Museum About The Future

Museums survive on the constant evolution of their displays and set-ups.  In order to encourage consistent attendance over the years, the museum needs to update and re-design exhibits over and over. 

My museum will be designed solely on the idea of the evolution of its displays and exhibits.  

It will be the 'Museum of the Future'.  The museum will include have a historical exhibit that will  show simply displaying ideas from the future help improve technology and encourage experimentation. 

Common knowledge among Trekies is that the communication devices used in the movies from the 70's and 80's encouraged future cell phone designers to create something similar. This exhibit will encourage children to show that imagination is just as important as experimentation in expanding our technology.

The exhibit will encourage opinion and ideas from its visitors and guests to publish their ideas for an Idea Wall and will have exhibits of popular futuristic devices and ideas and will show their progress in experimentation. 

For example, if created now, there would be an exhibit talking about flying cars and show their beta-stages that are currently in construction and the possible future of them.

My museum would encourage live lectures from Professors and Scientists that lead their field in creative experimentation. 

Tell me what you think!

The Alamo

I visited the Alamo over Spring Break and have done so several times before in my life, as is required when growing up in San Antonio, Texas.  The event itself that surrounds the treasured history of the Alamo is one filled with rich details of heroism and self-sacrifice and much is known about the personalities of the people that fought their last fight behind its walls. 

Yet the Museum seems to pay little tribute in knowledge or artifacts present in the present day.  You would expect a museum with several exhibits telling about Davy Crockett, the man mythically known for wrestling a bear, or about Col. Travis and all the other men that have legacies bigger than their name.  

Instead, all that can be seem is a few simple set ups that shown pictures and diagrams of what it might have look like before the war and a couple known artifacts from the time but their are no need for tour guides because it the space is one room no larger than the ground space of one individual movie theater.  Outside, it contains a beautiful garden that has plenty of spots to sit and reflect but that would be more fitting in an art museum.  

The Alamo is a museum dedicated to a major battle and bloodshed and is a topic known by all major American history buffs and they want to know  the juicy details and see items that might hvae been worn by their heros. 

Sorry Alamo, you still to this day have let me down. 

Clinton's Apology to Hawaii

Former President Bill Clinton signed an official apology to the State of Hawaii on November 23, 1993. The drastic overthrow of the Hawaiian government on January 17, 1893 led to a century of rough tensions between native Hawaiians and American cultivators. The United States Government saw Hawaii as a financial investment along with a strategic location for global expansion. Instead of a typical democratic transition, the American government employed a vicious business takeover.

The consequences of these actions caused many influential Hawaiians to bitter towards American politics and foreign investors. When the 100 year anniversary loomed, a Hawaiian state Senator demanded an apology from the government. Bill Clinton was the president at the time and therefore was the leader at the time to sign the official document.

Although symbolic, many felt that this did not heal all the wounds and was merely an easy out for the government to forget and move on. I know from traveling to Hawaii that there is still a lingering bias for Americans from native Hawaiians. Many of their beaches are ran by "locals" and will physically cause harm to tourists for trying to enjoy the water.

The apology itself seemed genuine and in the end, there might not be much more that America could really do to apologize. Nonetheless, the apology was needed, this was an action very much out of the ordinary of common American politics and was a product of the time and a creation of the industrial complex forming within American society.

For More Information: http://www.hawaii-nation.org/publawsum.html

Critical Thinking

Critical thinking is synonymous with becoming an engineer. You cannot practice engineer if you are not working problems out and expressing your thoughts rationally and logically. The main reason engineers need to possess advanced critical thinking is because lives are often at stake due to their measurements, decisions, and and analysis. Rarely do you hear about it, but it does happen, that a structure collapsed, a vehicle combusted, etc. due to a "engineering error." It is never acceptable to allow people to suffer or families to lose a son, daughter, mom, or dad because you weren't analyzing the material correctly and understand the weaknesses.

Thoughts on The Reading

I think that similarities can be drawn between the Nazi Regime and Modern Day Catholicism but they also vary vastly. Religion is an institution with far different control a totalitarian government. The people of Germany had no choice whether or not to follow the Nazi regime but becoming a Catholic is a choice for people.
Hitler instructed his followers to judge other people differently based on religion or ethnicity. Catholicism has some long-standing opinions towards certain things including homosexuality and other beliefs of the divine and my not condone certain things and look to "convert" oppose to accept but its a religion and theres no reason for a religion to change its beliefs for something that its doctrine disagrees with.
A government should be doing this because it is supposed to change under the opinions of the people it governs; many say that government is an organic thing that is never completely set or never should be done changing.

I-405

So I have officially switched from Traffic System as a whole to the specific highway, I-405. If you are unfamiliar of this highway, it stretches from southern Orange County north to north San Fernando Valley.
It is a split off of the '5' and is a busy highway for commuters. During rush hours, it is truly one of the worst highways to try to travel, a trip that realistically could take only twenty minutes instead last an hour or longer due to accidents, increasing number of cars, and poor design.
I have found for many stretches of the '405' there is only one carpool lane going either way which actually discourages people carpooling to take the lane because if there is one car traveling under the speed limit it backs everyone up behind them. Many times the carpool lane is fairly empty because of this.
Another problem I've noticed is the complete insanity from motorcyclists. Upon moving out here, I learned that it is legal for them to 'lane-split' and just cut up through the middle of cars on a busy highway. To me this is absolutely crazy, it affects how I drive because if I'm changing lanes I'm always looking for them coming up the left or right side.
Please comment with any other complaints you can think of. Thanks

Traffic Ruins Lives

I drove down with a friend to Irvine, California from my house here off-campus and as we drove the 40 mile trip, I thought about what to pick for my topic for writing. My though process was hindered by the constant start and stopping of the car's engine then it hit me! I hate traffic.

I'm originally from Texas and traffic does not seem to affect my life too much seeing as we have spread out with cities with four lane highways but then I came to school in Los Angeles. The traffic in Los Angeles in notorious around the country and everybody has an idea of what its like but I truly think its one of those things that you can't completely imagine until you see what its like. For a city of 10+ million people you have to see it to believe what its like for thousands of cars within each square mile.

My goal now is to find the perfect solution to the chaos. I'm definitely open to ideas and opinions even if it is just telling me personal stories about your times in traffic.