Evolution am i kidding myself?

I have had my perspective of life not change for about 30 years and it is very hard to see someone’s view on evolution without thinking that it’s a joke. But I have recently challenged myself to see things in a different view.

The person I reviewed has a blog of his belief and shared with me. With all tests of theories you do try to use the facts that you do know and facts help direct us into a path to try our theories. Roy does feel that evolution does have data to back up some of the theory. It’s a “reasonable source of data”

His background has is deep in his family having grown up with a father that is a geologist having had fossils and rocks and minerals readily available and in his face. The things that he touched felt and smelt are defiantly knowledge that you can’t say doesn’t exist. Where did it come from? If god created man why is this here? Time is not on the scientist’s side for helping them prove their theories. It’s not easy to get to the bottom of the ocean and to see some of the oldest material on earth.

As he said scientist can’t get to places to give substance to their thinking because it gets to hot closer to the center of the earth so they are limited on time. Like this Story

I watched this most recently and it was very eye opening. I see that in my own theory I have immediate answers they are most all in my head and my thinking. that can be very easy to give answers right now and not put much effort into new ideas.

If there is one thing that I learned from what I heard from Roy and what things I watched I can say that I should look more into the age of things and find what carbon dating is and how it works can it be fixed or altered. And also I may never in my lifetime find the facts because of the lack of effort put into machinery that will help us go to places that we can’t go to that might just give us the answers.

3Dgamelab ?

“3Dgamelab”

What do I think of it? Well it at first seemed more of a hassle and that getting a good grade wasn’t going to be easy. I however have different feelings now. I like the facts that I can work most quests at my own pace that’s one thing I like about games the I play it may only take my son 2 hours to finish a part to a game but it takes me 3 to do the same. That’s because I try to find everything I can and do everything I can before moving on. I felt a little like I could do just that. I did find one issue with the program setup though. When looking at the quests I would have a problem of clicking start quest rather than view quest because that would pop up first and it seemed like that should be the button that tells me what to do. So before I know what I was doing it would start the quest. Not that I wanted to but that I just didn’t process the information correctly. Then it was not easy getting back to information right away. If I would change things one would be to get rid of the start quest over the view quest and just have view quests there and put the start quest button at the bottom of the information given after you viewed the details of the quest. Or at least don’t put it on top of the two buttons. Put it under the view quest button. the other issue I had was where is the button that I would click to get help right away from my instructor. Like at least a send email same as with students. Just a simple I want to email a question to Coby or Forrest or Sukey oh here is the button click. And off I go asking the question. Maybe not even email just a message link that when the start up for the day a message pops up asking the question that I had. I overall liked the experience and wouldn’t mind having more classes In this format.

Movie posters Do they really catch my Eye?

One of my favorite movies that I enjoyed watching when I was a child was this movie:

Yes King Kong. I did not know at the time when I first watched this that there had been an earlier make of this movie. Just looking at this poster, it sucks me in. The biggest gorilla in the biggest city on top of the tallest towers with Army helicopters and him holding a girl, this poster says everything about the movie that I liked. I remember that I would draw or doodle during classes at school using the same design of airplane that was drawn in this poster, over and over again. This poster is designed to draw in the men that enjoy action based movies.

Now I said I didn’t know at the time that this was a remake of the original and to tell you the truth I still haven’t seen the original movie in its entirety. And it’s not likely that I ever will. The movie poster that I found though looked like the cover of a Conan comic book that I had as a kid, and because I had such a nice collection of them when I first looked at the poster for the original movie I automatically found a connection between them.

Even though my collection consisted of pretty old comics I think that this poster was aimed directly at teens and men in general. You know, the hero saves the girl from the bad guys and the monster.

The last movie remake of King Kong I feel through this poster tries to bring the emotional part back to the movie, by trying to bring the attachment we all had for the death of Kong.

From the first movie to the last, you see a definitive change in what direction the movie is going. I see that the last movie poster draws my attention more because of the realism of it and that it shows the heart touching part of the movie the “beauty and the Beast” ideal, and I enjoyed that part of the movie a lot. This poster did exactly what I felt it was trying say but to be completely honest the level of death in the action sequences just overwhelmed my feelings and I don’t watch that movie anymore. The second movie I have watched many times. Through that remake I get the good feelings and not all the close-up death of characters that the last remake does.

As for the layout of words I can see that in the first two movie posters the words are larger and represent the background that’s in the poster. For instance the poster for the original movie is still set in the jungle, and the words have sharp points and seem to grow bigger from the start to the end. It is also not straight, it grows at angel like plants and trees grow.

The second movie poster depicts the large writing of King Kong also, but the font is straight and fits more to the right angle of the background setting, words that fit the city of course. The picture also consists of Kong destroying something and planes and helicopters close enough for him to grab. I feel that this gives the viewer a little leeway towards the thought that he might have a chance or maybe his death is not set in stone.

The last is different I many ways, the biggest difference is that the words are smaller. That already gets the viewer looking more at the picture and getting the emotional attachment. The fount also fits both the jungle that he comes from and the city he is in when he dies. I believe it was the best of the three to tell the story.

I love this story, and enjoy parts in both remakes. I would say though that neither of them falls into the category of "this is the best of the three."

“Who has my headphones!?”

“Who has my headphones!?” how many times have I heard that in my house of five children? If its not said once a day its only because my kids are at their mothers house. I have even found myself saying that too. Why do my kids even need them heck why do I need them? Well to answer my own question I don’t believe anyone in my house has the same taste in music and now that my oldest has gotten her siblings to listen to foreign music. The variety has jumped to levels that I can’t even count. How is that wrong you ask well it’s not that my kids are downloading music off of pirated sites it’s not that I don’t understand half of what they say it’s that they spend every waking hour with those headphones in their ears and doing that is causing damage to their hearing permanently.

With the start of creating walkmans you could listen to 30 minutes to an hour of music from every tape or CD. Then you would have to flip it over or change it and when you took that break sometimes you would put it down. Now at the touch of a few buttons you can have tens of thousands of hours that you don’t even have to touch it to listen to music all day long. I have even found my kids asleep with their headphones in.

 To tell you the truth it’s not even the lack of social interaction that I want to address even though that is another issue all on its own. Its “HEY DAD WHATS FOR DINNER!!”  “why are you yelling at me?” “IM NOT YELLING!!” “Yes you are your voice is very elevated.” Then it takes a second for them to lower their voice. Or along the same lines “what do you want for dinner? Hey I said what do you want for dinner? Are you even listening to me? Hello!?” “ oh sorry dad I didn’t hear you, What do you want?” “ you couldn’t hear me we are sitting two feet apart on the same couch” “well I had my head phones in.” it just makes me want to screem. I know that many parents have said the same thing and had the same conversations with their children.

 What’s wrong with that? It’s the abuse that our kids do to their hearing. Its only now that I’ve gotten older has it been apparent that I too am suffering from hearing loss. As a teen I sat for hours a day in front of the computer playing games and listening to music or isolating in my room with my music so loud in my walkman that it would drowned out my nagging sister and mother.

This article on abc7 in Los Angeles draws my attention it talks about how a group of kids that went to a concert that the range of music decibels from 85 to 100 after the concert is showed that 71% had some time of abnormality. Then this article was written more recently taken from the journal of American medical association “Between 1988-94 and 2005-06, the percentage of teens with hearing loss jumped by about a third, from 15% of 12-to-19-year-olds to 19.5%.

What about IPods? Well I found this article in Time that said many things like the amount of iPods sold 173 million. Well I found a article saying that the numbers in January 2011 taken from apples quarterly reports were 304 million. It talks about the range from 7% t0 24% of people listen to risky levels of decibels. It also talks about a study done in 2006

I feel that the culture of listening to music with ear buds is not only in our culture but its worldwide I have ;looked into the study that the CNU did and it leads me to believe that we are on a trend that is very unhealthy to us and especially our children according to the time article about how a lot of teens do the exact opposite of what I tell them. i only see this going bad for us and how my kids will lose their hearing before me. sells in headphones will countinue to grow though and the designes will still still be cool. i wonder how cool my kids will feel with a hearing aid.

Is it for adults or kids?

I think one of the biggest ways that pop culture in my life has given me two different views is through animation. Cartoons have been a big part in our culture from the start of the visual media. There are even 2  animated films in the top 10 grossing movies so far, and the top number 1 movie is the computer animated movie Avatar Until about 15 years ago I did not really see what was being portrayed in a lot of animation. From TV cartoon shows to animated movies to cartoons in the paper.

I remember watching the Bugs Bunny TV show as a child and it was the funniest show and I loved it. That show was the highlight of my Saturday morning cartoons and when it came on after school. As a child it was all about funny. It was slapstick humor at its best.  I can look back now as an adult and see that there may have been something wrong there.

I can watch old cartoons now and see that not only was it designed for children but a lot of humor was also designed for me as a adult the innuendoes are very strong and even though the slapstick part was more for the children and the verbal was for me as a adult it has progressively gotten worse  and now as I look at cartoons today and what my children like. The lines have not only gotten less clear the boundaries have gotten less and less. One of the shows that my son loves is Dragon Ball Z. Not only does it push the boundaries of sexuality like one of the characters has a issue with looking at pornographic magazines they make it funny to kids by having him be slapped around by some of the females on the show.

That is the same with the tv show Naruto which is very popular with kids today. The main character not only is very funny and uses slapstick humor a lot but can turn himself into a nude woman to make laughs.

I have not only seen this in cartoons that are Foreign in nature (Japanese animation) but in DreamWorks and Disney movies also. One of my favorite shows as a adult that I like watching with my kids is the movie Surfs Up, it’s about a penguin that likes to surf. It uses a lot of slapstick humor for kids to laugh but also give the verbal language for adults but where do they draw the line for what kids hear and know today. One of the parts is one of the main characters is in a hot tub and is talking but when he stands up they pixelate the area where his genitals would be. Why do that if not for the adults? The rest of the movie after that you see him as normal no blurring but he is still a animal and he still doesn’t wear clothes. The main character calls another penguin a “pecker face” again for adults and I laughed because of the humor I saw in the statement, but when I laugh and my children don’t they want to know what was so funny.

We have a issue today with people thinking video games are more violent than ever  which I have blogged about in the past because media has focused alot on violence and teens that play video games even though violence among teens really isnt able to be pinpointed to any specifics other than "modeling". How ever we have looked very little into childrens cartoons and how it might be the root of the problem. Thats because we refuse to see that it’s what we as a society have aloud from the beginning with slapstick humor.


Video games have more sex in them, like "Bayanetta" which also is a complaint but again when you have a skunk in love with a cat that uses suicide to manipulate the girl of course through time it’s going to change into sexual direction with a lot of media. Take for instance Madagascar 2 the movie portrays a male hippo that is just out to have sex with another hippo and by the end of the movie the female hippo is in love with a giraffe and a penguin is marring abobble head doll.

Cartoon Networks Adult Swim which ranked #1 in rateings among  "young adults 18-34" and Cartoon Network day and evening programs raked #1 for boys ages 2-14, has just started broadcasting in Canada this month. This shows me that animation is popular and will coutinue to grow. where is the line? Who draws it? Pop culture has done nothing but confuse the lines between adult and children humor and what is ok and what is not. You as a single parent or a family that both parents work jobs do you really have the time to sit down and watch these programs? Or do you think that its ok to watch because its on tv?

Using google search to find everything.

Well because I use Google to search everything I was able to find this image very easy. After looking at letter I picked key things like the date and proper names and what I thought the image was when I entered in the search “1939 letter about daughters of American revolution” it was the first thing that popped up in the list so this was very easy to find. This is the URL to the page: http://docs.fdrlibrary.marist.edu/tmirhfee.html

The second image I had the hardest of them all to find I searched word strings of everything on the picture from arrests amount per state to AP background map of arrests from April to December but I could find nothing I spent 30 minutes trying to find word strings that would work but nothing came up. Then a light came on to just search images so I went to Google images and typed in exactly what it was “arrest background map AP” and it was the 5^th image down.  This is the URL:

http://www.google.com/imgres?hl=en&biw=1525&bih=716&tbm=isch&tbnid=AMvYzbudZkkE0M:&imgrefurl=http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/treasures/trr071.html&docid=qRbhjL9GpxhRxM&imgurl=http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/treasures/images/s84.6p1.jpg&w=640&h=612&ei=DD77T86rJvLE2QXRz7SDBw&zoom=1&iact=hc&vpx=187&vpy=322&dur=4607&hovh=220&hovw=230&tx=127&ty=91&sig=117167606935282526599&page=1&tbnh=161&tbnw=168&start=0&ndsp=18&ved=1t:429,r:6,s:0,i:92

Again the third image was very easy I again looked at image and picked out key things I could see. I typed in “1955 police report in Montgomery j.f. Blake” and again it was the first link that popped up. It looked like I was batting 66% on with what my thought process was telling me in how to search the images. After that I was able to see a pattern to the images but to stay with just looking up images themselves. This is the URL to the third is: http://historicalthinkingmatters.org/rosaparks/0/inquiry/intro/

Now the last image I thought I typed into the search which was “roll call 1964 88th congress January” but that didn’t come up with the image in at least the first 4 links so I then added “290-130” to the search I already had and that gave it to me. The URL is: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:CivilRightsAct1964-HouseRollCall-HR7152.jpg

So in all the only one that took me more than 1 minute to find was the map and that I had to just change my thinking from thinking that I could only find it by finding the page that it was on to just finding the image itself. I feel I had a good plan on how I search things but I did learn to broaden my searches just a little more.

I have tried using other search engines in the past but I found that a lot of things pop up that I just don’t want to see. I feel that Google weeds a lot of the “bad” sites out. I really like for myself and my kids, so I just stay with Google.

Lovemarks? Really?

I recently watched this program on frontline: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/persuaders/view/ section two of this program talks about emotional branding or "lovemarks" http://www.lovemarks.com/.

It’s hard for me to say that I have any love mark on anything I use or buy. I have always stayed out of the mainstream media, watching TV or listening to the radio has trough out my live never been a mainstay I always as a kid liked going places and because my parents never went anywhere I would hike out into the woods or go fishing or ride my bike to places when I was older I never had a car until I was 23 I spent a hour riding to work a hour riding home. So at those times I feel I was never bought into anything that was better than something else today if I shop it’s to find the cheapest thing it doesn’t matter what’s out there as long as I can save a penny I will buy it. Cars cloths toilet paper it doesn’t matter I as I see things now the cheapest is what sells like the only time I see Gatorade shelves empty is when it’s half the price that they normally have. I have to go to the store to find a specific item that’s on sell the very moment they open the door because if it’s on sell for a good price its gone by the afternoon. But I’ve tried to think of anything that I have that kind of loyalty to I think it would be my PS3, and it’s not really that I love it more than anything else it’s that I can’t stand putting more money into Bill Gates pocket. It was only after my son couldn’t stop talking about the Xbox 360 that all his friends have I caved. In all reality I only caved to buying one was because I found one that  was a used system for a hundred dollars, if I buy games and they are available in the ps3 I will buy that rather than the Xbox.  After talking to my son about why he felt that the one was better than the other it was because the Xbox online capability was better than the PS3 and all his friends were into playing online games. After explaining to him that that shouldn’t matter because I didn’t have Internet access he preceded to tell me that it was better compatible to other systems like my laptop and that it had a easily removable memory so he could take it to his friends houses. He did have a convincing argument. After looking back at his argument I see a clearer picture of how making things faster and more accessible is a way of selling your product in a fast paced culture like ours. It puzzles me that the ps3 is a foreign system and the Xbox is a system based in America. What is it really like in the eastern cultures is their lives based on how fast and easy things can be?  But I just can’t say that I have anything that really is a “lovemark”to me.

Are We all Doomed?

This is the link to the artical I read.
http://ithp.org/articles/violentvideogames.html

The point that this article is trying to relay to us is that violent video games directly affect you negatively. This article covers this issue and does try to answer some questions that I thought of immediately when read the headline. Like is there a difference between movies and video games because movies are set in a more realistic world? Some people believe that they can be good for you like eye hand coordination.

 He squashes both of those thoughts I had. The first he uses three bullet points in how video games are worse than movies and TV.  He does however in the three points only use one study done and that only is to answer or cover just that idea. In his final statement about that question uses the words “empirical evidence” to support his statements and references that study. The second thought I had was referenced directly. He even says and offers references to studies done that say they can help eye hand coordination. However that is answered only after he has pointed and made statement that to the contrary that over a hundred and thirty studies say that it directly increases aggressive behaviors and decreases helping behaviors and feelings of empathy. A well placed answer with empirical evidence to support his thoughts.

After that I was hooked into wanting to know what he had to say because he stopped both thoughts I had. It gave me the idea that he was going to give a clear answer to that question, a question that is in the media all the time and really is in the back of  my mind having five children of my own.

So only after he has stopped some of the doubt does he get to the answer of his first statement. He poses it into a question formation of basically why do you doubt my theory. He again puts it into a bullet point format and use question answer format. All answers are direct to the point and uses again empirical evidences by quoting studies that support that answer. He even throws into one of his answers a visual bar graph to make it pleasing to the eyes of how his answer is right. Which I feel was there only to convince that visual sense we have.

Then to close his theory he does in one sentence try to down grade “some” social scientists and “non-expert” media.  He finishes that with statement of “vast majority” believing in his theory and again references studies done to support that.

I was able to find all of his references very easily through Google search by copying and pasting the reference he gave all most all of them came up with in the first 5 listings under the search and I was even able to find the actual papers that were written from those studies.

In all it was very convincing because of a well thought out format of answering questions with his ideas and quoting empirical evidence to support his answers. It even made me think of getting rid of my game system games that are violet. But it was a fleeting thought and is gone now. LOL

my pop culture tour

This is a link to a video that explains some ways pop culture has effected my life.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ERw8BW21wk&feature=plcp

I defiantly recognized how in different areas in my life are effected by pop culture. From Medicine to entertainment to physical outlets and also society in general in how I deal with other people.  My views are toward getting away from the norm but its very difficult in the American culture to not be influenced by PC. I have seen that in my life I have picked up mixed cultures from all the states I’ve lived in which in turn gives me I feel a little more insight to the differences in culture that America has.

gamification

After having watched this video twice I picked up one thing that he said that leads me to believe that this could work. He said “Different choices have different outcomes and we control the choices we make” this idea I think is the truth block that he builds this ides from. One of the things that make us different from all other mammals is that we have the ability to think that are actions for the most part are not instinctual. What is it that we think for? It is to make that choice, which our thoughts lead us to. Every choice we make no matter if it’s right or wrong we have gained more information to base choices off of the next time. But how do you reward a student if they are starting to head down the wrong path to lead them back towards the direction the need to go. That will be the hard part of this idea and you would need to change your curriculum or point scale. Especially if the class is an internet based class where you don’t always have the option to sit down and give them the additional time that they need to direct them back. There are also time constraints that need to be considered. One last idea was that if I can’t figure out the answer to a game I sometimes just put it away and it gathers dust until I feel the desire to pull it back out. If there isn’t usually visible to the student or gamer progression we tend to just feel bored and do something else. For the most part I do like this idea and its been fun so far.

Pop culture or trend?

I’ve said in the past that pop culture is a trend I want to try to explain what I meant by that. People say that pop culture is just that “culture that pops up at the drop of a hat and then goes way just as fast”.

What is pop culture truly? Is it not us as humans making decisions without immediate consequences? Pop culture distracts us from focusing on what’s important to us as a whole.  “This movie is really good you should go see it” or “his or her music is the greatest you should listen to it” these statements are to us evidence that we can make a decision off of that for the most part doesn’t seem to come with any immediate negative side effects. Even with drugs for the most part the first use is not fatal so you have the good without the bad. Even if the bad does happen it’s only ourselves, our choice doesn’t affect others.  

How about texting it’s ok right now because we don’t see immediate consequences. We get to chose what kind of phone we text from and who we can text too without having face to face interactions that might end up bad for us. When there maybe long term side effects that we can’t see right now. Logic may say that we are training ourselves to not know how to physically interact with each other. Like let’s say for instance when we text to someone that we are angry or mad with them we can say what we like. But if you’re at school and then are thrown into a confrontation with a friend over a boyfriend or girlfriend cursing at them can lead to a physical confrontation because we don’t truly know how to act socially. That is just a thought that’s been passed around over the last few years because of children killing children.

We as humans want to show how human we are. This is one thing I have gotten from the class I’m taking, we unlike other mammals have the ability to rationalize and think and ignore what is instinctual. To steal from a pop culture movie, we have the right and ability to choose. (Even if our choices truly in the long run mean absolutely nothing to the growth or better of our society)

lets just live in the grey a little more each day and see were that gets us

Well today I again walked away from class with a head full of thoughts and no one to really sit down face to face with and talk about it. I am looking at pop culture and I see fully that pop culture in the American society is not really pop culture that pop culture is really a trend. I am fighting for words on how I want to explain myself. I was recently reading a book called “How We Decide”. It’s a book that has thrown a lot of ideas out there but hasn’t really given me any answers.

 Just in that statement I just made tells everything that is wrong in our culture today. We won’t make any decisions in our culture without evidence. In social science we search for empirical evidence. We search for answers to hard questions but in searching we tend to get stuck. What formed our country? Was it not a handful of men seeking for something better and even though if we looked at empirical evidence in today’s culture we would have said they were mad? But they made a decision. If we look at change in our world change was made through decisions. You make a decision follow through with it and if it worked out for the best we did it if it didn’t we would just not do that again and try something else.

 As a child you can tell him or her a thousand times not to touch or it will burn. That child will never learn what burn is until it actually happens. In this book he uses the example of football players and how they have to make snap decisions and he rolls out a bunch of theoretical evidence and tries to explain how a football player might make his decision. I see it as every quarterback that throws a football is in reality just making a decision. It’s as simple as that and nothing else. You really only hear about the really good decision or the really bad ones. Not that every decision is just them saying here it goes nothing. There is no factual evidence that it was a going to be a good or bad throw not until the ball was already thrown.

 He uses the decision that Wagner Dodge made as an example and again points to theoretical evidence that sways you this way or that way. As to how he came up with that snap decision to start his own fire to save his life. With so many variables to a forest fire and nature no man can make a snap judgment that he new was going to be right. He just did it.  We only contemplate his decision making skills because he survived he himself said he was lifted off the ground from the fire he could have died even though he did what he did. No one looks at did he distract from the other jumpers from getting to the top by stopping them for those ever few seconds they had. Remember some actually did make it to the top. I don’t want to take from what he did. Because of his snap decision hundreds maybe thousands of firefighter’s lives have and will be saved.

 Our culture in itself has stopped people from making just that “life saving decisions” because of the chance that our decision may just fail. We criticize our president in the media everyday about how he has made bad decisions in his life and that in turn makes him second guess his decisions and tries to search for evidence good or bad to help his decision. And then before you know it time is up. Time that is crucial to a whole society is up before he can follow through with the idea. Same with doctors, scientists, dentists, engineers etc...

Samuri 7 or 7 Samuri

Is there nothing in our culture that is Black or White anymore!?