Charcoal Stripes

Relate an encounter with Nature when/where you found value in the experience.

One time, back in my Boy Scout days, I went to a summer camp with my troop. With me was my best friend (at the time) Ben. Now Ben and I went against the typical "boy scout grain" in most situations and we were there more to cause trouble more than learning about knots. The second night we decided to do something exciting and fun rather than abide by the curfew and proceeded to take off our shirts, paint our bodies with charcoal stripes, and sneak to the rest of our troop's camp to wreak havoc.

See Ben and I were in the older guys camp whereas the rest of our troop was at a different camp through this patch of woods. To sneak up on them we went alongside this lake with tall stalks of some plant growing on its beach. Our charcoal stripes and the plants fit together so perfectly that from five feet away we were next to invisible. While we were sneaking along, we tried to be absolutely silent. That left a lot of room for nature to speak and it was both surreal and very peaceful (given the circumstance) to listen to all of the sounds nature had to offer.

That night and the night following we pulled all the pranks we could with our limited supplies. We rubbed toothpaste on a sleeping kid's head, we stuck a bunch of forks in the ground outside another boy's tent (point down, the boy was unharmed) and never got caught by the parents staying there. The pranks were dumb but I will never forget sneaking through the tall grass being as quiet as possible and listening to all the sounds of the woods.

The Digital Participation Effect

How do you think digital participation has affected
a) your attention?
b) your sense of space/spatiality?


Digital participation has had a profound effect on our culture's sense of space. The development of thousands of new technological innovations has made this world smaller and smaller as we have become able to be in contact with those halfway across the world from us within a matter of seconds. This has caused the world, once big, mysterious, and imposing, to shrink in our minds. For years prior to this when a person was asked where they were from, they would say the town or city that they were from, now it has become much more common to respond with which state you are from. With the further advancement of these technologies I believe we will soon reach a point where you will simply say the country you are from. Perhaps in just a few generations we will be answering with what planet we are from...

"The Use of 'Dover Beach' in 'Fahrenheit 451'"

In Ray Bradbury's book Fahrenheit 451, at one point the protagonist, Montag, reads a bit of poetry aloud to his wife's friends. The poetry he reads is from the poem Dover Beach by Matthew Arnold. The excerpt he reads evokes a strong emotional response from one of his wife's friends. I believe that Ray Bradbury chose this poem because of its tone in particular. The first stanza he reads refers to the "Sea of Faith" and how it has shriveled and dried. I also think this is an analogy to the state of the world that Montag lives in. Like the "Sea of Faith," other waters have also dried. The "Sea of Knowledge," the "Sea of Dreams," the "Sea of Imagination," and the "Sea of Creativity" have also disappeared.

The severe emotional response that Mrs. Phelps displayed to this poem I think came from the fact that she wasn't truly happy. The way that the poem shows the world was so powerful and relatable that she couldn't handle her composure anymore and broke down. This very real emotion was so raw and unchecked that it frightened her and in turn made her angry towards Montag and poetry.

"The Culture and Tech of Oryx and Crake"

Margaret Atwood's Oryx and Crake makes several powerful points about technology and culture. The world that she describes has become twisted and cruel; the protagonist and his friend Crake grow up watching child pornography, executions, and graphic surgeries on the media. This is a bold statement about our media today and how it seems that every day more profanity, violence, and sexually explicit material finds its way into our homes through TVs and the internet. Another point she makes is in the way that the world is run by huge corporations. I thought this was particularly powerful due to the way that we can see that in a less obvious way today. In the western countries of our world there are several extremely powerful corporations that pull a lot of strings in things like media, business, and even the government.

"Stuxnet, a New Sort of Campaign" (T&C Report)

"Warning over 'Stuxnet' Computer Worm"
http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/web/09/24/stuxnet.worm.ft/index.html

Computer viruses are nothing new to us; since computers have become personal they have existed. Most are annoyances while others can prove to be costly if not prevented. The computer virus has begun a new, much more frightening stage recently as one called "Stuxnet" has wormed its way into an unknown number of Iranian facilities. This virus does not seem to be designed to target the general public however, in fact experts have speculated that it is specifically created to attack industrial computers in things like factories. This suggests that there are potentially more sinister motivations behind the attack than simply taking money. Some are hypothesizing that a government is behind it. This possibility is a very frightening prospect because Iran is one of the fastest growing nuclear countries in the world. The possibilities of this new technology are endless; ranging from businesses attempting to sabotage competitors all the way to countries waging a new form of war. One thing is certain however, this new virus has truly revolutionized the "cyber war" and computers that seemed immune to infection are now racing to catch back up.

"The Technology of the Brewery"

The subject I would like to pursue for my final topic is a strange and somewhat controversial one. I would like to research the ways technology has changed and developed the alcohol industry or, more specifically, beer. Before you get too far into your immediate thoughts of incredulity, let me explain. My fascination with the art (yes I said art) of brewing beer does not spawn from some juvenile fascination with being rebellious or have anything to do with any party habits that I do or do not have. My interest instead comes from a desire to own a pub when I am older, a love for Great Britain (who produce some of the most widely known beers in the world i.e. Guinness, Newcastle, etc.), and a "Modern Marvels" episode on the History Channel about the history and manufacture of alcohol. Things that I intend to research and address in this paper include methods of brewing and how they have changed, advertisement, and a brief history. To research these topics I would first visit several well known beer company's websites that use varying degrees of technology to create the drink. I would want to find one that is mass-produced in an ultra-modern facility, one that has upgraded to meet demand but still stays tied to tradition, and one that prides itself on using completely traditional methods. Due to the nature of the topic, I would probably be fairly limited trying to find research sources in the library so I would probably simply search online for information regarding beer's history.

"Justin Bieber... a Cultural Icon?"

I have decided to write my paper on the rise of child star Justin Bieber in the music industry. I decided on this topic last night after watching his VMA performance. I plan for my paper to have a brief history of Justin, his rise to stardom, and I want to explore some possible reasons that he has exploded to the forefront of popular music today. I want to write this paper from a mostly objective standpoint but have some added in humor that voices my personal opinion thrown in (perhaps that will keep the hardcore Bieber fans away).

"The Evolution of Fragrance"

As an employee at a retail store, I encounter various new fragrances for men and women reasonably often. Today I examined one of our new colognes and read the description of the scent. In its description  it stated that it had  "notes of fine brandy" (yes, the alcohol) and "sensual spices." As I read this I realized that, although it is so often overlooked, technology has changed the industry of fragrance in quite an amazing way.

Consider for a moment, the history of colognes and perfumes. When man first decided to attempt to enhance his own natural scent with something more pleasing to the nostrils, he would use natural scents to mask his own. Things like roses, lavenders, and vanilla smelled naturally good so we found ways to transfer that scent to our bodies. This continued for centuries, Romans and other ancient cultures used oils scented with things like cinnamon and ginger, but that was as complex as our quest for a pleasant odor ever got until the last few decades.

Now look at the modern cosmetics industry and the fragrances on the market. They have actual laboratories in order to discover what combinations of scents have the most pleasing aromas. There is an entire science built around what smells good to humans. Technology has made this possible by presenting completely new things to smell and ways to produce it. Through technology, our idea of a good smell has been altered. Now when someone smells a lavender perfume, it may remind them of a beloved grandmother, but rarely of a hot date or a night on the town. No our sense of smell needs something more complex and interesting; maybe next time try some notes of fine brandy and sensual spices?

"To Unfriend or not to Unfriend: That is the Facebook Question"

http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/social.media/09/01/netiquette.unfriending/index.html


The article I chose for this week is titled "To Unfriend or not to Unfriend: That is the Facebook Question" and was written by Andrea Bartz and Brenna Ehrlich on cnn.com. It discusses different scenarios in which it is appropriate to "defriend" a person on the popular social network site "facebook." I find that this sheds light on how much friends made over the web mean to people in today's culture. Less than a decade ago people would not have thought twice about deleting someone off of their friends list; the fact of the matter was that they would either keep in contact in person and not online or just simply had gone their separate ways and never talked anymore anyway. Today things have changed drastically however and defriending someone on facebook is treated almost as a face-to-face break-up. I find this to be a disturbing indication of my generation in particular's increasing reliance on technology to communicate with others. When people resort to things like facebook to carry out entire relationships rather than simply to have a quick conversation or to easily keep in contact with someone far away, then we are truly on our way to a total depersonalization of human contact.

The " Never's" in Grammar...

• Because never begin a sentence with an "and" or "because."
• Never tearn in a non-proofread paper.
• Never end a sentence with a preposition... within.
• never forget to capitalize the first word of a sentence.
• Never make a run-on sentence because run-on sentence can really convolute your paper and make it harder for the reader to follow since they need punctuation and stuff to do things and stuff.
• Never forget to cite a source (The Bible).
• ,Never, over,-,use, commas,.

and...

• Never eat or drink immediately before writing. Wait at least thirty minutes to give your body time to digest.

Culture and Technology (1st Year Writing Blog #1)

Take a look at the Music Industry today. Autotune makes a tone-deaf drunk sound like an opera singer, bits and pieces of songs can be copied and pasted so many times that every individual second of a song could be from a different take that was horrendous minus that single note, you could add a single insane bass drop and the whole world would be bowing at an overall unremarkable song's veritable feet. Technology has exploded in music to the point where it seems to have conquered the industry as a whole and the critics are out for blood. However from this humble writer's perspective, we need to go back and look at the history behind art and technology's relationship and delve a little into the true impact it has had on musicians and artists through the ages to understand that technology is just as essential to music as our natural abilities are.

When man first was created/evolved/dropped off by an alien species (a debate for another time) we naturally had very little to survive with. Our claws were pathetic, our teeth weren't impressive, and our speed was, well, not speedy. What we did have though, were well developed brains. We quickly learned to adapt the world around us to give us an edge that we had never had previously. Thus began our exploits with technology. As time went on and we climbed to the top of the food chain, we were able to broaden our horizon beyond simply surviving to things that made life more enjoyable. Thus the arts, and through them, music was born. Instruments were created and improved upon and over centuries of successes, failures, and new developments, we as human beings created some of the most beautiful sounds by manipulating technology.

Man is a naturally lazy creature; we would much rather relax and enjoy ourselves rather than do difficult tasks and because of this inane feature we have, someone will always try to take the easy way out. This is proven by many of today's "cut and paste" artists that rarely exhibit much true talent at all. However technology is not to blame. Without technology much of the greatest music ever created would have never existed. Beethoven could have never written "Moonlight Sonata" without a piano, The Beatles could have never recorded "Abby Road" without a studio's equipment, and Andrea Bocelli (or Will Farrell in "Step Brothers") couldn't sing "Con te Partiro" without violins, cellos, flutes, and all the other orchestral instruments backing him. Technology is not to blame for a lack of creativity in music today, it is the artists themselves abusing the amazing technological achievements we have made in the musical field that are to blame.