Reading Response: How To Create A Mind

I am currently reading How To Create A Mind.  If it sounds like this book was written by a some crazy mad scientist to you, it is probably because it was written by a crazy mad scientist.  The author, Ray Kurzweil, has created some of the most revolutionary technologies of the 21st century such as the first omni-font optical character recognition.  He wrote this book to discuss reverse engineering the mammalian brain to create artificial intelligence.

In this book Kurzweil challenges the reader to recall a walk or, more appropriately for most of us, a drive from their day.  I know that I could hardly remember anything from my morning commute, and you probably don't remember many details either.  With this experiment he brings up a fascinating point:

The primary reason we believe that we are not conscious when under anesthesia is that we don't remember anything from this period.... So with regard to the walk I took this morning, was I not conscious during most of it?

Is this us on our commutes?

This question is slightly terrifying, but it is evokes deep thought.  That would mean millions of people drive many miles to work and school unconscious everyday.  With this question Kurzweil ultimately concludes that we do not store memories as pictures, videos or sound recordings, but rather sequences and patterns.  This serves as the basis for Kurzweil's theories describing how the human brain is actually made up of many pattern recognizers  that are constantly predicting the future.

Multi Genre Project Proposal

For my multi genre project I would like to possibly look at the prohibition era from the moonshiner's view.  What I would really like to learn more about is the story of a poor, Georgia farmer: my grandmother's father's story.  I already know that he and his family ran moonshine and had several skirmishes with the law, but I want a better understanding of his life and other struggling farmers that turned to moon-shining and boot-legging.  Unfortunately, my great grandfather has passed, but I could still use both my grandparents and my mother as primary sources as they all often heard his stories.  

The Yellow Brick Road

One of the multigenre papers I read was the one about The Wizard of Oz.  I thought this particular project was interesting because it included details of the making of the movie that are usually overlooked.  Specifically, it cited medical reports showing that many of the actors and actresses issues caused by the production including Dorthy's drug use and the tin man's problems caused by his aluminum paint.  It did this through records, first person narratives and pictures.

Ensuring Enviromental Sustainibility

The United Nation Millennium Development Goal that stood out to me was ensuring environmental sustainability.  I think this is an extremely important issue that is often overlooked because the impacts of ignoring the issue, while catastrophic, would be far into the future.  This goal actually encompasses many substantial goals within itself such as: improving fresh water accessibility and sanitation, decreasing biodiversity loss, and improving quality of life for those living in slums. 

While sanitation and fresh water are readily available in our community, there are still many things we can do to help our environment in virtually every other way outlined in this millennium goal.  There are the more obvious options of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by using hybrid cars, moving to biofuels, and generally just not using cars by riding bikes, walking, etc. 

Something equally important as these direct impacts on the environment is thinking about the indirect consequences of our actions.  Perhaps some of the most frightening situations are the deforestation in the amazon and the biodiversity loss associated with and without deforestation.  The world's growing demands is consequently putting pressure to clear more rainforest which houses some of the world's most important keystone species.  The world's growing demands have also caused overfishing and loss of biodiversity in the world's oceans.

Reading Response 2

The three stories that stuck out to me were the Handprinter, TOHL, and Hungry Planet Farms.  I thought each addressed a problem in a way that hasn’t been tried before.  The first one that interested me was handprinter.org.  I had heard of your “footprint” before, but the concept of an environmental “handprint” was new to me.  This website addresses the problem of mankind’s negative affect on our ecosystem by creating, essentially, a social media website that encourages and creates a net positive impact on our ecosystem.

The second idea that caught my attention was the TOHL, or mobile infrastructure.  While the actual build wasn’t complicated at all, the idea was revolutionary.  What makes this idea so unique is that all other means of emergency water supplies require either multiple truck loads whereas this new system requires only one trip for a reliable water source that is available for as long as needed. 

The last innovation that impressed me was the Hungry Planet Farms.  The cool thing about this idea was that it combined the sustainability of a farm with the easy transportation of cargo containers.  It is the combination of these two previously uncorrelated aspects of emergency response that makes this idea great.  All three of these stories interest me because of their unique innovation.

Although I am not certain about my passion, I want to go into engineering.  If I didn’t have to worry about money I would spend my time tinkering with electronics.  The only work I would want to do is creating miscellaneous gadgets

Article 1 Response

After reading these grammar rules I realize that I have made several of these mistakes.  I have definitely made mistakes when it comes to parallelism, but I believe I have gotten better about using it correctly.  I also can remember frequent situations when I can’t remember if I am supposed to use sank or sunk, and miscellaneous other past and participle verb confusion.  In general, I have made mistakes when it came to each of Yogoda’s tips except for maybe the dangling modifiers.

I thought his last two tips were very interesting.  I think the author makes a good point that semicolons should be used sparingly because they are commonly misused.  I also was never taught the second correct use for the semicolon.  I also have noticed how the meaning of words is constantly changing, and I believe it is something I should take into consideration when writing; however, I though some of his examples were more acceptable then he lets on.  For example, he says: “Don't use begs the question. Instead use raises the question.”  This is a expression I commonly use, but perhaps I should consider his alternative.

My Pecha Kucha

 

My presentation focuses on the customs and traditions of the Chinese minorities the She and Uygur.  It shows their celebrations, languages, and beliefs through pictures of traditional foods, dress, and various other objects such as the She's phoenix totem.  Unfortunately, it will not upload because it is too big.  Here are some of the pictures it included.