creepy March 13, 2008

so, in class today, we were discussing the very creepy concepts of mind control and robots and how technology seems to be bringing us ever closer to the stuff that was once considered straight out of science fiction. i talked about how in a philosophy class i had taken in highschool there was an article in wired magazine about a paralyzed man becoming part of a study that allowed him to use his mind to move objects on a screen and in the realm of reality. literally putting a sort of outlet into his brain, they would plug him into either the robotic arm or the monitor and using his thoughts- he would move them. he plays pong, checks e-mails, and they are trying to work with him and a robotic hand.

anyone else slightly wigged about this? especially with the fact that the government has a hand in the financing and is hoping to harness this technology for military purposes?

it all just seems very science fiction and unreal and yet…this article is 3 years old and i am sure we’ve progressed from that point on.

library overload March 13, 2008

i am not sure if it is merely the fact that i am pretty technologically impaired or that i am simply easily overwhelmed by the occasional information overload that can occur while researching, but i hate to leave the miami libraries page and use other sites as my method of pulling up the correct resources. i have been told several times that while it is a good source, it is far from the best source out ther, and that i am hampering my own research and the “scope of my papers” by not branching out into the other options offered but, it really does intimidate me. i also don’t see the point. i was taught way back in english 111 how to use the miami libraries search engine, why should i bother to not use what is already at my finger tips and that has 99% of what i have looked for previously? deciding to find another search source though, i went out into the world wide web and browsed until i came across the easy to use, mostly on-line research filled page, research tools/iTools. sure it’s basic, sure plenty of you guys probably already know how to use it, but i thought it was a great page if only because of the use of three different on-line encyclopedias loaded right within the search page (Encarta being one which brings me back to the good old days of windows 95). so for those scaredy cats like me, check it out. it’s easy to manage

tainted disney March 4, 2008

so, i am not sure about you guys but, i was personally more then a little heart broken when i heard how many law suits were put into action by against child care places by mean, mean disney. the more mr. r mentioned, the sadder i became with the company i grew up loving. while this article touches on the law suits, efforts, and motivations of disney in the copy right domain, the corporate drive behind the beloved company is disgusting. they make movies about living cute, sing songy, romantic lives where you should always be good and true and happily ever after always come true. since when does happily ever after include suing babysitting companies for painting mickey on their wall? jerk faces