Veteran's Week

Last week was very interesting because I found out a lot about the experiences of war veterans. I first saw the movie Platoon, which gave me the impression that most soldiers that served in Vietnam had no mercy and it gave a bad impression of them. When my class and I spoke to Vice President Katopes who was a platoon leader in Vietnam, he said that the movie was a bad representation of the soldiers that served in Vietnam. Oliver Stone was the director of Platoon and he was also a platoon leader in Vietnam, which gave his movie a lot of credibility. I also saw a few short documentaries called digital stories which were directed by Veterans from Vietnam and World War Two.
I found this interesting because I got a first hand look at the experiences of these men and woman. I found that I have more respect for soldiers now because I saw a small glimpse of what they went through. Personally I don’t agree with Oliver Stone’s depiction of a soldier’s life in Vietnam because I am sure that not every soldier was a pot head or a stone cold killer.

Performing Arts Library

I went to the library on Friday along with Dino, Hema, George, Helen and Noel. We picked a bad day to go because it was raining and cold. We decided to go that day because we also had to go to BMCC with professor Reuben for film class. The New York public library for the performing arts has some of the worlds most extensive combination of circulating and non-circulating reference and research materials on music, dance, theater and recorded sounds. It is located in Lincoln Center Plaza and it is between the Metropolitan Opera house and the Vivian Beaumont Theater. I was interested in the library's drama collection which is located on the first and second floor along with dance and music collections. The drama collection contained materials on theater, film, television, vaudeville etc. What I found interesting is that there was a collection of accent tapes which actors used to help them change their accent for the role that they are playing. I think that the library would be a good place to help anyone who is looking for a start in the performing arts.

My Spring Break

The week that just past was the time that I took off for spring break. During my spring break I had to finish my ten page midterm paper and also find time to enjoy the week that I had off, which was hard because of the paper. My paper was on religion and the influence that it has on the media. I researched the liberal and conservative views of religious leaders on the subject. I also researched the views of politicians on the subject.
I found some interesting facts on how most of the American government is fifty five percent catholic. I also celebrated Easter on Sunday with my family. To me Easter is one of the most important holidays of the year because it is a time were the whole family comes together and celebrates the resurrection of Christ. Painting red eggs and roasting lamb is a Greek tradition. I worked on the paper for almost the whole week and I finished on Sunday morning, just in time to enjoy Easter with my family. I really enjoyed having the week off after studying for the past two months.

How to go green

In this blog I will be writing on how to become green. There are many steps to take in order to make your household more energy efficient and there are also many steps to take in order to save money in energy costs.
According to the Natural Resources Defense Council, the two largest offenders in the global warming problem are power plants and cars. Coal-burning power plants in the U.S produce 2.3 billion tons of carbon dioxide pollution every year. This is the largest source of carbon dioxide pollution in the U.S. Cars are the second largest source, producing 1.1 billion tons of carbon dioxide emissions a year.
The first thing that you can do is change the light bulbs in your house with more energy efficient light bulbs. This will save you about 700 pounds of carbon dioxide a year and 90 dollars a year in energy costs. You can also replace old household appliances with energy-efficient models. By buying a high-efficiency refrigerator will save you 100 dollars per year and reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 500 pounds a year. Another thing that you can do if you drive is leave your car home at least twice a week and either walk, use public transportation or bike. This can reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 1,590 pounds per year.
I have already started changing the light bulbs in my house with energy-efficient ones. By doing that I am already saving energy money. I am also looking to buy a car but it is taking longer than I expected because I am looking to by a hybrid car which saves energy and money.

New york public library

This Last week my class and I visited the New York public library. We arrived at the library at 10:30 and finished about 12:30. The purpose of this trip was to complete our assignment of familiarizing ourselves with how to use the library’s resources. We met in front of the steps and we were assigned to research the building across from the main library. Our assignment was to research all five floors and find out what kind of books and information they offer. In the first floor my group and I found that it could be used for many things. We found Tourism and travel information that would be very helpful if you were researching information on a place that you were interested in visiting. This floor also provided fiction and non fiction books that seemed very interesting. I think that the best use of the first floor would be the computer lab for people who do not have access to computers. The second floor was good for its collection of past test such as the SAT and its collection of the encyclopedia. This floor also offered health information and a variety of books concerning health. The third floor consisted of books on art, language and picture collection. This floor also offers literary references which is useful if you are researching a project and need references. The fourth floor offered computer laboratories and it also had an information desk which you could use if you need help finding a book or research the proper information for a project. The fifth floor had many history books and a historical atlas. I really enjoyed this trip and I found out how to properly use the library to research a topic.

Global Warming

Global warming is becoming a big problem and people just don't seem to get it. They think by just recycling they are doing something but it is not enough. Every year new facts on how global warming effects our planet are coming out but it does not seem to phase people. Since 1979 the polar ice cap has shrunk 20 percent which is causing floods that will continue to get worse if people don't get the message. Average temperatures in the Arctic region are rising twice as fast as they are elsewhere in the world. Arctic ice is getting thinner, melting and rupturing. The largest single block of ice in the Arctic which is called the Ward Hunt Ice Shelf, has been around for 3,000 years. It started cracking in 2000 and Within two years it had split all the way through and is now breaking into pieces. Some scientists predict that by the end of this century summers in the Arctic could become ice-free.

When we burn fossil fuels such as oil, coal and gas to generate power that produces the heat-trapping gases that cause global warming. The most important thing that we can do is save energy and there are many steps that we can take to do so. One way to save energy and get more for your dollar is to buy fluorescent light bulbs instead of incandescent light bulbs because fluorescent light bulbs last ten times longer while also saving you fifteen dollars on your electric bill every year. Buying energy efficient appliances such as refrigerates will cost more but it will also save you money on your electric bill and consume less than one fourth of the energy that previous refrigerator models did so you are also. Another way to help out would be to inflate your tires for fuel efficiency. If all Americans kept proper maintenance of there tires the nationwide gasoline consumption would go down two percent each year. Car pooling is also a good way to save gasoline consumption. If your like me and your the type of person who would rather drive instead of using public transportation than purchasing a hybrid car is a good idea. I recently entered a contest with the radio station 102.7 to win the 2008 Lexus Rx hybrid but I didn't win.

I hope that the steps that I suggested are helpful. You do not have to try and accomplish all of them but doing at least what you can, would be helping to slow down and hopefully one day stop global warming.

Museum of natural history

Last week part of my classwork was to go to the museum of natural history and find out as much as I could on climate change and the effect that greenhouse gases have on the climate. I arrived at the museum at a little after 10:30 and met up with my class. We worked in groups of three which worked well because there was a good amount of information to cover. WE had already watched an inconvenient truth by Ale Gore wich gave us some insight on the effect of global warming. There were many interesting samples in the museum that showed us how weather changes over time by the effect that they had on the tree , ice and ocean sediments samples.
What a I found really interesting was a tree core from the Tarvagatay montain of Mongolia which served as a climate record. The way this works is that tree rings are sensitive indicators of annual climate. Thick rings indicate rapid growth during warmwet years. Thin rings indicate slow growth which means that the tree was growing during cold dry years. by matching overlapping sequences from progressively older trees a complete tree ring chronology can be extended back thousands ofyears. A single tree, however records only climate. To establish the regional climate many trees fro various localities must be examined.
There are also many ice records that show buried and recrystallized layers of ice that occur every year. Some of the air between the snow flakes is trapped as bubbles in the ice. The sample that I saw was the middle core sample. It was 1,689 meters deep and it was 10,078 bc years old. This sample was foind in the mis 1800's and it showed that since it was found Co2 levels have risen.
There was a video in that I saw at the museum that I found very interesting which stated that by removing all human population growth and fuel use the earth would be able to fix itself and in 75 years the Co2 levels would return to industrial times. Visitng the museum was very interesting and I learned a lot of information on the cause and effect of global warming. I visited the museum many times before but I never stoped to pay any attention to the global warming section that was there but because of this assignment I spent more time there than I would usually which is good because it was helpful.

Gnosticism

The word gnosticism comes from the greek word gnosis which means knowledge. Gnosticism consists of various belief systems that are united by one belief which is that humans are divine souls that are trapped in a material world which was created by an imperfect being called the demiurge. Gnosticism was common in the mediterranean and the middle east around the second and third centuries. This belief is practiced by some christians, muslims, jews, and buddhist religions. Gnostics believe in dualism with one supreme good ruler(God) and another bad spirit is evil (Demiurge). The matrix and gnosticism are similar in that gnostics believe that they live in a materialistic world and the people who live in the matrix live in a materialistic world similar to what gnosticism describes. I also think that you can associate the robots with the imperfect being called demiurge who created the imperfect material world because the matrix which the robots created is similar to the material world gnosticism describes.

allegory of the cave

In a way the matrix and Plato's Allegory of the cave are similar in that they both tell a story in which people are being hidden from the truth. In the matrix it is people who are put in this digitalized world in order to prevent them from knowing the truth which was that there bodies were powering the machines. In the Allegory of the cave the prisoners who are chained in the cave believed that the cave is the only reality.
Once the prisoner from the cave was freed he wanted to go back and free his fellow bondsman but he knew that they would not want to be freed and that they would have a hard time getting use to the truth which is the same feeling that people had in the matrix once they were freed from it.
When you are used to a specific way of life or a specific way of doing things it is hard to change your ways because it is what your used to. I think that this is one of the ideas of the story.

The Matrix

Ever since the first time I saw the matrix it left me thinking of the possibilioty that one day we may create an artificial intelligence that we would not be able to control. What really gets to me when I watch the matrix is that it may one day be possible to create an artificial intelligence and what affect would this have on the human population.
The idea that humans and the artificial intelligence that they created eventually end up fighting which leads to the destruction of the world that we know today is a very original idea for a movie. Whats mind blowing is how the machines find a way to create humans and use them as a power source since the sun can no longer be used.
This movie is so well put that even though the whole idea of the matrix can be difficult to completley understand the story itself is believable because it leaves open the possibility that we may one day create something that we cannot control. In most scifi movies the story is not so believable but the matrix on the other hand is a movie that shows us what might happen if our technolgy advances and it shows us the consequences of going to far with our technology.
In my opinion the matrix was very entertaing and very interesting to watch. Who ever watches the matrix will either enjoy it or hate it there is no in between, you are eiher a fan your your not. I enjoy watching scifi mo9vies because they take us to a world that can be new and exciting. They take us to places that most of us would never imagine and that is what makes them exciting to watch