2012

      A part of me will never believe that the world will end on December 21, 2012 because it seems to predicted. The world was supposed to end so many times before, on 6/6/06, or Y2K, and probably many other times in the past. What makes 2012 any different? Another part of me thinks that all these different religions have pointed to that day in grief because they all point to the same event. I also can't help but think that if the world actually does end, then my 18 years of being educated would go down the drain because it won't even matter anymore. What would someone even do with themselves during a time like that? Pray? Be with the ones they love? That seems like such a terrifying thought! It does however show that we as a human race have many problems. The issues that come up in the movie are associated with government, technology, biotechnology, inequality, religion, and war, all together. With a movie that represents so many different issues, it is hard to pin-point the one issue that the movie is centered on, but it seems to be more on the environment. 

      Many researchers believe that we are the cause of the end of the world. We have depleted the world's resources and the human race is not good at making points about conservation until its too late. The movie shows this by showing the natural disasters that unfold throughout the movie. Drastic earthquakes going through cities, volcanoes erupting to destroy entire states, water flooding the world to nothingness. It is because of our millenniums worth of damage to the world that this could possibly be happening. This depiction of the future shows that we are obviously doing something wrong in the present. Humans have always taken things that they've needed or wanted, and maybe that is our downfall. There is no evidence of giving back to mother Earth, what she has given to us. The movie uses special effects in a vivid way to portray the end of the world as a catastrophic calamity. Still, I still maintain that I don't think the world will end on December 21, 2012... it is just a play on numbers that all these other events were. 

Touch the Future!

      If technology were to be like this today, I would love waking up in the morning. Looking at a future, where touch screens can do so much as to expand in size and shape seems beyond the concepts of reality. This is one aspect of technology that I would love. It seems very personalized and convenient, which is, in fact, how we want to live our lives today. By one simple move of a finger, one will be able to change the course of their day, but how likely is it that this technology will exist in the short three years that the video says it will exist? Doesn't seem like a lot of time, and it doesn't seem like a reality. Technology still has it's ways to go, and this doesn't seem like a reachable goal in a short three years. 

      The video touches upon one touch sharing from one screen to another, and is based mostly on the convenience that having a touch screen of the sort could bring. The purpose however is to create a very user friendly, personalized product, which technology is just beginning to approach now, with inventions such as Siri on the iPhone. As far as getting these products to transcend the ideas of physics and be able to extend the screen in such a way does seem far fetched. This kind of future, does make humans seem widely technology based. We use technology every step of the way today, and it has become who we are. Where would we be without our iPhones, and computers? Even so, a development like this does portray the present as progressing, maybe not as fast as we want to progress, but still progressing. 

Wall-E

      When watching a movie like Wall-E I seem to have gotten lost in the cuteness of the movie to originally seeing the underlying theme of the movie. In Wall-E, Earth was uninhabited, and instead was filled with robots like Wall-E who were there solely to compact all the trash that was left there. I thought that aspect of the movie was really sad. Until Wall-E found the boot with the last ounce of life on Earth. This brings up the environmental issue associated with the future in Wall-E. Why is there only one trace of life on Earth? What happened to Earth? Why aren't there any people? Not until later that the viewer discovers everybody had become obese and lived on hover chairs that complied to their every need which is a problem in itself. With this, it seems that the purpose of the work is to show what kind of corrupt society that we could begin if we continue with our habits now. Humans are always seen as lazy, and it is because of that lazy quality that we will become like the citizens on their chairs all day. 

      Wall-E shows that humans in the present are very interested in being lazy. It seems as though humans seem so overworked in the present that in the future, all they want to do is be lazy and enjoy the luxury that people normally get to enjoy after they retire. Of course the movie shows the flaw in humans and our constant desire to have things be easier, but it does however depict humans as ones to work hard now and play hard later. Wall-E is good at giving the example of an imperfect society to make the viewer think about contrasting the movie and making that contrast a reality. 

Rich get Richer

      How funny does this scene look? I know one thing is for sure, I want to be the man with the wheel barrel full of money, and not one of the people dangling over a cliff on a plank. Though, as I examine the picture longer, I notice how corrupt the picture actually is. It shows me that the rich only get richer, while those who are not rich are thrown over a cliff, to fall. As one can tell by looking at the purpose of the work, it is clearly seen that it is to show inequality among social groups. By looking at the expressions of the people in the work, the rich man has a huge smile on his face showing that the rich will always go away happy, while the people who are not rich, have to work many times harder, while having to deal with less than preferable situations. 

      This obvious scenario is something we face everyday. It is almost like a snowball effect, when one gets wealthy, the wealth steadily keeps coming. Unfortunately, it leaves no room for the lower classes to climb the ranks and grow. In essence it seems that the quality of life that you live depends on the social group you are born into. There is no doubt that this is a flaw in our society in the present that needs to be corrected. If the future ends up the way it is portrayed in the picture, than what will the people hanging over the cliff have to face? Something needs to be done to save the people from falling over the cliff, whether it be through taxes on the rich, there must be a way to regulate the money to stimulate the economy. The inequality among citizens in the economy is not regulated enough, that is the purpose that the artist is trying to get across to audiences, so we can find ways to fix it. Just how to fix it is the question. 

The Antichrist

The Antichrist


in the future on a date God only does know
war shall erupt in heaven and Michael shall throw
satan to the earth, as an angel does cry, 'Woe! '
the devil shall play Christ, he deceiving many

the antichrist will seemingly miracles do
will set up his government to worship him too
the people will believe he is Christ through and through
believers, God wonders, if there be left any? 




     In this poem on the Antichrist, the writer presents a vision of the future which is dark and grim. This touches on the issue of religion and that people seem to blindly follow it at times. Personally it seems like a scary future to be in, almost like there is a higher being trying to test people to see if they will be deceived or not. Also since I am not very knowledgeable in the aspect of God, I also wonder what would happen if the so-called Antichrist approached the people who are atheist, or believe in a different God. I'm sure that in any case, there will definitely be people left, not all are abiding citizens, and not all follow God. I feel that if there were to be some God-like figure, the "real" god or an Antichrist trying to pose as a real God, I wouldn't take the opportunity to follow him. 
      This depiction of the future seems to go with the idea that people are almost too religious. People seem to worship this God wholeheartedly, but what if that God were to be sent to Earth? How would people react? The writer uses such lines as "the devil shall play Christ, he deceiving many" to show that people are indeed gullible especially when it comes to discovering about things that they believe in. The poem does indeed bring up the question of what it means to be human. Why are we put on Earth in the first place. In writing this, the writer also creates an apocalyptic image of a world where humans are all deceived and led to their own doom-- at least that is how I see it. 

Librember

"I hope I've clarified things. The important thing for you to remember, Montag, is we're the Happiness Boys, the Dixie Duo, you and I and the others. We stand against the small tide of those who want to make everyone unhappy with conflicting theory and thought. We have our fingers in the dike. Hold steady. Don't let the torrent of melancholy and drear philosophy drown our world. We depend on you. I don't think you realize how important you are, to our happy world as it stands now."


- Beatty

       How does one deal with a world where it seems as though the government is against them? Well in all actuality most people would conform to the government's wants and needs in order to survive and try to fit the ideal citizen's role. That is exactly what occurs in the dystopian novel Fahrenheit 451, where books are illegal for citizens to own. Why books? Why the restriction? I would feel completely awed at such crazy activity as to burn books because they are illegal. As Beatty is the figurehead that represents the dystopian society in the book, you can tell how he is trying to brainwash the main character Guy, that he is a part of something greater. Beatty, an advocate of the government tries to confuse Guy into thinking that books "make people unhappy with conflicting theory and thought." I personally think that Beatty is afraid of competition, since throughout the book he seems to have such knowledge about books, that the thought of somebody else knowing the power that books can bring scares him. Therefore, Beatty is trying to eliminate the competition. 

       Bradbury uses many techniques to highlight the point that he is trying to bring out about censorship and knowledge. For one, he develops many characters such as Beatty throughout the book to foil Guy. In this way he shows the contrast of certain characters to let the reader find out who Guy really is. Though the work as a whole makes me understand that humans are so caught up in trying to be "perfect" that they will abide to any rule sometimes to make them seem so. This quote is a perfect example of how the work is trying to manipulate citizen's minds. Don't read books because they're confusing and are thought provoking, just go on thinking that you know everything and that everything is okay. In reality that is what makes being human so perfect is that we're imperfect. 

      Although I maintain that I don't enjoy reading books as much as any other person, they are a very essential part to the way we live life today. Never will I underestimate the power of a book especially after reading a novel such as this. 

Oh! They're after US!

          The photo above from the popular video game Halo Wars, portrays a horrific future in which humans are far beyond war with each other, but in war with creatures from other planets. Although this idea is far off, and quite possibly imaginary, it provokes thoughts that makes one imagine a future where Earth's resources really are depleted and force us to go else-where to discovery other forms of survival. I personally think it is scary to think about a home away from home. When seeing films or video games portraying what the future could be like, makes me think of how advanced other beings could be out there. How behind are humans since we are in reality a primitive species. 

          It seems as though the purpose of the work is to target that humans may be in danger. By showing the dreary destructed background shows a future of chaos. The work achieves this purpose through dark colors and  making the scene look messy. Seeing the soldier in a position, running away from the beast in the background creates a sense of urgency as well, because the beast seems to be advanced in technology with the weapons in its hands. This does however reveal that the present is possibly spiraling downwards. Potentially showing that humans are over-using the resources of mother earth, and may eventually have to move elsewhere, thus having to deal with other species in the galaxy. It does also make people's minds go haywire at the thought that we may one day be running away from such creatures. Maybe their planets will be ones that deplete their resources faster than we do, and in turn they might come to Earth. How quickly I begin to think of the universe as a whole when I think about what else is out there in the galaxy. 

Is it... flying?

http://thisiscolossal.com/2011/10/quantum-levitation/

      Wow! When my eyes laid upon this video, I was shocked. Levitation, something that has been attempted by magicians, something that we associate with cars in the future, an act that I wish I could do. Among the explanation in the back, the narrator of the video explains something along the lines of magnetism. He calls it quantum locking/trapping, that keeps the item locked in the magnetic field since it is so cold. It makes me ponder the idea of making a cool magnetic suit that somehow keeps us warm while keeping the suit cold and being able to transport ourselves from place to place via hovering. How cool would that be?! This video would be an example of the technology of the future. Although it is a discovery of the present, I felt the video was appropriate because it shows where the future can be. Even though this is not a video that depicts the future, it deals with a technology problem. 

       The purpose of the work, is essentially to show off the strides that quantum mechanics has made. They use a variety of examples of magnets to show off this new idea of quantum locking. In essence this blog would be a backwards blog, this is an example of the present revealing features of the future. Questions come abound as to how this concept can be put to a bigger scale though. How could this idea be put to actual use? Can people use them to levitate? Can we transport items using this method perhaps? Would air traffic be more busy? Would everybody have access to have the ability to levitate? It all goes back to wondering how the idea would be put to use. The many questions that come about definitely put this in a work in progress category. There are many ideas to be made, failed, failed again, and eventually succeeded. Hopefully we will see this physics sometime in the near future with items that we can actually use. 

Self Driving Car?!

      The picture shown above is one of the self driving car that was produced by Google. It is one of the major developments of our age moving into advanced technology, which is precisely what this is focused on. Personally, I think it is pretty amazing to be able to sit in a car and have it drive you wherever you want to go safely, but how safe can it be? Being guided by just a set of eyes called cameras and GPS signals, is almost unheard of. What if there were to be car accidents by some chance? Who would be blamed? Who would be at fault for the accident? There are a great number of what-ifs that come with unsolvable questions. It is clear that the idea is just in a beta testing phase, but imagine if the idea could be come fool-proof? I would enjoy sitting in my car, maybe watching a movie, eating a snack while on the way to my destination-- that is the life.
      Another thing that comes to mind is what direction a technology like this would point to. It shows that humans are into luxury, and that we are indeed lazy. Although one could say that humans "work hard and play hard" I guess it would apply in this case, because humans would work hard to create a product, and play hard by enjoying the fruits of their labor. The labeled diagram does show the details of the car which does put things into prospective. Obviously humans have come a long way and having things such as radars, lidars, position estimators and video cameras, give us the ability to change the methods that we have used for centuries. These ideas are pretty far-reaching, but having these ideas already in the testing phase show how far human-kind has come. But one thing is for sure, if a self-driving car ever pulled up to me... I would be pretty freaked out.