I’m going to be honest. Coming into this research paper I didn’t really care about the topic I had chosen. I had heard that it had to be somewhere between 8 and 10 pages and I thought, 10 pages? I don’t know if I can write about anything for 10 pages. So I picked something that sounded relatively interesting that I had thought I could possibly come close to that. It wasn’t until I had actually begun to write my paper that I developed a real interest in what I was writing about.
It really is crazy to me the way in which technology affects today’s society, and to think that we can now meet our potential soul mates through an online dating service completely baffles me. As I was writing my research essay, I was trying to come up with as many crazy things that technology has affected today to help support my ideas throughout my paper. As I continued to write, I couldn’t think of anything that technology HASN’T affected. I had problems coming up with just one; one that would stand out as more absurd beyond the rest.
Some may still ask why I chose dating. Why that from everything to choose from, that was my choice. And I’m not real sure myself. I have always thought that the idea myself was somewhat crazy, that the thought of meeting a completely random person through a computer and finding compatibility just seemed so slim to me. So I guess by picking this topic, I wanted to try and make myself more open minded about the idea and maybe totally change my opinion on it overall.
One of the main problems I’ve always had while writing papers, is to properly support my sources and own opinions, and by doing it well. As I used to just site my sources and do my best to explain them, didn’t always make my paper “flow.” It seemed like I was doing just that. Finding a source, one that fit, and writing in different words, my own words, what the source had clearly already said itself.
Initially, my first thought on a “topic” was to sort of combine two different ideas. I was going to try to research and explain how social networking has affecting dating, while at the same time, showing how it affects people’s social skills. However, while explaining how social networking can be seen as a form of laziness, and losing “people skills” and social skills along with that laziness, technology has been a primary factor in that because more often than not, what we find ourselves preoccupying our time with wants rather than needs.
I felt that bringing up the importance of fraud with Internet dating was a big deal. I believe it raises a lot of issues, and for those that have a negative opinion on Internet dating, I feel it’s that, that makes them so eerie about it. That whole idea started one night when I was watching “To Catch A Predator” on MSNBC, a show where an young girl plays along with guys over the age of 18 to see if they will follow through with meeting this girl in person. When the guy shows up at the girls’ house, its there where they find out it’s a setup, and are arrested because they were clearly aware of the age of the young girl. It just makes you wonder how many times this happens, when it’s real and not a television show setup.
Finding and citing sources was a difficult challenge for me throughout my research essay. I found it difficult to find sources that supported the same ideas that I did. Some would help to prove one of my points while at the same time completely disagreeing with another. It was then that I realized that not all of my sources had to fully agree with everything I was trying to say and that by finding a source that did just the opposite and fully disagreed with my opinion was just as easy to use as an example to support my ideas.
For whatever someone feels towards online dating services, there are legitimate reasons behind each side. A main reason, and sometimes the only reason for why people that feel negative towards he issue, as I’ve already stated, is because of the fraud issue; the fact that you can’t be 100% positive that the person you are meeting is exactly who they say they are, or some creep who has nothing better to do with his time. On the other hand, someone who thinks it’s a good idea could have reasoning such as time. Someone that has no free time except for the hour they have to themselves when work is over and the kids are in bed, doesn’t necessarily have that extra time that some others do.
Throughout the semester, as we read three different pieces relating to technology, it helped me to remember back to what the writers of those pieces’ opinions on the forms of technology are that allow these types of advancements to take place, and to compare my own thoughts with theirs. Although I didn’t always agree, it helped to show me differently points of view that can be taken on with similar issues.
When our class met in small groups to talk over and give advice on one another’s papers, it proved very helpful to me. While revising my papers, I always notice that when things make sense to me, they don’t always make sense to others. So to see what my classmates did and didn’t understand helped me out a lot. It showed me what I needed to improve on that I, myself wouldn’t have seen otherwise. There were several times in my paper when students would either comment on that I didn’t give sufficient information to back up my opinions, or that I didn’t add in my own opinion enough with the sources I would use. That has also been one of my biggest challenges. To find a balance somewhere in the middle, where I have just enough sources to support my opinions and just enough opinions backing up my sources.
I believe that my research on this essay was successful. Not successful in the fact that I put down onto paper everything I discovered, but successful because of the fact that my opinion on online dating, did in fact, change. I didn’t go into this research topic expecting to come away from it with a life changing experience, however, I didn’t exactly expect it to change my whole outlook on the issue, as it did either.

Blog #10

A decision I made while revising my rough draft, not only was making it longer, without adding insigificant information, but also supporting my sources and own opinions well. I realized that I needed to make my paper "flow" better as opposed to it seeming as if I was jsut throwing in sources and trying my best to explain them.
The face-to-face conferences helped me alot. I think the main reason it helped is because you get to hear your classmates, who are writing the same type of paper, say what would better help them understand your paper. Because sometimes when I write, it's obviously going to make sense to me, but not always to other people. So I like to hear which things dont. Those comments from my classmates help me to proofread my paper making sure it's clear and able to be understood by anybody, even people who would not have taken the class and known about the information or pieces of writings in them.

Assignment 8

To introduce the concept and understanding of technology would be like trying to predict the weather in the year 2020. We could all make a guess as to what sort of new crazy things we will have in 10, or 20 years, but how accurate will we really be?
We could sit and make a list all day long of things that include technology, but if we think of just a few that are especially absurd, on the top of my list at least, is dating. In middle school history class, we all learned about the days where a woman and a man could be paired together, by someone else’s choice, or by their financial or family background, and the divorce rate was hardly existent. These days, we have the opportunity to choose who we want to spend the rest of our lives with, yet it’s so uncommon anymore to even find children that still live with both of their parents. Now we’re “finding love” through online dating services? I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t have been able to predict that decades ago.
Just like anything else, everyone obviously has their own opinion on what they think of online dating. My opinion, as I have already made pretty clear, is that it’s weird, and somewhat crazy. The chart below shows what the average population’s opinions on the matter are. As you can see, other than the “undecided” population, the next most popular is thinking that online dating is a “great” way to meet people, followed closely by “frowned” upon. This chart alone can help to show that there’s no one way that people think of the issue over another. They are pretty evened out, leaving no “right answer” as to if it’s a good thing or not. Both sides could have good arguments. Those who are a fan of online dating could have many reasons for thinking that. For instance, a full-time working, single mom of three, obviously isn’t going to have a whole lot of free time to go out and meet people, making an internet service really convenient. However, those that don’t particularly like the idea, could see it as creepy, or just have the typical thought in mind that “only weird people do that stuff.” Both sides have valid points.
“The authors find that perceived online dating success is predicted by four dimensions of self-disclosure (honesty, amount, intent, and valence), although honesty has a negative effect”(152). This quote, written by Jennifer L. Gibbs, Nicole B. Ellison, and Rebecca D. Heino, in their article called “Self-Presentation in online personals,” briefly states that, “honesty has a negative effect” towards online dating. This leads us to what some may call “online predators.” As we all know, anybody can be anybody online. We’ve all heard of situations where older men tell young girls that they are the same age as they are and ask to meet them. You may also have seen the show that shows evidence of such situations on MSNBC’s “To Catch A Predator.” The picture below that’s says, “ You’re a model? Cool! I’m a Chippendale’s dancer. I also race speedboats. What’s your sign?” is just one example of how people misrepresent themselves, because clearly those statements do not prove true to the picture. Another good example would be Brad Paisley’s song called “online” which describes a guy who still lives with his mom, whose overweight and works at the local pizza pit. However, he then describes how he’s another person when he’s on the Internet and describes himself as highly attractive, with a lot of money. “Adolescents’ Identity Experiments on the Internet,” an article written by Patti M. Valkenburg, and Jochen Peter states that “about 50% of Internet users had pretended to be someone else”(209). There could be several reasons as to why people pretend to be someone else. Maybe it has to do with self-confidence issues, and since they are unhappy with themselves the way they are, it helps them to escape themselves, and be somebody completely different; someone that includes no expectations to live up to. Another reason could just be pure amusement.
Not only can online dating have negative outcomes, but along with that, I believe online social networks, such as online dating services, lead to social problems. You find a lot of cases in which people who spend a majority of their time online, aren’t “up to par” on their real life social skills. Sure, those people might be able to type up pages and pages of their opinion on a certain topic or discussion, but if you had a face-to-face conversation with that very same person, it is very possible that this person is at loss of words after even a few seconds.
Amanda Williams writes in her article “A review of Online Social Networking by Adolescents,” “in the past five years, social networking has “rocketed from a niche activity, into a phenomenon that engages tens of millions of Internet users”(2). How could the Internet not affect our young society today with that many users?
As none of these sources for examples really demonstrate a negative or positive feeling towards the internet, neither does David Nye, in his book “Technology Matters.” Nye never gives his real opinion on what technology is good for, or rather, if it is good at all. Nye more or less states facts on what technology has done for us. Since he takes no positive or negative take on it, it relates well to the dating issue. There is no right or wrong answer when it comes to what people believe.
All of these issues raise many questions in where our society might be in another 20 years from now. For example, if the Internet is affecting the world to this great of lengths today, can we possibly even imagine what we will be able to do in the future? If social networking is already a part of our personal lives, can it go any farther than that?
This topic of research most interested me because I’ve always wondered how what others besides myself think about the online dating. Also along with how social networks affects social skills, I find it a little ridiculous that some people spend so much of their times online that they can’t hardly live normal lives, communicating regularly with the people around them. What other things can help to affect our society’s social skills? What types of things can we do to help prevent these situations from happening? Those people that find love through online dating services, could be one of the most talkative, outgoing people ever, but when in person, they no longer have the comfort of their computer to help them interact. So is this idea really helpful at all?

blog #9

Valkenburg, and Peter Jochen. P. M., et. al., Adolescents' Identity Experiments on the Internet:
Consequences for Social Competence and Self-Concept Unity. Communication Research v. 35 no. 2 (April 2008) p. 208-31

Patti M. Valkenburg and Jochen Peter, both graduates with a PhD from Amsterdam School of Communications Research, teamed together to write this article, focusing primarily on the effects of media contents and technology with the development of children and young adults. The type of audience most likely to be interested in this article, are those just as interested in the research of how technology, primarily social networking, affects our young society today. Keywords the authors used for this article were: Internet, chat, social skills, loneliness, and self-concept clarity. These keywords make it easy to relate to my topic of research because I’m doing just that; showing how the Internet affects social skills, and therefore could cause things such as loneliness and self-concept clarity issues.

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Couch, Danielle, and Pranee Liamputtong. "Online Dating and Mating: The Use of the Internet to Meet Sexual Partners." Qualitative Health Research 18 (2008): 268-79.

Danielle Couch, a postgraduate student at the School of Public Health, and Pranee Liamputtong, also at the school of Public Health, both researched the use of the Internet to meet sexual partners. They researched the process in which some people go about meeting their sexual partner through the way that they participate with online programs using such things as the webcam, email, and chat to engage in conversation, and meet one another. This article relates well with my research topic in the sense that I’m trying to figure out if the idea of developing a relationship from Internet resources is negative, or if it could actually prove as useful and successful.

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Levy, David. Love and Sex with Robots. New York: HarperCollins, 2007.

As an internationally known artificial intelligence expert and the International computer games association, David Levy seems to represent…something not offensive. Stereotypically, his audience is not widely known for their social skills. As his subject involves future intercourse with robots, this stereotype may hold true. Levy graduated from Acadia University in 1972 and received his masters in English from Queens University in 1979. The author’s audience is targeted at anyone who has an interest in technology in general, or specifically robots. The demand of Levy audience is the curiosity in just how far technology can go. Author David Levy is primarily trying to address the things that technology brings us to today, showing how absurd the new ideas that people create are. A main argument that Levy makes is that what we may have imagined never happening, could happen a lot sooner than we think, or could already be happening right before our eyes. For example in briefly describing what the book is about, Levy states: “Love, marriage, and sex with robots? Not in a million years? Maybe a whole lot sooner.”

Just the term, “Robot-human sexual intercourse” is a controversial issue. It’s no question sex in society has been a constantly changing argument, for centuries views have differed and changed by public opinion. But even in today’s society where sex seems to be a little less taboo, (even if no one wants to admit it but advertisements can publicly resemble at pin up poster) it’s unclear how people will react to sexual relations with inanimate objects. Considering the openness of the subject, it’s hard to tell if the author is “cropping out” certain topics. It’s possible that these robots might turn on their masters or become some sort of undercover device for the government. A threat to privacy could be eminent, but that’s the risk you run with dating a computer. The idea of being able to have a real relationship with a robot in and of itself, is interesting; thinking that someone can have real feelings for an object hardly considered anything but programmed. I think Levy’s main purpose in talking about this issue, is to make us aware of how technology is literally changing the world. This source could prove as very useful in terms of our final research papers, because it not only helps us to see the different affects technology has on us in just this aspect, but it opened our eyes showing us that it can relate to more topics than just our own.


From these three out of my six sources, I have hardly had to alter my original research topic at all. Although all three are very different articles, explaining very different topics and situations, each tie into my research topic in the sense that technology GREATLY changes our everyday life. Whether it changes our lives in the sense that it's our personal life, like relationships, and skills, such as those that could develop differently because of social networking through the Internet, or whether it be something as broad as how robots could one day "take over the world." Overall, research so far has opened my eyes to just how many ways I can take my views and opinions on my topic.

Blog #8

While thinking of a research topic, while trying to best relate it with technology, the first thing that came to my mind was how crazy about it some people are. Ten years ago, how many people would have called you crazy by meeting the person you married, online? Most likely, people would think you were absolutely nuts. Today, it’s so often you hear of people going to “Match.com” or “FindLove.com” or whatever they may be. Also the relationship to how internet social networks affect people’s social skills now a days. Someone could write novels on a computer, expressing their feelings, and that same person, may not be able to carry on a conversation to your face for longer than 30 seconds. Overall, I guess its just interesting to me HOW the internet can affect people’s social skills, and just how many different ways its being used today.

Assignment 5

Throughout David E. Nye’s book, Technology Matters, he sites several sources that help him to better explain the points in which he was referring to. For example, in chapter 10, he refers to a writer by the name of Debra Galant, who wrote the article called “Driven to Distraction,” the source quoted by Nye states, “Many drivers have trouble keeping their eyes on the road as they drink their coffee, eat, and talk on the phone, sometimes steering with their knees. A few drivers try to work on their personal computers or personal digital assistants”(186). In this section of the book Nye starts by explaining the positive side, so to say of multi-tasking. For example when parents “praise” their children on their ability to listen to music, do their homework, and surf the internet all at the same time. However, when it starts to consume our lives, and multi-tasking becomes a part of everything we do, is it such a good thing? Of course it’s nice when all of our favorite restaurants, now have drive thrus, but that’s just another thing to add to our busy, hectic days. All of these everyday tasks tend to just form into being a normal routine for everyone, increasing everyday and if said from Nye’s point of view is because “people seem almost compulsive about keeping up with information flows”(186).

Another source that Nye refers to in his text, is taken from a book called Digital Being, written by Nicholas Negroponte. While explaining how much of the world today, think technology is a type of leisure item, rather than a necessity, Nye goes against the opinion of Negroponte when he states that: “digital technology can be a natural force drawing people into greater world harmony”(19). As Nye’s response to that is this: “This is nonsense. No technology is, has been, or will be a “natural force.” Nor will any technology by itself break down cultural barriers and bring world peace”(19), he obviously strongly disagrees that technology such as the television can have such a great effect, or too, a positive affect on society. He also argues that they can in no way be a “natural” force in the sense that technology in and of itself are inventions, not something that’s always existed. This opinion seems rather fair, seeing as how you can’t give something the credit of being “real” when it’s taking the place or making something easier, after the original product has always existed, just maybe not been as convenient as new discoveries.

All throughout Nye’s text are many strong, well reasonable arguments. The ones I chose to explain are just two of the hundreds of sources Nye uses throughout his entire book. While explaining an interesting topic, he uses either sources that agree with his opinions, or ones that argue against them, making it easier to express his point of view.

Although Nye doesn’t agree with all the uses of technology, he doesn’t necessarily “bash” any of them either. Using several examples of ways that can improve society, along with the ways it doesn’t, help people to realize the changes America really goes through everyday. Today, do any of us really realize just how much the world around us changes everyday? Do we realize how far we’ve come from 50 years ago, or even just 10 years ago? When we go out and buy the newest ipod, do you realize it was only just a couple months ago that we just bought the newest one then? I think these are the kinds of questions Nye is trying to raise. Ones that are so simple, yet everybody is completely oblivious to.

“Driven to Distraction,” an article written by Debra Galant, I about the many things drivers do while behind the wheel. Everyone obviously has their own comfort ability level while driving, most people tell other people not to talk on the phone or text while they drive, yet they do it so often themselves. Montill Williams, a national director of public affairs for AAA, the travel club, states in the article that: “ Everyone else’s cellphone irritates you, but your own is indispensible. People think its O.K. for tem to do it, but its bad for everyone else.”
Galant says many times how our society is encouraging the distractions while driving by building more and more drive-thrus. How many restaurants now have the convenience of a drive-thru, you’d count almost all of them.
A chairman of the Assembly Transportation Committee, named John Wisniewski, states in Galant’s articles that he believes multi-tasking in cars has become a “need, rather than a want. For people like soccer moms and convenience store owners. My biggest driving challenge is drinking a cup of coffee and eating a Krispy Kreme at the same time.
Multi-tasking while driving has different effects depending even on just the state in which someone is. For example “bending over to pick up a dropped French fry in Utah could cause someone to run into a ditch, whereas in somewhere like New York, it would cause a chain reaction and tie up the turnpike for hours”(2).This is just an example of the outcomes of such driving.
In a book called “Digital Being,” written by Nicholas Negroponte, is a book that could be summed up into the writer explaining how technology and digital programmed machines are going to one day “take over the world.”
Negroponte starts part of his introduction by showing the statistics of just how many Americans own desktops or laptops. “35 percent of American families and 50 of American teenagers, have a personal computer at home; 30 million people are estimated to be on the internet; 65 percent of new computers sold worldwide in 1994(5). If so many people are already owning computers to help them do their everyday tasks, obviously people want the easiest way to do things, so they are going to buy those things. Hence the reason technology greatly advances everyday.
To show the determination to get his point across Negroponte says this: “Your telephone won’t ring in discriminately; it will receive, sort and perhaps respond to your incoming calls like a well trained English butler”(6). All of us have one day wondered if our cars are going to be able to fly. Or just how many things are going to drastically change within our lifestyle, Negroponte just makes it clearer to us what types of things these may be.
In comparison to David Nye’s book “Technology Matters,” these two sources raise a lot of the same points as does Nye. Their outlook on the intensions of technology are similar due to the fact that they show how far technology has brought us today and how its still changing everyday in the hopes to make our lives easier.

Blog #3

While writing my last essay, some of the choices I made as far as how I constructed and pieced together my essay was main points and ideas. The things I thought most important and relevant to the text, that would help a person who maybe has never read the writing before, better understand it. I used the pieces in both “The Human Factor,” and “The Cat’s Cradle,” that stuck out most to me as interesting, or worth writing about and explaining. For example, in “The Human Factor,” when described that the long work schedules affected the studies and concentrations of the working and their quality of work, I thought that by showing the statistics to just how many people really are affected by careless errors, really helped prove the point.
As far as the peer-editing experience goes, everyone obviously has their own personal opinion on whether or not they like it or not, or prefer it. I, however, am one of the fewer, most likely, that doesn’t exactly love it. I perfectly understand and see how other classmates opinions on their work can help get a wider range of thoughts of their writings and help improve it. However, I’ve just always been a person who only cares about the one person’s opinion that actually matters. Maybe that’s just me. I kind of also just think it’s a way, whether we think so or see it at the time, for everyone to secretly form dislikes for one another because of a certain comment made on their work. I’m not someone who would take something like that personally, but I know a lot of people are like that out there. Like I said, I know so many people love that and it helps them piece their writings together better, and most the time it helps me too, I’m just saying. ☺

Part 1, the rough draft, Blog #3

Vincente takes on a much more serious way of explaining his outlooks on technology in the past, and today. While expressing his opinions, he uses very specific detailed examples and situations that show how concerned he is about how deeply technology affects just about everything around us. When Vicente talks about the amount of hours that medical workers work, he compares it to the amount of lives lost due to careless choices or decisions due to the lack of hours of sleep. He argues that those lives could have been saved if the workers were more alert because of more sleep, leading them to make smarter choices. He showed the statistics that for those human error lives lost, equaled to over an “estimated between 44,000 and 98,000 possible preventable deaths”(Vincente, 19). “It kills more people than AIDS (16,516), breast cancer (42,297), and even traffic accidents (43,458)”(Vincente, 19).
While describing a device that could allow humans to check the oil in their car without having to even step foot outside their vehicle, Vincente explains that after each specific, detailed instruction you’d have to follow in order to do so, it would just be easier and less time consuming in the end, to get out and do it normally. His point in that was showing that technology, in most ways, becomes so complex, that all these things it can supposedly make things easier for us, in turn, does just the opposite. It most likely would be harder for one to remember all the buttons to push and the steps to take for one simple gauge to show you your oil line that it would to simply open your hood and pull out the oil stick just as its been done for year, therefore, making it easy to remember. All those buttons and procedures would often lead to frustration in not being able to remember anyhow, making it that most people would just do it that simple way.
One other thing that Vincente describes about technology is commercial aviation. How often do you hear people say: “no, I can’t go there because I’m afraid of riding in vehicles.” Not very often right? Contrasting that, how often do you hear people say: “I’m afraid of flying.” Pretty often right? But why is that? Vincente proves in his writing that obviously one of the leading causes of death in today’s society is traffic accidents, as statistics show above. Not airplane traffic accidents either, car accidents. Yet so many people are afraid or even refuse to fly. Believe it or not, many people would choose to drive a trip across the country in vehicle, taking hours upon hours upon hours, rather than a 2 or 3 hour plan trip. Not only increasing the amount of hours being traveled, but also the risk of an accident occurring. Vincente proves this in his article by saying: “There are usually over 10 million commercial aviation takeoffs and landings each year in the United States, yet the accident rate is typically less than one in a million. For instance, from 1984 to 1996, there was an average of nine fatal accidents per year, leading to an average of 204 deaths” (Vincente, 25).
Vonnegut’s interpretation isn’t entirely different in his book “The Cat’s Cradle,” however, since it’s a story, he just state several facts and statistics to support them. Instead Vonnegut tells a story about a substance called ice-nine created by Dr. Hoenikker, “father” of the atom bomb. Ice-nine, the substance very few know anything about, is something that has the power to destroy the world, and all mankind if not aware what they are dealing with. It is a substance so small that it can fit under a finger nail, yet has the impact to freeze all things that include moisture, to solid ice. Dr. Hoenikker, as we assume, created such a thing with no intentions of destroying anything. However, Hoenikker died, leaving the ice-nine to his children who, unfortunately used the substance to selfishly improve the quality of their own lives, or so they thought at the time. Once the ice-nine is released causing all things, as Dr. Hoenikker had suspected, to be destroyed, we as readers of the story, were left with such questions like these: “ If Dr. Hoenikker knew all the consequences of ice-nine, then why did he still create it?” “If ice-nine could have improved, rather than destroyed, what factors would have made the difference?” “Hadn’t Dr. Hoenikker known enough about his own discovery to know that it was harmful to humans?” (therefore he then wouldn’t have died from it) My opinion is that obviously Dr. Hoenikker had no intensions on dying when he did. I believe that he had no intentions of anything happening the way it did with the discovery he had mad.

Blog #2

“When a man becomes a writer, I think he takes on a sacred obligation to produce beauty and enlightenment and comfort at top speed” (Vonnegut, 231).
Since this book, starts and is intended at first to be based upon the writer of this book, to write another book on the topic that the entire book revolves around, the writer, and writing itself, obviously plays a big role.
“taking on a sacred obligation,” to me implies that one takes on the responsibility of explaining in detail, something of great importance. The main character in this story goes through a great deal of troublesome adventure to finish what he had started with the curiosity of the ice-nine, which he then felt obligated to discover the information he had been seeking.
When one writes, they have certain expectations to fulfill to a reader. When a writer begins a topic, giving the suspense throughout the piece, that the mystery will be revealed, they must successfully do so in finishing what they started, so to speak. Not only though, are these the only expectations, nobody wants to read a article, short story, or novel, that has no entertaining or “enlightening” aspects in it, which is where “producing beauty and enlightenment” comes into play.
Does anyone want to watch a movie that doesn’t get to the actual theme of the story until the movie is 45 minutes in? Not usually. Same goes with a book or writing. “Producing a writing at top speed,” rather than dragging on pointless information in a reading will lose a reader’s interest.
“Any many can call time out, but no man can say how long the time out will be”(Vonnegut,248).
What if Dr. Hoenikker hadn’t died? Had he had a great intension for the invention he had made? The outcome of the story could had been nowhere even in the back of Dr. Hoenikker’s mind. Obviously he had known what his invention of ice-nine was capable of, but could that be why he had not yet done anything with it? Why would someone create such a substance that had no intensions of improving something or affecting something, or quite possibly the whole world, in a positive manner? We can only assume that from the outcome of the story that Dr. Hoenikker knew what his ice-nine would one day do, but since the man was so brilliant in everything he did or created, one can only believe that he had other intensions.
Mentioned, were some positive things that ice-nine¬ could do was help the military move easier in that they could do so on solid surfaces, rather than having to trudge through the mud, but while doing so would not only make those muddy surfaces solid, but everything that had moisture, solid as well, leaving everything to die. Maybe Dr. Hoenikker wasn’t finished with his started experiment and died before he got the chance to show what his finished, improved, non-destroying product would be……. We will never know.


Q: If ice-nine could have improved, rather than have destroyed, what factors would have made the difference?
Q: Hadn’t Dr. Hoenikker known enough about his own discovery to know that it was harmful to humans?
Q: What could have been his positive intensions to producing ice-nine?

Blog #1

While first reading The Human Factor by Kim Vicente and up to page 149 in Kurt Vonnegut’s Cat’s Cradle, I thought the two pieces had not a single thing in common. Although the two pieces of literature take on two completely different approaches, one being telling a story, and the other stating facts, they bring up some very similar points and beliefs.

Kurt Vonnegut’s Cat’s Cradle, is a story describing a boy named Jonah’s adventure to get the inside story of a man named Dr. Hoenikker, the “father” of the atom bomb, in order to write his own book on the issue. Jonah starts by writing to the children of Dr. Hoenikker in which the youngest son, Newton first responds. Newton was only 6 at the time of when the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima therefore unable to remember much of the information Jonah was looking for. What Jonah’s main concerns were, were knowing the experience that the family remembers from the time it happened, and what Dr. Hoenikker himself was doing at the time. After the death of Dr. Hoenikker, it is discovered that he had made a substance called ice-nine which was said to be small enough to fit under a finger nail, yet had a big enough effect to turn all and any type of body of water into rock-hard solid material. After later meeting the children of Dr Hoenikker, Jonah believes that each of them had a piece of this so called ice-nine and he was bound to figure out for his own curiosity if they did, while in the mean time gathering more information from them regarding the bombing of Hiroshima.

The Human Factor, on the other hand, was a piece of literature describing all the different things and ways of living technology has led us to today. The piece explained several things from work schedules, to how the article began with the blowing up of a nuclear machine. All points went back to how the human plays a big part in the performance of both machines, and humans themselves. The article stated that the performance pilots or flight attendants for example, if they don’t get a reasonable amount of sleep, would not be as well as if they had. They now make sure that pilots especially are required to fly no more than a certain amount of hours a week leaving them plenty of off time to receive a good nights sleep. If a pilot were to perform under their expected performance, they would obviously be putting the lives of everyone on the aircraft at danger. Therefore its not the performance of the plane itself that would be putting lives at danger, but the person operating the aircraft.

As the two pieces explain the different tasks that technology can help perform, The Human Factor seems to lead more toward how technology has affected situations negatively, whereas The Cat’s Cradle has so far shown not only the negative perspective, but a way in which ice-nine can have also a positive influence as well.