Learning 1

Well, again i guess i am learning some more about my topic..

During class discussion it helped bring up some issues with my topic. For instance: should a new mother be able to do whatever she wants with her body- if she is carrying a baby?

To be honest, this kind of argument is something that should be left solely to abortion- after all, millions of women abuse prescription drugs as well as illegal narcotics that may be of some detriment to the baby they are carrying. In reality- if they cared, they wouldn't drink, smoke, do drugs, or even eat the wrong food when carrying a baby.

One of the better arguments that i have been thinking about for quite some time now, which was reinforced by another of my classmates: Legal drugs like alcohol and tobacco are more harmful than many illicit drugs (illegal or not). This brings up the age old debate- should i get drunk, or should i smoke up? I think the main problem with this argument though is that it cannot include a lot of the drugs which are on the Schedule I listing. For example, the effect of LSD or any man made drugs (cocaine, heroin, PCP, meth) is much worst than that of a simple plant that grows in the ground- cannabis.

This topic has proven to have far too many sections...

Man made drugs and their effects vs natural herbs classified as "Drugs" and their effects

Effects on the workplace - according to this 15% of Americans drink on the job, what could be next?

"Forbidden fruit effect" - because it is illegal, is it cooler to do drugs/drink under age?

Learning from the past- will people see what happened in the 50s to 80s and realize that drugs are a major cultural influence, and will continue to be one whether they are illegal or not?

If we successfully legalize drugs in the United States, how much of the prison system will be cleared out? How much of the organized crime element will be taken out?- all of it? How much surplus in tax money will we have to better fund public schools, take care of our roads and historical landmarks, or set aside for social security?
What has history traditionally showed in nation's who have legalized or are on the verge of legalizing drugs? Revolt? Rebellion?

Why should millions of Americans be allowed to be alcoholics after they are twenty-one, but are not allowed to become marijuana smokers?- an arguably less detrimental thing

In the United States, the legal drinking age is 21- yet there are 19 year old alcoholics. In Germany there is no drinking age, and there are far fewer alcoholics.
Liz Kleinfeld

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I think the first step i need to take in my research is to find out what happened Holland when they legalized drugs. From what i have seen from prior research: In Amsterdam there are places where heroin addicts have "safe shoot up spots" where they can buy a syringe and use a drug they have become addicted to- in order to be productive in their daily lives. I think that is one of the stone cold facts is that when a person becomes so dependent and addicted to something- without it they cannot function, at all.

One thing that has kind of deterred me from focusing on one specific drug, is that- in most cases- it is contradictory to legalize one, but not the other. I think that marijuana is the exception to the rule- it should have never been made illegal and primarily was due to its popular use during the 60s by hippie war protesters. (a bold move by Nixon to rid the white house front lawn of "non-patriotic Americans")

So for all intents and purposes i could write a paper about how alcohol and marijuana are almost sister drugs- and the only reason why marijuana did not remain legal is because of its nearly non-existent prevalence up until the late 50s, early 60s. How the previous of the two has been known world wide to cause hundreds of thousands if not millions of deaths each year- while the latter has not been documented to have ever caused a death (maybe i lied), and has never been scientifically proven to be a major cause of lung cancer.
down at the bottom

Now I am starting to sound like a druggie.

I think there are a lot of sides to this and i am going to have to do some major narrowing down to find a good research topic to write about.

Learning

Well, i guess its been a while- I have been researching different topics from my 10 potential topics, and I narrowed it down to a few.

First i had picked teleportation, but when i actually went on a hunt for the articles and information about teleportation- it was virtually non-existent. I found a few articles but they were basically about the same research subject (the same experiment). Although Quantum Teleportation is a very fascinating subject to me, the preliminary scientific research for me to do my research on- just isn't there.

So i decided that even though i have already explored this topic, i would go ahead and take my teacher's advice and explore it some more.

Drug legalization

This topic is pretty controversial- and obviously drugs have been around since the rise of civilization (I'm pretty sure Plato and Socrates were tripping out on something...) - so of course its going to be an "Issue" these days. Of course it doesn't have to be an "Issue"- it leans toward the very simple fact that no matter what "Laws" govern, whether it be the laws of physics or the laws of a bi-party democracy gone haywire, people will always be intentionally breaking these laws because of human nature. Having a psychedelic experience with Lysergic Acid Diethylamide is no different a discovery than finding out that the planets of our solar system revolve in an ellipse using math so complicated it would make most people's brains explode. I think the difference is that most people regard drug use as not being a legitimate science like chemistry or biology- but in fact, drug use has been proven in controlled environments to be a huge force for research, experimentation and inspiration.

-Wow you know i just noticed that i am starting to write my paper, so i better just cut it short there.

Drug legalization is pretty beneficial and that is what i intend to prove in my paper.. i really haven't decided whether i want to make it a persuasive paper or an informative paper, usually my style of persuasion leads to pretty good research papers (in the past it has..)..

So based on a lot of different things that i have written in the past this should be more of an exploration deep into the bowels of the cave rather than trying to find the entrance.

Also check out my del.icio.us, i have a lot of links on there that i bookmarked just while drawing up my research plan tonight.

Movie Research

Pretty much anything that you read, watch or stare at frequently is going to have research to back it up.

For me i think it was probably , "Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning " that set it off the edge. After having seen the original- i decided to do a little research on what the movie was based on.

"Hooper has also said that he based the character of Leatherface on Ed Gein, a Wisconsin farmer who robbed graves (his own mother's supposedly among them), allegedly engaged in necrophilia and cannibalism, and murdered at least two women in the 1950s (one of whose corpses was found hanging naked — decapitated and disembowelled — in Gein's residence). As Gunnar Hansen, the actor who portrayed Leatherface, notes in his Texas Chainsaw Massacre FAQ:"

source

So after i found out a little bit about Ed Gein i realized that the whole story was completely fictional- its claimed "Inspired by a true story" bit was a load. But in hindesight if i were to watch the 2004 version of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre I would probably just have to assume that it is based on research- of the original movie. Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning is a whole different story- and while it was based on the movie which was based on a movie which was based on a serial necrophiliac, it definately implied some new gore techniques in the special fx industry.

Pretty much any movie is going to have to have some research done behind it- whether it is special effects or actual background research- i think either way, researching the research of a researched movie is something that we can all enjoy. In the end you really get a true feeling of what it was like to be making a movie- going from a necrophile farmer to a family of cannibals in one foul swift movement.

Research

I guess what is one of the most important things in writing- and basically anything and everything in the world- is research.

Whether you are going to research about the Bahamas because you are going to be taking a trip there, or you are researching about a new couch (prices, furnishings, etc), or researching about the research done on Brazilian monkeys who are closest to evolving into a new species of human (just an example =p)

Research is very important and yet it seems to be such a tedious task- that is because when most people think of research, they think of going to a library and reading a whole bunch of old books looking for some medical disease that their next paper is going to be about. Wrong- even if you were going online and not to the library, it is still not as tedious as it seems.

For me research can be as simple as seeing an RSS feed on my gmail and clicking on it to read it- its something that is interesting to me personally, and might help me to know at some point in time.

Research is what allows mankind to have facts, before research we didn't know anything for sure, and even now: a fact is only a fact until another fact proves that it is not a fact.

Using the research that you acquire is a totally different story though. When you find out that the sky is blue, you accept it. When you find out that your pet dog was domesticated from a wolf, you question it. The point is: when you have done your research, you will have questioned the resources so thoroughly that there will be no doubt in your mind that you have reached the correct conclusion- if your topic is controversial then you will also be able to counter all of your opponent's remarks with something that disproves them or discredits them.

Potential Research Topics

Well, 10 potential research topics..

• Online gaming
• How the internet will (is) help revolutionize the future
• How drug legalization could boost the economy
• Auto-pilot cars
• Genetic Engineering
• What will the alternative fuel source of the future be?
• Multi-touch sensory array computers
• Bio-computing
• Hover cars
• Teleportation
  
• Holographic projection
  
• How much wood could a woodchuck chuck?

I think a lot of what i want to research has a lot to do with technology, whether it be the use of, or the development of it.

Online gaming is something i have been doing for years and am very knowledgeable about.
I believe that the internet is going to be something that plays a big part in everyone's life and the every day use of every day things.

Drug legalization is something that i have been a proponent of for years, even though i am not a user myself- the reason for this is due to the benefits that it could bring this country's economy as well as culture and possibly even its scientific community.

Autopilot will revolutionize the highways of the world to make things faster, safer and more efficient.

Genetic engineering is a subject that is very controversial and can serve both good and horrible purposes.

This is the pressing issue of today, what are we going to do when the oil runs out?

Multi-touch computers (ex. iPhone) will change the way we work and interact with computers.

Bio-computing, something that as far as i know is in concept alone- mere fantasy at best- is a very interesting subject: The human brain/eyes/nervous system are the fastest input computing processors, so what happens when you mesh the architecture of the human body, with the physical structure of a computer.

Hover cars: another thing that will revolutionize transport and highways- and why not even take it one step further, Teleportation?

Holographic projection is along the lines of Multi-touch computers and could change the way we interface with simple utilities- all the way to immersing ourselves in a digital world to fulfill our deepest fantasies or brave our darkest nightmares.

As for the woodchucks..

ENG122

Okay, so i guess my first assignment of ENG 122 (Composition II) was to make a blog site.

Here it is! More to follow.