themediamademecrazy.com

tonight’s premiere episode, “a clean escape,” starred sam waterson and judy davis as patient and psychiatrist, where the former cannot remember the past 24 years. it was interesting at best. disregarding the gaping plot holes (like where does he go when he leaves her office, or why has it taken 10 months to utilize what seems like the most probable solution?), the style of the program was poor. for me it began with davis’ character. a actress of 57 should be allowed to look 57; every close-up, especially her emotionally distraught ones, only offer further evidence that she is far to old for the role asked of her. it really prevents one from suspending disbelief.

furthermore, i think that the director put too much faith into the plot of the story and oversimplified the shooting, causing the entire project to collapse under poor visuals. in fact, i was much more interested in the story after listening to the dialogue on NPR (yeah, i listened to NPR yesterday… that’s another blog) than after watching the exact same scene.

however, i did commit to watching the whole episode and it generally improved from 2 1/2 to 3 stars (on a 5 star scale). but i have hope, and i will continue to watch the remaining 3 episodes, saturday nights in august at 10pm on abc.

Four thought-provoking tales of present and future Earth are brought to life in “Masters of Science Fiction,” an all-new anthology series featuring a stellar lineup of actors and directors, and narrated by acclaimed physicist Professor Stephen Hawking. The series premieres SATURDAY, AUGUST 4 (10:00-11:00 p.m., ET) on the ABC Television Network.

today i got decked out in my mit best, brass rat, brass belt buckle, and sweatshirt. i had an exam in statistics that i really wanted to ace so i tried to put myself in the right mindset and clothing. i went in and was done in about 45 minutes. i was the first to leave and the professor commented, “that was fast.” but i did the exam, i didn’t know what else to do and i wasn’t going to sit there reading the textbook.

i got a cup of coffee and relaxed for a minute. i went to the bus stop and as soon as the bus came, a lovely little old man turned to me and said…

“mit, that’s the best school in the country! best school in the world!”

i said…

“i know!”

i hope i passed my exam.

My experiment is based on a few assumptions:

1. Treatment often depends on different risks associated with each gender therefore the two groups can never be treated equally outside of a controlled environment.

2. Women tend to suffer from victimization and other such ego-destroying factors of life more often than men. Men can suffer from victimization as well, and this often changes their outlook on life in a similar way.

3. Psychotropic drugs (especially Prozac) alter the behavior of healthy individuals as well as depressed individuals. Slightly depressed individuals are easy to find anywhere in America.

4. Prozac changes an individual’s “emotional quotient” which can have a specific number associated to a subject. This somehow quantifies the personality.

5. In our new 15-minutes-of-fame world, people are more willing to have their lives drastically altered and video taped without thinking that it might be ethically wrong.

Study the effects of psychotropic drugs under controlled conditions. Collect a large sample group from different communities where moral and social upbringing of children is similar. My first consideration was the agricultural community in the mid west. Although I am making vast assumptions about how individuals are raised in this area of the country, I am suggesting this only as a starting point. The communities in this area of the country tend to be more homogenous than larger cities on the east coast.

Anyway, test these individuals for mental competency and physical ability as well as psychological status. The experimenters can regulate for major traumatic events that would interrupt their general social interactions. Take one person from each community so that when the entire subject population is complete, there is a lesser incidence of prior association. Gather the subject population and subject them to identical stimuli.

I do realize that this is ridiculous but each subject would have their own room, to decorate, as they feel comfortable and would live in single sex portions of a house. Or have two houses, one for males and one for females. They would suffer the same stimuli revolving around a 24-hour cycle. I foresee a schedule of this variety:

7am Wake up
8am Single Sex Breakfast
9am “Work” whatever that work is, be it learning or sewing wallets
Noon mixed lunch
1pm Work
4pm Social
6pm mixed dinner
8pm entertainment
11pm personal time lights out at 12.

Each subject would also participate in emotionally altering tests, varying in time during the day or if possible at the same time as well as regular psychological reviews. These individuals would be under the same personality shaping stimuli and all personal events would be monitored by a series of cameras.

Once the subjects have been standardized according to emotional quotient (variants in women according to sexual cycle would be accounted for; hopefully after a short period of time, the women’s menstrual cycles would become synched.), begin to administer Prozac (or any given psychotropic drug) and monitor changes in observable behavior as well as the quantified emotional quotient. In this experiment, gender in variable, and hormones the covariant (I think…).

I’m sure your next questions is, Charisse, how do you expect to do this?

Well, clearly it is a reality show.

I found a great article in The Economist this week summarizing “augmented cognition” otherwise known as “aug cog.” It is a technology that is being used by the armed services to reduce cognitive overload. It allows the computer to judge the users cognitive status of the user and adjust the incoming stimuli to reduce overload. For example, fighter pilots helmets can be equipped with sensors to distinguish when the brain is becoming overloaded which will then dim the interface, or lower the volume of incoming messages. It can also be seen on your computer, the computer will judge incoming material and decide whether it is appropriate to interrupt your current activity for an alert. “Aug Cog” is also used in video games to ensure that the player’s difficult rating stays elevated (ensuring an enjoyable experience) but avoids becoming overwhelming or cognitively overloading.

With the capture of Warren Jeffs, head of the Fundamental Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (FLDS), the discussion was raised as to how polygamy can affect the population at large. Generally speaking, I feel that what consenting adults choose to do is there problem, however, the fact that he was arrange marriages between older men and 14-year-olds is pretty disturbing. However, the issue I want to raise is the abandonment of young men in order to eliminate the competition from the older members of the community. This behavior is common in elephant seals where the “bachelors” are ostracized from the herd and may never get the chance to mate. If this is prevalent in nature, what is the best solution to deal with it in human society? Once again, “the limiting factor is females” (Dawkins), and I feel that the community would serve as an excellent example for the mating habits of humans and the human demand to detach itself from primal urges.