casidi
Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
IDK if I’ve already posted, but I plan on going to the Harry Potter part of Universal and also the Kennedy Space center. We are coming in on Thursday night, so Friday and Saturday are the days we are going out. We will go with groups if we want a big group! :] I think it will be 4 of us. I don’t think any of us mind which thing we go to first. What I’m saying is that if everyone is going to Kennedy Space Center on Friday, we are going with everyone else and we’d go to Universal on Saturday (or vise versa)
We will be voting for a new fiction book this week (I’ve already picked out the non-fiction books). Life has been crazy for me, but I’m hoping to get it all together. 21 credits and two undergraduate research projects have devoured my life, but I’m starting to get ahead in classes so I have time for this! I should post a pile of the books for my classes…lol
PS: All of this is for the last two sections, since I didn’t write last week. Sorry, work has been crazy!
Well, I’m finished up through 37 and I do want to say it has gotten better, but not totally better than it was before. While we are jumping around between the characters, there are characters that are much more believable than others and are acting more in accord with how they were portrayed at the beginning. Let me explain:
YT: I am really enjoying the YT sections of this book. These are believable scenarios that fit with the kind of person YT is and the situations she would get into (plus how she would react), at least mostly. I’m not sure why she is running around doing all this intel for Hiro, as it was only mentioned once how she might get some money or something off of him. No real good motivation was given for her sudden huge interest, I mean, if I had a crush on a dude I wouldn’t just go put my life on the line (almost snipered). But, other than some missing information, her character is believable.
Rat thing: I loved this section, it really took a nice break from YT and Hiro, but kept with the story still. I’m wondering how important these will become later on? Will they mention her dog-turned-rat-thing again? They’ve mentioned these creatures at two separate times in this book now, so I’m hoping they will play some important role. Why mention them and then not use them?
YT’s mother: I have no verdict on this yet, since the action seems to have just started at the end of chapter 37? I’m really bored by her chapter, but it does give good information in to how the US government rules at this point in the world.
Hiro: This will be my biggest complaint. He was the most unbelievable character I’ve ever come across. He comes off at the beginning as this fairly “normal”, kinda hip, but kinda weird dude with an attitude. He doesn’t come across as being super smart or super dumb, just somewhere in the middle, leaning more toward smart. But once he starts this whole librarian business, he turns into a f’ing genius, connecting all the dots without even trying. Also, where is the motivation for all this shit? The girl doesn’t seem like a huge motivator, as they’ve barely mentioned her. And yeah, his buddy is sick, but they barely mention that either! It’s nice that they are trying to make it interesting, but I keep finding flaws in his logic. He draws conclusions with little evidence!
Rapper guy with big hair: I hate him. Annoying. I guess every story needs one of these though. I forgot his name.
This story is starting to fall together, it seems like YT and Hiro both want to get rid of this snow crash stuff, somehow, but really don’t know why they are doing it or what they are really doing. They have no/little motivators and just seem to be going along with it all. No questioning at all. I guess I could chill and just try to enjoy it, but these are things that bother me. ;P At least I like it better than when I started.
I have a lot of stuff to write about tonight! From last week and this week. Sorry, I’ve been crazy with work. :[ We just opened a new store, and then I got sick! But I’ll be caught up by tonight.
Edit: Okay, I lied. I’m writing tomorrow. I just wrote my snow crash discussion. Time to read some more and go to bed! First day of school tomorrow. :]
@triciareneeb Yay!
@SaintPeteSam Yeah, it’s a nice refresher and also a lot of fun compared to general science courses. I’ve learned a lot and gotten such a different perspective than I had before.
As for this weeks discussion, I probably won’t be posting until Monday. Just so people know. I’m psychologically busy this weekend, as I’m babysitting 3 of my cousins.
@angelastic Oh hey, it’s working now. I didn’t change anything or download RealPlayer, it just is actually leading to a page now. Yesterday it was giving error pages as if the videos did not exist.
Edit: I take it back, it kinda worked. It downloaded the file but gives me an awesome error:
Connection failed:
VLC could not connect to “webcast.cern.ch:5540”.
Your input can’t be opened:
VLC is unable to open the MRL ‘rtsp://webcast.cern.ch:5540/cds//a05/a054002/a054002.rm’. Check the log for details
I had very similar views to both of you @mtgordon and @robgonzo ! See below (which I wrote while at work):
This a new one for me, as I’ve never really delved into cyberpunky science fiction. Honestly, the first 2 chapters were a little hard for me to listen to (I prefer audiobook format for fiction books), even though the narrator does a great job. I couldn’t stop thinking about how the subject matter and intensity of the writing really did not match each other. Pizza delivery could never have a mafia type badassery, no matter how you think about it. In no sane or even insane world would you go tot such lengths as to send a helicopter out to punish a delivery driver who delivered a pizza at over 30 minutes. Talk about wasting money! I can’t believably convince myself that even in this fucked up of a world could pizza be that damn important.
There are redeeming qualities about this story. I do believe that city-states could exist and that people would want to escape this type of world into a virtual reality. Shit, I wish I could escape our CURRENT world into a virtual reality, and our world isn’t even that bad right now. Though, the virtual reality doesn’t seem that great of a world either, full of advertisements and people that all look the same. The poverty that has stricken the world seems on par with what will happen if our world does not change.
Even though I am technically around 1/5 into this book, I still don’t get the point. Where is this leading? The building up oif this story is a little slow for me. Also, at times, the way that past events are described is much too blunt (I can’t give good examples as I was listening to the book, not following along on paper).
All that being said, it is certainly refreshing to have both Hiro and YT’s stories being told. If it was just one or the other, I think I would become even more bored with the story. Variation and plot twists are important, both of which this story has very little of.
I’m hoping it becomes more interesting! From what I’ve heard, it should get a lot better. But who knows. 😛
@mtgordon and @SaintPeteSam : I agree with both of you, it’s just so crazy how their trains of though were. We are so careful in labs now to make sure that injuries and long-lasting problems do not happen. What are the first things you learn in a chemistry lab now? Don’t eat the chemicals, use an air hood if needed, wear eye protection, etc. It would be interesting to actually be in a lab back then and see how very few protocols they had. I remember reading about cell culturing in a different book and how they would become so easily contaminated because of lack of sterilization processes.
@Angelastic I can’t get the video or the video download on that site to work. :[
I’m bringing this shiz up a notch! Here goes the discussion/my view that I wrote while at work:
This part of the book kept my attention the way a textbook never could. I laughed (though I never cried). There’s nothing that can keep my attention more than some hilarious wording and fun, interesting facts. In the latter chapters of this reading section (part II of the book), Bill Bryson included personal facts about each individual in question. Sometimes these facts blew away the notions of human perfection that have been fed to me in school classrooms. These great scientists/inventors/discoverers are just as quirky (if not more) than me! I’m “perfectly normal” in comparison.
Bill Bryson also portrays these people as much more down-to-earth than I’ve ever thought of them. Not everyone who has changed the world lived in the lap of luxury; they fall into the same fates as some of the rest of us. Depression, poverty and failed relationships aren’t excluded from their lives.
While reading I jotted down some of my favorite quotes. Here we go with those:
- “So I grew up convinced that science was supremely dull, but suspecting that it needn’t be, and not really thinking about it at all if I could help it”
This is really a quote that struck me right away, as I felt the same way through the end of my K-12 education. I avoided taking science classes in high school as much as I possibly could. I stopped at the minimum required classes (which I think was either 2 or 3 semester long classes). Though, I’m glad for my college science classes, as they brought my love of science.
- “Tune your television to any channel that doesn’t receive, and about 1 percent of the dancing static you see is accounted for by this ancient remnant of the Big Bang. The next time you complain that there is nothing on, remember you can always watch the birth of the universe.”
The above quote simply made me happy. Simple pleasures.
The following are about Sr. Isaac Newton and show how eccentric of a man he was. I never thought of him this way before, nor have I heard anything like this about him!
- “At least half his working life was given over to alchemy and wayward religious pursuits. These were not mere dabblings, but wholehearted devotions.”
- ” ‘Sr Isaac replied immediately that it would be an [ellipse]. The doctor, struck with joy & amazement, asked him how he knew it. ‘Why,’ saith he, ‘I have calculated,’ whereupon the Dr Halley asked him for his calculation without farther delay, Sr Isaac looked among his papers but could not find it.’ This was astounding – like someone saying he had found the cure for cancer but couldn’t remember where he put the formula.”
I also loved the descriptions of Cavendish, from being described as having “shyness to a ‘degree bordering on disease’.” I feel that even this description of Cavendish is very conservative, given his reactions in social situations such as shown in the following quotation: “…it was always made clear to the other guests that Cavendish was on no account to be approached or even looked at. …If their remarks were scientifically worthy they might receive a mumbled reply, but more often they would hear a peeved squeak (his voice appears to have been high pitched) and turn to find an actual vacancy and the sight of Cavendish fleeing for a more peaceful corner.”
Another favorite quote and concept. It’s just so amazing! (Emphasis added):
- “At the elemental level gravity is extraordinarily unrobust. Each time you pick up a book from the table or a dime from the floor you effortlessly overcome the combined gravitational exertion of an entire planet.”
Something that made me laugh and facepalm all the same time:
- “Almost inevitably, he became the leading authority on coprolites – fossilized feces – and had a table made entirely out of his collection of specimens.”
This next quote means a lot to me as a Christian, as this is exactly how I think of creation:
- “Even Reverend Buckland, as pious a soul as the nineteenth century produced, noted that nowhere did the bible suggest that God made Haven and Earth on the first day, but merely ‘in the beginning.’ That beginning, he reasoned, may have lasted ‘millions upon millions of years’.”
And one last one for those of us getting ready for the zombie apocalypse:
- “He assembled fifty buckets of human urine, which he kept for months in his cellar.” – Quote about Hennig Brand
I’ll be posting my response tonight! But, I must say that these first chapters have really been an experience for me. This is basically a whole new genre and way of writing for me, so it has had its ups and downs! I’m super excited to talk about it.