Joy Response

             Bill Joy’s primary concern in the article is that too many advances in technology could hurt the need and survival of the human race. The technological advances that he worries about in particular are the advances in robots and the advances in nanotechnology. Joy develops and shows his concerns and fears with definitions, scientific quotes, and personal stories with the rise and new advantage in technology. Joy uses definitions in a few different ways. The first way he uses definitions are to set up the basic arguments of his article by defining basic definitions such as Murphy’s Law, which is really Finagle’s law. The other way Joy uses definitions is to introduce different problems and situations that might be unfamiliar to the reader such as genetic engineering. Joy uses two different types of scientific quotes. One type of scientific quote is quotes from different scientific fiction writers such as Arthur C. Clarke and Isaac Amov. The other type of scientific quote is quotes from actual scientists who are also his friends or close associates such as David Gelernter, Danny Hillis, and Ray Kurzweil. Joys uses some personal stories to set up his background with technology and his concerns with it. Some of his personal stories are how he grew up interested in computers and science, and how people like his grandmother would be concern about anti-bodies because we might get too dependent on them. This problem is a little less relevant than it was when it was published in Wired magazine in 2000. The problems that Joy brings up are only a little less relevant because right now America and the world are not in the right economic climate to develop highly advance robots and nanotechnologies. My take on the problem is that Joy is a little too concern about the future and he may be worrying about problems that might not come up. I see future technology move a little differently from Joy’s perspective but I acknowledge his concerns. However, I see that future technological advances will just be in robotics instead of nanotechnologies because robotics will be able to do the same thing as nanotechnologies in the future.

News (3/18 to 3/20)

I saw all of my news on t.v. so I compilled every thing into one post and put different links on what I saw on those days.

Friday 3/18: Federal Reserve Involvement with Big Banks

Should the Federal Reserve contiune to poke its head into every single big bank and determine if it can survive instead of letting the market determine that otherwise the Federal Reserve will be able to say which banks are good and which banks are bad. While at the same time people who have money in these banks could get very concern and frighten.

Links
Fox Business
USA Today

Saturday 3/19: Japanese Nuclear Situation

As things in Japan get worse is there a safer way to use nuclear power in America and in the world. This is important becasue nuclear power is very clean but can also be deadly.

Links
Fox Buisness
LA Times

Sunday 3/20: The situation in Libia

As U.S. and other U.N. members attack the Libyan dictator Qaddafi was it smart to wait this long and what will happen next with Libya. Libya is an oil producing country and borders Egypt and other major Middle Eastern countries.

Links
Fox News
USA Today
New York Times

Irish and Energy

Swift uses a satiric proposal to identify some important issues in Ireland during his time. These important issues were the rapid population, the excess amount of children, and British oppression in Ireland. The purpose of this piece is to show and make fun of how the British are trying to micromanage and control the country of Ireland. If the British did follow Swift’s modest proposal they could make money so Ireland could be a profitable investment and territory, and they would reduce the amount of people they would have to regulate and look over by British soldiers. The satirical comical nature of the piece supports Swift’s underling message of how the British oppression over the Irish people is killing the sprit of the Irish and their way of life. It also embodies the Irish independence movement while making the British angry and irritated.

I have a modest proposal for America’s energy policy. America should switch to only 100 percent clean energies, and never use any energy that could have negative effects on the environment. All oil rigs should ripped out the ground, the Alaska pipeline should be chopped down, and all off shore drilling platforms should be turned off and be destroyed by submarines. Coal mines should be collapsed and the unused coal should be used as expensive paper weights. Nuclear power plants should be turned off and turn into water parks, while gas lines should be stopped and all of the gas should sent back into the ground. Anything that is not powered by solar panels or windmills is no longer needed. People will be sent back to a simpler age that will not require excessive electronic devices, such as televisions, refrigerators, or computers, so Americans use less energy. Although it would be hard for most Americans to live without some of the modern luxuries, they would learn to live a cleaner healthier life style. Without televisions, computers, or hair driers people would become more peaceful and fit. Since people could not drive cars, automobile manufactures would have to make quality electric vehicles that use try renewable sources. This would create an economic boom in manufacturing and money would not be shipped to evil oil producing countries. Because oil producing countries could no longer hold our country ransom America could confront dictators and other major problems in the international system. In conclusion, if America follows this energy policy the country would be in a better place both economically, financially, and politically.

Flight of the Conchords: Review

My favorite artist is the Flight of the Conchords and one of my favorite songs is “Ladies of the World” from their first album Flight of the Conchords. The review I selected was written by Andrew Beckerman, for Dusted Reviews, focus mainly on the fact that the song “Ladies of the World” and the album Flight of the Conchords is a failed parody. Also, that the album has a slightly racist statement that there are certain genres of music that certain groups can only perform. I disagree with the majority of the evaluation of the reviewer. The main part of the evaluation that I disagree with is the fact that the songs are failed parody. This is because the album and the song is only a slight parody and it is mainly comedy. Another part of the evaluation that I disagree with is that the album is making fun of racism not being racist. I would evaluate the album on different criteria. I would evaluate the album on its impact, effect, and how remember able it is. The impact part of the evaluation would determine if the song, and album, impacted the listener of the song. While the effect part of the evaluation would determine if the song was able to bring its message to the listener. The final part of the evaluation would determine if the song could be easily remembered after hearing it.

It is my favorite album because it contains a lot of fun goofy music that is different from what is normal that it cheers me and makes me happy on bad days, and it makes my good days even better.  

A link to the review:

http://www.dustedmagazine.com/reviews/4248

The music video of the song:

Definition Proposal: Windows

The word I will be defining is windows. Windows could be an opening in a house, but for this paper I will be defining it as an ancient operating system that is faulty and needs to be replaced. The reason for be defining windows is to start a discussion in order to find a way to replace it. It is important to me because it has been a faulty operating system that has troubled my friends who want to be computer science. I will be writing this paper to try and poke a little fun at how they treat windows as the anti-christ. The audience of my paper will be my nerdy friends who get very mad at windows.

Geeks and Cabbage

Oswalt defines the term nerd as someone who is an outcast of society, is alone with no friends, and therefore has makes up a culture that is different from the nerd next to him or her. He then defines otaku as a person who lives in their own tight knit separate world who has changing interest that are radically different from the rest of society. Then Oswalt defines geek as someone who is an American otaku and who has certain interests that helps them identify with certain people. The reason for him to define these terms were to identify the difference between a nerd and a geek, so he could argue his reason that in order for geek culture to have real substance and to survive, as it once was, is to break away from popular culture and to destroy current geek culture all together. The main reason for Mr. Oswalt having a problem with popular culture adopting parts of geek culture is because popular culture is that it is exploiting the things that feel scared to him and he does not want to accept that other people could like the same things that he does. I do not agree with Mr. Oswalt’s argument about geek culture being taken over by popular culture because geek culture is evolving and growing too fast for popular culture to catch up to it. Also, it will take a long time for popular culture to find and try to exploit geek culture, and geeks will vote with their wallets if they believe that something they feel scared is being taken in the wrong direction by popular culture. In conclusion it may to easier to pose as a geek, but with the infinite space of the internet it will be even harder for geekiness to be normal.

Supermarket Pastoral is when supermarkets use advertisements to promote organic produce and animal products by saying that these products came from fresh and open fields and farms. Pollan is talking about it because he finds it strange that supermarkets need to advertise their products this way instead of letting the best tasting food to be the decider of what people will buy. He is also trying to expose how the culture organic agriculture only exists because the super markets tend to find that is what the customer wants. This says about the culture of organic agriculture is mostly filled with sell outs who are only trying to make the customer feel like they are getting a good product that has been grown or raised in the best possible conditions. Instead of promoting the practice of creating a real way for food to be produced and raised in a way that is a true natural process.

Topic Proposal - Personal Narrative : The Nerd's Speech

            The instance that I will writing about will be about how I ran for student council representative and class treasurer. The exigence for this story is that I have not broke out of my comfort space while I have been at Penn State. The purposes of this narrative is to inform how I broke out of my personal shell in high school by running for class offices, to prove the point that I can break out of my shyness when I am ready, and to set the mood that surrounded me during my race for class representative and class treasurer. The audience my personal narrative tailors to are my family and friends back home that might be worried about me.