Big Bang

In the final chapter of the book, Sophie's World, we learn that stargazing is a form of time travel and thanks to this concept the book is better understood by the reader. Albert tells his daughter Hilde that when we look at a star we are looking at what that star looked like millions of years ago because it takes millions of light years for it to reach our eyes. It works the same for someone in another planet that is for example four light year away, if he were to be watching me with a telescope, he wouldn't see me writing this blog, he would see a thirteen year old boy doing whatever I was doing back then, he would be looking at the past not the present. Therefore, this concept makes the reader assume that Alberto and Sophie are many light years away from Albert and Hilde, which explains why Sophie and Alberto can see Hilde and Albert but cannot be seen by them. When observing Hilde, Sophie is actually looking at what Hilde used to look like, at her past, when in the present Hilde does not exist anymore.

I think that time is a very complex idea because it makes me doubt existence. If I am looking at an object close to me it means I am looking at the past or how the object looked many years back, so this means I can never see the present, so how can I be sure that anything really exists. This is something that really scares me and is something that is left unanswered in the book because I keep wondering who really existed, Hilde or Sophie?

http://www.likecool.com/Gear/Projects/Looking%20Into%20the%20Past/Looking-Into-the-Past.jpg

Karl Marx

Karl Marx defined the basis of society as all the material, economic, and social relations of a society. He claimed that the way a society thinks, the kinds of political institutions there are, the laws it has, religion, morals, art, philosphy and science are the society's superstructure which is caused by the basis of society. Marx divided the basis of society into three levels, society's conditions of production, society's means of production, and society's production relations. Society's conditions of production refer to the natural conditions or resources that are available to society, and determines the type of production in the society. Thats is why it can be said that this level determines the nature and culture of a society. Society's means of production means the various kinds of equipment, tools, machinery, and raw materials that are available to society. Society's production relations, the last level, refers to the division of labor, or the distribution of work and ownership.

http://lh3.ggpht.com/_eWajkm24PVw/SO7_ZZjDzWI/AAAAAAAAA3Q/SFlT37u32M8/PICT0238.JPG

This is a picture of a little village in the middle of the desert which shows society's conditions of production because these people have to rely on other sources to get their food supply due to the fact that it must be very hard to grow their own food in that unfertile soil.

http://drupal.thedonkeysanctuary.org.uk/files/donkeys/images/IndiaConstructionWork.jpg

This is an image of a construction site in India, that shows that they do not have access to modern and high quality materials to build their buildings, which makes us guess that they do not have very big buildings and actually live ina poor neighborhood. This picture shows the second level in the basis of society, society's means of production.

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_r4TzZPyyD-c/SmCGThO63aI/AAAAAAAAAHo/NGP-Hu079Aw/s400/RBP9029401_P.jpg

This picture shows the final level of the basis of society, society's production relations. It is very clear in this picture who works for who, it can be assumed that the guy in the suit is the owner of whatever they are building and the short guy is his worker.

The basis of society can be related to the area of ethics. Before people did not consider slavery or the abuse of workers as something bad, because they had no other means for production, and until machines subtituted these workers they continued to exploit them.

The basis of society can also be related to the area of human sciences, more specific to the branch of economics. It takes money to own any means of production and to be able to distrubute it aswell. To be able to buy all the equipment, tools, and machinery needed to produce and to be able to provide good conditions for production.

Aristotle Post

Aristotle believed that women were "unfinished" men, therefore making them inferior to men. He believed that the man was the one that created life because all children inherit the male characteristics that are found in the sperm. Men are active and reproductive while women are passive and receptive. He also believed that men should should lead civilizations and women should play an unimportant role. Thanks to Aristotle women were seen as he believed them to be throughout the Middle Ages.

This belief can be related to ethics because his view of women can be considered unethical due to the fact that he discriminates them in society. This type of discrimination can still be seen in poor, developing, third-world countries, like Honduras, were women are still seen as less important than men, and are forced to stay at home to clean the house and feed her family while the men work.




http://nieonline.com/sptimes/images/xpress/xpi_20100111_unfinished.jpg



http://tantek.com/presentations/2008/06/how-to-be-a-superhero/ethics.jpg


http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2008/08/28/article-0-026FBCE600000578-69_468x371.jpg

Arts Blog


http://blog.makezine.com/burial-ceiling.jpg

1. Intention of the Artist: The artist wanted to portray that people who smoke are already six feet under, that they might as well be planning their funeral. He wanted to catch the audience's attention with his way of viewing smoking and how harmful it is.
2. Quality of the Work: The picture is a clear work of art because it is a very interesting and true concept. It is highly educational and the way it is portrayed is very appealing to the eye because it is unlikely to be watching people as if they were inside a grave.
3. Response of the Audience: I think that this an entertaining and interesting work of art. I find it very enjoyable and this definetely caught my attention as a non-smoking person but I think this would catch anybodies attention, non-smoker or smoker.

1. Art as Imitation: This is an original piece of artwork and it is nothing like any other picture that I have seen before and it gives a real message that many other pictures transmit as well but this picture does it in a very original and entertaining way.
2. Art as Communication: This picture has let me know that smoking is harmful and can kill you, and I like how it is transmitted and it is demonstrated clearly in a very entertaining and appealing way.
3. Art as Education: This picture clearly shows that smoking is harmful and it teaches us that it can kill us and this is done with and entertaining image that catches the audiences's attention.

The Stroop Effect

1.The Stroop Effect experiment was designed to create many different stimuli to test the reaction time of the participant taking the test and thus prove if the introduction of different stimuli affect an individual's reaction time.

2.John Ridley Stroop created three different type of stimuli by making three different versions of the same test. In the first one, names of colors appeared in black ink. In the second, names of colors appeared in a different ink than the color named. Finally in the third one, there were squares of a given color. Every participant had to read each one of the names with the different stimuli.

3. As a result, Stroop identified a large increase in the time taken by participants to complete the color reading in the second task compared to the naming of the color of the squares in experiment 2 while this delay did not appear in the first experiment. This taught us that humans can onyl concentrate on one object to fully be able to perform a task.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stroop_effect

http://www.sireporter.com/user_images/1260419903_r_121009i_ScienceFairBest1_bw.jpg

Ethics Blog

Child Labor

http://www.globalenvision.org/files/Child_Labor07.10.08_0.jpg

The Bureau of Labor Statistics pegs the number of working children between the ages of 15-17 in the USA at 3.7 million.*

The outcry against soccer balls stitched by children in Pakistan led to the relocation of workshops ran by Nike and Reebok.*

Thailand, sub-Saharan Africa, Brazil, or Morocco and they will tell you how they regard this altruistic hyperactivity - with suspicion and resentment.*
*http://samvak.tripod.com/childlabor.html

I think that if a kid wants to work he should have the right to work but in workable conditions and for a fair salary but I do not think that a child should be forced to work because I wouldn't like to be forced to work and worse if it is in non-workable conditions.

Historical Analysis

http://www.asiaobserver.com/images/fbfiles/images/2010_01_08_Cartoon.jpg

Origin: United States. It is from the point of view of the members or followers of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK).

Purpose: To make people believe that what the KKK does is acceptable.

Value: This is important because people all around the world believe that what the KKK does is wrong and this reassures their belief.

Limitations: There is no label on the cartoon that says that the person in the picture is part of the KKK, we are just assuming that because it looks like them but we are not sure.

Natural Fractals


These pictures of lightning bolts are clear examples of fractals, each of the small lightning bolts look very similar to the original lightning bolt, they repeat over and over and get smaller everytime they but very similiar to the original, which is one of the basic characteristics of fractals.
http://thehiveiscoming.files.wordpress.com/2009/07/fractal-lightning.jpg


This video shows that even though lightning bolts are dangerous natural marvels it doesn't explain the mathematical significance of lightning strikes, and fractals do.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2wY_t7zVIXY

Natural Science Blog

David Reimer

In 1965 David Reimer was born in Canada. When he was 8 months old, he was taken to the hospital to have a circumcision done. Unfortunately, his penis was burned off during this standard procedure due to the fact that the physician used an electrocautery needle instead of a standard scalpel. David's parents went to a psychologist named John Money and he suggested that a sex change was the simplest solution. David's parents agreed without knowing that Dr. Money had other intentions than to help them. He wanted to use David as his private case study to prove that nurture, not nature, determined gender identity. David had a vagina constructed and was given a hormonal treatment, he was now known as Brenda.

This experiment was completely unethical because John Money used David as his own private case study, and told David's parents to change David's sex so he could have a case to research on, he was not profesional at all. He did not tell them that he wanted to do this experiment so he did not have their consent or David's as we was not aware of this at all. He did not take into account all the different problems that this would bring into David's family's life and David's as well. David's mother was suicidal, his father was an alcoholic and his brother was severely depressed. David's parents decided to tell him what had happened when he was 14, and he decided that he wanted his penis to be reconstructed. After many year of struggling with gender identity he committed suicide at age 38.

http://the.honoluluadvertiser.com/dailypix/2004/May/13/ln52a_b.jpg

http://ec1.images-amazon.com/images/I/51K5E5TH1PL._AA240_.jpg

http://www.dctp.de/medienbibliothek/bbc/david-reimer.jpg

Perception Post
"Doubt is the key to knowledge" (Persian Proverb)
Perception is how we see things and doubt is a key element in perception. When we see something we don't necessary need to believe it, it depends on how we perceive it that make us believe something immediately or have doubts about it. When we doubt something we have this tendecy to try and get the correct answer and therefore we acquire more knowledge.
1. A cultural example could be that not all cultures believe in God. Some cultures perceive God as a superior being but they don't call it God. Some cultures have doubts about God's existence and they all have different ways and paths to search for this "truth".
2.In school sometimes teachers make mistakes and most of the time they are not corrected and we end up learning something that is not correct. But sometimes some one notices the teacher's mistake and doubts that what he/she said is correct, so he asks and then the correct answer is given and knowledge is acquired thanks to the student's doubt.
3. One time, I was in my math class with Mr. McDowell and he was solving an equation on the board but for some reason I doubted that the answer was correct, something didn't look right. So then I started solving the equation on my own, and I figured what he did wrong and I corrected him. Thanks to my doubt everybody was corrected and acquired the real knowledge, thanks to the way I perceived the problem.

Emotions Post
Joy


This is a video clip from the movie "Big Daddy", this scene make me laugh every time I see the movie, and makes me enjoy the movie everytime I see it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7AiYy8cKE7s

Sadness


This scene from "Big Daddy" makes me sad everytime I see it because,I don't think it is fair that social services took Julian away from Sonny, they love each other and then they are separated. (The first 15 times i saw this scene, I cried)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mn9J1QlOZKA&feature=related

Surprise


This scene is from the movie "What Happens in Vegas" and the movie had already ended and the credits were on and then this scene happens. It really surprised me because the movie had already ended but I bet the guy was even more surprised.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xBithOSdf6o

TOK IB Assessment

Topic: How important are the opinions of experts in the search for knowledge?

Opinion: The opinions of experts in the search for knowledge are very important because how can we believe that something is true without a reliable source such as the opinion of an expert.

Support 1

http://jgero.files.wordpress.com/2009/06/einstein-quote-3.png?w=586&h=630

Albert Einstein's opinion is worth a lot in the world of mathematics. By reading this quote people are more likely to believe it becomes it comes from a recognised expert such as Albert Einstein.

Support 2

http://media.katu.com/images/071012_Al_Gore.jpg

Al Gore is known as an expert in global warming due to his documentary "An Inconvenient Truth". When people are researching this controversial topic they might research on Al Gore because his opinion really matter in that particular subject.

Historical Reasoning

RUSSIAN REVOLUTION OF FEBRUARY

(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/4/46/Russian_Revolution_of_1917.jpg)

In the first Russian Revolution in February 1917 the Tsar was deposed and a Provisional Government replaced him. The revolution began due to the inequality of the clases and they wanted to even them up but instead they ended up eliminating all the nobles and leaving a Provisional Government incharge of the country, one step closer to the creation of the Soviet Union.

ROBERT KENNEDY ASSASSINATION

(http://iconicphotos.files.wordpress.com/2009/06/rfk-conspiracy-test.jpg)

June 5, 1968 Robert Kennedy, democratic party presidential candidate and brother of assassinated President John F. Kennedy, was assassinated in the Ambassador Hotel, Los Angeles after addressing his campaign supporters and claiming victory in the state's democratic presidential primary. He was a civil rights activist and supporter of Martin Luther King Jr. and after his campaign against criminal acts he was on his way to give a press conference after winning the California Primary when he was shot by a Palastinian Arab, Sirhan Sirhan, with a .22 revolver.

THE BEATLES-"MORE POPULAR THAN JESUS"

(http://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/conservation/exhibitions/beatles/graphics/large/peto_beatles_interview.jpg)

The Beatles began as a sensation in England and came to the United States a became even a bigger sensation. The Beatles were seen as idols until John Lennon compared the band with Jesus saying that "they were more popular than Jesus". This disturbed the christian society and The Beatles lost many of their followers, ultimately leading to the assassination of John Lennon.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kZ6NL3iNNMs&feature=related

(Video of John Lennon clearing the "more popular than Jesus" misunderstanding)

5 Important Aspects of my Life

This is a very important aspect of my life, my family. This was a picture taken in Puerto Rico last September when we went for my brother's wedding. This is a picture of my me with my parents, my ciblings and my brother's wife. One of my sisters is missing in that picture but she requested not to be used for this project.

This is just a picture of the dog I would like to have. I love dogs but I am not allowed to own one because my sister is afraid of them and my mom doesn't like them. When I go to college I will buy one of these and name him "Shorty".

This is a picture of my favorite sport, racquetball. This is the sport I am currently practicing and is the sport that I enjoy the most because it is aggressive and very physical but at the same time very fun and exciting, and I think those are some qualities that define me.

This is Andy Samberg. He is one of the funniest guys that I have ever seen on t.v. and my favorite comedy actor. He acts on SNL and one of my dreams is to be able to perform on SNL and be as good as a comedian as he is.

This is one of the few things I collect, shoes. I know this is really shallow but this is one of the things that define me. I enjoy buying shoes, I don't know why but when some people are collecting coins or rubberbands, I am collecting shoes.

The Origin of my Name

The Meaning of Marcelo

Origin: Italian
Meaning: Form of the latin Marcellus meaning hammer

The Meaning of Andreas

Origin: English
Meaning: Variant of Andrew: Brave; Manly.
Origin: German
Meaning: German form of Andrew.
Origin: Greek
Meaning: Manly. Brave. Feminine form of Andrew.
Origin: Greek
Meaning: Manly; brave. Variant of English Andrew.
Origin: Scottish
Meaning: Variant of Andrew: Manly. From the Greek Andrew. Has long been a popular Scottish name, because St. Andrew is the Patron Saint of Scotland after whom the town of St Andrews was named.
Origin: Welsh
Meaning: Welsh form of Andrew 'manly'.

The Origin of Sandoval

Origin: From the Latin words, 'sancto' and 'vallis' meaning 'holy valley' or those who are from the holy valley.

The Origin of Jablonicky

No known origin or meaning of the last name.

My Parents reasons for naming me Marcelo

My parents reasons for naming me Marcelo were very short. My mom wanted me to be named Janic because first of all she liked the named, second of all because it starts with the letter "J"and everybody's name on her side of the family starts with a "J", and last because my grandfather told her that it was from Czech Origin. My father did not like this name and he wanted me to have his same initials (M.A.S) and he could not name after him because my brother's name is the same as my father (Manuel Antonio Sandoval) so they decided to give me the name Marcelo Andreas Sandoval so that I could have my father's same initials and so that I could be the only one on my mom's side of the family that has a name that doesn't start with a "J".

Marcelo Tinelli






Andreas Moritz



http://www.meaning-of-names.com/italian-names/marcelo.asp
http://www.meaning-of-names.com/english-names/andreas.asp
http://www.surnameweb.org/genealogy/Origin.php?s_Surname=Sandoval
http://www.mshowtv.com.ar/rankingm/archives/tinelli.jpg
http://www.pensamientoconsciente.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/andreas-moritz.jpg