Hello guys my name is Koko and today I want to talk about recidivism. Some of you might know what this word means and some might not, but simply put, recidivism is when a person relapses into criminal behavior after already being punished before for a crime. This certain problem of recidivism is particularly important for the United States of America since this country accounts for 25 percent of the world’s inmates; a high recidivism rate would mean that the number of prisoners in prison would keep rising since prisoners would keep coming back with fresh new faces imbedded in this sea of returning convicts. In America, a country with more than 2.2 million inmates which costs the taxpayers $80 billion a year to keep inside, has a recidivism rate of 76 percent. This means that a country with one of the highest number of prisoners has half of their prisoners returning to become incarcerated again. This means that something is wrong with the prison system; why are these prisoners returning? Are American convicts just bad people?

Well, this problem persists due to the connotation in American prisons that punishment should come after rehabilitation. Two-thirds of convicts return to incarceration because when they were in prison they were treated like dirt, like animals. One can only imagine the psychological damage that prison can do to someone, let alone a person who was already sent to prison either from mental instability or not understanding the law. A prison director of a detention center called Halden from Norway called Are Hoidel said it best, “Do you want people who are angry – or people who are rehabilitated?”
I also bring up this detention center in Norway because Norway has been leading the charge in terms of the progressiveness of correctional facilities in the world. If you do not know what I’m talking about, here’s a little video about a prisoner in a Norwegian detention center.
The prisons also include a music room, library and kitchen areas with all the utensils available for the inmates to use. The prisoners in Norway can only be sentenced to a maximum of 21 years in prison; though five-years can be added onto the sentence every five years until the system decides whether the detainee is rehabilitated or not.
One could argue that some prisoners like murderers deserve to stay in jail forever but this sentence can be in correlation with the severity of the crime. America does not even have to follow Norway’s system of having a maximum 21 year sentence but what American should follow suit is the way that Norway treats their prisoners. Norway already has an incredibly lower incarceration rate in comparison to the US, with 75 arrests per 100,000 people in Norway with 707 arrests per 100,000 people in the US. But the big difference of the system is seen when we notice that only 20% of prisoners in Norway return while a whopping 76% of the prisoners in the United States are rearrested within five years. Though criminals deserve to be put in prison and punished, just taking away their freedom and putting them in isolation is punishment enough, because anything more could only light the fire of crime that had been sparked before in their heads. It’s important to be punished for your actions, it’s also equally important that you don’t imitate these actions again. This is why we should start advocating for more humane prisons all throughout the United States for the tax payers to save money as well as for the people who had to potential to be great but was degraded by what is the prison system of America today.

*Sources*
[Recidivism | National Institute of Justice](http://www.nij.gov/topics/corrections/recidivism/pages/welcome.aspx)
https://thinkprogress.org/as-the-right-bemoans-norways-criminal-justice-system-it-is-one-of-the-safest-countries-on-earth-f181a7585493#.jmclno8h9
[Why Norway’s prison system is so successful – Business Insider](http://www.businessinsider.com/why-norways-prison-system-is-so-successful-2014-12)
https://www.rt.com/usa/312504-prison-reforms-recidivism-hiring/

[Norway | World Prison Brief](http://www.prisonstudies.org/country/norway)
[The Radical Humaneness of Norway’s Halden Prison – The New York Times](http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/29/magazine/the-radical-humaneness-of-norways-halden-prison.html?_r=0)
[Norway’s Halden Prison is most humane in the world | Fusion](http://fusion.net/story/340235/norway-halden-prison-most-humane/)

Chris Anderson was very wise to point out that Public Speaking shouldn’t follow a formula. There shouldn’t be a step by step procedure on what would captivate the minds of every member in the audience. This would undercut any possibility of creativity; and creativity is key towards a great speech. Though there should not be a step by step procedure, Anderson stated out some guidelines that anyone could follow to incorporate into their speech. This leaves the creativity aspect of the speech to you while you have guidelines showing what audiences are interested in. An advice stating that you should make your idea an idea worth sharing is very important since you create your own idea but it should reach a certain standard to be considered something worth sharing.

As for my S4 presentation, I have not given much thought of exactly what I should do yet. First, I was focused on this automatic bike lift that pushes people uphill in Trondheim, Norway but though it is an interesting topic, it’s not something that I am passionate enough to advocate for. And since this S4 speech is based on advocacy, the topic is extremely important so that I can easily convey some sort of passion and fire when I’m up as a speaker for the presentations.

Going to the Open House was a pretty eye-opening experience for me, I’ve never heard of having open houses for anything other then real-estate property to be sold. The SFMTA Open House was an event to propose two proposals that they had narrowed down to implement onto the road that exists along the Embarcadero towards the Fisherman’s Wharf. As soon as I walked in, there were a lot of flaws concerning the way they presented theirselves inside the venue; there was no indication of there being an open house let along what it was about near the entrance of Pier 1. Another problem that I saw was the way that the posters were made; if there are people near the posters to explain what they meant, it probably means that you don’t need all that information on the poster. This was because the posters had too much information with unnecessary words making something that’s extremely simple, complicated. After a few minutes of looking around, I saw on multiple posters about the existence of the proposal of two alternative bike lanes but still couldn’t figure out what the two proposals were.

This problem could also be the result of not indicating where the start of the presentation was and where it ends. There are still advantages of using a poster over PowerPoints though, with posters you can always walk back and read if you accidentally forgot some substantial piece of information while PowerPoints don’t offer this. After the presentation, I realized I obtained the most information about the Open House from the booklets that were handed out during it. As for the alternatives presented, one of the presenters was talking about how the Two-laned proposal required bigger changes to the current traffic system as well as higher costs of implementation since the two-lane requires a bigger change in infrastructure. From this alone, it became obvious to choose the One-laned proposal over the other since it requires less money to implement as well as keeping it easy to adapt to since there is less change from the current traffic system it has now on the Embarcadero. From this experience, I would most definitely go to other Open Houses because it was obvious that this was not the best of it’s kind and I would like to explore other ways that people execute so called “open houses”.

Today I picked this video because I was familiar with the recent works of George Carlin. Though his voice may have gotten a bit deeper, his enthusiasm remains the same. His work as a comedian is so iconic because of the way he delivers every joke. His pacing of the words keeps you on your toes about what’s coming next because he keeps changing the tempo from slow to fast. This pacing keeps me interested in the words he says but he still enunciates on each word he says; which is important as a comedian for the audience to understand the joke. The content of this video was pretty profound; just like the other works of Carlin. It showed the restrictions that we imposed on ourselves; the inception of this restriction has given a lot more power to words that probably did not mean much before. The fact that you cannot say these certain words gives the seven so much more power then it initially had. This is very applicable to a lot of rules that people have imposed on themselves to live by. An example would be the idea of guilt, if the media had not portrayed people coming clean due to them feeling guilty; people probably would not feel obliged to confess to the wrongs in their life. It’s very important to know the difference between the rules imposed by themselves to serve their moral code, so that it doesn’t act as an obstacle to their everyday life. The feeling of guilt after committing a sin is not actually guilt but just your morals telling you to feel a certain way just to feel better about yourself. Just like the seven words you’re not allowed to say, you just don’t say because they tell you that’s what’s morally right to do. George Carlin’s seven words you’re not allowed to say on television has shown me that a lot of rules are imposed on society as a social cue, and you don’t necessarily need to follow it if it doesn’t benefit your needs.

The First Amendment is something that I, as a foreigner here, am not familiar with. Back home in Myanmar in the last decade, it was very common to see a large amount of political prisoners filling the prisons in the country. Freedom of speech is a right that Myanmar obtained not so long ago, making it a very recent discovery for many people. After many years of being oppressed, the Myanmar people have been shaped to watch what they say in public; especially words directed towards members of the government. This made protests back home a very special occasion, because people do not protest until it becomes a last resort. It is incredibly eye-opening to be surrounded by people who would advocate and protest towards the smallest issues that people back home would not even think about. The problem with the existence of the first amendment is not the fact that people are advocating for small issues; because a progressive country should be able to focus on smaller issues. But the problem with the first amendment in the United States is that since people are given the right to talk about anything pertaining to the government, it brings out people who just takes advantage of this right to say certain facts without evidence. Whenever a political speech was given back home, it would be very important for the speech to consist of accurate facts to ensure that this special moment of protest is fully taken advantage of. The freedom to say whatever we want, whenever we want cheapens the content that comes out of people’s mouths. Though in the video it talked about a few forms of restrictions in the amendment, it still is incredibly progressive compared to the amount of freedom given in Myanmar. The amount of freedom given backfires in situations like this year’s elections where the president-elect Donald Trump, repeatedly produced lie after lie on national television without any consequences to now become the leader of the free world. Though people in this day and age feel like we could progress further and fully gain the freedom of speech apart from the government, I feel that the freedom of speech should require some form of limitation to ensure the factual accuracy of the words that they say. This is to prevent a whole group of people to become manipulated by someone who is blatantly sprouting out fiction to exploit the masses.

Hello ladies and gentlemen!

My name is Koko and today I’m going to talk about one of the biggest annoyances that cyclists have to face in their day to day life. Bike locks have been the ultimate source of security for bikes since the inception of bikes. Though people buy bike locks to ensure the safety of their bikes while they’re gone, thousands of bicycles still get stolen every single day. There are many different options of bike locks that people can use so this begs us to ask the question; why do they fail? The source of this lack of success can, in my opinion, come from two different mistakes that people make.

The first being user error; people are not aware that if the criminals cannot take your bike, they can take any other vulnerable part of the bike and sell it for money. The two parts that are vulnerable to burglary are tires and seats because with bicycles today, they’re quite easy to take away without any heavy tools.

The second problem is the inconvenience of the bike locks that exist today. Weight and portability is a huge issue with bikes, as well as complicated instructions for some types of locks. An example would be the folding lock which requires the lock to be placed at a specific location, or another example would be the U locks and chain locks because they need keys. There are also many different options available with many advantages and disadvantages for every single one; making it hard for users to pick between the options.

Let’s now go through the types of bike locks and their advantages and disadvantages to show you the flaws of the system that billions of people have been using for years.

1.U-Lock

Advantages

• Most secure
• Most common

Disadvantages

• Heavy
• If you lose the keys, you have no bike
• Doesn’t secure the vulnerable parts (tires, seat)

2.Cable Lock

Advantages

• Light
• Compact
• Versatile
• Large locking area (Secures the vulnerable parts)

Disadvantages

• Easiest to cut

3.Chain Lock

Advantages

• Secure
• Large locking area

Disadvantages

• Heavy
• Hard to carry
• Restricts movement
• If you lose the keys, you have no bike

To figure out the main underlying problem within these options, I had to ask the question; What do they all have in common?

After much thought, I came to the fact that none of these options serve the purpose of portability. To solve an issue of portability, the first idea that one would get is to integrate whatever we need into the main thing that it supports. It was time for me to find out if there’s a way to make the lock a part of your bike while still securing everything. Instead of creating a concept of my own, I did research on other companies that has tried to fix this same issue; and I found two companies with the same viewpoint as mine. These two companies are called nRocket and the Senza Bike Lock System. I think that the Senza Bike Lock System tends to all the problem that I had but both these problems still solved the main problem that all these bike locks lacked. These two companies both fixed the problem of Ultimate Portability of bike locks.

Before I talk about the company that I prefer, I’ll first talk about the nCycle. The nCycle just looks like a normal bicycle but the handle bars are flexible so that it can be placed around bike racks and poles; acting as a bike lock. Both the nCycle and Senza Bike Lock System integrates the concept of the bike lock into the handlebars so that if someone tries to remove it, it would completely ruin the bike in the process. This makes stealing these inventions redundant.

The way that the Senza Bike Lock System is better than the nCycle is that it secures all the parts of bike with a different lock integrated under the seat of the bike to secure both the seat and the back tire at the same time.

There is a programmer called Larry Wall who created this very sophisticated programming language called Perl Programming. He once said that “Portability should be the default.” And I think that this concept should be a key aspect in the biking industry. I would like to urge the league of American Bicyclists to create petitions to make integrated bike locks a standard part of the bike to create a better biking future for everyone.

This presentation was pretty easy to execute despite the change in topics from the previous presentation. Though the topics of the two presentations were completely different, the presentation style was kept consistent between them. The way each slide represented in a small excerpt about the content being talked about in that time was kept constant as well as Apple’s infamous black slides to ensure a minimal and simple visual while still supporting the evidence presented. These key points were unchanged so that I could build upon the mistakes that I made in the S2 presentation and refine the way I do the lecture. On the note cards that I had, I stamped in a star everytime I had to change a slide to make the content that is being spoken to match along with the visuals shown. This presentation had a topic that was pretty specific; this made it a lot easier to do research while keeping the audience entertained since it wasn’t such a generalized subject in comparison to my S2. The one problem that was pretty blatant was the amount of practice I had before this presentation in comparison to the one before. Since I practiced a lot before my S2, the way I talked during the lecture was very clear and well-rehearsed. There were no stutters and looks of confusion; and the practices I did beforehand were to thank for that. As for the S3 presentation, I only had practiced it 2 times in front of a mirror without any feedback. Halfway through the presentation, I had forgotten some major words and it caused an awkward pause before I went on again. This really shows how important practicing your speech is because even if you knew the information you were about to present, practice will make everything smoother.

This problem becomes pretty blatantly obvious whenever you ask a local of a biking city, what they wish they could improve in terms of bicycles in their city. They usually are concerned about the well-being of their two-wheelers and are always looking for a good way to make sure it’s safe and sound. This problem has been solved in the past by the use of bike locks but bike locks these days aren’t as reliable as they used to be as criminals adapt to the new materials that these barriers are made of. So it’s important to know which bike lock is the most criminal-proof out of all the brands as well as the most convenient to assure the utmost safety and comfort to all the cyclists in the world. 

Though both articles may have been talking about cycling and it’s dangers in a world full of automobiles, the approaches that the Cohen and Duane take towards solving these issues are at the opposite ends of the spectrum. Randy Cohen’s article, If Kant Were a New York Cyclist, talks about his own personal experience as a cyclist in New York City. He feels that the rules that are imposed upon the cyclists are just copied from the same rulebook as the automobiles. The differences in size and agility between the two vehicles are so large that Cohen considers the only ethical way to ride is to abide by his own rules. Running stop signs and rolling through cross walks; according to Cohen, these actions are ethical and only seems fair since bicycles are being categorized with something that does not bear any similarities between them. Juxtaposed with Cohen’s article, Duane’s column takes a more mundane approach; but an approach that seems more feasible and legally ethical in the eyes of the public. Duane talked about how unjust the system is when it comes to cyclists getting hit by cars on the street. Even if cyclists are killed, if there was no alcohol or reckless driving, the perpetrator usually gets away scot-free with just a slap on the wrist. This seems like an issue that needs some serious attention compared to Cohen’s article which doesn’t necessarily even have to be an issue if people could just abide by the rules enforced. Though freedom of speech allows Cohen’s article on the same playing field as Duane’s, some issues are obviously much more consequential and should be tended to before the others. But these issues shouldn’t sway people to get off their bikes to give up on this transportation lifestyle. Biking still is amazing fun and is extremely practical in this growing city. Plus, the number of cycling accidents has decreased by 7.5 percent since 2001; which is moving at a small pace but a space forward nonetheless.

If people followed Duane’s final words of just following the rules and respecting each other, the streets will be much safer and a happier place to ride.