Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, Louis Rosario
So far the book is a little slow, we have a character (Rick Deckard) that is longing to have a real animal of his own but can’t afford the animal he truly wants. He has a depressing life and a wife who can’t live without dialing a schedule to control her mood swings in order to survive a single day. He gives into her wishes, I guess to appease her. They live in a world that is described as a world of utter bleakness with fallout that is reported on just like the daily weather is on our television set by the local weather man today. They rely on a machine (I am guessing a computer called a Penfield) on which they dial certain numbers to give them false satisfactions or content to life. Again, I believe the story is slow; there are too many loose ends that I hope will come together during the next few chapters. I have to admit even though the story is slow I still find myself interested in the story line, but first I am going to reread the first five chapters again.

Class notes for 2/5/15

Class notes for 2/5/15

 

The Professor did a review of the first class:

Asked if there were any questions regarding the syllabus

Grading

Clarified the Introduction

 

Professor Jill then:

Thanked all for the postings the Introductions

She said if you haven’t done your introductions, please do them

Assignments cannot be made up

Going forward Blogs are due on time

Don’t forget to categorize your blogs

If you feel lost or need help use Open Lab “Help” refresher

 

Reminder to use your name, not required but helpful

Also reminder to print out reading assignment

and bring to class

 

We spoke of the first read,

What is Science Fiction?

Science fiction is hard to classify, it is a hybrid.

Takes from many different things

Serialization

Non-mainstream

Canonical

 

Then we went onto free discussion: Class notes on the board

  • Annotating the Text and bring to class
  • Elements of fiction

Plot – Storyline- series of events; what actually happened

Characters – People who are in the story

Setting – Location/Time/Atmosphere

Point of View – Perspective

Theme – The main idea, moral of the story, message

Conflict – Clash, dilemma, problem

both (external and internal) values – competing

 

Then we broke up into groups and reviewed and put on the board our interpretation of The Machine Stops.

 

Professor reminded us that there is no class next week, but blogs are due on 2/10 and 2/17

Read Do Android’s Dream of Electric Sheep, segments (pages) to read will be posted by the professor and blog only on the segments. Revisit Metropolis over the next two weeks. Go over the schedule to catch up on your reading.

Features to View for exceptional blogs went to Eugene and Surge.

My review of “The Machine Stops”

The Machine Stops, by E. M. Forster is a very moving story that makes you think of the direction that we as a society are currently moving towards. E. M. Forster’s vision of a cubicle society is not so far off from the truth from what we have today. As we see in the story line, The Machine stacked people on top of each other for the purpose of controlling them. Today’s high rise buildings imitate similar patterns. Apartments are stacked up one on top of the other, lined up in a perfect row of columns with similar ceiling heights and square footages. While at the helm of the building is a Manager that controls the temperature of the heat and air conditioning, monitors the water flow, and even the direction of each elevator with a touch of a button. He does this via a computer program that’s referred to as the Building Management System (BMS).

The Building Management System is a computer-based control system installed in buildings designed to integrate, control, and monitor the building’s mechanical and electrical equipment such as ventilation, lighting, power systems, fire systems, and security systems.

There are times for economic reasons that a building’s owner or Management Company may have to outsource the BMS portion of the operation to a contractor and the building is controlled by one person within the building or an offsite location in a tiny office or room many miles away.

E. M. Forster goes to great lengths to place his reader’s inside Vashti’s cold and impersonal room. Everything she needs is at a touch of a button or switch. Although she was use to the isolation and the thought of being around other people annoyed her she still finds the strength to leave her room and visit her son Kuno, on the other side of the world.

I compared the story to our current situation today and took into account the fact that we no longer need to leave our apartments or homes for anything other than fresh air, and even with that all you we need to do is open a window. Everything we could possibly need these days is at touch of a button (the computer keyboard that is). From essentials like groceries, and dry goods, to services like laundry and dry cleaning pickup and delivery, even home cleaning, are all at our disposal with just a touch of a button. Even our work force is working from home at a higher rate than ever before. Job and work station sharing has become the new standard in the Corporate world these days.

In order to save money and raise profits Corporations are steering more and more employees away from the average office work space. By working fewer hours in an office and working more from home, employers are lowering their overhead costs and raising their profits margins; we in turn lose our direct contact with people. The norm has become to contact people via emails and text, but we have lost the art of letter writing and direct human contact.

E. M. Forster’s work is a realization of what we can and would become if we as a society choose to isolate ourselves from one another. One day “The Machine” (The Computer) will take over our lives and decide and direct the way and how we should live. As Kuno, Vashti’s son said; “You know that we have lost the sense of space. We say “space is annihilated”, but we have annihilated not space, but the sense thereof. We have lost a part of ourselves.

Today we as a society are moving in the same direction as the people in the story did; let’s not make the same mistake.

Louis Rosario Introduction

Hello everyone my name is Louis Rosario, first let me say that this is my very first blog so I am excited and apprehensive of what I am about to write and release to the general public. Although I use a computer extensively at work and home, emails, IM’s and text are as far as I have gone. I have not yet grasped the idea of the social media and the windows that they open to expose my life outside my immediate inner circle. I do not have Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn accounts. So throwing caution to the wind I proceed into this world of social media. After my enlistment in the military (U.S. Army, Staff Sergeant, Paratroop Infantry Battalion) based in North Carolina, I came back to New York and began a career in Real Estate management. I worked my way up from Porter to Senior Property Manager, managing 27 buildings consisting of 2300 apartment units in Manhattan. Later I moved on to work as a Project Manager for a construction company managing both large and small projects. Currently I work for Consolidated Edison (Con Ed) as a Project Manager, assigned to renovate over a million square feet of office space in the Corporate Headquarters. In my personal life I have two adult children both out of college and on their own; I have a great better half that works as an IT Manager for a Youth Development Center and also loves to watch Criminal Minds any time it’s on and she is at home. After my children graduated from college and the tuitions were paid, I decided to return to school and get my degree. I am currently in my last semester of completing my degree requirements. Once I graduate my better half and I are planning a trip to visit Paris and London. In the meantime, I decided to take a Science fiction course that has me blogging for the first time in my life. I have always been interested in science fiction from the time I read in grammar school “The Rhetoric of Yes”. I am looking to get a lot out of this course and hopefully along the way make some new friends that will introduce me to the world of Social Media.