it not only belongs to the teacher but it also belongs to the school. If the teacher wanted to pursue the marketing of his or her idea, it would be the property of the school. As we move further into the age of technological advancement, intellectual property is something to consider. We have seen time and again a single idea leading to a billion-dollar enterprise. Intellectual property can be a tricky thing to deal with, and if you end up on the wrong side of an intellectual property battle, it can be damaging both financially and to the integrity of your business. The Knight Times Head of School Ned Smith Assistant Head of School Nancy Laufe Eisenberg Dean of Arts Jay Berckley Visual Arts Chair Kate Philbrick Publications Coordinator David Framel Photojournalism Instructor Jaime Sonnier Photojournalism Editor Miranda Greenwalt Episcopal High School 4650 Bissonnet, Bellaire, TX 77450 713-512-3400 Image courtesy of amazon.com. Editor-in-Chief Lauren Porter Managing Editor Sydney Hutchins Contributing Editor Cami Pyne Staff Writers Ellie Ragiel Isabel Young Isabella Goodman Angel Stringer Sophia Henry Preston Witt Patrick Bayouth Elliott Jones Daniel Davis Gabrielle Ducote Photographers Teagan Ashworth, Chris Castro Janecki, Cara Kennedy, Lane McCool, Mason Morris, Parker Nickerson, Julia Toups, Trinity Watts, Hannah Windle, Rohan Asthana, Phoebe Crow, Layton Debes, Caroline Fertitta, Elliott Jones, Robert Mason, Taylor Ranucci, James Henry Ray, Stockton Shaffer, Madison Stanke, Sophie Thomas, Sasha Vermeil, Rachel Boeker, Sydney Bosarge, Kaveinga Davis, Will Davis, Spencer Donley, Cydne Harrell-Malveaux, Amber Hatfield, Alexandra Herrera, Sadie Jensen, Elliott Leathers, Chloe Masterson, Luke Pugh, Ethan Tuckwood, Luke White, Alan Ayanegui, Christina Betti, Isabel Frasier, Sophia Pamphilis, Margaret Runnels, Sophia Wayne, David Bebczuk, Sydney Cooper, Alex Deutsch, Elizabeth Anne Charbonnet, Sophia Haugh, Sadie Jensen, Lindsey Little, Anna McLauchlin, Julia Nasser, Chandler Onyekwelu, Kate Peterkin, Lexi Sagers, Madelyn Scholtes, Amelia Traylor, Celine Waxham The Knight Times is a product of students in the Episcopal High School newspaper class, who are solely responsible for its creation and editorial content. The opinions expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily represent those of the Episcopal Board of Trustees, administration, faculty, and staff. Published ten times a year, The Knight Times is a non-profit educational tool. The staff encourages the submission of letters, editorials, and story ideas from the community but reserves the right to edit and/or use said articles.
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Page 3 and 4: Features The Snake Man cometh ISABE
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THE KNIGHT TIMES - March 2018

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