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ekpyroticexplosions · 7 years

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You Might Be Killing Your Betta Fish

If you’re reading this post, you probably have a betta fish (Siamese fighting fish), or in their scientific name -Betta splendens. The average price in Manila, Philippines is Php250/betta. They look like this and they are often seen in tiny bowls at pet stores sold at cheap prices.

You may think that this post’s title is extreme aggressive, and you’re absolutely right. It is -but I believe that betta fish are one of the most mistreated animals next to chicken and rabbits. While fish are not considered as a conventional pet (meaning a pet you can hold and cuddle and love), it is still a sentient being that we have to take good care of. As a pet owner, you must be responsible for the creatures you bring home. With that said, I will give out the top three mistakes you, as betta fish keepers, make that results in your betta’s death. These all stem from one thing and one thing alone:

You don’t or didn’t do enough research. Research, research, research! Google is only a click away and is available to almost everyone with Internet connection. Care sheets, care videos and even the back of their fish food can tell you simple things about these animals. Always research before getting a pet, whether it be a dog or a fish. You are now responsible for a life. If they die, it is either your fault or nature’s.

1. You keep your betta in a one gallon bowl. While bettas are very hardy (meaning they can withstand a lot of environmental conditions), their first and probably most important requirement is swimming space. You cannot keep bettas in a bowl. They need at least 2.5 gallons of space with a filter, heater and an aquarium lid. While some ‘experienced’ owners recommend the cheap ‘betta cubes’ that are a little over a gallon, it is unethical to keep a fish in there all its life. Bettas live for 3-5 years. That is a long time and a commitment. I see a lot of people with bettas that live over two months and they shrug their shoulders and say “Eh, well it died of old age.” No. You cannot expect a betta to live a full and happy life in a tiny bowl.

2. You do not condition your water. Again, bettas are very hardy fish but that doesn’t mean it’s excusable to give them a bad quality of life. It’s important to understand that in keeping an aquarium you are essentially creating a liveable ecosystem for your fish. Using tap water from your sink is not acceptable. Tap water, especially in the Philippines, contains chloramine, chlorine, zinc and other harmful chemicals that are not safe for fish. With this said, you should buy at least a bottle of water conditioner. Water conditioner makes tap water safe for aquarium fish and is probably one of the most important things every fish keeper should know. With a 2.5 gallon tank, you only need a few drops to dechlorinate your tank water! There are plenty of brands that sell water conditioners, ranging from API to Seachem. Take your pick!

3. You overfeed your betta, and leave the uneaten food floating around. Bettas have extremely small stomachs. A common explanation is that their stomachs are as big as their eyes. Whether you choose to feed your betta flaked food, pellets or frozen live food (like bloodworms or daphnia), you should understand that overfeeding can lead to diseases like swim bladder disease, bloating or even death. If you are using flaked food, watch how much your betta can eat in three minutes and remove the rest. If you’re using pellets, feed two to three pellets twice a day, during the morning and night. Again, always remove uneaten food. This can cause ammonia levels in your water to rise, and any trace of ammonia in your water can lead to bad things. We are reminded as fishkeepers time and time again that we are taking care of a living being that deserves a full and happy life. Impulse buying at the store because you ‘felt a connection’ without having the proper requirements to take care of a pet is irresponsible. In aquariums, responsible owners make sure to have regular water tests on their ammonia, nitrite and nitrate levels as well as their pH to make sure their fish are having a blast. Keeping a betta in a bowl with unconditioned water and too much food for their entire life is sickening. As said by Cory McElroy, a passionate fish keeper and fish store owner, keeping a betta out of its preferred living conditions is like keeping a child in a crib all its life and throwing food at it while it poops everywhere. Likewise, to all pet owners: let’s be responsible citizens and take care of our animals, because while they are only a portion of your life, their entire lives revolve around yours.

#wimtern

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ekpyroticexplosions · 7 years

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How To Sound Smart Around Your Smart Friends In College

Tired of being out of the loop? Fear not -I’m here to give you short but concise explanations of the most essential and basic theories and ideas everyone in university should know. After this post I hope you readers can converse with your ‘intellectual’ companions (or so they would like you to think) or at least get a grasp of what they’re talking about.

Just a disclaimer -these are my opinions, so they can vary from yours. To me these are the most useful and most popular theories and ideas as well as interesting and thought-provoking. With that said, let’s get on to the first one:

1. Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs You’d be surprised by the amount of times you have encountered this odd pyramid, as it is used by a wide variety of university courses from Marketing to Psychology. Coined by Abraham Maslow in his 1943 paper titled ‘A Theory of Human Motivation’, it is assumed in the theory that one must achieve the first level before moving onto the next. There are five levels in Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs: 1. Physiological: our basic needs like shelter, air, food and water 2. Safety: our health, our economic and financial stability, and personal well-being 3. Belonging: our relationships with our friends and family 4. Esteem: our self-perception, our self-esteem and confidence 5. Self actualization: a fairly abstract concept where you are aware of yourself as a person with traits and emotions, and your relationships with your surroundings. This hierarchy is the gauge of understanding the essence of the person and teaches us that all types of transactions, even conversations, demand a need to be satisfied. This theory is widely accepted and in university, you have probably encountered this before. 2. The Big Bang Theory No, not the TV show with the overused canned laughter. I’m talking about the theory that tackles the birth of our universe and how the Earth came to be. While everyone might have heard of The Big Bang Theory, not all could actually understand and efficiently have a discussion on what it’s all about. The Big Bang Theory wasn’t just a ‘big explosion’, guys. It is much, much more than that. According to NASA, in the first second after the universe began, the surrounding temperature was about 10 billion degrees Fahrenheit (5.5 billion Celsius). That’s extremely hot -which is why we probably all know that “heat=expand”. That is the main premise of this theory and honestly that’s all you will ever need to know. However, there are a few more things I would like to discuss: the birth of light in the universe (or pretty much how light was shown in the Universe because the Sun already existed; it was just impossible to show through because of the mass of clouds). The cosmos formed contained a lot of important particles such as neutrons, electrons and protons (which forms the atom). These decayed or combined as the universe got cooler. When the free electrons roamed around, it allowed the photons (which cause light) to scatter in the way sunlight scatters from the water droplets in the clouds. (NASA) And over time, this allowed the free electrons (since I assume you have a basic understanding of chemistry, I will not explain this part further) to meet with available nuclei to created neutral atoms. And thus, light emitted from any light source (stars), shone through after approximately 380,000 years after the Big Bang occurred. Now that’s what I call a fun fact.

3. The Game Theory I kind of explained this last one in my introduction post where I talked about the guy in my profile picture. John Nash, in my opinion, has created such a cool theory that I think is underrated. I was debating about discussing the Evolution Theory but I believe that the Evolution Theory is one of the most misunderstood theories in science and thus deserves its own post in the future. The Game Theory is also called the Theory of Non-cooperative Games, which are those where participants make non-binding agreements. Each participant, or in my head I like to call ‘player’, bases his or her decisions on how they expect their opponents to behave without actually knowing how they behave. Kind of confusing to understand? It’s just like chess. Your turn to move is a call for predicting what your opponent is going to do. You must always be one or two steps ahead, and that is the basis of The Game Theory.

John Nash’s major contribution was the Nash Equilibrium, where Nash attempted to explain the prediction of the outcomes of these non-cooperative games. This equilibrium, explained Nash in his 1950 doctoral dissertation, expands on the two-player zero-sum games. Zero-sum games are a type of competition in which a gain from one side results in an equal loss by the other. Nash won the 1994 Nobel Prize for this theory along with John C. Harsanyi, and Reinhard Selten "for their pioneering analysis of equilibria in the theory of non-cooperative games." Selten applied Nash’s theory to strategic interactions and Harsanti applied them to scenarios with incomplete information to help develop the field of information economics. This led to the three becoming well-known contributors to economic theories of oligopoly and industrial organization, even inspiring others with new fields of research. The Hierarchy of Needs, The Big Bang Theory and The Game Theory are all essential to understanding the being that matters: us. All this research has shown that humans have always wanted to understand each other, negating the notion or idea that we can never truly feel empathy towards those that have different environments than what we are used to. I’ve tried to choose two well-known theories and to expand on them and to give a bit of new information, and a not-so-well-known theory to balance it all out. If this hasn’t given you enough information, and if you want to know more, you can always do a quick Google search. All this information was collected in my brain over the years or from the book ‘30 Second Theories’, which I highly recommend to those who aspire to learn more. As always, thank you for reading.

#wimtern

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ekpyroticexplosions · 7 years

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A Phoenix Universe

Hello. It’s me. Again.

I don’t think I explained the Ekpyrotic Theory and its beauty well enough in my introduction so here goes:

We come back to the most basic definition of the theory, which explains that our Universe is one of a pair of three-dimensional universes that are separated by a tiny distance (only less than the diameter of an atom!! Isn’t that crazy?!) in the fifth dimension. Well, it’s actually the fourth dimension of space but we all know that time already claimed itself as the ‘fourth dimension’. Anyway, we have to realize that every point in our space is right beside another point in the other universe. Right now, the two universes are slowly moving apart from each other. Not only that, but each universe is expanding (you do know this, right? because I’m expecting you to) so of course its contents thin themselves out. Eventually the universes will be nothing but empty, expanding space. When this happens, a spring-like force will be pulling these two universes back together, and wait for it -along with the fifth dimension! When they (the two universes) collide, energy is released and turned into matter, generating a new Big Bang. Because of quantum effects and all, different parts of the universes touch each other at different times and make ripples that are the ‘seeds’ from which galaxies grow. Then, the universes bounce apart and the whole process repeats. Essentially this is an alternative explanation for the Big Bang that doesn’t require the first phase of inflation.

So there. That is why I like it so much.

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ekpyroticexplosions · 7 years

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an introduction.

It took me seven minutes and twenty-nine seconds to create a Tumblr blog for the first task. Introductions in person can be difficult, but online introductions are even harder to do so. A million things run through my mind as I type this out. I suppose I should start with the basics.

I’m Jamie. Well, my real name is Jemimah -but I prefer Jamie. It’s an easier name to pronounce and spell. I learned that the hard way. When I was four years old in kindergarten I got called to the office for biting a classmate because I told her that she was stupid to think the color blue was only for boys. Evidently it was my favorite color -but my defense for blue didn’t spare me from getting a sermon at a young age. I often think about the world around me -different cultures, languages and universes. I have the ability to be interested in absolutely everything. Trust me on this -I have once watched a six hour long docu-series about rock formations throughout primitive Southeast Asia. Growing up in the Philippines, specifically Iloilo City, I always knew I was different. I spoke differently, I dressed differently and everyone treated me differently. I was raised in a Chinese household, so I grew up speaking essentially four languages: Hokkien, English, Hiligaynon, and Mandarin. Tagalog was and is still a difficult language for me to learn, but I’m getting the hang of it. I was also raised by television and the Internet. My parents worked endless hours for me and my two siblings, leaving us in the house with our helpers. With only television and the glorious Internet, I was able to speak fluent English by age six. People often think I’m a foreigner, to which I respond with: “How racist of you.” As a joke, of course.

I study in De La Salle University majoring in both Literature and Accounting. A tough job, yes, but because of these completely different spheres I am able to appreciate the art and skill that comes with them. In everything I see wonder -from reading Asia’s first novel, ‘The Tale of Genji’, to the tedious financial statements I complete. I am currently completing my thesis dissertation, a translation-study on modern Taiwanese poetry, where I study translation theory and translate a few poems from Mandarin to English myself. I have a deep love that runs for animals. I love my four-legged furry creatures, but I also love reptiles and fish. I also love science, which is shown in my url and my display photo. That is John Nash, a mathematician responsible for the idea behind zero-sum games, a type of competition in which a gain from one side results in an equal loss by the other. My url is inspired by the Ekpyrotic Theory itself, a theory where our Universe is derived from a pair of three-dimensional universes, separated from one another by a tiny distance in the fifth dimension. The term ‘Phoenix Universe’ comes from this very theory -in Greek, the word ‘ekpyrotic’ means ‘born in fire’. I find the beauty in a Phoenix Universe, where everything is chaotic yet suspended in grace.

I applied for an internship to learn. Dear reader, to tell you the truth, I am not so great a writer. I have been told otherwise from my professors and classmates in my creative writing and critical theory courses, but I digress (but I do think I write quite eloquently at times). Everyone must start from somewhere and looking at When in Manila’s content I think I have found a place that truly appreciated every aspect in the spectrums of topics and discussions around the globe. This is what attracted me to the company. Truly, I can offer nothing but my knowledge and ideas crammed into incompetent words in our language system. I want to celebrate human life, human knowledge and the miracle of it all. It took me half an hour to write this long spiel, but I hope this one or two-minute read offered you, my reader, an insight to what drives me to write for not only myself, but for others, too.

#wimtern

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