Fahrenheit 451

Fahrenheit 451 is an interesting movie. The main character, Montag, is a fireman. Instead of putting out fires, the fire department burns books. Although he works for them, Montag actually enjoys reading books. This is an illegal act. They think that books are rubbish and make people sad. Anyone who is to be caught with books in their homes will be arrested. Montag's television obsessed wife, see's him reading, and ends up turning him in to the authorities anonymously. Throughout all of this silly drama, Montag makes a friend. Clarisse is her name, and she is a book fanatic. She tells him of this place where people memorize books. She says that they "become the book." After they part ways, she goes to seek that place, while Montag is running from the town. He ends up there as well. It is truly a happily ever after ending.

I wanted to see this movie since I read the book in high school. It was not what I expected. I didn't expect the movie to be fantastic, but the acting was terrible. Besides the humor of it, the plot was good. I thought it was neat to put a picture with the book I read my sophomore year. I had visions of what the characters looked like and it was interesting to see how the director thought of them to be. I did not particularly enjoy the movie, but it was not a bad one to see. I would suggest it to people who have read the book and can appreciate the overall story line, rather than someone who is just seeing the movie.

Objectified Documentary

Overall, this documentary was pretty interesting. It gave a wide spectrum of information, that included awesome visuals. One thing I found interesting was the fact we have so many old things in our houses that we never even think to use them. We could simply recycle them or design them to be improved. Everyone always wants the new thing, so we discard the old. That is just not right. Another thing I found interesting was the robots the two people made. The robots were not "typical" robots, but designs of simple things. One was a constructed piece of wood into a random shape. You stared into it and it fed information to you. Another was huge ring. The designs were so simple and yet we did not associate it them with robotic language because they looked different. The weird thing is, we want new, yet when given something out of the element, it is somewhat frowned upon. Lastly, I really thought the concept of how many chairs we have sat on what interesting. So many chairs have been made throughout time, yet there are still uncomfortable chairs. How is that possible? This ties into the old and new concept. Even though we always want new, there is still old chairs out there. Therefore, we have an uncomfortable chair. Every designer wants to be the best, as well as design a product that will sell. Chairs are so simple to the consumer, yet complex to the designer. I think that is pretty neat to think about.

Summary/Response & Image Analysis Process

A summary/response is quite simple. It is the summary of the piece as well as your response to it. The summary of the piece is usually between 150-250 words. You use MLA format. In the response, you critique the piece of work and explain it in details, including your own experiences or examples.

An image analysis process is a more complex process. You start off by looking at the authors angle of vision and techniques used. Next, you look at the compositional features. You look at what is and isn't included as well as the product as a whole.

The two papers were not that bad. I realized that my writing style was not up to par when we did the first copy of the first paper. I did not put forth my full effort, therefore I received a 75. That is not the grade I wanted so I redid it and got a 92. I did so much better just by revising my paper. The summary/response paper was easier I thought because I had an idea to feed off of. I had my own opinion about cloning and that helped a lot. The analysis paper is not hard, just complicated. I did not like the movie and it is hard to feed off of that. I liked the book but the movie was very confusing to me. That is also hard to feed off of. The process of the two papers wer similar, just the analysis one had more information I needed to cover.

Blogging helped me a little. It gave me ideas as I was blogging and allowed me to write out instructions of writing that needed to be covered, as well as scenes that I needed to remember. Typing the content was not that hard. I just needed to be motivated to do it.

My writing is fairly good, at least I think so. I just need to learn to not procrastinate and put forth all my effort into the papers. I know I can get an A. I saw my introductions becoming more interesting. I need to have my information flow better in my next paper and present it in a cleaner way.

Peer review is good. It allows me to see what others are writing. It also allows me to see what they think of my paper, so I can change it if need be.

Social Network

The Social Network, directed by David Fincher, is interesting to say the least. It is the story of Mark Zuckerberg's hard journey that goes back to the very beginning. Being the computer savy person he is, he gets a reputation that attracts the Winklevosses. They want to design a website that connects Harvard students in a new way. Mark decided to help them, yet he never does. He instead teams up with Eduardo Saverin to create a website now known as Facebook. Sean Parker, creater of Napster, see the website and a light bulb goes off. He wants to use Mark for all the money he can get. Not only is he manipulative but also rude to Eduardo as well. He leads Mark into destruction of his friendship with Eduardo and his life. Mark betrays Eduardo with the contracts which ends in law suits. He sues Mark for all of the money he put into Facebook.  Mark ends up losing a lot of friendships but keeps facebook.

I really liked this movie. It was the so interesting to figure out the origins of something everyone uses everyday. There is so many things that were controversial. In my opinion, Mark did not do anything wrong legally, but morally yes. Everyone knows he took the idea from the Winklevosses; not entirely, but the overall idea, yes. The Winklevosses should have been smarter and made him sign contracts when helping them with their site. What Mark did to Eduardo was wrong, though. He did not give him the recognition he deserved and he should have done away with Sean Parker from the beginning. He was scum. Overall, Mark was being an idiot but due to no papers being signed, he did nothing wrong legally. The Winklevosses did not "patton" the idea.

Scene from Blade Runner

I could talk about quite a few scenes that I did not like but this one sticks out a lot. I did not like the scene where Deckard was saved by Roy. The scene consists of Roy and Deckard chasing each other around, trying to kill one another. Deckard gets on the roof, jumps to another building, and is slipping on the ledge. Roy jumps there too and saves him. Then he sits down and releases a dove, while telling Deckard about his memories being tears. The entire movie we are lead to believe that replicants are terrible creatures. Yet for five seconds, we have empathy for them? I think that is ridiculous. I had this image as to where they lacked a soul and were meant to destruct. My entire mind set was changed. Roy was a psychotic thing while he was chasing Deckard all around the building. I just think it was not the right twist for the end. That showed that the replicants actually had feelings and emotions, yet they killed a lot of people for no reason what so ever. I just don't get that. Also, reading the book made it that much worse, due to the fact that I believed Roy was terrible and did not have empathy for anything. I also believed that Deckard was a human, and not a replicant. It just was frustrated almost.