Journal Entry Week 4 Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Journal Entry Week 4 - Essay Example Due to these challenges, shifting their manufacturing base back to the North America seems better option. The most obvious gains would be in the form of savings in labor costs compared to present Chinese trend; savings in transportation, duties, supply chain risks, industrial real estate and other such costs. Automation and other such measures to reduce costs will further depreciate Chinese labor economy. Rising demand markets in the Asian and Chinese regions can be advantageous to the North American manufacturers. Considering the challenges posed by the Chinese labor market, shifting outsourcing base to other developing countries would be beneficial, but these countries lack required resources, skill, capacity, infrastructure, security, government support etc. The US adopted outsourcing culture many decades ago, which caused serious challenges for its citizens; yet, they emerged from these challenges only to be better innovators and, thus, rule the world. During last decade, China dominated the world nations in exports and manufacturing industry owing to its low labor cost and availability of high-end technology. However, the author argues that manufacturing potential in the US still remains higher than visible and its flexibility adds greater potential to its future. Analysts suggest that the cost of production in the US is likely to be same as that in China, or slightly higher. In order to meet profitability from their production industry, China may shift some work to its interior cities that offer lower labor costs; however, differential skill set will be scarce. Many evidences exist to believe about shift of production base from China and other countries back to America; however, large scale production still continues to be undertaken in China. Production competitors to China include other low-cost labor countries: Thailand, Vietnam, and Cambodia. Researchers

Geographic Information System (GIS) Benefits and Constraints

Geographic Information System (GIS) Benefits and Constraints Benefits and Constraints of Using Geographic Information System (GIS) 1. Introduction 1.1 Research Background This is no more evident than in the proliferation of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) across a variety of disciplines, with the common goal of capturing, storing, analysing and visualizing spatial information. GIS in practice, by virtue of its technical complexity and cost, has traditionally been limited to the operations of Governments and commercial organisations (Craig et al., 2002). Despite these barriers non-profit organisations and community groups are increasingly looking to adopt GIS on the premise that it will be able to positively transform their operations through better decision making and influencing public policy through greater analysis and the presentation of professional visualisations (Sieber, 2000b, Sieber, 2000a). Given this burgeoning interest, there has been a concerted effort by GIS and Society (GISoc) research groups to develop and espouse concepts such as Public Participation GIS (PPGIS) which provides a unique approach to make GIS and spatial data availa ble to non-traditional users allowing them to integrate local knowledge and engage in decision making (Sieber, 2006). 1.2 Research Objectives The focus of this research project is to investigate the benefits and constraints for the application of a Geographic Information System (GIS) within a community based project. Specifically the research considers a reframing of PPGIS to help better guide the processes, resources and characteristics required to implement a community based GIS. The following questions will guide the research and development of the community-based GIS: Do contemporary PPGIS pragmatic approaches address the original ontological debates of GIS and Society? Can psychogeographic principles help better guide the requirements for a community based GIS? What spatial data sets are available and usable for community groups within Melbourne, Victoria? Do available datasets satisfy the requirements of community groups? Can community knowledge be effectively integrated with traditional spatial data sources? 1.3 Research Rationale As people become more aware of local, regional and global issues through the mainstream media and the Internet they, as a result, expect to be better informed by Governments and organisations and allowed to contribute to decisions that shape their own lives and the society in which they live. If those issues comprise spatial knowledge, then a GIS is a natural option for facilitating discussions and conveying local knowledge (Carver, 2003). Despite this opportunity to empower communities many GIS practices (including PPGIS) and available spatial data often do not adequately represent community needs and concerns (Elwood, 2006). This research thus aims to explore and develop a framework for which current GIS and related technologies can be successfully reconstructed to allow communities to express their own knowledge about place and spatial relations through visualizations and narratives. Specifically, the proposed research has been designed to assist the Blackburn Lake Sanctuary (BLS) Advisory Committee to implement a GIS which will be enable them to store and map the location of various vegetation and salient features within the BLS in Melbourne, Victoria. By integrating publicly available data sets with community knowledge it is hoped that it will further legitimise the activities of the BLS Advisory Committee while not compromising their goal of contributing to local government policy and increasing the effectiveness of their activities. 1.4 Research Methodology Contained here is an outline of the subsequent chapters and research methodology. The research will be organised into three major chapters literature review; case study; and discussion and conclusions. Chapter Two Literature review examines the relevant literature regarding GIS and Society, PPGIS and psychogeography providing an overview of the historical background and ontological framework of these research paradigms. An examination of the principles of psychogeography and the research design of previous PPGIS studies will be completed, providing a comparative study of their different methodologies and methods. These comparisons will assist in developing a theoretical framework for a community-based GIS which will guide the case study to follow. Chapter Three Case study introduces the Blackburn Lake Sanctuary case study and attempts to implement the methods established within the theoretical framework introduced in chapter two. An exploratory case study has been employed because it is a valuable method for investigating the nature and effects of implementing technology within a complex milieu (Sieber, 2000b). In order to increase the rigour and validity of the case study observations, open-ended interviews and questionnaires will be conducted. Chapter Four Discussion and conclusions reviews the research objectives in relation to the major research findings as well as the limitations of the methods and theories employed. Pattern matching techniques will be employed to compare the observed and verified information with the framework developed through the research project. If the observed and predicted information correspond then the research methodology maybe strongly validated (Sarantakos, 1998). This chapter also addresses the limitations of the research and future research opportunities. 1.5 Conclusion This chapter has established the objectives and rationale for conducting research into developing a community-based GIS. A research methodology has also been proposed to describe how the research statement and associated objectives will be achieved. The next chapter will review the relevant literature including theoretical models and research methodologies used by previous researchers in the field of PPGIS and psychogeography. 2. Literature Review 2.1 Introduction In the previous chapter, the objectives, rationale and methodology were presented to help guide the research into developing a community-based GIS. The research outlined in this thesis covers a number of interdisciplinary fields all of which are continually evolving. These fields include public participation GIS (PPGIS), community mapping and psychogeography. This chapter begins by investigating the role of GIS in society including the motivation and foundation for PPGIS and the advantages and disadvantages of PPGIS praxis. The chapter also explores the topic of psychogeography and the reasons why its principles may help characterise and drive the successful development of a community GIS. 2.2 GIS and Society a brief history Mountains dark with forests rose above the rooftops, the jagged black summits silhouetted against the evening light. Higher than them all, though, was the tip of the Schneeberg, glowing, translucent, throwing out fire and sparks, towering into the dying brightness of a sky across which the strangest of greyish-pink cloud formations were moving, while visible between them were the winter planets and crescent moon. (Sebald, 2002: 50) Storytelling is an extremely powerful means for conveying an image of the world and in some way or another every story takes place somewhere and relates knowledge of geography and a sense of place (Cartwright, 2004, Erle et al., 2005, Cartwright et al., 2009). One way to represent geographic stories and our understanding of the spatial organisation of the physical environment and its relationship with humans is through a map. An attempt to bring together the science of geography with the art of map making has been the Geographic Information System (GIS) which is a computer system for capturing, storing, querying, analysing and displaying geographically referenced data (Chang, 2008). What differentiates a GIS from other databases and computer systems is its ability to combine large amounts of spatial data from diverse sources, group the data into layers or categories, analyse the data for patterns or relationships and produce improved visualizations (Sieber, 2000a, Sieber, 2000b). Fo r these reasons GIS technology has become an important tool for use by many levels of Government, Universities and organisations involved in activities ranging from conservation, advertising and marketing, health, crime, land-use planning and social services or any activity containing a spatial component (Sieber, 2006). However it is only recently that GIS use has expanded to non-traditional users such as non-profit organisations and community groups. This accessibility has been the result of decreased costs in hardware, software and improved user interfaces which means the user no longer has to learn specialised command languages (Craig et al., 2002). The attraction to the utility of GIS, by non-traditional users, is much the same as traditional users in that it can assist in new ways of understanding a problem, but it may also help in influencing public policy through more sophisticated analysis and the presentation of professional looking images (Sieber, 2000b). Despite this perceived ease-of-use and increasing ubiquity, the GIS has been criticised by some circles as being an elitist technology which merely enhances existing power structures (Carver, 2003). This critique is heavily influenced by postmodernist principles, which place an increasing emphasis on the contributions of wider society and recognises that knowledge and values are constructed through a multiplicity of social and cultural forces. These arguments first surfaced within the paradigm of critical cartography which exposed the inherent subjectivity in, and rhetorical content of maps, thus implying that maps are as much a reflection of (or metaphor for) the culture that produces them, as they are an abstraction of the physical environment (MacEachren, 1995). These examinations have also been employed within social and critical GIS debates which challenge the use of GIS in decision making as being objective and neutral. Instead it has been maintained that GIS utility is often c onfined to experts whom produce privileged knowledge given their unique access to data, technology, resources and position to structure the inquiry and design the output (Duncan and Lach, 2006). This view of GIS as a return to the principles of technocratic positivism may be construed as anti-democratic because decisions reliant on a GIS may exclude diverse forms of spatial data, such as community knowledge, in favour of ordered Government data conceptualised into points, lines and areas (Crampton and Krygier, 2006). Many academics, such as Pickles (1995), believe that the increased popularity of GIS within the geography discipline has meant that the availability and access to geographic data has become more influential than knowledge or experience of a unique environment or subject (Craig et al., 2002). Concerns regarding the hegemonic and subjective role of GIS lead to a number of workshops in the mid-nineties on GIS and Society (GISoc) sponsored by the National Centre for Geographic Information and Analysis (NCGIA) (Craig et al., 2002). GISoc was focused on how the spread of the technology was affecting the political, economic, legal and institutional structures of society; and how societal processes affect the form taken by the technology itself (Carver, 2003: 65). GISoc research furthermore questioned whether current GIS practices and available spatial data adequately represented community needs and concerns and whether a new ontological framework was needed to help empower less privileged groups in society (Elwood, 2006). It was questioned whether it would be possible to develop a bottom-up GIS which could successfully incorporate community participation and thus either displace or validate decisions made with top-down GIS approaches, implemented in most Government and commerci al GIS projects (Craig et al., 2002). From these reflections the notion of Public Participation GIS (PPGIS) was developed and defined as a variety of approaches to make GIS and other spatial decision-making tools available and accessible to all those with a stake in official decisions. (Schroeder, 1996) In other words, the intention of PPGIS praxis was to incorporate local community perspectives into decision making, ideally leading to solutions which might otherwise not have been attained using traditional data sources and esoteric problem framing and analysis (Carver, 2003). Even though PPGIS was initially seen as a reconstructed democratic GIS, there is still much polarized debate regarding whether GIS technology is empowering or marginalising. These opinions, however, can often be seen as a reactive and predisposed view of information technology (IT) in which individuals and groups must react to the technology as having a positive or negative social effect (Sieber, 2000a). The effectiveness and social and political implications of GIS use within communities, however is much more complex and is generally contingent on a set of unique local factors such as culture, policies, standards, people and technology (Duncan and Lach, 2006). While PPGIS applications are an extremely positive move to address the original GISoc concerns regarding the social, political and knowledge practices of GIS contemporary PPGIS have seemingly introduced new contradictions concerning data access, representation and hegemony (Elwood, 2006). For instance, although much literatur e acknowledges the importance of bridging the gap between technology and community knowledge, many PPGIS applications continue to adopt a technocratic view of GIS and are often lacking extensive public interaction let alone the integration of community data (Sieber, 2006). The next section of this thesis examines more closely the current contradictions in PPGIS applications, paying particular attention to the ambiguities in the use of the terms public and participation. The purpose in critiquing the underlying assumptions of these terms is to further an understanding of the original ontological meaning of PPGIS and how the varying use of the terms has affected the incorporation of community knowledge in PPGIS projects. 2.3 What does the Public and Participation in PPGIS really mean? Any process or technology which enhances a communities access to information and provides the chance to participate in decision making should be seen as a step in the right direction; however the original ontological framing of GISoc has become misconstrued by some practices of PPGIS (Carver, 2003). The original concept and application of PPGIS has been reshaped and become more disparate over the years as a range of disciplines (such as urban planning and conservation), have applied different approaches and technologies to achieve a unique set of priorities and goals (Sieber, 2006). Furthermore the growing enthusiasm of Governments and commercial organisations for participatory planning has lead to a number of diverse initiatives which vary in terms of the inclusiveness of community knowledge and empowerment potential (Elwood, 2006). However, public participation is a complicated concept that can have multiple meanings which lead to numerous interpretations and societal expectations (Schlossberg and Shuford, 2005). An examination of the nature of public and participation practices in GIS applications is thus critical in developing a greater understanding of the ambiguities in the PPGIS process and how these may have diverged from the original vision of GISoc. It is extremely important to identify whom the public is when engaging a PPGIS project because it will ultimately determine who is included within the project and what types of outcomes and goals may be achievable (Schlossberg and Shuford, 2005). The Collins English Dictionary (1982) defines public (adj) as a means of relating to, or concerning the people as a whole reflecting the intended meaning within PPGIS; and many applications do continue to be developed for a general public (Sieber, 2006). There is however a number of PPGIS projects who take a more ambiguous view of public and often use it interchangeably with definitions which more loosely resemble a stakeholder. In other words many projects deem their public to be those who are affected by, bring knowledge or information to, and possess the power to influence a decision or program (Sieber, 2006). The public and their interests are often, however, very different from stakeholders and thus would heavily influence the problem f raming and objectives of a GIS project (Wood, 2005). Furthermore a public can be demarcated by a range of factors such as geographical, economic, social or political; and the composition of a public may change over time (Schlossberg and Shuford, 2005). Determining what constitutes the public has become especially complicated as technology has become more pervasive. For instance a web-based GIS may potentially be accessible by a wider portion of society however it raises questions around digital divides and geographic scale. Thus, is anyone who is able to access the application still deemed part of the public even though they maybe geographically distant to the issue and decision making? (Sieber, 2006) In general people local to an issue should be interested enough to get involved in a debate given their geographic proximity. It has been demonstrated however that as scale increases not only do people at regional, national and global levels become interested and involved in an issue but also a higher percentage of people at the local do as well because it has amplified into a wider discourse (Carver, 2003). Consequently Aitken (2002) suggests that instead of perceiving issues or decision making as being scale dependent and developing PPGIS projects for stakeholders which have their scale fixed, GIS projects should, alternatively, be directing their attention towards developing a GIS which would enable community issues and knowledge to jump scale from local to larger public discourses or vice versa (Aitken, 2002, Sieber, 2006). This is an important aspect because there is often a concern that local activities are dismissed as being part of community politics and are denied significant advancements by State and Federal Governments and thus the opportunity to emerge and engage individuals at all scales (Aitken, 2002). From this perspective a community-based GIS, where community is defined as a group of individuals who are bound together by a common characteristic or a common intent and who enjoy a relatively high degr ee of mutual social interaction (Jones et al., 2004: 105) offers the prospect of transcending the rigid scale conceptualised upon community politics and local activism enabling them to contest structures of power and dominance at the very scales they exist (Aitken, 2002, Gaile and Willmott, 2005). Harris and Weiner (1998) acknowledged in their research on the power relations associated with GIS use that participatory GIS practices have the potential to simultaneously empower and marginalise groups (Sieber, 2006). As a result it is imperative to understand the nature of the participatory process and who benefits and why (Craig et al., 2002). One such way to help conceptualise the levels of public participation is through a ladder metaphor. First conceived by Arnstein (1969), the basic premise of the participation ladder is that each rung of the ladder represents a different level of participation the bottom rung represents zero opportunity to participate while each rung above represents increased level of participation in the decision making and thus greater public empowerment (Carver, 2003). Wiedemann and Femers (1993) later produced an adaptation of the ladder which conceived of public participation as not only providing access to information but also suggesting that inform ing the public of decisions is another form of participation (Tulloch and Shapiro, 2003). This concept is significantly flawed as it firstly misrepresents the commonly understood meaning of the word participation in PPGIS which The Collins English Dictionary (1982) defines as to take part, be or become involved, or share. Secondly the ladder metaphors do not acknowledge the potential for participation to change over a period of time (Schlossberg and Shuford, 2005). Thirdly, the participation models fail to include oppositional groups whom do not cooperate with public decision making but participate in the formation public policy through other influential methods such as protests (Sieber, 2006). The incorporation of the word participation in many GIS projects implies a method of consensus building which presupposes a level of top-down decision-making as well as a degree of homogenization between participants. Certain individuals however may be better able to participate or contribute to decision making than others. Consequently, disproportional levels of participation may effectively disempower individuals and adversely affect the desired outcomes of a community (Sieber, 2006). Consequently some scholars have insisted on applying participatory for autonomous grassroots activities and employing participation to describe those projects which are more top-down in their approach (Elwood, 2006). Again while this is a neat way to demarcate GIS projects which employ various degrees of top-down and bottom-up methods these definitions fail to acknowledge that both methodologies are crucial to any successful GIS project and community decision making. In fact it is fervently maintained that in order to enable citizens to better identify and comprehend how the role of GIS and technical discourses are bound up in decision making and how decision making can be informed by GIS knowledge, communities must have access to spatial information developed by Governments and commerc ial organisations as well as contributing their own spatial knowledge (Brown, 1998). Within this section it has been demonstrated that the attitudes and arguments that frame many PPGIS projects have succeeded in producing an illusion of influence and contribution by communities to decision making when actual control still resides with the traditional powers, such as Government. Instead of attempting to build an impossible consensus amongst a public with disparate tastes, values and experiences, a community-based GIS should concentrate on developing a communitys ability to construct their own facts with the aid of available third party resources, from which their personal geographic stories may emerge and translate to various members of society (Wood, 2005). Another way forward could be to draw upon principles of Situational psychogeography which also attempts to combine subjective and objective modes of study by positing that ones self cannot be divorced from the urban environment and that ones psyche and knowledge of the city must transcend the individual if it is t o be of any use in the collective rethinking of the city (Sadler, 1998, Wood, 2005). In the following section an examination of the origins of psychogeography will be conducted clarifying how the principles behind this practice may help establish a framework for practice of GIS and Society and specifically the incorporation of local knowledge in GIS. 2.4 What exactly is Psychogeography? During the 1950s a number of highly politicised groups emerged in opposition to the ideals of modernism; these groups promoted programs that would reform the practice of art and life by directly intervening in the human environment and bringing about a social revolution (Sadler, 1998). One such group were the Lettrist International who conceived of the notion of Unitary Urbanism, which would later be the developed into the praxis of Psychogeography. Unitary Urbanism was envisaged as the theory of the combined use of arts and techniques for the integral construction of a milieu in dynamic relation with experiments in behaviour. (Knabb, 2006: 52) In other words, Unitary Urbanism was considered a social project whose vision was the unification of space and architecture with the social and individual body (Sadler, 1998). In 1957 the Lettrist International and the International Movement for an Imaginist Bauhaus (IMIB) merged to form a new artistic-activist movement known as the Situationist International (SI). The SI was similarly critical of modernist principles which anteceded the rational mind at the expense of the imagination. These criticisms are most clearly evident in the SIs opposition to modern architecture and urban planning which they argued shaped people into rigid patterns of behaviour (Sadler, 1998). Furthermore they believed that increasing urbanism and capitalism had reduced life to mere production and consumption behaviour that ensured that everything that was directly lived has moved away into a representation. (Debord, 1964) In other words experienced space had been reduced into mere representations of spaces and in turn re-envisaged as capitalist spaces (McDonough, 2002). SI believed that members of society were increasingly experiencing life as spectators devoid of dialogue and wi thout a sense of being involved or interacting with one another. Once this spectacle of modernity and urbanism, represented through images, products and activities, and authorised by the state, had been unveiled, society would be able to rediscover the authenticity of city life underneath (Debord, 1964). By resisting the hegemony of the state the SI sought to radically transform urban spaces through different practices including the subversion of cartography. Specifically by directing the spectators senses towards the contradictions in the abstractions and mediations of the state, the aim was to draw the spectator into activity by provoking his capacities to revolutionize his own life (Debord, 1957: 25). Taking from the original methodology of Unitary Urbanism, psychogeography was proposed as a method of urban investigation which studies the precise laws and specific effects of the geographical environment, consciously organised or not, on the emotions and behaviour of individuals. (Debord, 1955) In other words, psychogeography was intended as a methodology to help make people aware of the ways in which the urban environment and everyday life is conditioned and controlled and encouraged the exposing of these concerns (Plant, 1992). Psychogeography in practice utilised a technique conceived as the Theory of the Dà ©rive, in which individuals dà ©rive (literally: drifting) through an environment letting themselves be drawn by the attractions of the terrain while still seeking to unmask the contradictions in the abstracted space (Plant, 1992). The dà ©rive was an attempt to reappropriate the meaning of the city by removing the myths in the states representations by having people walk and experience the landscape first hand, thus constructing through narratives a more concrete collective space (Mcdonough, 1994). While the dà ©rive offered a new way of surveying urban space, a new way of representing these spaces had yet to be found. The SI were not disillusioned with the idea of mapping practices, in fact they regarded mapping as an important component to aid in the changing and organisation of urban spaces (Pinder, 1996). They believed however, that the structures and imperatives utilised in mapping exposed the desires of those wishing to impose order upon the city. The SI ambition was thus to illustrate the strange logic and apparent disorder of cities by producing maps which demonstrated those intimacies of the city typically absent from a traditional street or topographic map (Sadler, 1998). Consequently the SI developed a concept called Dà ©tournement, which loosely translates as a diversion or rerouting of pre-existing aesthetic elements (Knabb, 1995). An example of this is where existing maps and aerial photographs were juxtaposed or rearranged to produce a new spatial meaning; an a lternative experiential or existential truth (Ungar, 2005). Thus the SI were able to reconstruct the cartography of a city by reconciling conventional geographies, sociologies, and cartographies together with experienced spaces, producing a map which is terrestrial, fragmented, subjective, temporal, and cultural (Sadler, 1998: 82). While Debord announced the disbandment of the SI in 1972, the traditions underpinning psychogeography continue to influence many works of literature, films, urban design and geographic practices (Ford, 2005). Wood (2005) draws attention to one contemporary psychogeography project Jake Bartons City of Memory which combines psychogeographic principles with a GIS to build a collective urban memory through the participation of a number of people. In an interview with Wood, Jake Barton described his project as utilising top-down and bottom-up resources to create an emergent and curated experience. Precisely by extending these terms to form the foundation of any GIS and Society project, Wood hypothesised that what would emerge was a GIS designed by a third-party or community-based intermediary (top-down); the public would formulate a specific framework that fits their unique goals (bottom-up); the bottom-up and top-down activities and goals are not independent of each other, but rather c o-exist (curated); the outcome of the project has not been foreseen or influenced towards a specific outcome by any party, but rather emerges organically from the facts obtained and analysed (emergent). Thus resulting in a map and information which has not been exactly made by the public but which without it has no content at all and deflates into a frame around nothing (Wood, 2005: 13). Following on from this preliminary research by Wood a wider investigation of these terms will be conducted, laying the framework for a more appropriate community-based GIS as originally envisaged in GISoc debates. 2.5 Top-down Top-down integration of GIS is usually undertaken by an outside individual or agency who provides the GIS model, data, analysis and representation (Talen, 2000). Often the major distinction between a top-down and bottom-up approach, in participatory projects, is determined by where the decision making lies and by the level of commitment required by the public. With a top-down approach a Government or organisation would typically provide the data and representations which would be used in deliberation with the public, who are required to make a short-term commitment. In contrast, a bottom-up approach would require the public to have ongoing access to GIS data and the resources to capture data, conduct analysis and produce representations (Talen, 2000). Governments and commercial planners will often implement a participatory GIS with top-down goals in order to better understand a neighbourhood dynamic, improve public sector management and enhance social service provision. This process theoretically serves the public by introducing policies and services based on a communitys perception of the data, analysis and representations framed by Governments and planners (Sieber, 2006). Top-down GIS models can also help circumvent deterrents such as cost, complexity and access to data which often impeded non-profit and community groups from implementing a GIS. The cost of hardware and GIS software have decreased dramatically over the years and there are now many open source GIS solutions available for free use; however it has been shown that any cost and resources required in the implementation, operation and maintenance of equipment, no matter the amount, will be a significant barrier for adoption, especially for underprivileged groups (Brodnig and Mayer-Schà ¶nberger, 2000, Leitner et al., 2002). Furthermore many individuals may lack knowledge about the availability and means of obtaining a GIS and spatial data (Elwood, 2007). Many of the GIS packages available are user-friendly for many operations, however the more functionality a group requires for their GIS, the greater

P.K. Dick’s The Minority Report and Steven Spielberg’s The Minority Rep

P.K. Dick’s The Minority Report and Steven Spielberg’s The Minority Report Death can occur in four ways. A person can die from a physical illness, viruses and infections. A person can die from an accident. A person can commit suicide. Finally a person can be murdered by another person. What if murders could be prevented? In P.K. Dick’s story The Minority Report, and in Spielberg’s film The Minority Report, the future can be altered by using incredible technology. The success of Spielberg’s adaptation of Dick’s short story to film can be determined by the way each was presented. While giving a tour or precrime to Edward Witwer, the main character John Anderton finds the he is supposed to kill a person he never met Leopold Kaplan. When he tries to run and hide from precrime, Anderton is kidnapped by Kaplan. Kaplan is about to turn Anderton in to the police when Anderton is rescued by Fleming. Fleming gives Anderton money and a clue, which leads Anderton to conclude that he has an alternate future that will clear his name. He then goes to precrime to find his minority report and prove to the police that he will not commit murder. He is discovered by his wife, who he suspects is working against him, and they both leave precrime in a helicopter. On the helicopter, Anderton, his wife Lisa, and Fleming get into a fight and Anderton kills Fleming after discovering that Fleming is working for Kaplan in order to take precrime down and establish a military police state. Lisa and Anderton return to precrime where Witwer and they come up with a plan to save precr ime by proving the predictions of the precogs correct where Anderton will kill Kaplan. At a press conference, Kaplan is about the revel the failure of precrime t... ...ck only had helicopters and regular fossil fuel buses in his story, while Spielberg went farther and made vehicles which are futuristic and practical. He modernized precrime by giving them a hover jet ship which has its roots in technology which is being developed by the US Air Force today. The idea of having cars that use magnetism to travel as super speed and still be environmentally safe, is an idea which is more practically sound to exist in the future. Spielberg also took the story a dove deeper into the characters and into precrime’s history. He took a great story which was written in the mid twentieth century and really modernized it to become believable and extraordinary. Bibliography Dick, Philip K. The Minority Report and other classic stories. New York. 1987 Spielberg, Steven. The Minority Report. Twentieth Century Fox Film Corp, USA

My Special Someone

In every story of life and love, there is always something new to discover and moments to treasure forever. Even is life is painful and full of suffering, there is always one thing that would give us the courage to stand and face all the consequences of living – love. Life is a never-ending journey. We tend to find someone that we thought that would last a lifetime but sometimes, we became too blind of loving to the extent of giving everything without anything in return that leave a result of being a martyr. However, in spite of the hardships that we have felt, we still fall in love again and hope that the next time we fall, our heart our fly along with our love and not fall in the ocean leaving us wounded alone.Personally, I can say that falling in love is the greatest feeling on earth. Despite of all the problems that occur in our path, it will always be fine because we knew that there is light through the eyes of our special someone. I believe this perspective because I pre sently feel the same way. After all, I knew that I have found the one for me and I am truly blessed to have this woman by my side and prayed that she will stay with me for the rest of my life. Because of the real feelings that I have for her, I want to share my special someone named Shabnam.Shabnam is a very fine, loving and caring person. She is 25% Spanish, 25% Filipino, and 50% Indian. Shabnam has a different life-story, which we only often see in the movie or television. Shabnam’s father is Indian while her mother is Spanish. Her father knew her mother in Spain where they fall in love. Their love with one another produced a child, which is Shabnam. While her mother was pregnant, her father and her mother went to India. When her father and mother got there, Shabnam’s mother found out that her father was already married to another woman who is also pregnant during those times.Aside from this, the family of Shabnam’s father does not want Shabnam’s mother because she is Spanish. Eventhough this was the case, Shabnam’s mother accepts the situation and still pursues the birth of Shabnam but her mother and father separated. Shabnam’s stepmother born her stepbrother named Vishal. Her father brought Vishal to San Jose, California, USA. Ew years later, Shabnam’s mother died due to cancer. After her mother died, she had to live with her father but despite her father exist, she still seeks for a mother figure that would guide and take care of her. She really wanted to have a mother that is why she went to India to ask her stepmother to go to the USA to bring back the family together.Through this story, I realized that she is not selfish because even if she wanted to have a mother, she did not search for anything else but her stepmother whom she asked to bring the family back, which is the original family. Through this personality of Shabnam, it really brought me to the fact of loving and taking care of her. She deserves to be loved because she does not have any anger and selfishness even if she was lack of love and concern coming from a mother. I was amazed and I admired her eagerness and concern of bringing back the family again after a long time.   Ã‚  Ã‚   Shabnam’s story can be a realization to other children who build hatred towards their parents because of their parent’s illegitimate relationship. However, despite of this situation of Shabnam, I love and will always love her as best as I could.I started admiring Shabnam because of her smile and expressive eyes. I did not even think that she had a special family situation because she seemed to be happy always. Having a special relationship with Shabnam is amazing because she is very caring and humble. I guess despite of her family background, she remains humble and generous for it is the only way of showing her love to other people that should be for her mother.She is a Libra and I am a Gemini. Based on the astrology, Libra an d Gemini are compatible with one another. Maybe, we were meant for each other because even the astrology says that we have both found one another – I to her and her to me. We have also so many things in common; it is because we both have an Indian blood and though she has different blood aside from Indian blood, she was raised as an Indian because she lives in his father.My present relationship with Shabnam is great. We are having moments that I treasure inside my heart. I am always happy when we were together. She make me laugh, she make my heartbeats fast, she teach me to be understanding because she understand the deeper perspective of life even if it is very hard and problematic.Having an extraordinary feeling of great love and happiness, I used to think if getting married. I want to marry Shabnam because she is the one I am looking for. I know that not everything may seem to be perfect but despite of it all, I want to be with her for the rest of my life. Maybe people wil l think that I am too frustrated and too much rushing of getting married but logically, a person do not want to miss the opportunity of having someone he/she is looking for a long time. At may age, I know what I want and I know what I feel. I am sure with this next phase of my life in case she will accept my love. Now, I do not want to lose Shabnam for she is very special to me that I never felt before.When I am alone, I used to think of my future with my Shabnam. I think of our future life, which I know will be wonderful and unbeatable. I think of our future children that Shabnam and I will love and nurture. I think of our never-ending happiness even if we are already old. I also think of Shabnam while being with me – I will make her happy and contented in life. I will not leave Shabnam as long as I breathe and live.Writing this paper makes me express my love, joy and admiration to Shabnam. She opened my eyes to different perceptions of living in this kind of world. I used t o live as it is before having my own world and ignoring many things but when I met Shabnam, things have change and made me become a better person that is why I love Shabnam everyday because she was not just a beautiful person outside but also inside. Today, we are having a great time together, keeping the fire burning in our hearts with love, faithfulness, and loyalty with one another. She may not tell that she do not want to be like her mother but I know she does so I will took care of her and love her as my one and only in this whole wide world.While writing this paper, I also created a simple poem for Shabnam that shows my love and admiration to her. I want to give her this poem as a sign of my love to her that will not fade until the day I die because I love her so much.I have searched for you,A long, long time ago.I thought I would never ever met,Someone who is like you.Now you’re here with me,And hope will always be.The one I admire before,Today, tomorrow and forevermor e.You make my heart sing,You make my life ring.You bring sunlight in the sky,You bring colors in the dark.I want to be with you,I want to love you.I want to marry you;So please answer, I do.Work CitedFutral, Ann. Gemini with Libra. (2006) Retrieved August 27, 2007 from

On Monsieur’s Departure Essay

â€Å"On Monsieur’s Departure†, with its highly interpretive nature and use of strong themes and appropriate literary devices, expresses the inner turmoil of its author, Queen Elizabeth, to the reader. The basic concept of this 17th century poem is one of the divided passions of Queen Elizabeth. Elizabeth loved her country with fierce loyalty and control, but also had her own personal needs, and though it is not entirely certain as to whom this poem was referencing to, it is speculated to be about either the 2nd Earl of Essex or the Duc d’Anjou (French duke of Anjou). Essex (Robert Derereaux) was 30 years Elizabeth’s junior and was a charming, opinionated man with whom Elizabeth was completely enamored, but the relationship terminated when Essex and Elizabeth had a terrible fight and Essex directed an unsuccessful revolt against her. The tragedy pierced further when Elizabeth painfully agreed to have him executed. The duke of Anjou, who later became King Henry III, was a prime member of the French royal family, being both the duke of Anjou and Alenà §on. He was an unattractive man, both body and face, but Elizabeth fancied him enough to allow a lengthy courtship by him. This courtship ended when the duke withdrew from the marriage negotiations in 1582, but there is uncertainty as to why. Elizabeth, if gaining nothing more from this arrangement, did secure a defense alliance and French aid against Spain. The country, in Elizabeth’s mind, remained above her own personal longings – she never married and reigned as the proud Virgin Queen. The first stanza of â€Å"On Monsieur’s Departure† contain uses of Petrarchan conceit, paradox, and the theme of disassociation between the queen and her desires. The Petrarchan conceit (common in Elizabethan love poems) is seen for example in line 2, â€Å"I love and yet am forced to seem to hate†. These comparisons of love and hate are extreme, as the conceptions of both love and hate are the most ultimate and divergent emotions in the English language and do demonstrate a distinct parallel. The literary paradox (statement which is contradictory yet sensical) is prominent in this poem, and can be seen in many instances. The main examples of this are Elizabeth’s contradictions shown in line 2 with â€Å"love† and â€Å"hate†, and in line 5, where she states, â€Å"I am and not, I freeze and yet am burned†. In line 5, the  figure of paradox is evident in â€Å"am† and â€Å"not†, as well as â€Å"freeze† and â₠¬Å"burned†. The recurrent disassociative theme is very prominent, suggesting Elizabeth’s frustration between being a ruler, with obligations and expectations, and being a human being, with inner yearnings and the need for expression . This is especially noticeable when Elizabeth states, â€Å"I seem stark mute but inwardly do prate†¦./Since from myself another self I turned† (4 and 6). Elizabeth is saying how she remains silent about her inner turmoil, but is churning inside with thoughts and concerns. Also, Elizabeth is saying how she turned from herself to another. This could be taken as either Elizabeth pushing aside that part of herself to remain a competent and commanding ruler, or as Elizabeth turning to another person (either the Duc d’Anjou or Essex) for personal reasons and her culpability for doing so. This theme continues throughout the poems through use of other literary contrivances and intricate wording. In the second stanza of â€Å"On Monsieur’s Departure†, Elizabeth includes figurative language, alliteration and the subject of an unattainable self to voice her thoughts. The application of figurative language (expression which uses comparison to describe) is present in line 7, where Elizabeth uses a simile (comparison using ‘like’ or ‘as’). It is written, â€Å"My care is like my shadow in the sun†, stating that to Elizabeth, there is a comparison between her care and her shadow when in the sun. This can be interpreted in many ways, but it is because a simile is used that a mental picture develops to compare the two. The use of alliteration (the repetition of like sounds in speech ) is seen in line 8, where the initial ‘f’ consonants are repeated. The line, â€Å"Follows me flying, flies when I pursue it†, with use of alliteration is concise and artful, with a condense accumulation of emotion. The theme of Elizabeth ’s care (of this man) being unattainable for her to grasp is very eminent in this stanza, with two supporting examples. The first comes in lines 7 and 8, where Elizabeth conveys, â€Å"My care is like my shadow in the sun,/Follows me flying, flies when I pursue it†. She is articulating that her own personal feelings are unconstrained to her, without the control she is wishing to enforce. The second instance in line 11, â€Å"No means I find to rid him from my breast,† expresses not that there is a physical person which she feels the need to remove, but instead that  Elizabeth believes that there is no way to eradicate the thoughts and feelings she has for this man from her heart. This continuing theme of separation from oneself and separation from emotional control is echoed throughout the poem, creating a delicate symmetry between each stanza, and allowing them to unite. The third stanza of â€Å"On Monsieur’s Departure† embraces again figurative language, repetition, and a final accumulation of sentiment through deliberative wording. In this stanza, Elizabeth uses a very important metaphor (expression relating one thing to another) to represent herself. She writes, in line 14, that she is â€Å"made of melting snow†, a phrase which captures thoughts and images that may otherwise not have been so evident. Saying that she is â€Å"made of melting snow† tells the reading audience that Elizabeth is weakened by this, or that she is softened but not yet defeated – the interpretations are ceaseless, which makes this an important part of this final stanza and of the whole poem. The repetition Elizabeth uses in this stanza are towards the end, when she writes, â€Å"Let me or float or sin, be high or low./Or let me live with some more sweet content,/Or die and so forget what love ere meant† (16-18). By using this series of choices as her final statement, Elizabeth is implying a sense of urgency and desperation in her search for a solution. Her final statement is left with a final, hopeless alternative – for her to die and forget about love. By reading these alternatives, each worse than the next, the reader is left with a final note of despondency and a climax of emotion which is expressed with phrases like â€Å"be more cruel†(15), â€Å"float or sink†¦ high or low† (16), and â€Å"die and so forget†. These are intense statements that leave the reader silent from their effect. That is the essence of this poem, a pull and tug game of emotions, with no end solution other than to live forward and exist with ever-constant turmoil, to live, to rule, to sacrifice oneself for something greater. Through the use of different literary devices and a powerful backing theme, Queen Elizabeth has left the world with a literary victory. This poem is a saddening one, but as a love poem, it is expressing not only the pain, frustration and despair longing can produce, but also the strength and might  that backs it.