Top 10 Movies

     I'm not sure whether we are supposed to list our favorite movies that we've already seen, or if we are listing movies that we want to see when they come out. Therefore, I'll list some of each.

Movies that I want to see

• Tintin(2011) - I'm a fan of the graphic novels by Herge, and I'm interested to see Steven Spielberg's Interpretation. In 3D no less (no surprise).
• The Hobbit(2012?) - I thought the Lord of the Rings was well done, and I liked the animated version of old, but I think it could be vastly improved by live action. The old animated Lord of the Rings series was terrible compared to the new version, so I hope that they can pull off another big hit. I think they went and split it into parts 1 and 2 though.

Favorite Movies (not necessarily in order. I also included a trailer link for some of them)

• V for Vendetta - trailer I loved the plot and action of this movie, I have to say my favorite scene was the "domino" scene, but V's introductory speech isn't far off.
• The Dark Knight - trailer I though this was stunning, Heath Ledger's performance was amazing. I loved it, not because the superhero jargon, but because of the intricate layers of the joker's character and the the metaphor of the motif of Harvey Dent's coin for the themes of order and chaos (when Harvey is injured, the coin with a head on both sides becomes scorched too. The coin when flipped is now based on pure chance, the Joker's idea of true chaos).
• Titanic - This is truly becoming a classic film for it's beautiful portrayal of the disaster of the Titanic, and the true art comes from all the little things that went wrong, not the big events. 

• *The Fellowship of the Ring - trailer
• *The Two Towers - trailer This trilogy is perhaps my favorite series of live action. The special effects, scenery, and costumes were not emphasized to the point where they detracted from the plot; they complimented the plot rather than being a detriment it.
• *The Return of the King - trailer

• Apollo 13 - obviously this is a classic. There's not much to it, it was just a terrific classic.
• Avatar - This was obviously a completely revolutionary movie in terms of visualization. Utterly beyond anything we have ever seen before.
• The Star Wars saga (episodes I through VI) - They aren't all old enough to be classics, but I have to say that I loved all the movies
• The Matrix - I don't watch this movie very often, but I have to say that it is a terrific plot. I didn't like movies 2 and 3 as much, that's why they aren't up here.
• 
  

Themes of a salesman

     Arthur Miller in particular, as a playwright, fills his plays with dramatic themes that are not only inspiring, but also all the more compelling for their accurate interpretation of the real world. One such theme is that "A man who blindly follows a dream is blind to its consequences". Willy Loman desperately wants to be a successful businessman, and he wants his sons to follow successfully in his footsteps. He devotes himself utterly to this dream, and won't accept that any of the shortcomings of the Loman household are consequences of his failure at achieving his dream. Willy blames Biff and Happy for the way that they turned out, and comments that it wasn't his own fault. Perhaps if he recognized that there were other ways to achieve success, he'd be more open to the consequences of his own path.
     Another apparent theme in this play is that "When you fail to see your own failures, you cannot fix them".  Willy's problem is that he is a failure in business, and his sons have sunk into his footsteps. Willy is so focused on being a successful businessman, that he doesn't realize, that at this point in life, he has already failed, and his failure to take corrective action is creating a stagnation that has spread to Biff and Happy. Willy has no idea why things are going wrong in his life, so he cannot fix them himself.
     Yet another theme in Death of a Salesman is that "In order to inspire greatness in others, you must first become great yourself". This essentially is the idea of "put your money where your mouth is" or else not being a hypocrite. Willy tells his son's to achieve success and to be role models, but at the same time he encourages them to steal, and he has an affair which destroys his credibility in Biff's eyes. If Willy had not had the affair, Biff may have become a success after all.

Death of a Salesman

      Willy, as a father, tries to teach his son's the value of hard work. Happy and Biff have become accustomed to chores. They are immediately ready to carry things for their mother, hang the laundry, and there was also the time where they cut lumber to sell. He impresses upon them how other people such as Ben became successful and rich just through hard work.
      It may do Happy and Biff some good to learn these values, as it makes them more helpful and prepared to work hard. It doesn't however, give them what they really need. Willy should instead, or at least additionally, be teaching them ways to enjoy life. He should be providing them with an outlook that will inspire them to work hard at something they enjoy, rather than something that makes money. By depriving them of this kind of childhood, he seems to have inadvertently caused Happy and Biff to try and hold on to childhood through parties and nights at the bar, when they should be beginning their lives.





      Willy, as a character is very inconsistent in his perspectives. The contradictory statements may indicate that he's confused or stressed, but they also reveal that Willy doesn't seem to have to the full scope of his cognitive faculties. He doesn't seem to know what he believes anymore. His job has worn him down after all these years, and his warped perspective on what a person's life should be like has down ridden the quality of his own.
       Linda, as it turns out, has a very interesting character throughout all of this. Though people rarely talk to her, provides the household with morals. She tries to stop the boxing match that Willy is egging on, and she tells Biff to return the stolen football. She, in a way, holds the household together while Willy is tossing around orders and contradictory statements. On the other hand however, she covers for Willy's failures and ineptitudes. She is aware that there is something going wrong with Willy, but she does not take action. This may cause him harm if he continues to deteriorate throughout the play.

Penance vs. Penitance - a quandry resolved at last.

      In response to our in-class definition for the two terms, penance and penitence, used in The Scarlet Letter, I did a little research. After staring at the entries on dictionary.com and getting no clearer picture than we had already reached in class, I decided to take a more direct approach and google "penance vs. penitance" in the hope that someone had already written an article about the subject.
      In the very first link, I found an article that suggests that we were interpreting the lines incorrectly:

      "You have deeply and sorely repented. Your sin is left behind you, in the days long past. . . . Is there no           reality in the penitence thus sealed and witnessed by good works? ... No, Hester, no! ... Of penance I           have had enough! Of penitence there has been none!" (Hawthorn 188).

      We interpreted it to mean that the two words were completely separate in their meaning, and indeed we finished the discussion in class asking how it even was possible to have one and not the other. On the other hand, the writer of the article says that Hester's use of the word penitence was incorrect, and she was confusing it with penance. Dimmesdale's response is intended to correct her. He's saying that what has happened is penance, not penitance.
      Since John Parker, the writer of the article, seemed to have it right so far, I decided to trust his definitions of penance and penitence as well. Penance, he defines as "works one does as punishment for sin and in attempt to atone for sin". Penitence, as he goes on to explain, involves confessing to your crime and repenting for it. Applying this to the story, Hester mistakenly says that the good work he has done has achieved penitence. Dimmesdale corrects her and says that his self punishment and acts of good fall under the definition of penance. He has not yet confessed to the public or repented for it which would achieve penitence.

The article then goes on to say how god is forgiving and everything, you should follow god, and cleanse yourself of all unrighteousness; the usual religious nonsense. I'm an atheist for god's sake (lol, had to include that oxymoron). Anyway, the article is here: http://www.mtjuliet.org/sermons/archives2/002883.html

What now?

      I sense an upcoming quandary in which I'm going to run out of new english ideas to write about. Some could argue that this has already happened since I'm no longer talking about class; I'm talking about talking about class.  I have no end of ideas that are more science based, as displayed by my previous entry, but honestly, the only changing topics in our class are the current chapter of the text.
      I don't like to fall into that kind of pattern. A chapter by chapter analysis of puritan text is hardly colorful by any standards, especially for this audience which, as yet, is mostly comprised of students. These blogs are mostly intended, I presume, to merely allow us to extend and enhance our writing style. Therefore, unless Mr. Brenick objects, I'll continue with my slightly off-topic discussion points, but only if the discussion points available are scarce.
      This leaves open many possibilities for future blog topics: Schrödinger's cat for one. There's an interesting paradox for later discussion. These are fields where I feel I can be more comfortably analytical. Besides, if I gave up, and did book analysis every week, I'd lose interest. My blog would come out as "Puritan society was often what we could consider a pretentious society. It is so defined by their belief's in a pure society, in contrast with the society they actually created". Now while I can do a decent job of spouting that in an essay, it's certainly not the casual writing that these blogs are intended for, nor is it going to be fun for either the audience or myself.

      Now, I've been trying to find a way to squeeze in this blog entry since I started this blog, but due to the requirement that we only write about something pertaining to our class, I've had trouble getting a chance. I wanted to explain my blog title (you know, all the rediculous 1s and 0s? What's up with that!?) so that it has some meaning to readers.
      The string of 1s and 0s are part of a code or number system known as binary, the prefix bi- meaning 2. this means that it only uses 2 characters combined in different ways (0 and 1). Our number system, the decimal system uses 10 characters (0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9, but not 10, because 10 is a combination of 1 and 0 remember?)
       This is the tricky part. All systems of counting are based on place values (ones place, tens place, hundreds place, etc). Since decimal is base 10, that means that it follows the following pattern for place values:

Thousands place         Hundreds place       Tens place        Ones place
   10³ (1000)                  10² (100)              10¹ (10)              10° (1)

Each place value increases by one exponent to raise its quantity.
      
The same is true for binary. Since binary is base 2, it follows the following pattern:

Eights place                Fours place             Twos place       Ones place
   2³ (8)                           2² (4)                     2¹ (2)                2° (1)

      Now how does this apply? Take for example the number 1011. In the Eights place is a 1. So there you have 1x8=8. In the fours place is a 0. This means that 0x4=0 is represented by that place value. Next is a 1 in the twos place so that is 1x2=2. Finally in the ones place is a 1, so that is, of course, 1x1= 1. Now you add those together: 8+0+2+1=11, so 1011 translated into normal decimal is 11 (it's just a coincidence that it only has 1s).

Next, to put this into use for the blog title. Computers store binary numbers in 8 character sequences such as 
00000000 or 10011101. Therefore if you take the blog title (011011010111100101100010011011000110111101100111) and split it into 8 character sequences, you get the following:
    01101101
    01111001
    01100010
    01101100
    01101111
    01100111 
Now if you translate these into decimal you get:
    109
    121
    98
    108 
    111 
    103
Now these digits correspond to characters in what is called the ASCI system. Follow this link to view the chart. Each number corresponds to a character, so if you translate out all the numbers you get:
    m
    y
    b
    l
    o
    g

Thus, my blog title is the phrase "myblog" in binary code. Please respond if you have any questions, It's the first time I've tried to explain it in text, so if I didn't do it justice, I'd like to rectify it.

     Now it occurs to me that almost all of us have heard of the crucible as the title of Arthur Miller's play, and when we hear it, we instantly think of the Salem Witch Trials. However, our attention seems to slide past the meaning of the title in a way that almost seems to make "The Salem Witch Trials" the title of the play. What is a crucible? It's odd that after years of hearing about it, I never asked that simple question of myself.
     A crucible is defined as the following in Merriam Webster's Dictionary:
1: a vessel of a very refractory material (as porcelain) used for melting and calcining a substance that requires a high degree of heat
2: a severe test
3: a place or situation in which concentrated forces interact to cause or influence change or development <conditioned by having grown up within the crucible of Chinatown — Tom Wolfe>

Now I think that the most accurate application to this story is definitely the first definition, right? The crucible is nothing more than an allegory for a melting pot. Never mind. Now definition 3 has merit. It could pertain to the role of the courts and their interactions with, and attempts to improve, the situation in Salem. I however, am inclined not to agree with either of these definitions.
      The last remaining definition is simply "a severe test". To begin, it has a dramatic negative connotation; a kind of grim sense of hardship. More to the point however, the Salem Witch Trials were a test of peoples' characters. A test at which the town of Salem failed horribly. The town lost itself to hysteria over the tomfoolery of a group of girls, and hung many innocent and good people. They were even more-so at fault when their convictions were made under the assumption that they were doing God's work. I happen not to believe in god, and this is an extreme form of one of my reasons for that, but I imagine that for those who do believe in god, they'll interpret this as "befouling god's name", or something. The most important point though is that the Salem Witch Trials gave egotistical men the opportunity to ignore society's rules and to commit murder for greed and anger, and they took this opportunity. I can't imagine a worse failure of human character in society that. Well, maybe the Third Reich.



Why is the word "blog" not recognized by the blogger spell check?! That has to be the stupidest thing I've ever heard, ha!

How to unveil a Witch...?

         So, suppose you've gone nuts in 1692. You believe that your neighbor, a totally rude guy who used to steal your lunch or something, has to go. You want to accuse him of being a creepy cackling witch. So what do you do to get proof that's so convincing, that the other panicking townsfolk in Salem are willing to overlook the fact that this "witch" of yours is a guy (maybe he's a warlock)? Take your pick of the two most effective methods available to you:

Pressing:
      Ok, so basically you kick down your neighbor's door, grab him and put the door on top of him (spare boards work great too). Next you start chucking rocks on top of him to test his squishability. The result will be one of three things: 1) He could confess to witchcraft and the townsfolk would believe you, 2)He'll die under the crushed rocks and you've killed an innocent man, or 3)He actually is a witch and he jumps up and starts chasing you screaming Avada Kedavra.

The Witch Cake
      Now, you're taking care of your neighbor's dog, and you discover that you've run out of kibble. You oddly enough decide that the best solution to this problem is to make him a fluffy "witch cake". You go the the cupboard and look in the locally printed Cooking for Dummies manual. The ingredients are all in the pantry except for the final ingredient: witch urine...(use your imagination here)...after you've cooked up this lovely 5 star meal, you feed it to the poor unsuspecting dog. Now you gather the townsfolk and present them with this oddity, announcing that your neighbor is clearly a witch if he retains a sensory connection with this cake. If the cake is in pain (i.e. through consumption by a dog), then so is the man. Foolproof right?

Warning: 20 people were killed in the making of this blog.


Author's Note: Despite my attempts to use humor as the backbone for this entry, I mourn the truth behind it. Both these methods were used (though I put my own twist on them) in the Salem witch trials, often in the case of pressing, fatally.

The Puritans' American Dream

      The separate beliefs of Puritan society can be included in the American dream or not, depending on whose dream it is. They wanted to create their own utopia, they wanted religious freedom, but they also wanted everyone who didn't share their dream at the bottom of a well. If this adds anything to our knowledge of the American Dream, it's that it wasn't a dream for everyone or else that American Dream is somewhat of an oxymoron in the sense that they tend to conflict in a very non-dreamlike way. To put this into a simple example: two rival business owners. Each's American Dream involves their own company succeeding. This isn't possible without the other company going completely bankrupt. In what way is that in tune with the positive connotation of the American Dream?
      Despite our best efforts to attach a solid definition, and indeed as many of us have already described in no small amount of detail, you cannot set the American dream in cement. The Puritans no doubt had their own interpretations as do we all. But perspectives such as these are most commonly taught to the public in one dimension: one that can be easily grasped by the audience. Take for example the relatively common ideas of good and evil. Even these are interchangeable based on an individual's perspective. An evil man never believes himself to be evil. He thinks that he is doing the right thing, and that the good guys are the misguided ones. And maybe he would be the right one in the broad sceme of things. To tie this all back, were the Puritans really so radical? From their perspective they were in the right mindset and everyone else was corrupt. Whether the connotations that society gave them are deserved is irrelevant. you could just as easily ask the same question about the Puritans' views on society: were society's flaws in the eyes of the puritans deserved?

       Alright, this is my first attempt at a blog, so bear with me here. I'm a little short on ideas as I'm more interested in technology and engineering than topics such as the social implications of the American dream. I understand its value, but it may not be my can of worms. Running through the things mentioned so far in the course, I'll try to mix it up and do a few of the less prevalent topics discussed. Now I figure Fred might seize the opportunity to write about flavor blasted goldfish or something, so that leaves the Internet. We discussed the development of the social networks, and indeed that is why we're writing blogs, not letters or - I don't know - bulletin board articles.
       The Internet serves as a highly effective means of expanding, as well as organizing, our interests. Online accounts allow us to connect our self quickly and effortlessly with interesting information. Google in particular seems to be moving in that direction. Think about it: a google account has so many different products including Gmail, igoogle's widgets (jokes of the day, weather, headlines, etc), this blogger.com site, google docs, etc. If you had to have a separate account for each of those, all on separate websites. You would never be able to stay organized since the Internet is just such a massive labyrinth of data.
       In fact the sheer scale of the Internet is creating a social phenomenon in which all the social networks; twitter, facebook, etc, are viewed by many as a negative influence on a person's life. I, though I don't have such accounts believe that it's not their existence that causes the problem, it's merely the sheer enormity of the Internet. If you have millions of people connected to these websites, unless you find a place to draw the line, it becomes ridiculously easy to lose yourself in a deluge of such data. This makes the internet both a useful link to ways to bring interest into our lives, yet it can be in the case of those who use it lightly, superfluous.

       This is just something to think about. Please post if you found this informative, interesting, or else if you wish to debate a point that I made.