Huwebes, Marso 20, 2014
Group Project: About the Clock
UP Diliman, STS THX 2013-2014
STS5ever
Music by Phoenix - 1901
Time has always been a perennial concept in society, seeing as it is always linked to anything we do, may it be going to class, meeting other people, or as simple as waking up. Having this realization, for our final project for STS, we decided to tackle the concept of time. Our short video shows the evolution of time telling devices, and how one man decided to "unsubscribe" to time. We hope you enjoy this video.
Sources:
A Brief History of Time Measurement. n.d.. : nrich.maths.org. http://nrich.maths.org/6070. March 15, 2014.
Bellis, M. 2014, March 5. The Invention of Clocks - Time Standards and Atomic Clocks. About.com Inventors. http://inventors.about.com/library/weekly/aa080701a.htm March 15, 2014.
- Corona, Steven. 2012. Living Without Time. Stress. http://lifehacker.com/5943923/living-without-time . 16 March 2014.
- Ford, Paul. 2012. 10 Timeframes. Issue No.3. http://contentsmagazine.com/articles/10-timeframes/ . 16 March 2014.
Vice, Tom, 2007. Understanding Analog and Digital. Inside Technology 360. http://www.insidetechnology360.com/index.php/understanding-analog-and-digital-35456/. March 15, 2014.
Bulaevsky, Jacobo. 2008. The History of Clocks. Retrieved from http://web.archive.org/web/20081013135550/ Accessed March 15, 2014.
http://www.accuratesundials.com/site/591582/page/143772
Time Enough at Last
I am not familiar with the setting of the episode of Twilight Zone and what society was like at the time, but I found it quite strange that the main character, Henry Bemis, was being bullied by his own wife into stopping reading. I did not understand what the big deal was for her, and I felt sad for Henry. He seemed like such a mild-mannered man who was deprived of his passion: reading.
After the explosion, Henry was alone and was at a loss of what to do. He was so confused, he wasn't even sure if he wanted to live. I would have felt the same thing if I were him. Not knowing what to do and not having anything to do would probably drive anyone to think of suicide. When he stumbled upon the books, I felt his sense of relief. His joy was evident that he had all the books he wanted, and all the time he needed. But his happiness was shortlived as he broke his glasses, rendering all the time and all the books useless to him.
If I were to write the ending to this story, I would have wanted it to end right before his glasses broke. I think that his fate is much worse than death in the ending shown in the episode, it was just torture. I liked his character, and I see no reason or point for him to have a sad ending. However, that's coming from me, and personally I never like sad endings.
Lizabeth Ann Franco
200929329
After the explosion, Henry was alone and was at a loss of what to do. He was so confused, he wasn't even sure if he wanted to live. I would have felt the same thing if I were him. Not knowing what to do and not having anything to do would probably drive anyone to think of suicide. When he stumbled upon the books, I felt his sense of relief. His joy was evident that he had all the books he wanted, and all the time he needed. But his happiness was shortlived as he broke his glasses, rendering all the time and all the books useless to him.
If I were to write the ending to this story, I would have wanted it to end right before his glasses broke. I think that his fate is much worse than death in the ending shown in the episode, it was just torture. I liked his character, and I see no reason or point for him to have a sad ending. However, that's coming from me, and personally I never like sad endings.
Lizabeth Ann Franco
200929329
Blade Runner
The movie started with a paragraph providing the context of the movie. Set in 2019, the advanced world shown in the movie has replicants, rebots used for labor in off-world colonies. These replicants are confined to such work, and if they come back to earth, they will be “retired” by police officers Blade Runners. Deckard, played by Harrison Ford, is one of the Blade Runners in the movie, and is assigned to do one last job of finding the 4 replicants who remained on Earth. What I would like to do with this reaction paper is investigate how close we are to such technological breakthroughs shown in the film. Considering that the movie was set only 5 years from now, it would be safe to assume that whatever technology seen there must at least have a prototype by now. Let's start with the advertisements shown on the buildings.
The advertisements shown are like billboards with moving photos. This type of advertising is not uncommon anymore at this day and age, and thus the movie’s presentation of advertising is accurate. Also seen in the movie is the equipment used by Harrison Ford to enhance and analyse a photo. As seen in the film, it has a grid on the screen (which is not flat), and it pans from left to right using voice command and using coordinates on the grid. This seems backward for the technology that we already have today. For one, almost all screens now are flat, and the grid won’t be necessary now as touchscreen is very prevalent in today’s gadgets.
Next, the flying cars. As we may already know, these do not exist yet on Earth. However, the technology to create such already exists, but is not made commercially available due to safety reasons.
The next biggest technological breakthrough shown in the film is the existence of off-world colonies. This has been a topic of most sci-fi movies but it seems we are still too far out for this kind of reality.
Finally, we have the existence of the replicants themselves. Again, this is another sci-fi film favorite: the idea of creating a robot with artificial intelligence and human-like characteristics. This is something I’m not sure how close scientists have come to, but some suggest that it is still too complicated to do. To create an artificial mind, one must completely understand the inner workings of a natural one, and it seems that scientists have not been able to accomplish that yet.
To sum it up, I think Blade Runner has not accurately predicted the future (which is almost the present now). However, who knows, maybe this kind of future is possible, and it’s only a matter of when it would happen.
Futurama
I've never watched full episodes of Futurama, I've only seen commercials and flipped through it when it's on TV. I don't think I ever would have watched it if it weren't for STS because I always thought it was kind of shallow and I thought it was just set in the future and that there was no backstory to the main characters.
From seeing the first episode, I realized I was wrong to judge it immediately without even trying to watch it. The cartoon was set at the turn of the millenium and Fry, the main character, while delivering pizza from a prank call to a Cryogenics facility, accidentally froze himself for 1000 years (it is of course assumed that the viewer suspends disbelief and accepts that the cryogenics facility does last until 2999). The time lapse shown in the window was interesting to me because it showed what would be quite accurate for societies for the passage of a hundred decades. It showed societies rising and falling, new societies, and new technologies. It also showed that time travel was possible, but only forward, and it was not technically travelling, but just prolonging life enough to reach the year that one desires to "travel" to.
I think that Futurama is a fun cartoon to watch, much like The Simpsons, and I would not flip through it the next time it's on TV.
Lizabeth Ann Franco
200929329
From seeing the first episode, I realized I was wrong to judge it immediately without even trying to watch it. The cartoon was set at the turn of the millenium and Fry, the main character, while delivering pizza from a prank call to a Cryogenics facility, accidentally froze himself for 1000 years (it is of course assumed that the viewer suspends disbelief and accepts that the cryogenics facility does last until 2999). The time lapse shown in the window was interesting to me because it showed what would be quite accurate for societies for the passage of a hundred decades. It showed societies rising and falling, new societies, and new technologies. It also showed that time travel was possible, but only forward, and it was not technically travelling, but just prolonging life enough to reach the year that one desires to "travel" to.
I think that Futurama is a fun cartoon to watch, much like The Simpsons, and I would not flip through it the next time it's on TV.
Lizabeth Ann Franco
200929329
A Trip to the Moon
I must be honest, I do not have the attention span to watch silent
films. Much like podcasts, I tend to drift away in the middle, finding it hard
to come back when I realize it. Given the premise of the reaction paper, I did
my best to focus on the movie, put myself in the shoes of a person living at
the start of the 20th century, never having seen 3D movies, colored movies
even, or movies with dialog.
Each scene makes me wonder how much time and effort goes into completing
all the props and the backdrops. The face of the moon still amazes me, it's the
first time I've ever seen such kind of animation. The pain in the face of the
moon was so human-like! When the bullet spaceship then opened on the surface of
the moon, I was in awe because it looked like a tiny bullet that was just
focused really closely, and when the people came out, for a second I wondered
how they shrunk the people. The umbrella turning into a mushroom, and the moon
alien turning into dust is also something new to me. The movie was so entertaining
and it kept me hooked. I want to see more films like this in the future!
Lizabeth Ann Franco
2009329329
Rhetoric of Cancer
The idea of this podcast really caught my attention
when it was first mentioned in class. I have never been a fan of podcasts
because I find myself spacing out in the middle, only hearing things and not
listening.
When I heard about it, I was surprised that it was
even considered a topic of concern. I have never been in direct
"contact" with cancer, because fortunately I have not lost anyone
close to cancer, and only distant relatives have had it. Given my lack of
exposure, I’ve always thought that that was just the way it was spoken of, and
I’ve never really bothered to ask why.
Listening to the podcast piqued at my curiosity,
because the speaker did present a good point. It was unclear why a person would
want to wage a war against himself, after all, cancer was just part of one’s
body, but it was considered a whole being on its own.
I think that the language that people use to describe
cancer has been more for the benefit of the loved ones of the cancer patient.
Trying to understand what they experience, I think that they would want their
loved one who has cancer to fight, and to get through it. It would be a foreign
idea to them for someone to not dislike their cancer. I think if I were to have
a close family member diagnosed with cancer, I would want him/her to hate it
and the circumstance as much as I would, and I would also want him/her to want
it gone ASAP.
The problem however with this kind of thinking is
that it makes personifies cancer as a big villain with a mind of its own, when
it should be treated just like the rest of other chronic diseases, and that was
what the podcast was trying to say. Cancer should be put back into perspective
as a disease, and nothing more.
Overall, the podcast made me think about the way I
thought of cancer, and although the way I see it has somehow shrunk it to a
smaller size, I still would not wish to be in direct “contact” with it for as
long as I can avoid it.
Lizabeth Ann Franco
2009-29329
List of Reaction Papers For STS
1. Catching Fire
2. The Fly
3. Futurama
4. Mind Museum
5. All the Time
6. Science and Music
7. Rhetoric of Cancer
8. Travel to the Moon
9. Imelda
2. The Fly
3. Futurama
4. Mind Museum
5. All the Time
6. Science and Music
7. Rhetoric of Cancer
8. Travel to the Moon
9. Imelda
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