I've searched the internet before, for both school and pleasure, but my main method of search was google. This reading described many more kinds of searches than I was used to. I seem to remember once learning about wildcard searches, but it was a long time ago. Other than that, this reading really just seemed to be telling you how search engines found things based on what you gave them in order for you to better navigate through these sites to the content you desire.

This reading was definitely helpful for my research process. I do most of these things already when I search for information, but finding encylclopedias was one thing I hadn't thought of. Looking to the end of sources to find their bibliographies if existant is another helpful method.

This reading will be helpful when doing such things as proof reading someone's paper. We all read things every day, and maybe sometimes we might be thinking about what we're reading, but rarely are we thinking about how we are reading it, or what the focus of our reading is.

This reading on genres will certainly be helpful the for future papers I write to keep my writing consistant with the type of writen material I will be trying to create. Like most material in this class, the benfit is not in the dificulty of the theory, but in the consious awareness that is created by pointing out the subtleties of these simple concepts.

This reading described and defined paragraphs, which we use all the time. It's really a simple concept but it was helped me think more about what I really wanted to acomplish with my paragraphs and be more conscious that I don't put too many ideas or thought into one paragraph. I know that I sometimes do that when I get on a roll.

I had a good high schoool teacher, so I knew something about thesis statements before reading this. I found it interesting how the reading described the thesis as having a shaping influence on everything else. In a way the thesis is a very well focused and summarized form of your topic, so when you are searching for a topic, you are finding your thesis and shaping your paper.

Andy Bigler
ENGL 106 sec 40/03
Emeaka Goddard
March 31, 2008
Tron
We all think and dream about worlds beyond that which we can see, and for decades Hollywood has been feeding our desires with its cinematic performances. Tron is one such movie which panders to our more whimsical notions. The main defining feature of Tron is that the main character, Kevin Flynn, is digitized with an experimental laser beam and transported to an electronic world. The movie Tron was one of the first films to have a video game related plotline and was one of the first films to extensively use computer graphics.
The main character of Tron is Kevin Flynn, a brilliant software programmer who once worked for the software mega-corporation ENCOM. He created several video games on his own time on the ENCOM mainframe with the hopes of eventually starting his own gaming company. Before he presented his work, however, it was stolen by another programmer, Ed Dillinger, who presented it as his own work. The story starts three years later. Dillinger’s stolen programs have gotten him a series of promotions which put him in position to fire Flynn. Now, ENCOM is mainly run by the Master Control Program (MCP), which is an artificial intelligence program that started out as Dillinger’s chess program.
Flynn is now running a video game arcade and in his free time he is hacking into the ENCOM mainframe using his old Group-7 security password to find some evidence of Dillinger’s thievery. One of his programs, Clu, is caught by the MCP and “de-resolved” (in the computer world, essentially killed). The MCP then makes Flynn’s snooping known to Dillinger who authorizes the MCP to shut down access to all Group-7 members. This accidentally locks out a current employee Alan Bradley. When Alan goes to speak with Dillinger, he reveals that he is working on a program named Tron which would not be a part of the MCP but instead be used to monitor all communications between ENCOM and outside systems including the MCP’s actions. Dillinger dismisses Alan and is confronted by the MCP. When Dillinger attempts to assert control over the MCP, it blackmails him with the information Flynn is after. Alan now goes to his girlfriend Lora, who is working on the experimental laser which digitizes an orange, causing it to briefly disappear.
The two then go to Flynn’s arcade to warn him that Dillinger has caught on to him. Flynn, Alan, and Lora then go back to ENCOM so Flynn can forage them Group-6 access to find the information he is looking for and to allow Alan to finish his work on Tron. While Flynn is hacking into the MCP at Lora’s terminal which for some unexplained reason has the experimental laser pointed right at it, the MCP takes control of the laser and uses it to digitize Flynn. Flynn materializes in the digital world and is taken to a holding cell where he meets the actuary program Ram. Then Flynn, Ram, and other captured programs are taken to meet Sark (who looks like Dillinger). Sark tells them that they can either join the MCP or fight in video games until they are de-resolved. On the way back Flynn sees a program named Tron (Alan’s electronic counterpart), who Ram says fights for the Users.
Flynn, Ram, and Tron are taken to the Light Cycle arena, a game where the trail a Light Bike leaves is essentially a wall. Flynn forces one of the opposing Light Bikes into a wall of the arena breaking open a hold through which he, Ram, and Tron escape. They head for an Input/Output tower so that Tron can communicate with Alan, but the MCP’s Tanks separate Ram and Flynn, blowing them off their Light Bikes. Flynn and Ram take cover in a damaged Recognizer which after the Tanks are gone, Flynn finds that he can partially reform and activate. Ram who is fatally wounded asks Flynn to help Tron just before he de-resolves. Flynn uses the Recognizer to fly to the I/O tower where he crashes, unharmed. At the tower, Tron finds Yori (Lora’s electronic counterpart) and they together sneak into the port with the help of the keeper of the tower (the counterpart of Lora’s coworker who started ENCOM in his garage). There Tron gets the necessary data from Alan to destroy the MCP. They then narrowly escape Sark’s forces and steal a Solar Sailer which travels along a beam of light and will take them to the MCP. Flynn, who disguised himself as one of Sark’s troops using one of his never really defined or understood (either by himself or the viewer) “User powers”, is then discovered by Tron to have stowed away on the Solar Sailer and pulled onboard from where he was hanging.
Flynn then reveals to Tron and Yori that he is one of the Users. Just before they make it to the MCP, Sark rams the Solar Sailer with his ship and captures Yori and Flynn. He then detaches a smaller ship (on which Tron is hiding) and the Sark’s large airship begins to de-resolve. Flynn, with his “User powers”, keeps the ship and Yori from completely de-resolving and Yori flies the airship toward the core of the MCP. Tron at this time fights Sark and severely damages him. Tron then attempts to get the destructive data into the MCP, but is repelled by spinning shields. The MCP then makes Sark grow very large and attempt to crush Tron. Flynn then throws himself into the pillar of light above the MCP distracting it long enough for Tron to find an opening in the shields. With the villain defeated, the coloring of the world is changed in the happily ever after sort of way, and Flynn is de-digitized back in the same position he was in when he entered the digital world. The information he needed is printed out on every computer. Flynn gets Dillinger’s position and more and everybody lives happily ever after.
This film at the time was a step forward in visual effects and is one of the first steps to the wide use computer graphics that is seen in modern movies today. The actors did a good job in the rolls they played, keeping a delicate balance between man and machine in their on-screen personalities. Overall I liked the movie and would consider looking up a sequel if such exists. This movie doesn’t really have any distinguishable moral or message, but is still a an entertaining experience.

This reading helped explain that packet handout we got. I can definitely see how this could help in my paper by looking back at how it would have been useful in previous papers. I have a bad memory.

The first part of this reading was just a long drawn out philisophical definition list of ways of learning someone's identity. This reading was so long and repetitive. Impatient people who are not sure about their identity probably shoot themselves halfway through. His paragraphs seemed to have almost no direction and as long as this writen work is, even if he had a thesis at the beginning of the papaer, it would have been nice to identify a thesis for each section if not paragraph. I did find his descriptions of the readymade identies interesting.

Here's my fireworks thing.