JH+-+Homework+1+Comments

For Thursday, spend an hour or two looking through some of the links on the links page. Write something for your new portfolio page that talks about what web pages you read (and what pages you added to the links page, if any), what you thought about them, AND name and outline UP TO 3 possible topics that you might consider building your research project around. These might be new ideas based on your reading, or ideas you already had. Take some time as well to write a few notes in response to the Capra and Luisi reading. What do you think are the most important arguments? What do you agree or disagree with? What questions did it raise for you? What was familiar, and what was new?

Web links: []
 * His name sounded familiar but I wasn’t sure why – and then reading about him brought back the ideas of the biosphere, for which he won a Stalin Prize. He sounded like a cool theorist, and I enjoyed reading his (somewhat limited) wiki page.

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 * According to the artist who put the exhibition togehter, “Landscapes cannot be fully captured.” Looking through it was very interesting to see the perceptions on a landscape that all of the artists painted, and although I didn’t go very in depth with the reading, the difference of textures and styles was compelling. Like many have said before – no two artists focus on the same thing – a good example is an old Disney film where four Disney animators / artists are sent out to paint the same tree. And capturing the essence of a place or scenery is difficult because every person will notice another part that makes it unique and important.

Possible topics:
 * Manufacturing design ethics – dealing with issues in design and how engineers and other professionals must weigh quality vs quantity vs sustainability of a layout in a facility that manufactures things
 * Looking at Gender and Sexual Minorities (GSM) in the STEM field – looking at issues faced, gender disparity, and if more LGBT women make a disproportionately high amount of women in the STEM field

Capra and Luisi:
 * Interconnectivity – agree – liked the connection to Taoism. It’s a theme that’s permeated sustainability literature for a long time, even back to the Lorax. It’s a very important point in my opinion, but also one that’s been beaten to the ground in cliché’s and constant rephrasing.
 * Limits on Science – agree – but wasn’t something readily talked about in other texts
 * Kuhn’s approach to ethics and paradigm shift – have read Kuhn before, but this is still a fairly new concept to me. It makes sense, but it raises a lot of questions for myself about what paradigm we’re actually trying to shift.
 * Greek naming and history of the Greek Soul and how it evolved our understanding of life – was familiar, interesting, but didn’t feel necessary.
 * Leonardo’s pendulum was an interesting idea – to work with nature rather than conquer it. Also was familiar.

Overall the text just kept repeating the same phrase over and over with different words. It was a little exhausting to read – I get it.