Blog-Boy Cartoon Feedback

The main visual elements of this cartoon are a family sitting at a table for dinner, and the father talking to the son. This cartoon is addressing the issue of blogs and other ways of electronic communication, and how these items are reducing the amount of verbal communication that we have. The cartoonist feels that there needs to be more actual face-to-face talking for people to develop socially. He feels that electronic communication is not a good way to be social. The caption on this cartoon describes how the father would simply like to ask his son a question considering they are together, but the son relies on the internet too much to express what he needs to say. This shows that the cartoonist feels that sometimes people should just talk to each other when they are together. What is ironic about this situation is that we are responding to this cartoon by posting a blog. The cartoonist could have had the son working on a laptop/talking on the phone, or using some other form of electronic communication.

Kurt Vonnegut Response

I think that there are two sides to Vonnegut’s argument. On one hand I agree that man should always be higher than the machine. Technology should never be better than man, and it is the responsibility of those who make technology to realize that. Today many people think of computers as smarter than themselves, but it is important to realize that technology was made by man in the first place. In The Euphio Question the characters let their own invention take over them.

On the other hand, I think that technology is very useful. Today there is so much technology used in so many different ways. It can be used for helping someone who would otherwise not be able to function properly such as in the form of wheelchairs, hearing aids, Braille, glasses, casts, medication, and more. Today many people use technology to have fun by using television, video games, Mp3 players, and airplanes to travel.

Technology Reflection

Technology is anything that is man made and used to help society in some way. There are two sides of technology being used in school. The first side is that it is good in the sense that we can use it to check grades, write, save information and much more. The downside is that you can not trust technology to keep this information safe all the time.

5 Most Important Technological Items

• iPod
• Computer
• Internet
• PSP
• Xbox 360

5 Least Important Technological Items

• PS3
• Nintendo Wii
• Roomba
• Asimo
• Pocket Protectors

Q4 Goals

Due to my planning for population project that I have already done I have succeeded in one of my goals. I have not succeeded in taking better notes to study with because my test scores have not been excellent this past quarter. I did, however, start my AR book earlier like I had planned, and therefore I had less to read at the last minute.
One goal I have is that I would like to get a new agenda for quarter four. An agenda helps so much with planning and mine just broke. I would also like to type faster during quarter four. In high school I will be doing a lot of typing, and so it would help me to be able to type well. Finally, I want to plan out my photo essay and my interview for population project early this quarter.

Holy War

Holy War is an oxymoron because Holy tends to have peaceful connotations while War is thought of as quite the opposite of that. I think that those who fight "Holy Wars" are simply using their religion as an excuse for a hidden agenda. They might be simply hateful of certain people, and if they decided to attack those people they could just blame it on their religion. I don't think that a religion should have to have a bad name only because certain people who also practice their religion do bad things.

D.O.I. Response

When a group of people need to separate from another group of people for their own good, they should give their reasons. We think it is obvious that all men are created equal and they have the basic rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. If anyone takes away these rights, people should be able to make their own government. The current king has not rightfully taken the throne, and has become a tyrant over us. These are our reasons why he is a tyrant. He has not cared for our laws. He makes people do what he says. He has taken away our representation. He has made judges dependent on him. He is always deploying troops even during times of peace, and they annoy us. He also started many acts that we are opposed to. He made us share our homes with soldiers. He taken away our trade with the world, and given us unfair taxes. For falsely accusing us and trying us without a jury present. He has waged war upon us and destroyed our lives. We simply would like to have our own government. We would treat England like every other country. We are telling you that we are now our own country.

Cold War Simulation

In the Cold War simulation I was USA. One tactic we used was to be prepared for any weapons that the USSR might send our way. This meant using quite a lot of points on buying missile defense systems. We also tried to buy many economic, food, and military aid points to be able to persuade countries to ally with us. If we could get countries to ally with us then we would have their strength points to use to get even more methods of persuasion.
I think that in our simulation the USSR and USA both won, and that all of the allies would technically lose. I thought this because by allying with either side they were in risk of being attacked by nuclear weapons. Then again, the regions of Europe and Africa obviously profited from these alliances, so I don't know if there are any clear winners. I think that the USA won the Cold War, but paid many prices to do so. They had heavy casualties in Vietnam and Cambodia, and suffered embarassment during the Bay of Pigs Invasion. I think they won because in the end the USSR had crumbled and many people opposed their ideas like the Berlin Wall.

Visual Communicator

The process of making a video on visual communicator consists of filming parts of the whole video, and in the end putting them all together. We filmed and edited Shuk's part, Sameet's part, and my part and put them together to make a final video. The editing consists of adding images, titles, and transition scenes to make the video pretty.
I would definitely say that although it seems obvious, it helps a lot to not waste any time and finish as much as possible in a short time. This way you are less stressed on the last day and maybe even have time to start other work. Also, you don't want to wear a green shirt when filming because you will appear invisible on the V-Screen. Finally, Make sure that you adjust your video settings to get rid of as much fuzziness as possible.
The worst parts of the VC process were when one member of our team was unsatisfied with his video, and kept complaining because there was no time to change it. Another bad part was that the video adjustments were difficult to set so there were no fuzzy spots. The best parts of the VC process were definitely being able to make it look like I was a reporter, and also making the editing look very professional.