Log 6

A study in cold war paranoia and the potential effects. This ones disturbing so be forewarned.

The ethics of living in a bomb shelter after no less than a 1 megaton explosion.

-Portion food equally

-DO NOT let anyone in after your group enters. (for safety and due to contamination)

-It is important to watch the women and children and ascertain that they are as comfortable as possible.

-Adhere to all air quality recommendations made by the manufacturer of your bunker

-Test the outside conditions in intervals no less than a week (to discourage the onset of depression)

-Designate someone to be the bury-er as soon as possible. (this may not be an available option but some disposal system must be in place)
-Save at least one round for each person in the bunker (or one grenade)
-When the sanitary equipment fails designate the ladies corner in the most secluded area of the bunker
-Do not tell the voices on the radio where you are until you are sure they are friendly
-It may be advisable to set up a system of government amongst your group to control supplies and decisions involving the whole group
-when you discover that you don't have enough burn salve it has been discovered that fatty tissue works just as well
-you can't eat a pancreas, kidneys should also be avoided
-Attempt to have a good time and make the most of it. think of the children :)



(of course none of this applies once the bugs start acting up)

Log 5

I think the most revealing statement in Jurassic Park as to what the purpose for the park was meant to be was Hammond's explanation of why he would never help people. I believe the best way to say how I feel about this was best said in Ferris Bueller's Day off: "A man with priorities so far out of whack doesn't deserve such a fine automobile. " the car of course being a metaphor for the power Hammond possesses. Partially due to my bias against business and simply being in things for the money is why I can only say: I wish the compy's didnt sedate him first.
Fractals. Interesting creatures, I read a description once that relates to naturally occuring ones. Take the coast of the UK it says, measure it on a road map and you get x miles. Now go on google maps and zoom in all the way and measure again, you get a significantly larger number. Take a meter stick and walk around the coast laying it end to end, the number is larger still. The point is that detail is infinite and measuring natural quantities is always an estimate. (that's from Eating the Sun by Oliver something). Another interesting aspect of chaos theory is seen in cellular automata. Take a blank grid and assign rules so that the state (black or white) of each cell depends on the three in the row above it. You would think that with such an ordered system you would get simple ordinary patterns but this is not so.
http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=rule+22 <-- pattern
http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=rule+110 <--- not so much (and if you are able to look at it taken down thousands of steps it goes nuts)
Imagine how this relates to the actual physical laws of nature. The world doesnt work the way we think it does, and beyond that it is infinitly more complex than we could ever imagine.

Log 4

Similar to the issues I discussed in Log 3 are those involving genetic alterations like those is Jurassic Park. One example of taking it a little to far in today's world is the genetically altered corn that is "round-up ready" (or its ver 2.0 "round up ready2yield"). It seems that not only have we started to just settle for what we have, ceasing to progress, but we are moving backwards. Instead of trying to make corn that, for example, naturally repels pests or uses less water, we go ahead and make one that is resistant to powerful chemicals so that we can continue to use outdated, harmful, technology. Genetic experimentation should be left to those who want to actually help us out, not just those who cater to big [pharma, business, etc].

Kind of like the Jurassic Park idea would be to clone the ancient varieties of humans, like a timeline of evolution. Perhaps that was a tad too controversial for Crichton but there it is. I don't know if my first reaction would be curiosity or if it would just be awkward to see them made; even just writing that sentence seems odd, i couldn't pick which verb to use. I feel like it would be kind of hard to see them as zoo creatures like the dinos or regular zoo animals. I think maybe the subtlety of the failure of the Jurassic park resides in the fact that it is not too different from this idea, perhaps it was not as obvious because they weren't humans, and therefore not as relatable but I feel like Crichton sort of touches on that idea with the hyper intelligent velociraptors.

Log 3

We talk about the questionability of creating life from scratch and how it seems to somehow be immoral, but have we ever stopped to look at the process of saving someone’s life who would almost certainly die had we not intervened? When you look at some of the incredible surgeries and procedures going on today to "fix" people it can seem almost as bizarre as hashing someone together from dead parts. What if they were meant to die? What about all the resources spent on this person’s brain surgery when there are people who don't eat on a daily basis? Unless that person goes on to become the next mother Theresa I don't really see the point in cutting open there skull, there’s probably not much inside worth saving anyway.
I am not saying that injured people should not be helped, but how far will we go to save someone when all they contribute to society is the graveyard shift at Wal-Mart? It seems technology has progressed to the point where, though we still barely know anything about the intricate interactions between our bodies and the environment, we are able to fix most physical problems. Part of this is due to our treating all abnormalities as defects and then eliminating anything that doesn’t fit into our idea of "right". I think maybe it is time to step back and ask ourselves how far we are willing to push our use of technology to alter ourselves.

Log 2

The film Gattaca reminded me of Huxley's "Brave New World". In fact the premise is extremely similar in that both involve a defining people solely by there social standing, which essentially equates to how close they are to "perfect" humans. The social structure is very alike, no one associates with anyone outside of their class. While there are slight differences in the irrelevant side functions of these interactions, they remain essentially the same, anti-utopian versions of the future of society brought on by science and peoples' need to feel superior.
The key difference in social workings is that the genetically superior in Gattaca are the majority (it seems), while there are almost set amounts of how many of each type of person can exist in Huxley's world. Instead of ingrained segregation the altered people in Gattaca make the choice to disown all the lower people. Its as though technology had advanced and those who could climbed aboard, while everyone else who was left behind is forgotten and looked down on.