Grid Art REBEL

When the grid art project was assigned, i was a little excited and nervous at the same time. It took me about three days to ponder ideas, starting with tacos to rubber bands, to about 300 colored eggs in egg cartons. These all would probably cost me some money i do not have though. How I came up with the idea of over 100 cigarette packs and 30 tins, well it just came to me, sitting in the smoking section with all my friends, as they threw their empty packs out. The design I chose to do goes along with the material very well in my opinion. I chose to do the word REBEL. Tobacco products have always been big with teenagers and not so much with their parents. Many of my friends back home smoke purely because their parents want them to do nothing with it. The youth of our generation is using tobacco products as a way to be different too, like rebel from society. We, as a society, look at cigarettes and tobacco products as scummy and nasty. We look at the people who use them the same way. The youth is using these views to rebel from the mass, and try to be different. Smoking is cool now. I can connect this to theatre. Specifically the outsiders or grease. All the greasers smoked and tried to be different. Smoking is a tool used to rebel and be different from the normal of the society.

Assassins Creed

If I had to pick a favorite video game it will always be Assassin's Creed. I think it is the freedom of the open map, almost like GTA you can do whatever you want. Not only is it the freedom, but the historical accuracy. I also love the gore and murdering in it, but who wouldn't as a 18 year old boy. My parents most certainly do not approve of this game, but I play anyone. My mom considers herself a born again christian, whatever the hell that means, so when I kill the Pope, I don't think she would be so happy about that.

Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs, a billionaire, and a college dropout. I think the first sentence in this commencement speech was the most influential on me. How can a college dropout do so well in life? When he announced that dropping out was the best decision he ever made, all the graduates started laughing and I don't understand why. I see where he is coming from, working class parents who can't afford to pay for college sounds pretty much exactly the same as my situation now. And of course, he had to throw in the windows stealing mac ideas, which pretty much seems to be every time I hear him speak now. Jobs story about trusting the dots of the past to connect to the future really got to me to. I don't really have a good idea of what I will be doing in my future, but I keep enough faith to keep living every day to find out what the future dots will be in my life. I agree with once you love something you do, you can never stop loving it. Just because you fail does not mean you need to give up, it means you need to get up and try again. Steve Jobs was truly an inspirational man, who encouraged students to chase their dreams. I respect Jobs a lot and consider him one of my favorite heroes.

Alan Turing a Tragic Death

Alan Turing is considered to be the father to modern computing and artificial intelligence. Alan was genius and played a key role in breaking the Nazi Enigma code. Turing was a homosexual which was still illegal at the time, and was prosecuted for indecency. His was given a life changing choice between imprisonment or chemical castration. He chose the latter. Two years later, Turing was found dead in his room by cyanide poisoning. There was no suicide note with him, but only a half eaten apple, which is believed how the cyanide was delivered. Ironically, Turing had a love for Walt Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Tying into Steve Jobs, the logo for apple with the single bite gone is to be believed that the idea came from Turing, though Jobs denies it. This is one of the more tragic stories I have read. It almost seems it came right out of a fiction book. A man, who shortened WWII by two years, is drawn to taking his own life due to the lack of social acceptance. It blows my mind, so many questions unanswered. How many world-changing ideas died with Turing?

otr.com and mztv.com findings

http://www.otr.com/timeline/39-09-03%20Chamberlain%20Declares%20War.mp3

The first link is from www.otr.com, I found this to be the most interesting that I happened to stumble upon while searching through. Imagine sitting at home, listening to the daily news and this pops on. I was always into learning about wars and this had just grabbed my attention. I find it amazing this is the radio broadcast that the country heard right before the start of WWII.

http://www.otr.com/timeline/Murder_at_Midnight__The_Ace_of_Death__January-6-1947.mp3

You know all the murder shows that are watched today? Well, they listened to murder stories in the 40s. I just think its funny that we were entertained by the same thing. I guess we haven't changed that much since 1947.

Unfortunetly when I tried to go to mztv.com well this came up......

Philip K. Dick

Before being assigned this blog post, I had no idea who the hell Philip K. Dick was and what he has done. Not being a big reader of scientific novels, I was not surprised that I have not even heard of this guy's name before. What did surprise me was his influence on the film industry. As you may know, I am a huge fan of film, not particularly science fiction, but I know enough about a lot of movies. I had no idea the basis of Blade Runner, one of the more astounding movies I've recently seen, came from Dick's head. Not only Blade Runner, but another of his books was used to help one of the greatest directors to this day. Yup that's right, Steven Spielberg is one of the greatest directors, cry about it. Anyways, Minority Report came straight out of Dick's brain. The influence in the movie industry was not the only thing this man did that intrigued me. His life was very, how do I put this, eventful. A drug addict, fascinated by mental illness which effected one of his 5 wives, saved by a "pink laser beam" revolution, which implanted the needed information to catch his greedy co-workers, and lead to three novels does not come around a whole lot. Behind all of that craziness, I believe there was a good man though. From what the article tells me, his novels focused on human decency and how we should treat each other. Characters often did the hard things at the right moments. So it goes to show you, don't judge a book by its cover, there could be an amazing man or an amazing story behind it.

Orson Wells

A time without TV.  Can you even imagine that? No Breaking Bad, no Futurama, nothing but a box with someone Else's voice and a room full of imagination. As I sit at my desk and listen to Orson Well's War of the Worlds broadcast, I immediately notice the tone of his voice. This deeper, more particular voice. I can only describe his voice as trustworthy.  Even though I know this is a fiction broadcast, the tone of this man's voice and the sincerity that lies within makes me believe what he is saying. To be in the year 1938 and listening this broadcast must be a whole different story. They make it sound like there are interruptions within a normal musical broadcast for this very detailed story of a martian attack. I can imagine a family sitting around the radio at home listening to their daily entertainment filled with music to hear this. Everything is astronomically detailed, professors at Princeton share what they see, literally every detail is described and is scary realistic. At first, I thought these people were insane for actually believing their life is threatened, but after listening to this broadcast, I completely understand. The background noises add a specific detail that makes it so realistic. The "difficulty with the field transmitter" just adds the dramatic feeling to make it sound so much more like real life. They reactant the screams of men and describe burning of peoples bodies and death of police officers. Governors give orders to put NJ under of Marshall Law, no details are left behind. Breaking news is spread throughout the broadcast giving more detailed and more eerie parts of the creatures in rocket cylinders. You have to understand, the radio was the only source of news in 1938 besides the newspaper. The people of the time are hearing this thinking it is an actual news broadcast and I could understand why. It is simply incredible how detailed and realistic the broadcast is. I thought it was incredible. I would sit and listen to this again if Orson Wells had another famous broadcast. It was better then reading a book. Instead of creating your own image in your head, they paint the picture for you. The practical details about how the invasion is affecting the towns and cities is almost scary. It starts in a small town, propagates to the nearby areas, eventually disables an entire state, and it's all there in the broadcast: communication lines cut, the roads clogged with traffic, people fleeing vainly to the nearby cities, Ray Collins choking to death to the sound of the horns of cars and boats. One word to describe the entire broadcast: epic. No one had ever done anything like this before. In those days, drama was drama and news was news. No one ever did news as drama. If it was news, it must be real. To me, it was very convincing. I believe that I would have been one of the guys with my head in my hole also. Simply incredible.