CAP Weekly Reflection 3

Hello again!

I'm going to get straight to the point. Our film is progressing fairly well. We have all of the music loaded into iMovie and our rough cut finished, as well as all the footage we need. The only problem is that it's about 45 seconds too long, so we definitely need to cut it down. We haven't had any notable challenges, or any out-of-the-ordinary successes. I think that we're getting work done, but there's still a lot to do.

This week, I went in after school and finished the rough cut. I also helped to adjust the music that we already have in the movie and helped add the appropriate effects.

For this upcoming week, we need to finish fine-tuning everything and add in the voiceovers. I think we definitely will be able to get that done and I hope to get an A (or B) so that we can show it at CAP Hollywood, which I'm pretty excited about.

And just to entertain you a bit, here's the song that inspired our film and which we're using in it.

CAP Hollywood Weekly Reflection-- The Hole

Hello all!

For my group's CAP Hollywood project, we're making a short film about a guy trapped in a metaphorical hole. It's not really a hole, it's more like Groundhog Day or something, where the guy has to get up in the same way, eat the same things, and do the same routine over and over and on and on for infinity. He keeps trying to escape, but with no luck. He starts seeing monsters and creepy things, and he gets chased through the woods, only to come to a cliff. It ends when he realizes that the only way for him to leave the hole is to kill himself by jumping off of the cliff. Or something to that effect.

I think our film is going really well. We've had a few challenges because we had to change the location from a house to a tent in the woods, so we're having to rethink a lot of minor details, but we've managed to work everything out. We're almost done filming, with just a few more scenes to shoot.

This week, we filmed the majority of our project and got a lot of editing done. Specifcally, we created a roughcut and then fine-tuned the opening sequence, found music and sound effects, and done a few voice overs from the beginning.

The next step of our filming process will be to shoot the nighttime scenes and the scenes that we're changing a little bit, as well as our last scene. Then we'll need to start editing them.


I'm pleased with our efforts so far and I think that we have an optimistic-looking future for our project. I can't wait to see all the finished films. I'm really excited.

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On a side note, to all, say, five people who read my blog regularly, I'm going to do a more interesting post next weekend, most likely. I've been really busy with makeup work because I'm sick and shows and things, but all of that is slowing down. So yeah! In the mean time, enjoy this academic tidbit and I'll see you (metaphorically, like the hole), next week!

It is the little grey cells, mon ami, on which one must rely.

In case you've never had a conversation with me about books before, or you're a bit stupid, or you live under a rock, or you've never met me, or for actually rather a large number of reasons, you might not be aware of my slight preference for any book by Agatha Christie. And, by slight preference, I actually mean total obsession.

I was sitting around one night, watching PBS (because we literally get one channel on my television), and suddenly a show called "Agatha Christie's Poirot" comes on. And I start to watch it, and I'm like, "Oh cool, this guy looks pretty interesting."

But I didn't get to watch the whole thing. This process repeated a couple of times, and finally one day I decided that I should read one of these mysterious Agatha Christie books. So I went to the library and I checked out the ABC Murders. And pretty soon I started to barf rainbows.

In case you don't know, (and also, ****SPOILER ALERT!*** Special thanks to River Song) the ABC Murders is about a serial killer who sends a detecteive, M. Hercule Poirot, a letter giving the exact day on which someone will be murdered. He then proceeds to kill an old woman whose first and last names begin with A and who lives in a town starting with A, leaving behind an ABC Train guide as a clue. This happens four more times, with a BB name in a B town and a CC name in a C Town, etc. The whole time, you think it's this guy whose initials are ABC, who is just a bit crazy, but actually it's the C victim's brother for a totally normal reason.

The reason I fell in love with this series is mostly because of the detective, Poirot. Hercule Poirot is about sixtyish, so pretty old, and very Belgian. He worked for the Belgian police force for a while, becoming something of a legend, before he retired. (HE actually does this quite a lot). Now, Poirot basically solves crimes as a private detective, working sometimes alongside the police and Inspector James Japp, sometimes alongside his best friend Captain Hastings, who has a thing for redheads and is a bit dull but has a wild imagination that can often be vital to solvingt he mystery, and sometimes alongside his slightly crazy author friend Ariadne Oliver, who rights detective novels about a Finnish detective named Sven Hjerson. She also likes apples.

Poirot isn't just cool because of his tendnecy to speak french or his fantastic moustaches, but because of the "little grey cells" of his brain and his belief in truth and justice. Poirot will go about, find out evidence (although not like the bloodhound who sniffs out clues), then sit back and study the psychology of the case. He will literally solve the case while sitting at his (square) home in his chair or building a card house. He also values the trth of the case more than anything else, and if people try to call him off or push him away, he'll still stay on the case just so that he will discover the truth.


Sometimes, like the the Murder on the Orient Express (again, SPOILERS) he'll take it upon himself to protect the justice and fairness of a case. In the Orient Express, 12 people each stab a man who kidnapped and killed a little girl, Daisy Armstrong, because the death of the girl affected them all in one way or another. The man was put on trial, but he was acquitted and because of double jeopardy (he was American), the man would no longer be able to be punished for his crime. The idea is that the 12 people are like 12 jurors, and therefore have determined his guilt and are punishing him in a fair, just way. Once Poirot discovers the truth, he realizes that they were bringing justice where the law had failed, so he let them get away with it. Justice.

Poirot has flaws, too. He's actually a bit insufferable. He's super, super arrogant (although for a good reason), only likes squares, not circles, and can't abide disorder. He expects everyone to know who he is because "There is but one Hercule Poirot and I am he." He lies and pretends to be more foreign than he is to get people to admit things. He loves food, especially foreign food (ie not English) and has to have two perfectly symmetrical poached eggs every morning. and his moustaches are elaborate.

I love him so much.  Anyhow, that summer, I read all the Poirot mysteries that both the Takoma Park and Long Branch libraries had to offer, as well as a few on my kindle. All of them are exquisite. The characters are so well thought out, so brilliant, and the motives are real and simple but the mysteries are hard to solve and Agatha Christie is a genius. I now have a sort of Agatha Christie shrine in my room where I keep the thirteen books that I physically own, the drawing of David Suchet as Poirot that I drew, and a quote from one of his books, which I have written on the wall in chalk. I'm cool.

Now, because I'm almost done with all of the books about Poirot, I've decided to  start reading about another one of her detectives, Ms. Marple. Ms. Marple is a little old lady who lives in a small English town who is brilliant and helps the police a bit. I don't like her as much, but the books are SO GOOD, so I'll probably keep reading them.

Anyways.

The point of this sort-of-rant is that the other day, I saw this documentary about Agatha Christie. It was brilliant. It talked aboutAgatha Christie's life, and how she started writing, and why she did, and it was just the best thing ever.I can't find it online, but otherwise I would link to it.

 Agatha Christie, born Agatha Mary Clarissa Miller, was very close to her mother, Clara. She taught herself to read and was pretty shy. She traveled a lot after her dad died, because her mother lovr\ed to.

Agatha Christie had a love of detective fiction, and even tried to write a few herself, but they were never actually published in the magazines she sent them off to.

When Agatha started to grow up, she went to lots of dances to hang out with her friends, and, of course, meet guys. She met her future husband, Archie Christie, at one of these dances. He was a pilot, and he was handsome, but he was also very poor, so her family didn't really approve. They got engaged anyways.

During WWI, he had to go be in the army, so Agatha was left on her own. She decided to work as a nurse, helping people. She loved it. She also started to write a real detective novel, and sent it off to get published.  When her husband got back, they got married, and they had a little girl. Agatha didn't even think about her book until the publisher wrote back, saying that he had loved the book and he wanted to publish it. Agatha then continued to write mysteries that grew more and more famous.

She wrote throughout the rest of her life, but other things were happening. In the next World War, her husband left again and she worked in a chemist shop, where she learned all about the poisons she included in so many of her books. After that, she caught her husband cheating on her and they dvorced. She was so upset at this point that she disappeared for ten days, showing up ten days later in a hotel with no memory of how she got there.

As it turns out, what happened was that she tried to sacrifice herself to save the world from a giant wasp from another planet that was acting like a murderer in one of her stories and then was brought forward in time in the TARDIS and left at the hotel, with her mind erased. (Just kidding. Apparently, she was planning on either tracking down her husband or committing suicide, but no one knows for sure.

Agatha started traveling around the world, and she eventually met an archaeologist named Max Mallowan, who she fell in love with and got married to. She travelled a lot, and, now that her books were getting more famous, had to go appear in public and give talks and stuff. She hated it.

She eventually got very sick, and her daughter, as per Agatha's request, published her last book about Poirot, in which he is killed (I'm not reading it, ever) because she wanted to outlive her insufferable detective. She died shortly thereafter, at age 85.

 I really admire Agatha Christie for everything that she has done and everything that she was. I love how clever her books are, and how she really cares about justice and fairness and has very definitive moral standards. She is definitely one of my favorite people and one of my role models.

If you want to find out more about her, this website rocks socks.

Here are some pictures:

Hercule Poirot, portrayed by David Suchet, also one of my favorite people. He's very belgian, and very posh, and very, very clever.

Dame Agatha! I call her by her first name because we're best friends. Hey Agatha, you're cool. And look how pretty she is! Also she's the best person.

Miss Jane Marple, portrayed by Julia Mckinze, who is my personal favorite representation of her. She's sort of an adorable old woman.

It's Captain Hastings! Portrayed by Hugh Jackson. I see you, Hastings, thinking you're the bees' knees. Yeah, you and your overcoat and sweater are simply spiffing.

Ariadne Oliver. Eating an apple. In her exotic-bird-wallpapered kitchen. Because why the heck not? She's portrayed here by Zoe Wanamaker (aka Lady Eddison aka Madame Hooch aka Cassandra the last human aka also one of my favorite people).

Here's Agatha with her second husband! They look so cheerful.

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By the way, I rather like this profiling people sort of thing I've been doing, so I might do more of that, one for each of my favorite people. No promises, though.

Some Things. Intresting Things. (Passover Part two)

Alright! Now for the greatly anticipated (well.) part two to my explanation of Passover!

Sorry it's a bit late. What with all the fun things I'm doing this week (Netflix) and the mandatory existential crisis (which I have every break), I didn't really get around to it (I procrastinated and then was too lazy).

Anyways, apologies out of the way! Here are some interesting points about the Passover Story!





First, why did the Pharaoh let a little boy (who was pretty obviously a Jew) stay on in the palace? Wouldn't a little boy be sort of a threat to a moderately power-hungry king?

The story goes that when Moses was little (say, four-ish) he was offered two bowls. One was filled with jewels, and one with hot coals. Like many small children, he started to reach for the shiny jewels, but then God guided his hand away, so that the Pharaoh wouldn't kill him, and he grabbed one of the hot coals and popped it in his mouth. This is also, incidentally, why Moses has a stutter.

Next; Moses killed that one servant for beating a Jew. That's not really okay, at all. Two wrongs don't make a right. So he fled. It's just important to keep in mind that Moses is sort of a flawed human person. Sort of. That's how I interprert it, anyways.

Also; When God speaks to Moses out of the burning bush, and is like "Go tell Pharaoh to let my people go!" Moses isn't too keen.

First, because Moses has sort of killed a man and exiled himself. Second, he's getting old. (Well, not by  Methuselah's standards, but still.)Third, he's got a stutter, and he just doesn't really think himself a good public speaker. But still, God decides that he is, in fact, important, and sends him off to go stand up to Pharaoh for the good of the Jewish people. But no pressure. To help out, God sends out Moses' brother Aaron to help out.
I imagine it went down somewhat like 2:06 of this video.  Well, the whole thing, really, if you stretch it a bit.

  

 Sorry, but that did apply. Well, sort of. Anyways.

Then there's the whole Pharaoh's heart was hardened thing. That phrasing is a bit weird, don't you think? That Pharaoh's heart was hardened, instead of it hardened. It sort of implies that someone hardened it for him. Like an outside power, i.e. God. 

Some people think that God is the one that hardened Pharaoh's heart. If so, why would he do that? That's like playing both sides in a game of chess. Why would God inflict so much suffering on both sides, on Egypt with the plagues and the Jews with the continued inslavement? Probably because he wanted to emphasize his power. Maybe the Egyptians weren't scared of him enough, or maybe the Jews lost faith, but for some reason God had to reassert himself as all-powerful. 

The other explanation, maybe more likely, is that the Pharaoh, in Egyptian mythology, is considered an incarnation of a god. If the Pharaoh is a god, he doesn't want to acknowledge that there's another, more powerful god out there, so maybe he was just trying to maintain his image for the poeople of Egypt. 

Or, the third explanation, is that he was just a meanie-pants. Either way. 

Lastly, the parting of the red sea. A miracle. Probably. Or just a myth. But actually, it could really have happened, naturally. According to this article, it could have been a really powerful wind creating two walls of water. Which is still, you know, a miracle. 

Anyways, those are some interesting things to think about relating to Passover. I hope you like them.

Frogs here, frogs there, frogs were jumping everywhere! (Passover pt. 1)

Get excited! Passover is coming soon!

Ya know, that holiday where Jews eat horrible, dry, bland crackers instead of bread for seven days. It's an experience.

I'm just kidding. There's a lot more details, so I've decided that today I'm going to tell the story of Passover. Nutshelled. So very brief.

Next week (when Passover is actually soon), I'm going to explain some of the good old Midrash-y details and interpretations. But right here is the bare basics.

This is a pretty well known story, so stop me if you've heard it before. Oh, wait, that's right, you can't! Oh, the joys of the internet! Mwahahahahhaa.

Ahem.

So anyways, a really long time, ago, there was this Pharaoh of Egypt. Jews were slaves there for a bit, and this Pharoh was sort of afraid they would rebel. So he decreed that all male Jew babies would be killed.

So then one woman, as it happens, gave birth to a baby boy. His name was Moses. She didn't want him to die, though, funnily enough, so she got his older sister, Miriam, to put him in a basket and drop him in the Nile river to float around for a while. As luck would have it, baby Moses was found by the Pharaoh's daughter, who was taking a bath. She thought he was so cute, she wanted to keep him forever. So she took him back to the palace. Miriam, clever girl she is, appeared and suggested that the Pharaoh's daughter get a Hebrew nurse, and so Moses's mom got to raise baby Moses.

Cut to a few years later. Moses is in his late teens, early twenties, and he sees an egyptian beating up a Sewish slave. In a fit of rage, he kills the slave, then runs away into the mountians in guilt. There, he becomes a nice shepherd and marries a shepherdess, Zephorah.

One day, Moses is wandering around, doing his shepherd thing, when he sees a bush that burns, but is not consumed. Weird. The bush talks to him, making him take off his shoes and then declaring that he is God, the God of Jacob and Isaac and all of those patriarchs. God then tells Moses to go to the Pharaoh and demand that the Jewish people be freed. Moses is confused, mostly because he's a random humble shepherd with a stutter, but God is adamant. So he takes his brother Aaron and goes to the Pharaoh's place.

When Moses says to the Pharaoh, "Let my people go!" Pharaoh almost agrees, but then his heart is hardened (I will discuss this next week). Moses does a fancy trick turnig his staff into a snake, but even that doesn't work, so God brings a plague onto Egypt.

The first plague is turning all the water into blood. This is very, very unpleasant, as you can imagine, so Pharaoh tells Moses his people can go. But then he changes his mind (because he's sooo changeable (That was a Sherlock reference. Deal with it)) and makes them all come back. Then God rolls out the next plague, which is frogs. It looked something like this:

The same deal as before. Pharaoh almost lets the Israelites go, but then his heart is hardened and he changes his mind. This process is repeated several times, with seven more plagues; lice, flies (or wild animals), disease on livestock, boils, hail, lucusts and darkness. Each time, the Pharaoh lets them go, then changes his mind because his heart is hardened. Finally, God brings one last Plague on Egypt--death of the firstborn. When Pharaoh's firstborn baby dies, he finally relents and lets the Israelites go. They flee, not even having enough time to finish leavening their bread, and run for it. They make it all the way to the Red Sea when the Pharaoh changes his mind (again!) and sends him after the Jews.

Moses (and God) have a few more tricks up their sleeves, though, and he parts the Red Sea with his staff. The Jews escape and the army drowns.

That's more or less the story of passover. I'm sorry that that was so brief, but I promise that that is because I will go into way more detail next week. There are so many interesting and different interpretations and explanations and thoughts and feelings about everything, which are so interesting. So be excited.

"The good thing about science is that it's true whether or not you believe in it."

Neil DeGrasse Tyson is the best. He's an Astrophysicist with a wife and two kids and what is probably the best twitter feed on the whole internet, and an out-of this world of knowledge about space and the universe.

Yes, he is a real person who exists, all you naysayers. And he's actually quite famous. And really, really cool.

I've mentioned him before on this blog, because he used to host NOVA Science Now,  but I feel like I should dedicate an entire post to him because he's actually on my list of my favorite people.

So here we are.

Neil DeGrasse Tyson was born in Manhattan, the second of three children. He graduated from Harvard and earned a doctorate from Columbia, then went to work at the Hayden Planetarium. He eventually became the director, renovating and greatly improving the planetarium. He hosted NOVA Scince Now for five years, served as a presidential adviser, and also makes frequent appearances in the Daily Show with Jon Stewart and the Colbert Report. He's written a lot of books, like Death by Black Hole and Other Cosmic Quandarie and The Pluto Files: The Rise and Fall of America's Favorite Planet.

Neil deGrasse Tyson was the one to declare Pluto a dwarf planet instead of a regular planet (perhaps his only fault), but what he's most famous for is his ability to explain complicated science concepts in a way that's easy to understand.

He also has a lot of opinions about religion, spirituality, and God. He  was an eyewitness to the 9-11 attack. He has the awesomest ties that have space and planets on them.

The thing I admire the most about him is how passionate he is about Astrophysics, and how much he knows about it. I mean, he actually knows everything about space. If I don't become a Rabbi or Shakespearean actress or author or journalist or archaeologist or teacher, I definitely want to be him when I grow up.


Here's him, talking, being awesome, like he always is.

Neil deGrasse Tyson is my favorite.

EVERYTHING.

Today I want to talk about God.

Yep. G-d. Adonai. Allah. The big guy. You know.

The reason this came into my head was because I was helping out in my mom's class at my Sunday school, and one of them asked something, like, "How do we even know that the Torah is real?" and the my mom and the other adult helping her didn't really know how to explain it, and then I realized that most people in my tiny little Synagogue community don't actually believe in God so much, and then I started thinking about that, and it all sort of spiraled into this existential crisis of questions and religion and AUUUUGGHHHGHGHHG and EVERYTHING.

So I thought that I'd share it with you all.

First of all, let me be clear; I don't actually care whether or not you believe in God. I think it's absolutely fantastic that people are willing to question the status quot and make their own decisions about whether or not they believe in God and that it's completely accepted.

I do care when people who believe vehemently in their religion try to make other people believe vehemently in their religion. No one should tell anyone else what to think or how to think it, and I feel like that especially applies to religion.

But, as my dad said (because I talk to my parents, okay??), if your religion says that everyone must think something or else they'll be punished for all eternity, wouldn't you be doing other people a favor by trying to convert them to your religion?

So if you're a kindly old person who goes door-to-door to distribute pamphlets, that's probably okay. If you're the Westboro Baptist Church and you're picketing dead soldiers funerals, that's technically okay as well. With free speech and all that. (Hi, Ms. Cullen!)

So where does one draw the line? How much freedom can people when practicing their religions?

It's like all of Locke, Rousseau, and Montesquieu, (Hi, Mr. Freeman!) in that you have the freedom to do whatever you want as long as it doesn't infringe on other people's rights to do what they want. That seems pretty reasonable, I guess.

But should there be universal rights and wrongs? Like, being nice to someone should always be good, and kiling someone should always be bad. But then if you think about it, there could even be qualifiers for that. 

Also, believing in God or a particular religion or something gives you a set of beliefs to fall back upon. And that's really important, at least for me. I think that everyone has, or at least should have, something that they believe in that trumps everything else. This value system can keep them going when they feel particularly hopeless or cause hthem to stand up for something they believe in.

I think, too, that the reason why people disagree is not really because one person is right and one is wrong, but because they have different core values. It would be impossible for them to agree, so I think the sooner we understand this, accept this, and move past it, the sooner the world might be a better place.

Having decided that, and also having realized that there is no real answer to any of these questions, I had some tea and watched Doc Martin for the rest of the day.


These are just some thoughts. You don't really need to agree or disagree with me. I'm just talking.

End rant.

If you're somewhat interested, you can also watch this vlog brothers viseo. Because they're awesome, and it applies. So yeah.

"The sky is falling! The sky is falling!"

one might say. Although, one would be wrong.

Haha, get it? The sky is falling? Chicken Little? The asteroid landing in Russia? Eh? Eh?

I'm sick. It's not my best, I'll admit. 

Anyways, I though I'd discuss the event that occurred in Russia last Friday. Because it's space, and current, and all sorts of fun things.

So.

In brief, here's what happened:

On last Friday morning, a relatively "small" meteor crashed on the earth (55 feet in diameter, weighing about 10,000 tons), near Chelyabinsk, Russia. The crash released the energy of more than 30 atomic bombs. The shock waves caused by it shattered glass windows and injured over 1,000 people.

Small fragments of the meteor have been found scattered around the site, ranging from very, very small, to just sort-of-small. This particular meteor came from the asteroid belt, and not from the moon or Mars, like many do. For those of you who don't know, the asteroid belt is pretty much a ring of floating space rocks in between Mars and Jupiter. They can be dislodged by comets, gravity, any number of things.

When these asteroids do approach Earth, they fly into our atmosphere. Most of them, if they're small enough, burn up there, and don't really cause a big splash, so to speak. You may have seen this during a meteor shower; however, sometimes they don't burn up entirely, and then bits land on the Earth. That's what happened on Friday.

Fun fact: according to the Wall Street Journal, "A meteor is what is seen burning up flying through the atmosphere. A meteorite is what survives the plunge and lands on the earth's surface."

 The event was filmed completely by accident by several drivers from little cameras mounted on their dashboards. Apparently, that's a thing in Russia, so that if someone assaults their car, they have proof for corrupt police or people trying to make faulty insurance claims. There's a segment on the Daily Show. You should watch it.

The terrifying thing, for me, at least, is not that this asteroid crashed as it did, but that NASA had no idea. Apparently, they're stepping up asteroid detection, but why haven't they yet? In my humble (cough not really cough) opinion, I feel like defending the Earth should be one of their top priorities.(Although, when you think of the Earth, you should remember that IT. IS. DEFENDED. I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry (I'm not.)). Besides, you know, discovering new things out there, in space...

I think that everything in the universe is important. Not just because I watch too much doctor who, but mostly because I knowing what's out there, be it helpful aliens or mortally destructive space rocks, is so, so interesting and important. There could be, and I think there is, an entire universe full of wonderfully diverse life and planets and everything. The universe is infinity.

Your whole life is a lie.

Well. Most of it. Well, some of it. Well, a very, very, small, somewhat unimportant part of it. But nevermind that.

Let's talk about Apatosaureses. Apatosauri? Apatosaurs? Whatever the plural form may be, today I'm going to tell you about the species of dinosaur known as Apatosaurus. Okay.

Apatosaurus was discovered in 1877 by paleontologist Othniel C. Marsh.  In a nutshell, Apatosaurs are a type of plant-eating sauropod, those dinosaurs with the really long necks, from 154 million to 150 million years ago, or during the the Jurassic period. They lived hereish, in the woodlands of North America. They're really, really big, some of the biggest dinosaurs, about 75-85 feet long and 18 tons. It had to keep its head parallel to the ground most of the time because it's neck is too long and heavy and it would be hard to maintain its blood pressure.

I've always felt bad for apatosaurs. They're the saddest dinosaur, in my opinion. Not because they're wimpy or they died out quickly or anything like that, but because there's been so much confusion as to their identity.

Their name, Apatosaur, comes from greek words (like most dinosaur names) "apate/apatelos," which means "deceptive," and "sauro," meaning "lizard." Even from the beginning, apatosaurs (I guess that's what I'm calling them now. Bear with me) were mistaken for a different type of dinosaur-- Mosasaurus, which is an aquatic reptile.

Shortly after Marsh discovered an incomplete set of fossil remains and named them Apatosaurus, he discovered another set of remains, this one more complete, and named it Brontosaurus. Have you heard of them? Good. Now erase them from your mind. You've been lied too. We've all been lied to.

As it turns out, Marsh did not, in fact, discover a new dinosaur. What he discovered were a mostly complete set of apatosaurus bones and one camarasaurus skull. It took until the 1970s to figure this out, which is uncomfortably close to a whole century before the apatosaur was recognized for what it was. They are sad. See?

The reason that this mistake was made is because of something called the Bone Wars (also known as the Great Dinosaur Rush). Much like when everyone was rushing to discover new elements for the periodic table during the mid-late twentieth century (Hi, Ms. O'Donovan!), two of the world's greatest fossil finders, Marsh and another paleontologist named Edward Drinker Cope, were rushing to discover more dinosaurs, first. And also like the periodic table of the elements discovery war, the competitive nature of the scientist often led to rushed decisions, mistaking already found dinosaurs (and/or elements) for new dinosaurs (and/or elements), and, in one case, putting the skull of one dinosaur on the tail instead of on the neck. Yup. That happened to Cope, which sort of makes Marsh's little accident a bit ironic.

So it's sort of understandable why Marsh made the mistake that he did, but not that excusable. Can you imagine if, millions of years in the future, scientist shoved the skull of shark on a human skeleton and called it a completely new sort of being that lived on the earth, terrorixing the humans and keeping them as slaves?

Actually, that would be really cool. But the point still stands.

I feel like we sort of owe apatosaurs an apology, even if they are a species of lizard that has been extinct for millions of years. So, on behalf of the human race, apatosaurs, I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry.

The reason that I know any of this (besides extensive Wikipedia research) is because of a band/group of storytellers called DinoRock. We had an actual tape thing of a bunch of songs about dinosaurs, one of them being about Alan Apatosaurus and his woeful history. I was going to find a video of this and share it with you, since it is vital to understanding this whole debacle (it's not, really), but unfortunately it can be found nowhere. I did find another one about a particular dinosaur named Harry, a parasaurolophus, though, so all is not lost. Here it is, and remember that this is my childhood.

I hope you enjoyed this small rant about dinosaurs. In the words of dinorock, "dinosaurs, dinosaurs forevermore!"

Some sources I looked at:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apatosaurus

http://www.livescience.com/25093-apatosaurus.html

http://www.wisegeek.com/was-the-brontosaurus-a-real-dinosaur.htm

http://dinosaurs.about.com/od/dinosaurdiscovery/a/bonewars.htm

Oh, the excitement!

In media this week, we had to make a 90-second video about life in Takoma Park or Silver Spring. I don't really do any interesting activities or go any intersting places, so I just decided to have a quick montage of all the great Takoma Park-y things, like rooster and the Co-op. Then, I decided it was too boring, so I added some music that I think perfectly captures the mood. I hope you enjoy it.

 

I filmed it on my sister's digital camera, my own digital camera, and my dad's flip camera.

They're gonna be the last ones standing

If you had to guess one thing that could outlive any other being in pretty much any environmental condition ever, what would you say?

Not cockroaches. Not those cool, super poisonous cone snails, either. Not humans, certaintly.

Then what? Well, I'm glad you asked. If you didn't ask, I'm very sorry, but I quite frankly couldn't care less. Sorry.

The answer to your question, whether you asked it or not, is a tardigrade! You know, large blue box, bigger-on-the-inside, can travel through all of time and space....

I'm just kidding, of course. A tardigrade is actually a very, very small water animal, only 1.5 millimeters long at the most, that has eight legs, a plump, segmented body, and tiny little claw-type things. They're more amoebic than actually animal-like because they're so small and misshappen. They look like this:

 

They have a very slow, lumbering walk, like a polar bear, which is why they're sometimes called water bears. They eat plant and animal material. They're found throughout the world, mostly in moist places, and were first discovered in 1773. But the thing that makes them the most absolutely fantastic is that they can survive in all sorts of extremely treacherous conditions. 

Tardigrades are able to survive temperatures of around 300 degrees Fahrenheit to about one degree above absolute zero. They can live in very, very low pressure, like in a vaccum, or in very, very high pressures, 1200 times the atmospheric pressure. They can live for up to ten years, usually, in dry moss without water. Tardigrades can also withstand huge amounts of radiation that would be fatal to humans. 

They do this by going into a sort of hibernating state in which they slow and almost stop their metabolism and appear almost dead--sort of like when Juliet takes that sleeping draught in Romeo and Juliet. When they're in this state, they can survive almost anything. 

As you can probably imagine, scientists are fascinated by tardigrades. If they can survive end-of-the-world catastrophic conditions, then perhaps we can figure out a away to adapt their power into something we can use. 

For this reason, scientists launched some tardigrades into space in what is called the TARDIS, or TARDigrades In Space project. If the tardigrades can survive in space, that could tell scientists so much about survival and DNA and reproduction and cool science stuff. It's so exciting! Are you excited? I'm excited! 

Tardigrades are one of those little, awesome things about the world that sort of makes you want to know more about it. I mean, if virtually indestructible, teeny tiny little things can exist here, on Earth, in the world where we are every single day, what totally awesome cool things exist in other places, on other planets, even? It gives one furiously to think, does it not?

If you want to learn more about tardigrades, you can look at this video, which says some of the things I just said, but also some more things. I hope you're as interested in these little things as I am.

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.