HW#8

THINK THROUGH HISTORY 'clarifying' question on page 551:

According to Hobbes, people should live under a strong, absolute monarch so there would be more control over the people. They would obey rules more often.

SKILL BUILDER questions (1&2) on page 554

1. John Locke had the idea for natural rights - life, liberty, and property, which was important for the Declaration of Independence. The U.S Bill of Rights contains Voltaire's idea of freedom of expression and Baccaria's abolishment of torture idea.

2. In my opinion, I think the abolishment of torture and separation of powers are the most important ideas. Torture is what harms humans a lot. It is pain and suffering, two things that no one wants. The separation of powers is great because it keeps each branch of the government separated so one won't be too powerful.

Questions 1 & 3 ONLY on page 556:

1. TERMS AND NAMES
Enlightenment - The Age of Reasoning, created based on ideas of the scientific revolution.
Social Contract - an agreement in which people live by law and order from a stronger ruler.
John Locke - A politician and philosopher who believed that everyone can live free and with equal rights.
Natural rights - John Locke's idea that people are born equally with life, liberty, and property.
Philosophe - The social critics of the Enlightenment of France.
Voltaire - A philosophe who created the ideas of freedom of thought, expression, and religion.
Montesquieu - An influential French writer that called the division of power among different branches, separation of powers.
Jean Jacques Rousseau - A philosophe who believed that humans were all born free but by becoming civilized, the freedom was destroyed.
Mary Wollstonecraft - A woman who fought for women's rights and equality.

3. SYNTHESIZING

"Power should be a check to power."
This was by Montesquieu. It means that each branch of government will help each other, and check each others' ideas to form a final decision.

"Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains."
This was by Rousseau. It means that everyone was born free and equal, but being civilized caused people to realize strengths and weaknesses. Stronger people started to rule.

"Let women share the rights and she will emulate the virtues of men."
This quote was obviously by Mary Wollstonecraft. It means that women can be just as virtuous and useful as men if they received the same education and same rights.

A Baby Photo Becomes an Internet Meme

A Baby Photo Becomes an Internet Meme
By Matt Gross
September 15, 2010
The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/16/fashion/16meme.html

A father posts baby photos of his son on his personal website and somehow one ended up on various types of Japanese visual entertainment, where people edited it for fun.

Back in the year 2000, Mr. Allen S. Rout posted baby pictures oh his son, Stephen, on his website, being very happy that his son was really happy. 10 years later, when Mr. Rout would never think of the photo, he did a google search of himself and surprisingly found the picture of his son edited into many other things. Some pictures had cartoonish backgrounds and word bubbles with Japanese writing. Others had Stephen's face edited into other pictures, such as Mount Rushmore. These images even showed up on TV game shows.
To put it all together, this photo became an "internet meme," which is an idea, image, catchphrase or video that gets crazy or starts a huge spark of humorous interest. They usually form from random inside jokes.
The baby photo was somehow found by KnowYourMeme.com, a site that records memes and creates humorous videos to explain the meme. The photo was originally used for a video, "Aka-San" ("Mr. Baby" in Japanese). Luckily for Mr. Rout, Stephen's photo was just used as an open-source stock image; it had nothing to do with Stephen's identity. Its pretty much like use google to find a picture for a project.
Stephen, who is now 10, doesn’t hate this. Instead he is learning karate and reading sci-fi novels during his summers. He was really surprised, amazed, and weirded out.

I chose this news story because I found it really interesting. Most of the other stories in the technology section are boring to me, they're mostly about business sites and companies, things adults would read. Also, I chat in internet forums quite often, so memes are common to me and I know what the internet is like. It’s much easier to understand this article because of my background knowledge.

This article doesn't really connect to the unit we are studying (scientific revolution). This is modern day, while that’s decades before computers were invented.

HW#5

Question 1-

Scientific Revolution - A period of time when great advances in science were made
Nicolaus Copernicus - A Polish astronomer whose theory was that Earth and other planets in the solar system revolve around the sun.
heliocentric theory - a Sun centered solar system
Johannes Kepler - a mathematician who believed that planets evolve around the sun in elliptical orbits and not circles.
Galilio Galilei - An Italian mathematician, astronomer, and physicist who used the telescope to look into outer space to study the planets, stars, and whatever else he could find.
scientific method - method of research in which there is a problem to be answered with an experiment.
Francis Bacon - An English politician and writer with a great interest in science
Rene Descartes - A French man who developed analytical geometry, which became an important new tool for scientific research.
Isaac Newton - An English astronomer, mathematician, and philosopher who created the laws of gravitation.

Question 2-

1. Many scholars discovered artifacts and old resources that opened a possibility for new truths to be found
2. Poeple started to inquire the Church and religion
3. More people realized that these newer discoveries made more sense
4. The scientific method crafted new ways to do observations
5. Aristotle's theories were questioned.
6. People generally wanted to know more about the world.

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