Cracking the Maya Code

Because December 21, 2012 is drawing closer, I decided to watch the 2008 NOVA documentary about ancient Mayan heiroglyphs, Cracking the Maya Code.

The film follows the discovery of ancient Mayan writing and how scientists have gradually managed to decipher the hieroplyphs more and more. Mayans used to be spread out all over South and Central America with their own unique and complex culture, mythology, and writing system, but the Spanish invaded their cities and destroyed all except 5 of their book, converted them to Catholicism, made them speak Spanish, etc. The Maya abandoned their cities and all but died out. Then in 1774, Jose Calderon found their temples and the writing that was in them. Soon, scientists and archaeologists began coming to the lost cities to learn about Mayan Culture and decipher the heiroglyphs. In 1810, a man named Constantine Rafinesque found copies of an ancient Mayan text and was able to figure out their number system. Scientists made a little progress in dating some Mayan monuments, but not much. An archaeologist named J. Eric Thompson then was able to chart all the Mayan Glyphs and tried to figure out what kind of language system it was. He deciphered a few signs, but eventually determined that most Mayan symbols were just pictures and had little meaning. Several scientists since then have been able to disprove that, discovering that the pictures could tell stories, could represent whole words, names, or just syllables. Being able to read the glyphs had a huge impact on modern Mayan culture, and Mayans are now able to learn firsthand the ways of their people that have been lost for centuries. It included several interviews with prominent scientists including David Stuart, Michael Coe, and Linda Schele.

This documentary did a very good job of clearly getting its message across with good use of point of view and characters, as well as sticking to the well-defined goal.

There were a few reenactments, all of which had realistic props, costumes, and actors.

The cinematography was very good. The different shots were well put together and relatively simple and easy to understand. There were several real pictures from the time period, all of which were helpful. When complex or somewhat illegible glyphs were shown, they would be outlined or highlighted in a way that made them clearer using special effects. This made it even easier to understand what was being said.

I really enjoyed this documentary. Although it isn't as well-known or life-changing as some documentaries,  it was very informative and really fascinating. It was really cool to follow the development of scientists's understanding of an entirely new language and culture. It's so interesting to think that this complex culture would be lost forever had scientists been unable to crack their code.  It was also cool to see how happy it made the Mayans of today to know that they could read, speak, and follow many of the same customs as their ancestors. 

If you'd like to watch it, which I highly recommend, it is available on the NOVA website, on Netflix, and, of course, here:

Cracking the Maya Code (52 mins) is not rated.

Synesthesia--part two

Okay, here is the probabbly-not-very-anticipated-but-still-here-so-you'll-have-to-deal-with-it part two of my explanation of synesthesia!

To see the first part, click here.

I just wanted to talk briefly about a few notable synesthetes.There are a lot, especially in the art and music world, because synesthesia usually has to do with color and/or sound. Some synesthetes will go their whole lives without knowing that they're different, believing that everyone can experience their unique perspectives.

• One of the most well known synesthetes is the famous composer, conductor, author, pianist, and lecturer Leonard Bernstein . He had timbre-color synesthesia, which means that the timbre of different notes triggered different colors for him. He was conductor of the New York Philharmonic orchestra as well as composing several pieces of music, including the songs for West Side Story. He wrote about his synesthesia and how it had influenced him as a musician in Leonard Bernstein’s Young People’s Concerts. Bernstein also recieved the Lifetime Achievement Grammy Award by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences. Yeah, he was pretty cool. 
• Another fairly well-known synesthete is composer, big-band leader, and pianist Duke Ellington. Perhaps you've heard of him. He was an extremely influential figure in the history of jazz, but didn't limit himself to one genre of music. Because of his work, he was (posthumously) awarded a Pulitzer Prize Special Citation in 1999. He had sound-color and -texture synesthesia, so different notes (sometimes even the same note played by different people) had a unique color and texture for him. This exceptional perspective helped him to create the distinctive sounds he was so well-known for. 
• You may not have heard of this person, but you've probably heard of his work: the cartoonist Michel Gagné . He was the animator who created such films as Ratatouille, Osmosis Jones, The Land Before Time, and a lot more. He has music-color and movement synesthesia, which could explain his animation prowess. That synesthesia reminds me of this scene from Ratatouille where Remy has a synesthetic eating experience:  
• Abstract artist Wassily Kandinsky . Kandinsky was an art theorist as well as a painter, exploring the possibilities of the connections between the color scale, shapes, and sounds. He also is credited with being a pioneer in the field of pure abstract art. He was influenced by french impressionists, as well as his own sound-color ynesthesia. He wanted to combine his perception of sounds with the colors in order to create a fantastic visual experience. You can look at some of his works here. 

If you look around, you'll be surprised by how many famous artists are synesthetic. Synesthesia is not horribly uncommon, and synesthetes are very likely to go into some field of art. There are several famous artists who are confirmed synesthetes, including a few who are still being processed and some false alarms. Overall, synesthesia is an absolutely fascinating condition and one which we probably will never fully understand.

Sevivons to Play With and Latkes to Eat

Today is the first night of Hannukah.

I was going to write another post about Synesthesia, but then today we went shopping and there were Christmas decorations EVERYWHERE. It looked like Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer was flying too fast after accidentally eating some little Christmas elves and half of Santa's bag of presents and puked green-and-red Christmas festiveness all over the entire store. 

On behalf of my religion, Feh! Oy gevalt. Christmas is such a nudge. We Jews have been around for thousands of years and we get what? Bupkes! And don't even get me started about other religions!

Pardon my kvetching, but I felt extremely underrepresented. So today, I wanted to tell the somewhat little-known story of Hannukah.

Here we go:

A long time ago, around 168 BCE, some Greeks took over a Jewish temple and made it into a temple for Zeus. The Greek king, Antiochus, forbade them from practicing judaism and forced them to worship Greek gods instead.

As you can imagine, the Jews were not so pleased. They tried to rebel, but they were mostly struck down by the Greeks. Some of the rebels went into hiding, where they formed a great big, wonderful, and admittedly rag-tag group known as the Maccabbees. Perhaps you've heard of them.

Anyways, these Maccabees lead a rebellion and, against all odds, won their freedom! Then they went back to their temple, which was completely and totally spiritually desecrated and contaminated and defiled and corrupted by the Greeks and their pig-cooking, idol-worshiping ways. The Jews had to purify their temple with an oil-burning ritual; they had to burn oil in the temple's menorah (a candle contraption to measure the days that has eight candles, one for each day of the week and one to light the other candles) for eight days. They looked around, but they could only find enough oil to burn for one day. The Jews decided to go for it anyways, and, to their surprise, the menorah burned for all eight days!

This is not the hugest miracle in the Torah, as one might presume. I mean, Moses split the red sea apart and turned his staff into a snake. That's way awesomer than long-lasting candles. The story is less about the miracle of the menorah and more about the success of the Jews in standing up for their beliefs and fighting to gain freedom.  

But you would be right in guessing that Hannukah is not the most important Jewish holiday. The Christmas season has seriously overblown the importance of Hannukah as well as super-commercializing it. Hannukah gets maybe an enitre row in most stores, but Passover, which one of the more important Jewish holidays, gets a shelf of tasteless matzoh-related products and nothing else.

Anyway.

In honor of this minor miracle, which is still a miracle, we light one candle each night in our Hanukkiah, which are menorahs that have nine candles for the eight days of Hannukah. We also eat fried foods, to commemorate the oil that lasted for eight days, like Latkes (potato pancakes) and Suvganyot (jelly doughnuts). Yeah, Jews are awesome. And, if course, we play driedel. Dreidel is more or less a gambling game. You have a dreidel, a spinning top that has four sides. On each side is one of four hebrew letters; a nun, gimmel, hey, and shin. They stand for nes gadol hiyah sham, which means "A great miracle happened there." In Israel, instead of a shin, there's a pei, because their driedals mean nes gadol hiyah po, "A great miracle happened here". Basically, you spin the driedel, and depending on what letter it lands on, you take some coins from the center or put some in. Whoever ends up with all of the coins wins.

As much as I hate the main-stream commercialism of certain holidays and conforming to society, I love this time of year. I love pretty much everything about Hannukkah, especially latkes. I love that everyone seems to be a little happier and a little friendlier, what with Christmas on the way. And I love how there is so much excitement and anticipation everywhere, and a general feeling of giddy joy. Most of the time.

So happy Hannukkah, everyone! Or, as my family says, Chappy Chanukkah!

And just because I can, here's that song about Hannukkah by the Maccabeats. Remember this?

Synesthesia--part one

I've talked about synesthesia a little bit before, when I was discussing Daniel Tammet, but synesthesia is such a broad and delightful topic that I thought I would talk about it more. This post will explain more about the basics of synesthesia and its connection to language, and the next post will have a bunch of interesting synesthetic cases.

To recap: synesthesia is a condition in which neurological parts of the brain are connected in such a way that experiencing one sensation triggers the response of another. Scientists aren't entirely sure what causes synesthesia, but somehow, senses are linked. For example, a person with synesthesia might see purple whenever they eat chocolate, or hear a violin sound whenever they touch something fluffy. There are more than 60 reported different types of synesthesia, but scientists have only studied a few.

One of the most common types is color-grapheme synesthesia, which is when a person percieves a color when they read a certain letter or number, like the number three might be purple or the letter s might be red. Another moderately common type is number form, which is when numbers and times have different specific spacial locations.

Synesthesia is thought to run in families, and often is something children are born with; however, strokes, seizures, brain damage, drug use, and other potentially brain-effecting things can sometimes cause synesthesia. For Daniel Tammet, he had a bunch of epileptic seizures when he was four that probably caused his own synesthesia.

Synesthesia also is thought to be a part of the root of lauguage. There was a study in which participants were shown two shapes:

and asked which one was the "bobo" and which was the "kiki". Almost every single time, they said that the shape on the left was the kiki and the shape on the right was the bobo. The study was done before with the words "maluma" and "takete", with the same results. The sharper sounding word goes with the sharper sounding shape, and the rounder word goes with the rounder shape. This association, although not technically synesthetic, is based on the combination of sound and shape, which is a type of synesthesia. In the beginning of language, synesthesia and synesthetic connections could have caused things to be named the way they are because of how they sound. Words that have the short "i" sound tend to be words like "little" or "quick", because the short "i" sound sounds small. Words like "great", "grand", or "God" all have a hard "g" sound, which sounds big and important. If you think about it, of course that makes sense because that's just the way it sounds. "G" sounds large and grand. "I" sounds small. This is evidence of synesthetic roots at the basis of our understanding of words.

In addition, expressions like "loud shirt", "bitter wind",  and "cutting words" could be synesthetic as well-- they combine more than one sense. 

If you're still interested, there's a lot of stuff about it on the internet that's really cool. This is a good summary of it, if you like videos better:

There's an official organization group thing for people with synesthesia, called The Synesthesia Battery.
It's really cool.

Synesthesia is just so fascinating to me for a lot of reasons, but mostly because there's such a huge variety. Some people see sounds when they hear music, or associate different personalities with numbers and letters. There are just so many different types, and scientists haven't even found them all. Synesthesia could also be really important to scientists' current understanding of our perception of the senses and how the brain works. Or maybe this power could be harnessed and used for some purpose. I highly recommend looking it up if you have time.

Prepare for Trouble, and Make it Double

To protect the world from devastation! To unite all peoples within our nation! To denounce the evils of truth and love! To extend our reach to the stars above!

I have a little brother. He was six once. Therefore, yes, I did just quote Pokemon. Almost from memory.

This week, I want to talk about twins. While I'm not entirely sure whether or not Jesse and James are twins, I do know that they are two people who are roughly the same height and look similar, and seem to do a lot of things together, so I think of them as sort of twins.

I think twins are really cool. I really want one. People with twins probably don't agree with me on this, but it would be awesome to have a person who is your sibling but also the same age as you and probably one of your really good friends.

But scientifically, what are twins? And, more importantly, do twins have super magical twin telepathy?

According to wikipedia, twins are defined as "one of two offspring produced in the same pregnancy". There are two different types of twins: monozygotic, or identical, and dizyotic, or fraternal. Zygosity is just a measure of how identical twins are.

You can have boy-boy identical twins or girl-girl  identical twins. Statistically, female-female twins are more common than male-male twins. Boy-girl identical twins are extremely rare, as less than ten cases have been confirmed. In addition, the girl would probably have turner syndrome, which is when a female is missing part of one of her X chromosomes. (Just a very brief biology lesson-- women have two X chromosomes, men have one X chromosome and one Y chromosome).

Identical twinnings occur when a fertilized egg splits into two separate embryos. Because the egg has already been fertilized, both twins have pretty much the same DNA, so they look identical. They have different fingerprints, though, because their fingers were pressing different parts of their mother's womb, and, apparently, that's how fingerprints are created. The chance of having identical twins is about 3 in 1000.

There are also semi-identical twins, where they get the same amount of genes from one parent and unequal amounts of jeans from another parent. 

Fraternal twinnings are more common, about  6 per 1000 births to 14 per 1000 births.It happens when two eggs are fertilized by two separate sperm. They have the same similiraity in DNA and looks as normal siblings.

There are other twin-eque conditions of pregnancy, including

• vanishing twin, which is when one twin dies early into the pregnancy
• conjoined twins, which happens when an egg doesn't split all the way. They're also known as siamese twins. They're pretty self-explanatory. 
• parasitic twins, which is when one twin fetus causes problems for the other twin fetus because it's not fully developed. Sometimes this has to be surgically remidied. 
• chimerism, which I don't understand exactly, but basically means that chromosomes from multiple organisms are mixed.
• twin-to-twin transfusion syndrome, which is when one twin is pretty much stealing blood from the other
• a lot of other ones, too. You can Wikipedia them if you want. 

The higher number of multiple births you get, the rarer and more potentially dangerous they become. Twins are fairly common,  triplets are less common, and anything more than that is very rare. No nonotuplets (9 birhts) have survived infancy, and one one set of octuplets, the Suleman octuplets, have survived.

Here's a short video from CBS about a group of septuplets. They're one set of the very few surviving septuplets in the world.

Twins are also very useful for scientific experiments. Since identical twins have the same DNA, they can be used to test the difference of genetic and environmental factors. This can help scientists determine the cause for many diseases, personality trait, and personal tastes to better understand both genetics and the human brain. 

 But do these multiple sets of babies have a special bond?

There are so many stories about a twin who gets a random, agonizing pain when the other has just gotten into a car crash, or twins finishing eachother's sentences, or knowing what the other one is thinking; however, that might be from living together and being so similar more than actual telepathy. Their similarities and familiarities with one another might subconsiously allow them to predict how the other one might react in a certain situation or empathize so much with their pain that they feel pain as well. There is no scientific evidence to support the idea of twin telepathy at all.

Perhaps as science expands, scientists will be able to determine the bond between twins. Until then, there are a lot of questions that they still have not just about how twins' minds work, but how their genetics work. And how they can harness their superpowers to fight crime and save the planet. Or not. You never know...
 


 

A Brief and Very Acedemic Update

We've been really busy in media these last couple of weeks. So here's a brief rundown of two projects that we've done!

 First, we worked on our dystoipian trailers, which we just finished. As I mentioned before, our group's trailer was called "Barcode". A full summary for it is here under The word Barcode. It also has a link to the video, but I'll embed it in this post a the end as well.

This was a pretty fun project. I had a lot of fun filming, making props, and acting. I got to make the really creepy masks that we used. We got some strange looks, but they turned out awesome. There were a few roadbumps along the process. For one thing, we were going to film at the Silver Spring library, but the librarian at the front desk told us that we couldn't film in a government building. This turned out to be false, but we found another place where we could film that actually turned out better.

Another problem was that my group's schedules were really uncooperative. We only got in one or two filming sessions together, so we had to film some of it by ourselves. This turned out fine as well.

Actually, we had a lot of little problems with music, clips, and voice overs, but we managed to pull together and really do a good job. I'm proud of it.


After the trailers, we were assigned a quick independent video assignment called Capture the Fall. We had to edit together at least 10 clips and use transitions and music to create a film about what the fall means to us. I decided to  make mine have a story. I was just going to film my sister raking a bunch of leaves and then jumping into them, but then she started to dance around, and I decided to use that in my project. She did really well, skipping and waltzing around, and I got it all on camera.

The movie was essentially about a little girl who goes outside and spends a really long time raking leaves, which is just as fun as actually jumping in them. 

The only problem was that we decided to film this at around 5 or 5:30, and after a little bit, the sun started to go down. At first, it was okay, but the last few shots are in complete darkness, except for one lone lamppost. But that was okay too, because the early nights are another of my favorite parts of fall (along with leaves, of course) and it also sort of made it seem that my sister had been raking leaves for a comically long time.

 I used my little point and shoot digital camera for this project, an iMovie to edit. At first, when I edited everything together, the time was about 2 minutes and 50 seconds. I edited it down to a minute, but when I added in the transitions, it messed up the lengths a little. Now, it's more or less a minute (plus title and credit slides).

The music that I used I got off of freesound.org. I think it makes the video more light and playful.

Overall, this was also a fun project. I would have changed my shooting time, but otherwise, it went well.


Barcode trailer

Capture the Fall

All Hallow's Evening

Last Wednesday, it was Halloween. You know, the holiday where small (and not as small) children dress up as frighteningly adorable things and threaten strangers for candy that they eat in small increments for the next five months.

But really? Why does this holiday even exist? And are Americans the only ones who actually go around in costumes and knock on peoples' doors?

I ask this because while me and my friends (yes, I have friends) were trick or treating, this woman from England took pictures and asked if she could post them on facebook to show her British friends what Americans do on Halloween. And it wasn't creepy at all. Just kidding, it was.


Halloween is thought to have originated either from Christians or from Celtics. Celtics celebrated a day from about October 31- November 1 that celebrated the end of summer and the beginning of the darker days called Samhain, which wast the first of four quarter days in their calendar. Samhain was also a time when spirits (both good and evil) from the Otherworld could come out and mingle with the people, so costumes were traditionally worn to ward off the evil spirits. There was a lot of door-to-door type things as well-- costumed folk would go around collecting food for the Samhain feast, little boys would knock on doors for fire fuel, stuff like that. Pumpkins may have been used to both represent and ward off spirits.

Following a Christian tradition, Halloween would be the celebration of the eve of All Saint's day, which is a day of a giant feast honoring all the saints, on November 1st. After that there's All Souls Day on November 2nd. It actually used to be on May 13, but they changed it to November in the year 609. Groups of mostly poor children would go souling, which is when they would knock on doors and collect soul cakes, which are cakes that people would bake for that purpose.

Because Halloween occurs towards the beginning of winter, many people think it has to with festivals and harvests, but these are also probable origins. 

Halloween is celebrated sort of differently around the world. Most places involve children dressing up or "guising" themselves in costumes. In Ireland, they have bonfires and fireworks. Because America trick-or-treats, a lot of other countries do as well. There are parties, bobbing for apples, cake, and pranks.

Apparently, the long-standing practice of knocking on someone's door and then answering it is an actual tradition in Ireland, originally called knock-a-dolly.

Austrians leave out bread, a lighted lamp, and water on their doorsteps to help welcome back dead souls.

Belgians light candles to honor the dead. 

Similarly in China, they put out pictures of their loved ones, light candles, and set bonfires in order to aide the dead's journey to the underworld and other such things.

France didn't celebrate Halloween until 1996, and only because it's an American holiday. 

In England, Halloween was mushed together with Guy Fawkes' night on November 5th, but now they have two separate days. They have a bunch of traditions on Halloween, including fun games and such, some of which can be seen in Agatha Christie's mystery, a Halloween Party. It's absolutely necessary that you watch it.

I'm just kidding, it's not, but Agatha Chrsitie (and, more importantly, Hercule Poirot) are fantastically amazing. Now that I'm reading about Hallowwen, this mystery makes slightly more sense. And Poirot is brilliant and Agatha Christie is brilliant and.......end rant. But really. It'll give you some background and baffle you with a bafling mystery.

On Guy Fawkes' day, the English celebrate the foiled attempt by Guy Fawkes and his cleverer accomplices to blow up Paliament by making bonfires on which they would burn him. This is probably my favorite holiday background story. Fun fact-- we get the word "guy" from Guy Fawkes because he was the fall Guy on whom everything got blamed when they discovered his plot. Kids also go around asking for money to buy more wood for the bonfire.

Bonus fact about ! I've never actually seen V for Vendetta, so this might be obvious, but the "Remember remember" rhyme from it is a children's rhyme about Guy Fawkes day. 

There are a lot more festivals that are celebrated on Halloween across the world, mostly to honor the harvest and the dead. From this (very extensive) research I have done, it makes more sense that we trick-or-treat, but I feel like we could have so many more interesting traditions that have to do with dead spirits and harvest. Oh well. If you want to know more Halloween traditions, you can go to this website. Or just Wikipedia it.


That's all. Since people in England seem to celebrate Halloween more or less the same as we do, I don't understand why that woman needed pictures I guess we'll never know. Now that I think about it, it probably wasn't a fantastic decision to let her photograph us, but I think my friend sort of knew her? So we'll be ok. I hope. Remember kids, don't talk to strangers unless it's a day where we celebrate ghosts! Stranger danger! Happy late Halloween and almost Guy Fawkes day to everyone.

Do Your Research

I was reading the newspaper (as I do every day, of course) and I happened across an article about sociopaths-- I think it was in the Kids Post (because I'm just that sophisticated), and it sparked my interest.

Pretty much the only thing I know about sociopaths is that Sherlock Holmes is not a psychopath, he's a high-functioning sociopath. Do your research. And that psychopaths get bored.

Hahahahaa, oh, me. I'm hilarious.

I've only heard psychopaths mentioned in a criminal context, like the guys that go and shoot schools full of children. I'm mostly sure that psychopathy is a psychological condition instead of an insulting label hurled at criminals, but other than that, nothing. So, I thought I'd learn more, and thus this blog post was born.

So what are sociopaths? And psychopaths? And what's the difference?

Interestingly enough, when I searched "sociopaths" on Wikipedia, it redirected me to psychopaths, suggesting that they're the same or similar. Psychopathy is a personality disorder marked by several factors, including lack of empathy, lack of emotions like fear or guilt, egocentricity, manipulativeness, impulsivity, other antisocial behaviors such as substance abuse and rowdy and inconsiderate behavior, and a parasitic lifestyle.  Basically, psychopaths can't recognize other people's emotions very well or feel many emotions themselves without specifically learning to.

There is a psychopath checklist called the PCL-R, which was developed by psychologist Robert D. Hare. It assesses subjects based on two factors: Factor 1, Aggressive Narcissism, which includes things like superficial charm and the inability to accept responsibility for one's actions, and factor 2, a socially deviant lifestyle, like a need for stimulation and proneness to boredom. There a few others that don't fit into either category, like promiscuous sexual behavior and relying on sociological strategies to pervcieve and feign emotions, usually to manipulate people. Factor 1 is more useful in identifying psychopathy in women, while factor 2 is more useful for men. Experts recognize that this test is not perfect, but it can be useful in determining psychopathy.

There's also a test called the Psychopathic Personality Inventory, or PPI. This is different because it tests personality traits, instead of referring outright to antisocial behaviors themselves. There are 154 factors organized into 8 groups, which are then grouped into two groups, fearless dominance (social skills)  and impulsive anisociality not adapting to one's environment), plus one leftover factor which is important in itself, coldheartedness.

Psycopathy is not listed as a condition in itself according to the DSM, a system for testing mental disorders, but it is very similare to ASPD, which is anti-social personality disorder. Many experts argue whether or not psychopathy should even be classified as a separate condition.

Now onto sociopathy. I tried Wikipediaing it again, and this time, Wikipedia said that it is loosely defined and usually refers to psychopathy or ASPD.  When I went to the ASPD page, it explained that ASPD was different from sociopathy and psychopathy- and then explained the difference between the two.

The difference between psychopathy and sociopathy, according to Wikipedia, then, is based on what one believes to be the origin of such behavior- sociopathy is usually used by sociologists who believe that the cause is based on social factors, while psychopathy is used with people who believe it to be social or environmental.

Which is interesting when taken back into the context of BBC's Sherlock. If Sherlock considers himself to be a sociopath, then that implies that he thinks his family (namely, Mycroft) and perhaps his school life are what made him who he is. Cool.

But enough over-analyzing British television. My thought train isn't done yet.

It struck me that psychopathy sounded really similar to extreme autism. Autism is a wide spectrum of developmental disorders that usually include impaired social skills, which is a part of psychopathy.  In A Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon, the main character has severe autism, and he has to learn how to discern emotions with facial cue flash cards. This is also a psychopathic behavior. Also, Autism is thought to be somewhat genetic, similarly to psychopathy.

There are a lot of differences, though, as well. Autism is not limited to social efficacy, and neither is psychopathy. Autism also has to do with different parts of social efficacy, like looking people in the eye and symbolic play.

 I think it's important to understand personality disorders and why we do things because we have to deal with people all day, every day. Humans are social animals, and by understanding them we can make our lives more fulfilling.



Sources I used:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autism_spectrum
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychopathy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisocial_personality_disorder#Psychopathy_and_sociopathy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hare_Psychopathy_Checklist

PBS, Evolution, and people

I don't think Mitt Romney truly appreciates the wonderful genius that is PBS. I watch a lot of it. And last night, there was this really cool NOVA special about things that make us human, specifically DNA, laughter, language, and tool-making.

It was so cool.

First of all, it was hosted by David Pogue, who is both really smart and pretty funny, which is rarer than you might think.  Not that scientists aren't funny, but a lot of documentaries have elder, condescending narrators who tend to make me feel stupid for not knowing what they're talking about. They're also really hard to understand. But this was fun to watch because Pogue is very engaging. He's a columnist for the New York Times and he's hosted a few other science series.
 NOVA ScienceNow is usually hosted by Neil degrasse Tyson. You may not know who he is, but you should definitely Google him, because he is awesome, too. He's an astrophycisist, which means he studies planets and aliens, along with knowing pretty much everything. He also writes books.
Scientists are so cool.

The actual program was nice, too. It wasn't just about the hosts.

If you think about it, humans have come so far. Not only have we built vast cities and created a profusion of life-helping technologies, but we've also improved genetics-wise. We have opposable thumbs, no tails, voice boxes, enough mental processing skills to modify our environments and use our surrounding, and cooperation skills that are essential to our survival.

Like laughter. One scientist took recordings of the sounds that different human-related monkey species make when they are being tickled, and they found that as their DNA became more and more similar to humans', their laughter became higher pitched and more vocalized. Our super-vocalized laughter has developed, it seems, primarily to manipulate each other. It helps us form emotional bonds with each other so we can work together to hunt and stuff. It's really interesting, because so many things we do and think are hardwired into our brains for an evolutionary advantage. Standards of beauty, for example. Most societies throughout history have prized healthy or younger looking women above others. Younger and healthier woman can live to have more babies. You know. Evolution.

Another really cool thing we do is language. Well, we don't do language so much as have the ability to form and understand complex sentences. Language, or at least more complex language, is remarkably rare in the animal kingdom, so scientists are trying to figure out where it comes from. They just found another australopithecus africanus (Lucy is a famous example) skull, along with a stone tool. Stone tools are also unique to the human species; so, since the astrolopithecus africanus is one of our ancestors, scientists tried to figure out how long we've been able to do these complex things. But that's not the best part. They used the stone tool to figure out whether or not astrolopithecus africanuses could talk by seeing if both skills use the same part of the brain.

It would never have occurred to me to do that.  The two ideas are so unrelated, but scientists connected them and tested them. And it turned out to be true! Tool making and language use the same part of the brain! It makes sense, if you think about it. Grammar is kind of like building things. Sort of.

Wow. Science is so cool. And scientists are really smart. that sounds sort of air headed, but I admire their perseverance and  passion for their work. If you watch them talk, they're really enthusiastic about everything they say. Not everyone is lucky enough to really love what they do. I just think it's great that not only do we have these really smart, incredibly talented people, but we also have jobs for them where they can learn more things. I want to be able to study what I love, and these people inspired me to try to do that.

Plus, evolution is really interesting. It explains how people have acted been for millions of years and how they came to where they are today. Just like George Orwell discussed in 1984, it is essential that we know our past to evaluate our present. For me, it's very important to know how people work because people are everywhere and they influence everything, If we understand each other, maybe we can finally manage to understand ourselves.

Barcode

Is the name of my group's dystopian trailer!!!!

Yeah, I know, we're really cool. And by we, I mean Samantha, Martha, Milena and I. On a completely unrelated note, I learned how to link text! Pretty cool, huh? I think it adds infinite meaning to this post.

What? Oh, right, the assignment!

Our dystopian trailer is called Barcode, and it's about a society where people have to wear paper bags over their heads and use pre-written cards to communicate so that they can all be equal and they can't express themselves. They also wear earpieces so that they can't hear anything except their leader's voice. Their names are barcodes, which further limits any inkling of individuality. Hence the title. Yup.  I can hear you thinking, "Of course, Sarah. You are brilliant!" Yeah, that's right. I can hear your thoughts. Be afraid. Be very afraid.

Sorry, everyone, I'm feeling exceptionally schizophrenic today. I should know better, especially now that actual people are reading these blogs. So hello to all my new and adoring fans! Congratulations for finding this blog!  I'm sure reading it was a constructive use of your time.

But again, I digress.

I'm in charge of scriptwrting, which is going okay. We're using dramatic text slides and actual scenes from the movie to tell the story, so no voiceover. We have the concept and the characters down, but our main problem is the plot. We know we want the main character to somehow try to overthrow the government and take a stand, but what we have so far is sort of similar to a lot dystopian movies and pretty generic.

So far, we have seventeen scenes. The scenes at the beginning are pretty short and layered on top of eachother, but as the action gets more intense, the scenes are longer and more complete. It starts out more or less a montage of the premise of our society, and then shows longer scenes of the catylist and main rising events. Towards the end, the story switches between the protagonist trying to infiltrate the leader's office and her trying to take over the broadcasting system so she can contact the general public. The final scene shows her taking off her mask in between shots of the crowd, of the leader, of her enjoying being individual, etc.

The script is still subject to change, if we hit a problem during production or if it's not clear, but this is what we have now. I'm really excited about production, because I'm going to be the main protagonist and it'll be fun to act that out. My only fear is that we won't have enough time to finish shooting, but I think we'll pull through. This is CAP, after all.

5x5 Project

Making Pizza

1. Washing hands
2. Shaping the dough
3. Spreading sauce
4. Putting on the cheese
5. Putting the pizza in the oven

 Fun fact: The pizza that we made actually fell off the thing in the oven that it's supposed to cook on and burned. Then, we tried to make another one, but that one wasn't cooking fast enough, so we put it in the microwave and burned that, too. And so I spent my Friday night cleaning up burnt pizza from the oven and making pasta. I know, I know. I'm awesome.

But I digress. 

This project was pretty easy for me. I used my (admittedly very cheap) point and shoot digital camera to film and iMovie to edit. Once I decided what to make this project about, it was simple to film and edit.

I think this turned out okay- the only problem is that my washing machine is on in the background, and at least, to me, it's kind of annoying. And, of course, we couldn't use a clip of the pizza being eaten because of reasons explained above, but I had the clip of washing hands, so there were enough scenes. As far as the actual action and things, I'm pretty pleased with it.

For the next independent video challenge

• We could have to film a few shots of motion so that it is all one movement, for example, a car drives through the frame from left to right and then the next shot is of a person running as though picking up from where the car left off, and then maybe a ball rolling across the frame, and so one. I'm pretty sure that didn't make much sense, but I don't really have a better way to explain it. A thousand apologies. 
• We could do a short stop-motion video!

 

The Matrix

Trailer


The Matrix. Andy Wachowski and Lana Wachowski . R. 1999

Thomas "Neo" Anderson (Keanu Reeves) discovers that what he thinks is the world is actually a virtual simulation called the Matrix designed to enslave humans. He must discover what the Matrix truly is and free the world from it once and for all.




The trailer for the movie The Matrix is exemplary because it develops the dystopian premise of the movie through artfully arranged clips, well-chosen words, and music. The director uses different speeds to illustrate the intensity and contrast of different clips. For example, when showing how unreal the world of the Matrix is, there are several short clips featuring the impossible feats that one can accomplish in the Matrix. These clips gradually increase in speed until they are incomprehensible, creating a very dramatic build up effect. This effect is repeated just before Neo breaks free from the Matrix, which also helps add to the intensity of the story. In contrast, at the end of the trailer, there is a clip of Neo dodging bullets by manipulating the Matrix that goes very slowly. The speed captures the audience's attention to this clearly illogical thing and draws them in. These elements are important to the premise of the story, because The Matrix's plot is based on the fact that what Neo perceives as the real world is not real. Another element that helps this is the director's choice of lines from the movie. The only words in the trailer are a few lines from different scenes in the movie that perfectly capture the essence of Neo's society. For example, Morpheus' line, "the Matrix is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth". This shows that the world Neo lives in is not the truth without going into too much detail, which keeps the trailer understandable and straightforward. Another line is one of the evil Agents', "Human beings are a disease. They are a cancer of this planet. And we are the cure." This demonstrates that their are the antagonists, and they reinforce the dystopian society of the Matrix. Lastly, the music and sound add to the clearness of the trailer. The music starts out relatively simple, and is mostly in the background. As the trailer gets more intense, the music builds and becomes more dramatic. It also punctuates important lines with rhythm and pauses. In our dystopian trailer, I would like to use different lines from the movie instead of a voice-over to convey the premise of the dystopia, as I think this makes the trailer more enticing. I also would like to use the music as this director does to create a build-up effect and punctuate important lines and actions.

Self-directed learning

Hey y'all!Yes, I said y'all. And you can't do a thing about it. 

The article I read for this assignment was called "Preparing Students to Learn Without Us," by Will Richardson. It described self-directed learning and how it can work its way into the classrooms. What it came down to was this; self-directed learning is the student finding their own way to meet the school's set goals, where they can learn about what they want and learn it the way they want to learn it, and teachers can play a big role in bringing this about and guiding the students through the process.  One quote that stuck out at me from the article was this:"The ability to learn what we want, when we want, with whomever we want as long as we have access creates a huge push against a system of education steeped in time-and-place learning." Self-directed learning will be difficult to institute in most schools because it is so out-of-the-box and unorthodox; however, sometimes, breaking tradition is necessary for important change. Overall, I think self-directed learning, like socialism and bacon chocolate, is a fantastic idea in theory, but it will be extremely difficult to make it work in reality. Students may take advantage of the lax structure and do absolutely nothing, and some children may not get where they need to be in the appointed guidelines; however, I think the principals of self-directed learning are important, since each child has his or her own learning styles. Structure is important, but too much structure can make things oppressive and boring. In our class, I think that sticking to the curriculum with one or two self-directed learning projects on the side is a good compromise, and one that could be effective for this year.One of the problems that I have with self-directed learning is that it would and will be very difficult for me to choose a topic, but I think I might be interested in the actual editing of video, since I know very little about htat. I would also be interested in the history and evolution of film-making. 

Diigo annotated page link: http://diigo.com/0sy20

(This post's formatting might be a little strange, but I can't figure out how to fix it. I apologize wholeheartedly)

Hello again!

Welcome to post numero deux of this utterly delightful CAP blog.

I read the movie review 'Beasts': Taking Southern Folklore To The Next Level  by David Edelstein on the NPR website.  It was about Benh Zeitlin's Beasts of the Southern Wild. This review starts off with a basic description of the overall movie, and then a more detailed synopsis of the plot. Throughout the summary, which discusses the literary aspects of the film, Edelstein alludes to the other aspects of film. For example, he mentions the "catch-as-catch-can" style of the hand-held camera while describing the chaotic personality of Hushpuppy's, the main character's, father. By far, however, he covers the literary aspects of the film much more than the other two.

After Edelstein gets the descriptions of the movie over with, he criticizes the  almost amateurish style of the shots as well as the insistent underscoring music, but evens it out by praising the powerful performance of Quvezhane Wallis as Hushpuppy.

The review ends with a description of one of the more powerful scenes of the movie and ties it to the theme.

I think we should use this basic model for our class reviews, with an introduction, summary, the author's opinion, and conclusion; however, I feel it is very important for us to have some freedom as well. A basic, flexible outline would most likely be best for this assignment.

The link to the article with annotations: http://diigo.com/0su9d

Salutations. I'm Sarah. This is my CAP blog.

It doesn't get much more exciting or interesting than this.

Here are things about me: I'm a sophomore at Blair.I like the color green. And purple. I like to read books, especially Agatha Christie's Poirot and other murder mysteries. I like dinosaurs. I hate people. I act. I'm not good at talking about myself.  The end.

The main aspect of filmmaking that I'm interested in is the scriptwriting and acting part. Mostly the acting part. I enjoy acting. The other parts are sort of confusing to me.

My only experience with media is the Photography class we took last year. It wasn't my favorite  class, but it had its fun moments. One of my favorite projects we did last year was the infoflow show open we did last year, which was fun because we could pretty much do anything. Me and my partner created a script about a spy whose mission was to find all the letters of the word "Infoflow", and used the Mission Impossible theme song to make it dramatic. I was the spy who had to find all the letters. It was fun to shoot and pretty easy to edit.

Another project I enjoyed was the live news project. Basically, we wrote and shot an entire live news show. I learned a lot about live TV and operating all the complicated equipment. My favorite part about that project (besides being a news anchor) was operating the switchboard, because I got to press a lot of buttons, which, if you ask any three-year-old child, is awesome.

We can use these blogs to:

• Help our change project by announcing upcoming events related to what we're doing
•  Help teachers assess how well we're learning through our reflections on projects we do

This is a picture of a movie slate. I chose it because I like acting, and I think it can also represent the return to high school- sort of like, "Year 2, take 1. action!"