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So one day I walked into the bunker room expecting to hear a lecture from little Bill, but instead I was greeted with the amazing news that we would be watching an episode from the series Black Mirror. I eyegasmed. I sat down in my seat not knowing what to expect, I hadn’t before seen or heard of the series. I wasn’t sure how this film was related to class curriculum, but I wasn’t going to protest. I’d much rather watch television than talk about miss Lonely hearts.

Bill explained that the episode related to the human prosthetics that are made up by technology. The wheel an extension of the foot. The camera an extension of the eye. Our smartphones, extensions of our brains. I was eager to get on with the episode, I love trippy futuristic plots.

The video we watched was about a couple and problems with their relationship. The husband in the episode had a sneaking suspicion that his wife had cheated on him. Normally it would be difficult to verify this suspicion without hard evidence, but Black Mirror has put a spin on this. The humans in the episode have what is called a grain implanted in their brains. The grain allows them to record all visual and auditory sensory input for perfect recall later. They can even display the memories on a screen for others to see. The husband notices the wife acting strangely around a man she used to date. He uses his grain to determine that she has cheated on him with that man. This is later verified through her own grain. The husband is left heart broken at the end of the episode. Even the incredible technology at their disposal cannot mend a torn heart.

Whats the point? Technology is an integral component of our daily lives. It has come to consume many of the organic processes that once existed. Is the technology in this episode of Black Mirror a godsend or a boon to human life? That is up for each individual to decide. The writers of this show urge viewers to consider what sort of impact rapidly developing technology has on our society and the self. How is the self changing via technology? How can we redefine the self to coincide with modern phenomena.

We must be aware that technological advancements have and continue to change the way we are as humans. We should not avoid the integration of new technology, but guide its implementation for purposes of good.

The featured image of this post will probably come as quite shocking to most readers. Inform yourself at your own risk. If any Nicholas Cage films are set to come out in the near future be aware of any and all swimming pools. Hide your kids, hide your wife, cuz they drownin everybody up in here. Well, not quite. This graph came from a website titled “spurious correlations”. This website correlates data such as the data presented at the post title. While these data sets may appear to correlate there is no doubt they do not have a relationship.

For section, Ancy asked us to come up with some of our own spurious correlations. We were assigned groups and given the task of creating a “badhoc” presentation about this correlation. The inspiration for this assignment stemmed from an event called “BAHfest”. This event features many presentations that correlate and make conclusions about seemingly ridiculous hypotheses. One of the presentations from BAHFest concluded that cats randomly sprint out of a room for no apparent reason at all in an attempt to limit their own life span for population control. Many of these presentations are absolutely hilarious.

Naturally I was enthralled to discover I would be participating in a BAHFest style presentation. I formed a group with two other brilliant individuals and together we embarked on a journey to find spurious correlations. We decided that our presentation explore the science of forgetting. Why do people forget? Through mathematics and computational practices we came to the utterly infallible conclusion that people forget because it decreases their stress levels ultimately leading to a longer life span.

This correlation may not seem far fetched, but listen to this. We also discovered that individuals who drink more milk tend to be less stressed because of a hormone in milk. So, people that drink milk are more likely to forget things and be less stressed. These people would normally go on to live longer lives due to decreased  stress levels, however, the milk fat brings on heart conditions that negate the extension of their life.

Whats the point? Why did Ancy ask us to complete such ludicrous presentations? For one, it was practice for the Ignite presentations that we were later required to complete. Secondly, it was a lesson in how a medium can manipulate a message. The messages conveyed in this assignment were invalid, however, the format in which they were presented brought to them a sense of credibility. The medium is the message, choose wisely.

Ever heard that old saying, “you can’t judge a book by its cover”? Basically it implies that looks can be deceiving. Is that 80 year old man decrepit or is he some secret serial killer that will off me if I attempt to go help him with his groceries? Those girl scouts may appear to just be selling cookies, but if you mention the right words to them you can walk out of that Vons parking lot with a nice sack of high quality crack. Just to drive the point home I’ll clue you in on a little secret, that man who was recently voted into office is actually a highly emotional boy-child from the future dressed in a high tech skin suit.

So one day around 3 in the afternoon I was sitting in discussion for CAT 125. Next thing I know I’m being told that this ancient saying (you can’t  judge a book…) is actually wrong. I’m thinking, “wtf?” How could that shit be wrong, its ancient, like John McCain, and he’s never wrong. Ancy suggested that book covers are actually highly influential in peoples decisions to read them. She presented a series of book covers with their titles blacked out. As a class we attempted to classify the genre of the book based on the cover. It turns out, one can often times determine what a books genre or plot is based on the design of the cover.

Don’t believe me? Well you should because its true. Auto/biographies often have covers that show a photograph in gray scale colors. Scifi/mystery books usually employ color schemes that make use of bright, neon colors. Mystery/horror books will utilized red and black color schemes more. Books that are very well known, like the Hobbit, will generally have a simple cover with one or two symbols from the story on it.

Then we got to the various covers of Lolita by Nabokov. This story is so well known that publishers could put a picture of a chocolate cupcake on the cover and sales wouldn’t be affected. Be aware of Lolita’s multitude of book covers.

From this exercise I gained the understanding that all elements of a particular media come into play during transmission of a message. So next time you are looking at a book, at least allow some judgement to come from its cover.

The titles begs the question, what the fuck is a Self Historiography? Yep you guessed it, like its confusing predecessors, it’s a CAT 125 assignment. Historiography is defined as the history of history. So rather than just documentation of an event, such as the Hindenburg Tragedy, historiography is a study of the way those events are recorded. What language is used to record events of the past? In what light are the events shown? Who does recording of these events benefit?

Half way through the quarter Mr. Bill asked his students to complete a self historiography. Being about the self, this assignment fits well into the CAT 125 curriculum. I chose to complete this assignment in the format of a statement of intent for graduate school. Writing a statement of purpose is not easy. It must include a compelling hook, the origins of one’s future aspirations, information regarding research experience and most importantly, creative integration of these concepts in a laconic manner.

I intended to make this assignment worthy of submission to an actual graduate program. I decided to apply for the medicinal chemistry graduate program at UC Berkely. In my first draft I made up a fake story about my grandfather’s tragic death and how it inspired me to peruse medicine. Upon revision from you, Ancy, I reworked the hook to incorporate an actual experience from my life. I struggled with keeping the paper short while not neglecting to include critical information. When writing about my research experience I completely fabricated all of the information.

This assignment made evident to me the preparation necessary to create a good statement of intent. Who knows, maybe I’ll get into grad school now that I have some practice in this area.

Its 6 pm on a Tuesday and you’re sitting on your couch reading a script produced from the words said by a news caster recording the Hindenburg tragedy. It is clear the newscaster is upset about the situation, but the script seems dry. There is something missing. It is difficult to get a sense of the emotions felt by those experiencing the tragedy. You finish reading the script, put it down, and move to turn on your radio for some good listening. The content of the script did not leave you shaken up or emotionally unsettled in really any way.

Flash forward, you’ve been listening to the radio for some 20 minutes now. The newscaster recording the Hindenburg incident has just come on the air. He begins speaking. Initially he seems calm, like he can handle the coming storm. As his speech progresses you begin to hear the terror in his voice, the sheer horror in his pitch. “Ladies and gentleman! It’s horrible ladies and gentlemen!” You pick up on the faint whimper in his tone, like hes on the verge of crying. Hairs stand up on the back of your neck. The voice is so close. So identifiable. You’ve been there, been in a state of overwhelming fear and agony and you are reliving those moments through the newscasters voice. You shut it off because you can’t stand to listen any longer.

Flash forward, your watching television now. An emergency broadcast comes on. Its video coverage of the Hindenburg crashing! Alongside the video is the same newscasters voice, narrating the incident. You don’t even make it through half of the footage due to how horrifying it is.

Do you understand the point I am trying to make here? You experienced an account of the same incident through three mediums, but only two of them really moved you, and only one of them was absolutely terrifying. The medium through which a message is propagated molds the message interpreted by readers, listeners, viewers. When you are trying to convey a message, be aware of this phenomenon and use it to your advantage. Don’t make an elephant swing from a vine.

Boy was I excited when I came to find out that our dear professor had in store for us an assignment that makes use of Ignite style presentations. As a lover of TED talks and presentations of all sorts I was quite excited to embark upon this assignment.

For those of you who have no experience with Ignite presentations, here are the deets. Ignite presentations consists of 20 timed slides; each of which are 15 seconds. Do the math, this makes the presentation five minutes long. Five minutes doesn’t seem like a lot of time for a presentation, right? You’re right, its not.

For CAT 125 we were assigned the task of giving an ignite presentation on any topic we believe ourselves to be experts on. The prompt seems broad, but thats because it is. My expectations for class performance on this assignment were not very high, however, the class ended up doing stellar jobs on their presentations. I learned so many new things! One of the coolest presentations was on the topic of Virtual Reality.

I was absolutely lost when I began my Ignite presentation. I could not determine what I could possibly be an expert on. As to not be overwhelmed by choice I quickly decided on a topic. The topic I chose to present was body surfing. Body surfing is something I have been doing regularly for a few years now. It is an extremely fun and somewhat intense sport.

For my ignite presentation I included information about body surfing origins, equipment, hazards and motivations. Giving the presentation was more difficult than anticipated. It is not easy to talk about a topic while following the timed slides. I was nervous to get up and present, but I did it anyway. What did not help was the fact that I was deathly ill the day that I gave my presentation. In spite of the challenges, I got through the presentation and did my best. I am proud of myself for it.

I highly recommend looking at some ignite presentations. They are great for individuals with short attention spans. You can view some by clicking this link.

Adios readers,

Alex

So I was writing a blog post and out of nowhere felt an urge to take a selfie. I pulled out my phone, opened the camera app, but right as I was about to snap a studly selfie I though, “lets do it Frida Kahlo style.”

Frida Kahlo, aka the queen of selfies, was one of the most influential Mexican painters of all time. As you know, CAT 125 is focused on the self so of course Frida is part of the curriculum. Whats so special about this self absorbed Mexican woman? Firstly, she wasn’t actually so self absorbed. Though her works often times depict versions of herself, they are vehicles for conveyance of a more profound message. Kahlo used her self portraits as political, social and economic statements.

Many see Kahlo’s life as one surmounted by pain and hardship. When she was young a spear struck her uterus, rendering her to have many miscarriages. She depicted these sorrowful events in her works (which was controversial during the time), however, she did not dwell only on these events. She shows her perseverance during hardship through her work.

Anyway, I was wondering how I was going to do a Frida Kahlo style selfie. I began with a canvas and some oil paints. A few hours later the canvas had on it a painting of my face with a skateboard sticking out of it. I titled the piece “Head with skateboard sticking out of it”. Art critics would most likely understand the underlying meaning to be about my terrible injuries from skateboarding. Though these injuries were terrible, I continued to live and take selfies.

Kahlo was a revolutionary. She was not afraid to depict things that were uncanny and made others feel uncomfortable. It is apparent from her paintings that she identified with many aspects of life including death. The messages that Frida supported will live on eternally through her work.