Puppet Masters

      Seeing as how I have not done a book review I have decided to start again with an instant classic that is still thought of as a modern book. This was one of the first books to incorporate aliens that landed on Earth and attempted to rule our society. While other books shape the aliens as creatures of our wildest imaginations Heinlein decided on a form that actually made sense. He shaped the aliens into gelatinous blobs that could control what ever animal it comes in contact with.

     

    The Puppet Masters takes place in a futuristic where not much has changed in the world except for a higher level of technology like lasers and flying tank...car...vehicle....things. There was a supposed UFO sighting in Utah and its up to 2 field operatives to investigate. As they investigate the scene they learn that the blob-like life forms had already infected all of Utah and was quickly spreading.

     The blobs would crawl onto a persons back and hide under their clothes making them out to be only a simple humpback. The aliens, named Titans, infest the entire eastern coast before the agents are able to investigate and are quickly able to spread by infesting any human they wish to join their cause. The humans are at a loss for what to do because the Titans are rapidly spreading and they cant think of a way to tell who has a Titan. Indecisive on how to tell who has a Titan and sure they are starting to influence the government they implement a law that makes everyone not wear a shirt. After, they need more info on the Titans so the government sends out an operative into the field who is captured by the Titans. Now, when a person is being controlled by a Titan they are aware of what they do in a 3rd person kind of view. The government quickly decides to take back the agent and detain him to retrieve more information about the Titans. The scientists deduce that they are a form of parasite that bounce from planet to planet living off of their inhabitants.

     As the Titans start to spread the government receives more and more pressure to simply nuke the infected area before it spreads to far. The government decides to instead launch a military assault on the areas and drop several squadrons of troops whom secure each area little by little.

     This is but a minuscule summary of Puppet Masters by Robert A. Heinlein. The book is the father of all alien based sci-fi books, movies, video games, etc. Robert A. Heinlein is also the father of modern science fiction and is still praised today for his great works and classic science fiction novels. So i hope you all check out this book and good luck in warding off the titans!  ;)

     

Life As We Know It, Knew it, and What It Will Be

     Life...a game we all play where we try to survive the harsh obstacles shoved into our path. We all try to clamber ofver these obstacles however some are not strong enough to get over and fall bellow to a husk of their former self. While some fail, others overachieve and get over their obstacles and go beyond leaving the average person behind whom just manage to clamber their obstacles. We all play this game and there is no way to escape it until we all pass into the void...

    As new generations of people arrive the game of life changes to keep up with the times and hurtles obstacles more closely related to modern culture. Today requires the average person to have much more then what they needed in past years. Today computers, internet, and various other technological devices are required to thrive in this world and are needed for school and work alike. Without these devices our world starts to slow down as we seperate ourselves from the modern generation and each task seems to take us hours instead of the few minutes they would take with modern technology. As days speeds up and gets faster and faster people will start to lose their sense of reality and slip into an almost coma like state of work. We are at the point where we can stay connected with all of our friends via facebook and can make instant calls to anybody as long as we have their phone number.
     Some people argue that the olden times were the better times because we did not have to cope with various forms of technologies that cause great problems for older generations. They say that people are always working and are never away from their jobs even when at home. While it is easier to access one's job it does not mean that you must always be connected. It is a personal choice allowing the individual more choice on their lifestyle. So perhaps the times of old were less confusing without as much technology however it was also considerably slower than today's society. Our technologically advanced society allows for each person to live as they want to live with them always working or perhaps having more leisure time. It is up to the individual to decide what they want making neither generation better but rather different times with different people.

What are politics?

     Politics....when the word politics come to mind we think of a group of sophisticated humans sitting around a large room politely discussing dilemmas with the country. What actually occurs in the Senate is a series of fights similar to those we all had in elementary school. Two or more people on opposite teams arguing over small menial problems going back and forth, constantly accusing each other of doing wrong and pointlessly belittling the other party. While they bicker like children the large problems of the country slowly decay destroying the once solid foundations we build this proud....once  proud nation upon.

     The two main parties, Democratic and Republican for all those rock dwellers, have absolutely opposite ideals for the United States. These two parties go back to the the first presidentry with George Washington. Although Democrats were more like Republicans and Republicans known as Federalists the same kind of arguing went on at the founding of our nation. The only difference is that back then we got SOME problems done, while today we can't even agree to disagree and all our ideas for the country get shoved back month after month.

     What is the cause of all this bickering? What is the cause of all this anger? Simple, the corruption rising from the depths of society. It has corrupted our own government over time changing it from an efficient and stable form of government to one that may even be worse than, dare i ever say it...  a monarchy or dictatorship. With nothing being done we are allowing our nation to fall into a state of disarray and chaos. While our leaders lodge themselves in estates larger then UCLA the slums of our nation are creeping closer, oh so closer. While visiting the sites of such corruption, ie: Compton, it can often be worse to run into a police officer then into a gang. The law itself is crumbling and our nations once strong body has been poisoned. The poison slowly spreading throughout our land causing chaos and strife, and when strife comes...so does change and not always for the better.

Diving Into the Minds of Humans

picture found here

      The movie Inception was a highly engrossing and interesting movie. It was about the concept of being able to delve into a human mind and create or find ideas/secrets. A group of people would be put to sleep using a sedative. Next, an "architect" would come into the dream and build a world that would seem realistic to the person so they wouldn't think themselves to be inside of a dream. The other teammembers would infiltrate the dream and search the area for a vault of some sort where a form of information would be hidden.
     This movie was made for younger and more agile minds. It seems to me that many adults had multiple problems following the complex story while the younger audience felt no such qualms. Could it be that with the puzzles that kids grope with in video games/technology their minds have become more advanced? Maybe even more evolved then that of their predecesors?
     Humans have advantages over some animals....and many disadvantages to them. Such as, did you know that humans are the only species of creatures that have not rid themselves of inferior versions of themselves? These people are less inteligent *cough* Michel Rosenberg *cough* and way down the society of today making our scientific finds to become more sparce then required. It now seems to be that the majority of our population is built up of people who are similar to us SUPREME humans in looks, however in thought procession are inferior and way our whole race down.
     Although we do have a few disadvantages to animals our advantages greatly outnumber the disadvantages and make us the supreme race of the planet. We have superior brains that allow us to create anew and not just drestoy. We were gifted with our thumbs which are the most basic tools that we require to wield the tools we have created. We are driven by curiosity which brought us to the current era of cars, planes, ships, phones, and computers. Without any of these things we would not be able to mark ourselves as king.
     The brain computes all of these things without fault and allows us to comprehend new concepts and ideas as they are created. However as we grow old, so does our mind. We start to become more forgetful, less coordinated, and it becomes increasingly harder for us to grasp the new concepts of the coming generation. These factors contribute to the hypothesis of the younger generation being smarter then their predecesors, and it turns out that we are not and just that their brains are slowing down seemingly making us smarter although all the while they are just becoming more uninteligent.

Animal Farm by George Orwell

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Animal Farm by George Orwell is a political satire that starts off with a rebellion of animals on a farm. All of the animals come together and say why. They then fight back and drive all of the farmers off of the farm and decide to govern themselves. They then teach everyone to read, create an anthem, and write the writes and rules fo the farm ( constitution and declaration). However, two of the pigs that are running the farm quickly become corrupted and greedy. They then chase the third pig who is the only pig with a kind/true heart off of the farm and call him a traitor and a scandrel.
     The two remaining leaders set all of the animals to work and behind their backs slowly change all of their rules. Whenever a misfortune happenes the blame it on the third pig who had run away and binding them behind a single cause. This constant fear of Snowball ( the third pig) attacking made all of the farm animals cower behind the pigs granting them even more power. However, slowly the farm changes and life slowly gets worse. Starting with harsh winters and small rations for all including the working animals.

     The animals all have horrible memories and when they try to remember what life was like before they only think," It was worse then this." The one animal who did remember was a donkey who stayed quiet and chortled to himself as he outlived all of his generation. He watched the farm slowly get worse and fall into a state worse then when the animals had been under the farmers with the two remaining pigs turning into dictators, and slowly becoming more and more like humans as they changed all the rules the animals had voted on so long ago. In conclusion, this political satire is worth reading because of its interesting story and subtle sense of humor

Tampering with nature

http://www.csb.yale.edu/userguides/graphics/ribbons/help/dna_rgb.gif

DNA... it is a truly amazing thing, for without it, we wouldn't be who we are today. DNA shapes us for the better, or for the worse making us different from everyone else. If everyone had the same DNA then we would all be the same, there would be no differences, no way to tell yourself from somebody else. So is it right for us to be tampering with what makes us unique as human beings?



Recently, technology has evolved to detect what "genes" we have, and what "genes" our children will have. We can tell whether weak hearts are in our DNA, or whether we might live to 100 or only to 76. By knowing what is going to happen to us early, we can try to change what will happen to us in the future . For example if high cholestrol runs in your family then you will know to keep a healthy diet so as not to put as much pressure on your heart.


In the past ten years we have gone from analog to digital, 2d to 3d, and from not caring about the enviroment to trying to help all living creatures like tigers, pandas, and various kinds of fish( for more information on the enviroment follow http://ecoteensera.blogspot.com//). Now that we are able to see all of our "genes", how long will it be before we will be able to alter them? Should we progress so much that we can alter all of the animals we share Earth with? Will we lose some of our humanity if we are able to make ourselves out as the perfect human? Only time will decide when and if we will have this remarkable/horendous invention.

Where does the time go?

http://sj-climateclock.org/

As human beings, we are constantly striving for more. We built the car, but that wasn’t fast enough, so we made ships, and that wasn't fast enough, so we made airplanes, but those still take hours, and now we are still striving for something faster. We wanted access to information, so we wrote books, but most people couldn't afford them, so we made libraries, but they are to far away, so now we have the internet, but it isn't ever fast enough for us, so we pay money to make it go faster.

As we make more inventions, we make time go by, that much faster. Instead of spending all day at the market we now spend 10 minutes at the market, so we can make it to our meeting, from which we have to rush to pick our kids up from school, drop them off at home, and rush off again to pick up the dry-cleaning. Making hours go by without us realizing that we haven’t actually done anything truly productive. By making ourselves more technologically advanced, we are simply making our lives more arduous.

Every invention has sped life up that much faster. The home phone for example made it so if we wanted to talk to someone; it was just 10 dial tones away, opposed to having to send a letter. The home phone later evolved into the cell phone, allowing us to call each other even faster and on-the-go. So, is technology really helping our lives like so many believe? People believe that life was longer and better in older times, however others disagree that with all the new cool gadgets we have, life couldn't be better.