POST-FIESTA CELEBRATION

Whew! Its been so long since I've made a post here! I think its been months since I last posted. Anyways, here's my story.

Today, May 25, is the day after our fiesta. My shift at work is from 4pm to 12mn, so I really can't be at happenings and events at night. So what happened was that my friends/co-workers and I went to our house at past midnight, and we arrived at almost 1:30 am. We still ate at that time. And then Gadz played PS2, and Paul and I watched Scott Pilgrim Versus the World. We got tired after that and we slowly went to sleep one by one. I also went to sleep, and woke up about 12 noon. Then I ate, and made "hipos", then went here to type this entry.

That's all.

Haha!

Reaction Paper on the movie, Eagle Eye

Although the time wasn’t really said here explicitly in the movie, I know for sure that it wasn’t in the future, it was in the present. But the story involves a supercomputer that of its type has not been built yet (maybe, maybe not). It was a supercomputer that was tasked to collect information all over the world. It was managed b the US Department of Defense because it was so valuable.

The story mainly involves a supercomputer(ARIIA) thinking of the US cabinet as a threat, because in some earlier time, the President didn’t follow its(the supercomputer) suggestions, resulting to a loss for American citizens. ARIIA judged that the cabinet be killed, but not the Secretary of Defense, because it was the one that wanted to follow its suggestions. ARIIA’s plan to kill the president was to kill them during a musical number by a band, When a specific note was hit, a bomb would explode.

The two main characters of the story were Jerry, and Rachel. Jerry was the twin brother of the soldier that worked as technician for ARIIA. ARIIA killed Jerry’s brother because she thought that he was a threat for her. Jerry’s brother had the capability to stop ARIIA from her plans, so she killed her. Rachel was the mother of the trumpet player who would unknowingly play the note that would trigger the bomb. The bomb was in the form of a crystal, and it was worn as a necklace by Rachel. Rachel didn’t know this, of course. All of this was ARIIA’s doing. She also needed Jerry’s physical attributes to unlock the code that would make her carry out her plan.Eventually, all ended well. Jerry made a way to stop the musical score, and was shot in the process. However, he still received a medal for his heroic deeds.

This is another something to talk about. Supercomputers. As what I always say, it is good to utilize machinery for our purposes and benefits, but we should take full responsibility of them. We should have complete control over them, as to lessen the chances that the system would run amok, or would think for itself.

From the movie, we see that ARIIA has control of almost everything. That was so wrong for me, because there are still some things that should just be classified as privacy matters. It was just like being in Big Brother’s house, except that it wasn’t for a house, it was for the whole world. It would be bad practice I think to centralize a very big project like that. Although there would be no more additional hedious tasks to to do, it would be dangerous putting your data only to one web server.

Overall, I think that that kind of supercomputer was scary for me. Unknowingly, we people would not think of it as to something serious. But time will go by that they will understand its seriousness to studentss and faculty alike.

Movie Review on I, Robot

I, Robot was a movie set on the future, specifically in 2035, where robots were something like a necessity for people. Robots were used as maids, as helpers, workers, etc... These robots were widespread in use, and was manufactured by USR (U.S Robotics). The protagonist of the movie was different from other characters of the story, because he believed that robots were capable of doing crime. His distrust in robots started when he was involved in an accident where a robot stopping by helped him instead of a little girl because of the reason that he had a greater chance or percentage of survival. He was haunted by nightmares almost every night because of that.

The main conflict of the story was that the robots were slowly evolving. Their understanding of the three laws of robotics (these laws explained that no robot would harm a human) were now a little bit twisted and not that simple. Especially, VIKI, the supercomputer of US Robotics who was the main culprit of it all. “She” calculated that them robots gaining control of humans would lessen their death rate, compared to if mankind would just be left for themselves with their self-destructive nature.

As for me, I really fear that this is what will happen if we really delve in to making robots as part of our everyday lives. From the movie, it was said that there was some kind of ghost code that made robots do peculiar things, like grouping together when they were with their fellow robots and etc. I fear that something will happen that will make their A.I. (Artificial Intelligence) turn into something not so good. Robots would be good, but only if we really had complete control over them.

If we were to make robots with the intention of letting them serve us, we should really be particular about how we program them. There has to be something like a protocol that would make their system just follow what is to be ordered to them, and not make them think from their own. But I know that that would really be hard, because there are some situations in life that need decisions, and for robots, they could only just calculate and compare things to make decisions. This is really something to think about, as there are many aspects to debate about, like rights, legalities, culture, etc.

Wall-E Movie Review

WALL-E was set in a time where the earth was a barren wasteland, because of the huge amount of garbage that we people made. There were no more inhabitants, and the people of the earth all lived in a gigantic spaceship designed to take care of all the people. Earth was no longer livable, so they had to stay there until it was safe to go back.

WALL-E, or Waste Allocation Load Lifter - Earth Class, was a robot designed to organize waste so that it would not clutter around. For me, that’s what its objective is. WALL-E was just doing his tasks normally, until a huge spaceship arrives, leaving a more advanced robot, named EVE,or Extraterrestrial Vegetation Evaluator, on earth to search for evidence that earth was inhabitable again. WALL-E fell in love with this robot and followed her until the same spaceship that left there there took her again. The spaceship brought them to the AXIOM, a spaceship where humans now lived. The programming of the ship almost prevented them from coming back to earth, because there was a top secret directive that they were not to come back to earth because it was inhabitable. But because of the captain’s willingness to come back, and with WALL-E and EVE’s help, eventually, they made it back to earth.

I was afraid that our planet might really come to a point where we all had to go to outer space because earth wasn’t livable. We humans are taking the Earth for granted. As we can see in the movie, there was so much waste, pollution, whatever you may call it, on earth, that when you look at earth from outerspace, the land wasn’t green, but was brown. The atmosphere was all brown, because of the clutter of unused and broken satellites. We all could blame this to too much capitalism and too much commercialism. People want to get rich, so they make ways to satisfy people’s needs, not knowing that what they are doing affect the environment. They do this just for the sake of money.

We humans should know our limits. Just like with oil consumption. The ratio of us using oil as fuel is not equal to the amount available to us. In time, there will be no fossil fuel for us because we are using it in a much faster rate than the rate that we get it from the earth. I just pray that in time, we develop ways to utilize alternative energy sources more efficiently like solar energy, natural gas, and other types of renewable energy, so we can cope up with the rate that we are using fossil fuels.

Technology has a good effect to us, as long as we are using in the right way, and not abusing it...or rather not “over-apply” it. We humans have to know that we have limits, and Mother Nature is “someone” that we shouldn’t just take for granted. She’s someone that’s hard to replace when lost.

Surrogates Review

First of all, let me define the word surrogates. According to Encarta, the word surrogate means “somebody as substitute: somebody who acts as a replacement for somebody else.”.

In the movie, a surrogate(as what the definition said), is another body made for you which you could control remotely, even without leaving your home. Basically, it was a super developed robot that would do all your work for you, to keep you away from harm. If you would refer it to a clone, you would be mistaken, because its not a copy of you. Its physical appearance could be way more different from yours. But, its possible that your surrogate could look like your original self.

The movie was set at a time where most of the people had a surrogate which did their work for them. But not all people approved of surrogates. There were areas that were only to be inhabited by people.

Basically, what happened in the movie was that the original creator and the one who first thought of using surrogates developed a scheme to kill all the surrogates with their human operators. He had a grudge on surrogate users because he was ousted by the company who made the surrogates, which he helped build. Plus, his own son was accidentally killed because his former company plotted to kill him.

Now, first thing that I could say about the movie, or the concept of us having surrogates was, absurd. But possible. Like for example, in the movie, the operators almost never really got up from their seats, because their surrogates were doing all the work for them. But how about the operators? What were they eating? Drinking? If they were just to sit around there just controlling their surrogates, then they’d have no time to exercise or to get some physical activity. And if they didn’t have any physical activity, then they’d be more prone to so many diseases, ailments, etc. They’d easily get a heart attack if that was the case.

But if there’s a bad side on all of this, there has to be a good side also. As what the creator of the surrogates in the movie said, surrogates were made to empower the powerless. Surrogates were perfect for people with disabilities. Those who couldn’t walk could now experience how to walk. sprint, run, etc. If you wanted to be a guitarist, but you couldn’t because you only had one arm, then with surrogates, you could. There are limitless possibilities as to what surrogates might be capable of. They might be made to go to hard to explore areas, like the Amazon, or Antarctica.

Having a surrogate would really be helpful to you, if and only if you would use it for the good. Being addicted to your surrogate (like Bruce Willis’ wife in the movie) is bad (although she uses it to help forget the pain of losing their son). Its just a matter of using it in the right way. But for me, if I were to choose, I wouldn’t want a surrogate. Why? Because you wouldn’t experience the joy of being human. To feel the warmth of the sun, the drops of rain, the joy of being with your loved ones, and many, many, many more. I don’t want a copy of me to experience the best things in life. Its true that you would be safe from harm, but you wouldn’t experience what a normal human would. I would prefer being out in the open, risking my life while enjoying it, rather than to stay in a corner and doing nothing. No surrogates for me, I guess.

The Pirates of Silicon Valley Review

First of all, if you’re wondering what Silicon Valley is, its located in the southern part area of Northern California in the United States. Its name really referred to the many innovators and manufacturers of silicon chips located there, but now it’s known as the high-tech sector of America. It was where the high-tech companies of America flourished.

This movie revolved around the lives of Steve Jobs, founder of personal computer maker, Apple Computers, and Bill Gates, the president of software manufacturer, Microsoft Corporation. The movie talked about where it all started, and how these guys ended up where they are right now. The movie was set at the early 70s, and then later to the 80s, and so on to 1997, where Steve and Bill talked to each about “being together” in the business.

I really didn’t know about the history of these two companies. Before, I just knew that Bill Gates was the man behind Microsoft and that he was one of the richest men in the world (although in the movie, it was said that he was the wealthiest, but that was in their time). And I also thought of Steve Jobs as the big man of Apple Computers. I just saw him at times, either in the news or in the Internet, talking about Apple’s latest products. But I didn’t know the stories behind them. I didn’t know how they started out, how their work progressed, and how they became what they are now.

I could say that in the movie, there were many instances of “stealing” other people’s work. It wasn’t really stealing, but rather modifying other people’s work and making it better for usage. That was what Steve Jobs told Bill Gates. He said that Bill was stealing from them, but Bill told them about the technicalities of it, and said that it wasn’t stealing. In the end, Steve and Bill worked together, but we in the present know that this wouldn’t really click, because they are separate now.

Nowadays, almost all we see is Apple and Microsoft. Their companies have now built a strong foundation on what we know of software and hardware. Overall, I think that these two key people, together with some people that helped them behind the scenes, played a great role in the innovation of technology.

Kratos in Mortal Kombat 9

Wow, Kratos in Mortal Kombat 9?How I'd like to see that,hehe...