Monday, April 30, 2012
Presentations 4/25
The topic for the presentations on 4/25 was "Psychological and Cognitive Sciences". The three presentations covered using music as a tool for leaning, the use of equine-facilitated psychotherapy (EFP), and the genetics of suicide. All three of the presentations were done very well and had lots of good information. Before Lyndsey's presentation on EFP I had never known it was even a form of treatment. It makes sense though, I know animal therapy with dogs and cats is quite popular especially with the elderly, but I never thought a horse would be all that great a comfort animal. I've also never really been around horses much, and am quite wary of them. I was even more surprised to find out there was an EFP clinic in Bentonville. Matthew explained the difficulties of determining the role of genetics in suicide. Because the event is so devastating, the environmental factors are overwhelming. It's also surprising to remember actually how little we know about brain functioning, and that really we are in the infant stage of understanding how the brain works at all. Nick explained how music can be used as a tool for learning, and in fact we could all sing the ABC song even after first learning it 15-plus-years ago. I feel that music could be integrated into all sorts of areas in the academic curriculum. I remember when we had a substitute teacher in the 4th grade who brought his guitar and let us write songs for what we were doing in class in either English or mathematics. To this day he was the coolest sub I've had for a class. Not only did the music help make things creative and interesting, guitars are also just plain cool, and really helped engage a bunch of rambunctious fourth graders. I definitely think we need to bring more music into schools, as a musician myself, I find that I can wrap my head around more abstract concepts and just "think out of the box" more, so to speak.
Tuesday, April 10, 2012
Changes in writing process blog post
I don't feel that my writing has changed in any particularly profound ways throughout the semester, however my organization is progressively getting better. In the beginning of the semester I had a hard time setting up an argument. After a couple papers I was finally able to get the idea down for a strong topic sentence, followed by evidence, and then a discussion of how that evidence supports my argument. Simply getting my argument into that model improved my papers significantly.
By doing different types of research over different areas of our project I've gotten a lot better at finding the articles I need in the library databases. The trick I learned was to do multiple searches with subtle keyboard changes. For example I would do a search on "commercial spaceflight", another on "private spaceflight", "private sector, space", "spaceflight companies", so on and so forth. I still have a problem keeping my paper under some sort of umbrella topic. Once I start doing research, I tend to get really distracted by learning new things and forget what I'm wanting to talk about specifically. By the time I get to the end of my paper I have to go back and change my thesis to something more appropriately related to the sources I found.
I still am having trouble starting my papers, but my strategy seems to be working out well enough. I spend a few days reading over article, getting a sort of mental grid of how each topic relates to one another, then just start writing the body paragraphs. I like to make a list of topic sentences in my Word document then go through my sources and see what I can back up and have enough material to discuss. Often there will be a couple topic sentences that seem great, but are too distant to the "umbrella topic", and could potentially be topics for other papers.
I've also grown to really value the input from other people reading my papers. Peer review always helps me make sure I keep a forward enough paper so my reader knows what I'm talking about, and also get to understand my more common grammar/structure mistakes. I was never big into writing papers for school, but now I've finally learned the formula for academic writing more-or-less, so I feel a lot more comfortable and feel that I've started to find my voice in writing.
By doing different types of research over different areas of our project I've gotten a lot better at finding the articles I need in the library databases. The trick I learned was to do multiple searches with subtle keyboard changes. For example I would do a search on "commercial spaceflight", another on "private spaceflight", "private sector, space", "spaceflight companies", so on and so forth. I still have a problem keeping my paper under some sort of umbrella topic. Once I start doing research, I tend to get really distracted by learning new things and forget what I'm wanting to talk about specifically. By the time I get to the end of my paper I have to go back and change my thesis to something more appropriately related to the sources I found.
I still am having trouble starting my papers, but my strategy seems to be working out well enough. I spend a few days reading over article, getting a sort of mental grid of how each topic relates to one another, then just start writing the body paragraphs. I like to make a list of topic sentences in my Word document then go through my sources and see what I can back up and have enough material to discuss. Often there will be a couple topic sentences that seem great, but are too distant to the "umbrella topic", and could potentially be topics for other papers.
I've also grown to really value the input from other people reading my papers. Peer review always helps me make sure I keep a forward enough paper so my reader knows what I'm talking about, and also get to understand my more common grammar/structure mistakes. I was never big into writing papers for school, but now I've finally learned the formula for academic writing more-or-less, so I feel a lot more comfortable and feel that I've started to find my voice in writing.
Thursday, March 29, 2012
Blog Post: Ethical Research
The general public looks to the scientific community for explanations about everything from genetics to cosmology and what conclusions the scientific returns is how the general public perceives the world we live in. Since the public is not knowledgeable in the whichever field they are reading about, they put a great deal of trust in the scientist to report accurate and truthful data. During our exploration of scientific writing, I have some to discover that scientists are just as effected by their personal bias as the general public, and may unknowingly create a self-fulfilling prophecy in which they only recognize the data that supports their theories. We've also learned that in more extreme cases a researcher will even go so far as to falsify data for their own means. Another problem is that science accommodation writers will report one anecdotal situation as a representative of an entire population, such as the article we read on Autism and vaccines. The study was based on a group of 12 children, and made a sweeping generalization that MMR vaccines caused Autism. This is most certainly not something one could conclude from 12 patients when tens-of-millions of people are getting vaccinated.
When scientists aren't ethical in their research serious consequences can occur; in the case of Autism and vaccines, diseases once thought eliminated are returning due to the loss of "herd immunity" due to the fears of parents. Once scientists release misleading or false information, the media runs with it, making sure to sensationalize the information enough to start a controversy. Then John and Jane Doe read it in the newspaper and believe that their child is at risk (in the former case described). The real problem then arises; the parents believe they have adequate information to determine the safety of their child based on one study they read in the paper.
Scientists and researchers need to be more aware of how their data is going to transmit to the public. Careless reporting will lead to negative opinions about the validity of scientific research, and implants incorrect thoughts into the public's mind. Whenever I read an article or listen to news about scientific claims, I now know not to immediately believe anything (especially if it has anything to do with gender studies or psychology in general). I don't believe that A causes B in any situation; there are countless variables in any study that do not get accounted for. Also I understand that our knowledge is limited (we don't really know anything) and that purple unicorns from outer-space could appear at any time and completely shatter our current beliefs of reality (however unlikely). Like the old saying goes we only truly know two things: we're each going to die and pay taxes until we do. Unfortunately not many people have such a scrutinizing view of what others tell them and groups of people start believing falsified data.
When scientists aren't ethical in their research serious consequences can occur; in the case of Autism and vaccines, diseases once thought eliminated are returning due to the loss of "herd immunity" due to the fears of parents. Once scientists release misleading or false information, the media runs with it, making sure to sensationalize the information enough to start a controversy. Then John and Jane Doe read it in the newspaper and believe that their child is at risk (in the former case described). The real problem then arises; the parents believe they have adequate information to determine the safety of their child based on one study they read in the paper.
Scientists and researchers need to be more aware of how their data is going to transmit to the public. Careless reporting will lead to negative opinions about the validity of scientific research, and implants incorrect thoughts into the public's mind. Whenever I read an article or listen to news about scientific claims, I now know not to immediately believe anything (especially if it has anything to do with gender studies or psychology in general). I don't believe that A causes B in any situation; there are countless variables in any study that do not get accounted for. Also I understand that our knowledge is limited (we don't really know anything) and that purple unicorns from outer-space could appear at any time and completely shatter our current beliefs of reality (however unlikely). Like the old saying goes we only truly know two things: we're each going to die and pay taxes until we do. Unfortunately not many people have such a scrutinizing view of what others tell them and groups of people start believing falsified data.
Friday, March 9, 2012
Reflective Journal Blog Post
When I first made my proposal I just knew I wanted to study man-made objects in space from propulsion, solar systems, re-entry, spacecraft materials, and many others. With continued research on my topic, I have been able to narrow down to robotics in space, and have grown more excited about the topic than ever. I've found some really cool projects in development concerning autonomous programming for robots including the ability to intercept and course-correct orbital satellites, calculate a path through rocky terrain on Mars, and potentially even construct structures in space. In my proposal I wasn't quite sure what area of space robotics I wanted to research. Putting a search in ebsco for "space robotics" came up with a wealth of stuff, so I've narrowed my topic down to first why we need robots in space, the robots we have functioning now, and what applications we can use robotics in. A very large problem right now is "space junk". NASA's Orbital Debris website states that "[a]pproximately 19,000 objects larger than 10 cm are known to exist. The estimated population of particles between 1 and 10 cm in diameter is approximately 500,000. The number of particles smaller than 1 cm probably exceeds tens of millions". Also when we paired up today to talk about our project I got a lot of really good questions from my partner to further explore, so I've been able to define my topic a lot better. Another thing I want to talk about is how people interact with robots, known as teleoperation. Someone literally controls the robot from Earth or a spacestation, and is able to manipulate the environment just as if the operator had been there. This has incredibility fascinating potential to be "the next big thing" in space technology development. It reminds me of the book "Ender's Game" by Orson Scott Card where children were controlling fighter planes in space in what they thought a "game" but were really piloting actual craft in a war against bug-like extraterrestrials. I can imagine thousands of avid video-gamers would love to get their hands on the controller of some of the world's most advanced technology. I sure would like to.
Friday, March 2, 2012
ENGL Blog Post
What objectivity? After reading Fine and "106 Science Claims [...]" I don't trust anything I've ever learned about science. Fine has countless examples of researchers skewing the conclusions of data to fit their bias and what they want the data to reveal. Now anytime a friend tells me about some study I demand for more information than "some guys concluded this". Without details, empirical data, or repeated experiments conclusions mean nothing. I feel that the general public doesn't scrutinize scientific claims nearly enough and that can be very dangerous because people start believing incorrect data as fact. It's scary what people will believe and how easily.
Now I'm not saying there aren't any reputable scientists, they're the ones that keep to themselves and don't try to spit propaganda through faulty science. The problem is they aren't the ones reaching out to the masses and changing social policy. I also feel a big part of the problem is caused when research is accommodated and the uncertainty researchers have of direct correlations gets completely thrown out the window. Even if the researcher had objectivity in the beginning, the results of the study get into the public and carried away. I remember in grade school we would play this game where one person whispered something into another student’s ear, then that student passed the message to another student, and so on and so forth. By the end of the line the message was horribly altered into something not even close to relating to the original message. I find this to be a very appropriate example of what the general public ends up doing with scientific claims.
Every day I hear information that people claim as “true” that I know for a fact to be incorrect just by doing a tiny bit of personal research. One of my favorites is the use of Taurine. First time I heard about it my friend said, “oh yeah that stuff in Red Bull comes from bull testes, that’s why they call it that.” In reality Taurine was first extracted from bull bile (Marshall, ML. "Taurine." Nutritional Perspectives: Journal Of The Council On Nutrition 32.4 (2009): 33-34. CINAHL with Full Text.) and that “fact is that the taurine in Red Bull is produced synthetically by pharmaceutical companies and is not derived from animals” (Red Bull’s website). That took me a whole fifteen minutes to find out for myself and now I’m that much less ignorant.
Basically, people need to be more aware that scientists have agendas too and not to immediately credit what anyone says. A questioning mind is a healthy mind.
Now I'm not saying there aren't any reputable scientists, they're the ones that keep to themselves and don't try to spit propaganda through faulty science. The problem is they aren't the ones reaching out to the masses and changing social policy. I also feel a big part of the problem is caused when research is accommodated and the uncertainty researchers have of direct correlations gets completely thrown out the window. Even if the researcher had objectivity in the beginning, the results of the study get into the public and carried away. I remember in grade school we would play this game where one person whispered something into another student’s ear, then that student passed the message to another student, and so on and so forth. By the end of the line the message was horribly altered into something not even close to relating to the original message. I find this to be a very appropriate example of what the general public ends up doing with scientific claims.
Every day I hear information that people claim as “true” that I know for a fact to be incorrect just by doing a tiny bit of personal research. One of my favorites is the use of Taurine. First time I heard about it my friend said, “oh yeah that stuff in Red Bull comes from bull testes, that’s why they call it that.” In reality Taurine was first extracted from bull bile (Marshall, ML. "Taurine." Nutritional Perspectives: Journal Of The Council On Nutrition 32.4 (2009): 33-34. CINAHL with Full Text.) and that “fact is that the taurine in Red Bull is produced synthetically by pharmaceutical companies and is not derived from animals” (Red Bull’s website). That took me a whole fifteen minutes to find out for myself and now I’m that much less ignorant.
Basically, people need to be more aware that scientists have agendas too and not to immediately credit what anyone says. A questioning mind is a healthy mind.
Friday, February 24, 2012
The Evolution of Metal - Genre Analysis Part 1
In my journey to promote my band I keep getting asked "so what's death metal anyway?" and I'm stumped. My first thought is, "well...it's metal....heavier than thrash, and they started it screaming about death and zombies and whatnot". Then go on to explain how a band called Death led by Chuck Schuldiner (a huge inspiration in my guitar playing) that started it all. I'm deciding to write up a more comprehensive overview of the origin of metal. This will be a telling of my own rise through metal as well as heavily supplemented by information from wikipedia. Since I could seriously write forever about this and start it at the part where man learned to smack a stick on a rock in time to create a pleasant rhythm I'm going to do this in parts. Fair warning it may take me a while to get through it all but I'll try for some sort of consistent release. Anyway, without further adieu...
So when your average Joe thinks about metal music, I'm sure the first few things that come to mind are violence, Satan, incomprehensible vocals, and dudes stabbing each-other at concerts. Or they don't think anything at all because they've never heard of this "death metal" they just know it doesn't sound friendly. The problem lies in the mainstream media (as always, misinformation is their way of life). The things I listed do apply to metal, but are far more anecdotal than some over-arching philosophy. Philosophy of Violence....kick ass song name... I digress. When I try and talk to my friends about metal, they always seemed to be concerned with the vocals the most. Yes. A lot of metal is "grr-grr-grr" sounding until you actually open your ears and start listening. In that lies the fact that metal tends to be very loud and busy, and I think the average listener has a hard time sorting out the "noise". I personally enjoy noise. Want to really go outside the box? Check out Sunn O))) (the band took the name from the amplifier brand they use: Sunn). In many of their songs they only have guitar feedback as "music". I find they're a great band to listen to while doing homework. There's stuff going on, but you're not actively listening to it. Also to give myself some ethos, I play guitar in a death metal band and I have been studying metal now for four years. I'm still years away from knowing every band that lead up to this point, but projects are always going to fall to the way-side while the big names get all the credit. I also listen to stuff other than metal such as world music, alt rock, classic rock, tribal, classical, flamenco, . Recently I've been studying the evolution of hip-hop and gangster rap. Funny enough I just now got to where I can tolerate rap at all. For years it all sounded the same but it's all in the subtleties, as with any genre.
So where did this metal junk come from? Well as we learned in class genres evolve from other genres. Metal arose out of heavy metal (odd that "heavy metal" bands are the classics, then just "metal" arose angrier and faster, but I guess they didn't expect it to get any heavier than "heavy metal"). Heavy metal arose from rock and roll along with punk, and that arose from the blues.
I think these fellows would get along just nicely since they came from the same "musical mother" :)
It all begins with jazz and the invention of the electric guitar. Jazz was specifically more a New Orleans tradition compared to the blues which was regionally more spread out and founded it's own subgenres (i.e. Mississippi delta blues or Texas Blues). Jazz took the rules of classical music and threw them out the window, creating very unique, personalized, and improvised music.
Jazz has evolved exponentially since its formation and has dozens of subgenres. Early British Rock bands such as Deep Purple and Led Zeppelin took these blues tunes along with the emergence of rock and roll in the 1940's from greats such as Chuck Berry, and mixed em together to create blues rock, or classic rock as we consider it now.
One huge influence to the creation of metal is Black Sabbath. Black Sabbath (originally a blues band called Earth) introduced a very dark atmosphere and occult lyrics to the music leading to Ozzy's wonderful profiling, as well as a sound in music unlike any before it. A while genre of metal is based on Black Sabbath called "doom metal"; characterized by very slow tempos, droning guitar, sung lyrics, and blues type riffs.
Along side the formation of rock and blues rock, hidden in dingy smoke-filled bars was punk rock which was not only just a music genre, but an explosive sub-culture in the UK and US east coast (and Australia). Bands that let this revolution included Iggy Pop, The Who, The Kinks, and ended the golden era of punk with bands like the Ramones, Sex Pistols, and the Clash. Punk is most recognizable from its Do-It-Yourself lifestyle such as homemade clothing and anti-establishment lyrics. As with any genre, many subgenres sprouted up out of punk including hardcore, Oi!, pop punk, crust punk, anarcho-punk, and even emo music (before emo turned into what it is today, thanks a lot record companies...).
That's a nice beginning to our tale of music. I plan on spending a lot more time on individual bands when I get up to ones that I know stuff about. When we return in part two we'll be looking at the 1970's rise of New Wave of British Heavy Metal and the formation of speed metal and trash metal. Thanks for reading!
So when your average Joe thinks about metal music, I'm sure the first few things that come to mind are violence, Satan, incomprehensible vocals, and dudes stabbing each-other at concerts. Or they don't think anything at all because they've never heard of this "death metal" they just know it doesn't sound friendly. The problem lies in the mainstream media (as always, misinformation is their way of life). The things I listed do apply to metal, but are far more anecdotal than some over-arching philosophy. Philosophy of Violence....kick ass song name... I digress. When I try and talk to my friends about metal, they always seemed to be concerned with the vocals the most. Yes. A lot of metal is "grr-grr-grr" sounding until you actually open your ears and start listening. In that lies the fact that metal tends to be very loud and busy, and I think the average listener has a hard time sorting out the "noise". I personally enjoy noise. Want to really go outside the box? Check out Sunn O))) (the band took the name from the amplifier brand they use: Sunn). In many of their songs they only have guitar feedback as "music". I find they're a great band to listen to while doing homework. There's stuff going on, but you're not actively listening to it. Also to give myself some ethos, I play guitar in a death metal band and I have been studying metal now for four years. I'm still years away from knowing every band that lead up to this point, but projects are always going to fall to the way-side while the big names get all the credit. I also listen to stuff other than metal such as world music, alt rock, classic rock, tribal, classical, flamenco, . Recently I've been studying the evolution of hip-hop and gangster rap. Funny enough I just now got to where I can tolerate rap at all. For years it all sounded the same but it's all in the subtleties, as with any genre.
So where did this metal junk come from? Well as we learned in class genres evolve from other genres. Metal arose out of heavy metal (odd that "heavy metal" bands are the classics, then just "metal" arose angrier and faster, but I guess they didn't expect it to get any heavier than "heavy metal"). Heavy metal arose from rock and roll along with punk, and that arose from the blues.
I think these fellows would get along just nicely since they came from the same "musical mother" :)
It all begins with jazz and the invention of the electric guitar. Jazz was specifically more a New Orleans tradition compared to the blues which was regionally more spread out and founded it's own subgenres (i.e. Mississippi delta blues or Texas Blues). Jazz took the rules of classical music and threw them out the window, creating very unique, personalized, and improvised music.
Jazz has evolved exponentially since its formation and has dozens of subgenres. Early British Rock bands such as Deep Purple and Led Zeppelin took these blues tunes along with the emergence of rock and roll in the 1940's from greats such as Chuck Berry, and mixed em together to create blues rock, or classic rock as we consider it now.
One huge influence to the creation of metal is Black Sabbath. Black Sabbath (originally a blues band called Earth) introduced a very dark atmosphere and occult lyrics to the music leading to Ozzy's wonderful profiling, as well as a sound in music unlike any before it. A while genre of metal is based on Black Sabbath called "doom metal"; characterized by very slow tempos, droning guitar, sung lyrics, and blues type riffs.
Along side the formation of rock and blues rock, hidden in dingy smoke-filled bars was punk rock which was not only just a music genre, but an explosive sub-culture in the UK and US east coast (and Australia). Bands that let this revolution included Iggy Pop, The Who, The Kinks, and ended the golden era of punk with bands like the Ramones, Sex Pistols, and the Clash. Punk is most recognizable from its Do-It-Yourself lifestyle such as homemade clothing and anti-establishment lyrics. As with any genre, many subgenres sprouted up out of punk including hardcore, Oi!, pop punk, crust punk, anarcho-punk, and even emo music (before emo turned into what it is today, thanks a lot record companies...).
That's a nice beginning to our tale of music. I plan on spending a lot more time on individual bands when I get up to ones that I know stuff about. When we return in part two we'll be looking at the 1970's rise of New Wave of British Heavy Metal and the formation of speed metal and trash metal. Thanks for reading!
Inquiry Contract Abstract
Inquiry Contract Proposal Abstract
In my article I’m going to explore the present and future technologies in the area of space robotics. Major projects currently underway include two rovers exploring the surface of Mars and conducting research as well as the first ever “robonaut” working at the International Space Station. I’m going to explain how the technology currently works along with new ideas still in the lab for robotic interaction. Also I’m going to look at some of the big questions such as will robotics replace manned spaceflight and in what other applications we can use robots for research or even building space structures and repairing satellites.
In my article I’m going to explore the present and future technologies in the area of space robotics. Major projects currently underway include two rovers exploring the surface of Mars and conducting research as well as the first ever “robonaut” working at the International Space Station. I’m going to explain how the technology currently works along with new ideas still in the lab for robotic interaction. Also I’m going to look at some of the big questions such as will robotics replace manned spaceflight and in what other applications we can use robots for research or even building space structures and repairing satellites.
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