Final Paper Ideas

I am having some difficulty coming up with a topic for my final paper. This combined with the fact that I'm having trouble just understanding the concept for this paper. One idea for a topic that I have had is how we usually do not mean to cause our own destruction. This is shown in how we usually start out by trying to make something that can help people, like a suit that can cure cancer, but in the end it becomes an out of control destructive force or by creating an army, such as zombies, that kills any one who is not one of them. This is just a starting point and I am still looking into ideas.

Databases

During my search of the databases to try and find one that could help me with my major. One of the databases that I found to be useful was the IEEE Xplore digital library. It had a wide variety of information pertaining to my major and loads of other research on projects and experiments done by other people. For the my basic searches       I have found that jstor, Gale PowerSearch, and LexisNexis Academic were good at providing general knowledge. Those were also good for most research projects.

Dr. Strangelove

In the film Dr. Strangelove they are taking a look at a potential way in which the world could end. They are playing on the fears of the time, such as America fearing an attack from the Soviet Union. This can be seen anytime that the president and his generals are inside of the war room. Especially when general Turgidson and Ambassador Sadeski are in the room together. Although there is some parts with humor throughout the film, anything with general Ripper and captain Mandrake, it mostly holds a large sense of oncoming dread. It ends with Sadeski hitting the button that activates the Doomsday device that brings about the end of the world. which still feeds the fear that the Russians would be the ones to destroy the world with nuclear destruction. It is interesting to note that the film is called Dr. Strangelove, but the character Dr. Strangelove is only in the film for about five to ten minutes. It was a good film that, although it was poking fun at the nuclear scare, still managed to pull out our anxieties about nuclear warfare.

Fun Book

I looked back and realized that I never got around to blogging on which fun book I was going to read. I was thinking of reading "Liberation: Being the Adventures of the Slick Six After the Collapse of the United States." Mainly for the fact that it sounds more like a romping old west adventure rather than an end of the world novel.

Abstract

From what I could find about abstract is that it is a brief summary of a research article. I think that using it for the conclusion of a paper is a good way to use it. After spending so much time collecting research and organizing it together it can be difficult for a person to grasp the full meaning of your work. Using abstract in your conclusion can help all those who missed the point of your research to quickly grasp what it was all about.

Change to a Change

Upon further researching my research topic, and discussing it with my teacher, I have found that doing my I-search on the rapture would take so many levels of research for this type of paper, that it is just not worth it. So I think that I am going to stick with my original topic of nukes and why they're not very huggable.

DOOMSDAY.......slight change

Although I said that I was thinking of doing disease and nukes for my i-search paper, some further research I have become torn between whether I want to do those or the rapture. I feel as though I will switch to the rapture. I feel that the rapture, in all of its many forms, would just be more fun to research and right about. It may be a little tougher to research, but I think that the added entertainment will make it all worth it.

The Road

Cormac McCarthy makes the feeling of hopelessness and doom very easy to feel in his novel The Road. although there are times when one gets a tiny glimmer of hope. one mainly just gets a feeling of dread from whatever the father and son are currently going through. I found one of the more alarming scenes in the the book to have been when they passed a lake while they were traveling down the road. They had just had had a night of fortune the night before when the father had found a ham and had cooked a part of it for him and his son. Now as they traveled down the road they passed a lake and the son spotted a dam. Upon questioning his father about he is told that the dam should last for many more years, but when the boy asks if there are any fish in the lake the father responds "No. There's nothing in the lake"(20). This gives us a view of how bad things are. In the father's eyes things such as dam's have not only survived the problems that plague the Earth, but are expected to out live the suffering people on it, and wildlife have all but died off. We get a brief since of hope when they spot the long lived dam. We feel that things might not be as bad as we had thought, but we are quickly brought back to the reality of the situation with the realization that all the life in the lake was gone. These with many other scenes in the book help to bring out the sheer since of hopelessness that the book possesses.

Little Brother

I don't fully agree with some of the aspects of Little Brother. The main thing that I have a problem with is the concept that I have trouble with is the thought that after Marcus had been wronged he was able to form a group of a handful people that had enough skill to oppose a well-trained government agency. I also don't  know how he would be able to go back to a "normal" life after everything he went through, or how the DHS were able to declare marshal law after only one terrorist attack. While I found Little Brother to be a good book I just had trouble with some of the over-the-topness of the book.

Final Essay

Just realized that I forgot to post my essay topic. I am doing my essay based off of Jane McGonigal's TED talk of Gaming Can Make A Better World. The topic is on whether or not video games can be used to help better people and if they can be used to help better the world. At the moment I do not think that they can, but that might change as I research into it more.

Cartoons

I have not yet decided what my argument is going to be about, so I thought I'd post about an interesting video I saw on TED. This piece made a very interesting point about the usage of political cartoons. I always knew that political cartoons could be used to slightly influence people in their chooses and decisions, but I never knew that a cartoon could hold so much power. Such as the power to make people riot in the street, like when the Mohammad cartoon was published. Patrick Chappatte made good points in noting how political cartoons could be used for both the good and bad of a nation.

Ghost Caught on Video

With all the ghost sightings and ghost hunting videos, it is almost relieving to see a spoof video such as this one. Videos dealing with ghost's are currently all the rage and filling up the web. There is even a whole plethora of T.V. shows that are everywhere, which are ranging from hunting, sightings, myths, and legends all concerning ghost. To see a video that takes these ghost frenzied videos, that some could say are taken way to seriously, and makes a spoof about how ridiculous these videos really are is kind of relieving. I found this video to make a nice point and to be a funny watch, and it was pretty great to hear the narrator do his best Solid Snake impression.

Children Of Men

Children of Men was a movie that focused on a possible post-apocalyptic future, where everybody on the planet has been made infertile. For reasons which I still don't fully understand, having everyone on the Earth become infertile caused the people to break out into massive wars. I would think that if the population was stricken with a crippling disease like that, they would band together and try to find a cure, not go to war to see how fast they could kill all of the final generation. Despite that small bit of confusion Children of Men was a good movie. The movie follows Theo and Kee as they try to get Kee, and her baby, to the mythical humanity project. despite the movies general feeling of depression, there is always the slightest feeling of hope in the background. the movie even has a semi-happy ending, so I would say that it is a movie worth watching.

Dragon Ball Fire Safety PSA

When I was little I used to watch a cartoon called Dragon Ball. It was a series about a kid named Son Goku, who basically went around getting into fights with everyone until he was one of the strongest fighters in the world. The other day while I was looking around on youtube I found this video. It is only one of two educational PSA's that Dragon Ball made. It was funny for me to see them take an adventure/action series and turn it into a serious message. They never made an English version so you have to read the subtitles, but if you can get past the subtitles it is pretty cheesy and fun to watch. Watching the PSA felt really nostalgic, it was like I was in my living room watching TOONAMI after a tough day of the third grade again. So I decided to do my rhetorical analysis on the Dragon Ball video.

Living On My Own

So now that I've been living on my own (not counting my dorm mates) for about three weeks now, and I'm beginning to notice the difference from living at home. The biggest change would be the amount of freedom I now have. Stay up as late as I want, and then sleep in all day (which isn't that smart of an idea if you want to pass your classes). Most of what happens is all on you now. You decide that you don't want to go to class and nobody will say anything. Everything in college is all up to you. You don't really ease get much warning about the changes until you're here. You're just thrown in and have to get used to it as fast as possible. After awhile you begin to ease into it. So college living isn't that bad once you get used to it.

Hodge's Common's on Prezi

This is a prezi presentation that I made for my English class. It is a visual rhetoric showing just how awesome the Hodges commons are. I thought about doing it on how eerily quite and empty the study floors are in the morning, but then I thought that the commons would be cooler. So, this presentation took a lot of hard work and effort to make(mostly because I'm not really all that tech savvy) so I hope that everyone is able to enjoy it.

Disney Copyright

I thought that the Disney copyright video did a pretty good job in getting it's point across. It chose to use the movies from the Disney vault to try and get their point across about the use and abuse of copyright laws. By using a large, powerful organization like Disney that is well known to millions, they were able to talk about things that most people wouldn't normally be interested in, and gave them something that they knew so that they could understand the point that they were trying to get across. It is however a risky move to use an icon such as Disney. Many people grew up with Disney and associate it with the happy times in their childhood. To some having the symbols of their childhood shown as being shown in an evil way can be considered the same as a slap to the face. Using well known icons to try and get your message across is a risky gamble, but can be very profitable if done right.