Light in such a dark topic.

The film Dr. Strangelove is creating a world in which an accidental nuclear attack by a crazed general has caused a nation wide and world wide panic. It turns out that not only has the general set out an attack without permission but has also targeted, unknowingly the site of a doomsday device. And although the word and actual existence of doomsday device is farce in the real world, in this movie it has caused global panic, seeming to be the end of the world. While I expected the movie to have a more serious tone to it, in all actuality it had a very light one. Scenes like with the vandalizing of the coca cola machine brought some great laughs. It made the movie rewatchable, and light...instead of focusing directly on the theme of destruction and fear. 

"Deterrence is the art of producing in the mind of the enemy... the fear to attack" Have something like a doomsday machine, is a deterrence, that no body knew about. What is the point of having a secret deterrent?

From Wind-up girl to Boneshaker.

From "zombies" to "steam-punk" how can a person go wrong. I'm still interested in Wind-up Girl and will probably read it on my own someday, but Boneshaker seems like a fun novel and packed with action, which will be a refreshing change from The Road.

Abstracts and Conclusions

Hmm...I do believe that abstracts are probably one of the most important parts of  published work. But to apply the concept it to a unpublished research paper is interesting. From what I know of abstracts, is that they sum up the important parts of the paper and they don't focus of the details as much as they do on the ideas. That seems like a great way to end a research project, because if you don't limit yourself on the conclusion one could get lost back into the research which by then you have already gotten your point across. An abstract would sum up everything without being to repetitive.

Buffy and the Apocalypse

During the 1990s and early 2000s there was a superb TV show that came to life through the brilliant mind of Joss Whedon. That show was Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and even though the show centered mainly around Buffy and her group of Scoobies kicking vampire and demon ass, it also had an potential apocalypse each season, spanning seven seasons. Each season she succeeds in defeating the "big bad", even if it meant sacrificing her life in the process.

The connection I want to bring to this topic and apocalypse is that Joss Whedon creates all these supernatural apocalypse theories and each time he has the main characters defeat the cause. Whedon created this whole world around the idea of "Into every generation a Slayer is born: one girl in all the world, a chosen one. She alone will wield the strength and skill to fight the vampires, demons, and the forces of darkness; to stop the spread of their evil and the swell of their numbers. She is the Slayer." The slayer is a sign of hope in darkness. She will fight until she has no more life in her, and then another will be called in her place. She is our protector, so there's hope for humanity yet. In this world, she will do anything to stop the end of the world. So perhaps, the world won't end afterall. Maybe this was the point of doing the series. To show us that we shouldn't worry so much, be innocent (like the unknowing residents of Sunnydale), and someone, perhaps even you will help the earth from coming to its end. There will always be doctors and researchers to help prevent and cure viruses and diseases. There will always be specialists to help against some threat to humanity. There will always be a slayer to fight the big bad.

The Winder Wasn't Turning

In The Road by McCarthy, there is a passage that stuck out to me, it was the scene when the little boy had a particular nightmare, the nightmare with the little wind-up penguin that came around the corner in a house, but it hadn't been turned. This scene displayed an enormous amount of dismay through the text. The boy had woken up scared from in because "the winder wasn't turning" yet it kept on coming towards him. This could possibly mean that even though the man and the boy hadn't asked for all this world to come about and the boy didn't asked to be born in such a world, that it happened anyway. A sense of hopelessness and inevitability came across in this passage that brought a wave of emotion pouring out. Also, as the father tries to comfort his son, he says "sometimes dreams can be scary". Which is referring to his own misfortune with experiencing nightmares just like his son, but his are a little more frightening as we found out right off the bat with the first page of the book. The father dreams of monsters in a cave, while the son dreams of wind-up toys that work without being wound up. This contrast, I think shows the audience that even though they both have nightmares they are portrayed in a different light with each. While the Father's dreams are masked with horror and disparity, the boy's are a little more innocent, even though still scary, with "possessed toys". But also, the father has good dreams which I think he is even more afraid of, because he knows that he can't stay there and that it's not real. The boy doesn't have these sort of dreams because he was born in darkness and if he does it's probably only because his dad tells him stories of the "old days".

The Windup Girl

Imagine being in a world where the energy has collapsed, environmental disasters occur regularly, genetic-engineering ruins the world's crops and trigger waves of plagues, and where American genetic engineering cartels control the worlds supply of plague-resistant GM crops. Seems like a crappy world right? This is the earth portrayed in The Windup Girl by Paolo Baclgalupi.

The setting of this book takes place in Bangkok, Thailand following characters trying to cope with the world that they have been abandoned in. Anderson Lake is an economic hitman, and Emiko is a Japanese designed windup girl (which is basically a humanoid used as a slave...reminds me a bit of a Japanese manga, Chobits) It seems like an interesting concept where most of their problems have been caused by global warming and biotechnology among other issues. I can't help but wonder whether this was after the end or heading up to the end or there is even an "end". All that I can gather about this world, without spoiling the plot for myself, is that it seems that technology was the starting of the end.