Kidd, Hickey and Weschler Articles Examined

In the article by Kidd, The Cheese Monkeys I thought the authors view on givens were quite accurate. It comes as a given that left is greater than right, up is of more importance than down and big is more important than small. We do not even think about it. When we want something to have more importance we without thinking use the greater direction or size.

What I find troubling is why we view things in this way. The question that should be asked is how did this come to be? Who decided that one direction or size is of more importance than another and why do we follow this set decision? Are we not capable of our own decisions? The fact is that we can be lazy and not question decisions as we should. What makes left more important than right? Is it the fact that we are afraid of change? This is something to think hard about.

In the article by Hickey, The Heresy of Zone Defense set rules are looked at further in the sport of basketball. It is interesting to note how much the rules of basketball have changed over the years. This is for the better, because it makes the game fairer and leaves little room for argument.

A negative that comes from these rules though is who is chosen to play the sport. We do not just look at athleticism any more but who will be able to win for our team based on size.  This can take away from the fun nature of the game and make it too competitive. Lots of high school sports these days are no longer fun because of this constant competition to be better than your teammates. Isn’t the point of team sports to work together as a team and have fun? I feel as though this aspect has been lost with the creation of more rules.

It is intriguing that the human face is capable of over 5,000 different expressions as stated in Weschler’s article Uncanny Valley. This capability is golden for the movie industry and they never miss the chance to use it to their advantage. Today even animated characters have these 5,000 expressions and plus some.

What is troubling though is how much the movie industry has changed. They are not just sticking with human actors anymore but they have now created animations and robots to take the place of human actors. It may be good entertainment but there comes a point where you have to ask is it worth it? Actors are losing jobs to non-human characters and money is instead being spent on creating facial expressions that any human can already do. Would it not be easier to use humans? Of course you lose the entertainment factor of creating unheard of animations that keep the audience enthralled, but would it not be more logical to think of new ways to make real humans even more interesting to watch? That seems like a better investment to me.