HDR Photography Intro

1.  HDR images are just images taken at several different exposures and then mashed together--so the only changes to the camera while taking the pictures would be the shutter speed, allowing a different amount of light to be processed for each.

2.  Tripods and DSLRs.

3.  HDRs make images look better and more memorable; the first website describes them as "National Geographic-worthy."  They bring attention to more detail and exaggerate the features of the photo taken, both the highlights and the lowlights.

4.  The differences will be the contrast between the light and dark aspects of the photo.  The lighting will be more obvious, and the different aspects of texture/architecture.

Movie Review: Captain Phillips

Captain Phillips is a film based off the 2009 hijacking of the cargo ship, Maersk Alabama.  At the start of the film, Captain Richard Phillips (Tom Hanks) sets off with his crew on the mission of delivering cargo to Mombasa.  After an alert on the sonar about possible pirate skiffs, he and Shane Murphy (Michael Chernus) tell the rest of the crew.  After sending an email to his wife, Andrea Phillips (Catherine Keener), the ship is taken over by four pirates, leader Abdawali Muse (Barkhad Abdi), Najee (Faysal Ahmed), Elmi (Mahat M. Ali), and a teenaged accomplice.  Throughout the course of the Captain's experiences, the audience learns what it means to be a leader and to be strong in the face of fear.  Due to the lack of cliché themes and a small amount of graphic violence, audiences younger than 13 would not be interested in the film.
     While the beginning is mediocre in the department of keeping the audience's interest, the rest of the film is tense and keeps the audience on edge while inspiring curiosity pertaining to the pirates.  Nine out of ten to Captain Phillips for being realistic and well-scripted, the only problem being the first twenty minutes of exposition.

Current Events 6.2

1.  Nearly 56% of voters rejected Proposition 1.

2.  The provision of the campus gun laws at UT states that a license holder carrying a semi-automatic handgun on campus cannot have a chambered round of ammunition so as to reduce the change of accidental discharge.

3.  El Chapo's new prison is rated very low for inmate conditions.  The site of the prison is also believed to be controlled by cartel.

4.  Petcube is a company that keeps people connected with their pets while away from their place of residence.

5.  Nyquist won the Kentucky Derby yesterday.

6.  I've never used Lyft or Uber to get a ride anywhere.  The fact that I never go anywhere within Austin is probably a reason, but another is that getting in cars with strangers that probably don't have significant background checks isn't very appealing.  I've heard stories of super unfriendly people driving for Uber and Lyft, and that kind of negativity is completely unnecessary, especially if I'm just trying to go the library to get some work done, or something.  Prop 1 is something I probably would've voted for, if I had known what it was at the time when some guy came up to my door asking me to give him my opinion on it.
    Ride sharing is certainly beneficial to a city like Austin, and everyone has their own choice as to whether or not they want to take advantage of it.  Despite my distrust, I can see how it would help out a lot of people - but just because it's an app, or it was started by someone other than the government, doesn't mean it should've still be held to the same safety standards.  It's basically the same concept as taxis (except it's from home, not a building-oriented company), so it should be just as safe, if not more.

Final Exam Preview Assignment

1.  iMovie is a program/application-thing that helps people put videos, still pictures, narration, and other things together into one presentation.  Video clips can be placed anywhere in the presentation.  (This is an unfinished summary to be finished in the very near future.)

2.  I didn't know anything before.

3.  Basically everything--the trimming, the adding of the photos and videos and narration and video effects and yeah pretty much everything.

4.  I'm highly technologically impaired.  My understanding of technology is limited to my phone and the Microsoft Word 2016 on my laptop.  No exaggeration, whatsoever.  So what I'm worried about is being able to understand and navigate iMovie itself without getting so frustrated that I can't function for hours after the attempt at making the assignment.

5.  I'm pretty sure I can get the photos and the videos done quickly, if I can figure out what I'm going to do it on.  That's another thing I'm worried about.

6.  :/

Movie Prep

1.  Richard Phillips, Ali Aden Elmi, Hamac, an unidentified pirate, Abduwali Muse, Captain Larry Aasheim, and Commander Frank Castellano will most likely be main characters in the film.

2.  The crew aboard the Maersk Alabama were transporting cargo when they received warning about possible pirate danger; soon after, pirates invaded the Maersk Alabama and overpowered Captain Phillips and the rest of the crew.
     The crew ended up being able to overpower one of the pirates, but it only results in Captain Phillips being taken hostage.  The pirate ended up being released, but the pirates refused to release Captain Phillips in return.  They left Phillips in a lifeboat with ten days' worth of basic survival supplies.
     People finally responded to the hostage situation, and the subsequent standoff between the pirates and the federal workers started.  Later, Phillips is said to be in immediate danger (as in, an AK47 is pointed directly at his back), and they open fire on the pirates.  Three of them are killed, and the fourth pirate surrendered while being treated for an injury and was taken into custody.

3.  ?

4.  ??



1.  Tom Hanks, Barkhad Abdi, Catherine Keener, Faysal Ahmed, Max Martini.

2.  PG-13

3.  Paul Greengrass

4.  Scott Rudin, Dana Brunetti, Michael de Luca.

5.  Top Ten Films of the Year.

6.  $55 million.

7.  "Smart, powerfully acted, and incredibly intense, Captain Phillips offers filmgoers a Hollywood biopic done right--and offers Tom Hanks a showcase for yet another brilliant performance."  93% Rotten Tomatoes.

8.  7.9/10 IMDB.
The people from the crew sued the movie-makers because Captain Phillips was portrayed like a hero, and the regular crew members were left out.

Current Events 6.1

1.  Harriet Tubman is to replace Andrew Jackson on the twenty-dollar bill.

2.  They're suing because Texas has made a new system where the grading of standardizes tests will be based almost purely off the students' own grades, not improvement or an average of others'.

3.  Eight flood-related deaths have happened in Houston since the bad weather started this week.

4.  The experiment going up into space is testing the different uses and lipid production of algae; the experiment is happening in space and on the earth at the same time.

5.  Changing the pain, changing the layout of the room, providing different lighting, and changing rugs are four easy (painting is not easy, by the way--we just finished my room; I would know) ways to change the look of a room or home.

6.  This sort of thing happening to the citizens of Flint is horrible, and mostly because there was pretty much no reason for it.  I hadn't known about the issue before reading the story, although I don't know much about anything that goes on outside of my books.  The people who potentially knew they were poisoning the people of Flint should mostly definitely be convicted, but I wouldn't be able to tell how or of what--it's not up to me to decide the verdict, and it's better that way.
     If this extends to the governor or even further, they should be held just as accountable.  If someone aids a person in a crime or has this big of a part in it, they should face the consequences they surely knew they would end up having to face.

Free Write #3

Prompt Seventeen

It was, honest-to-the-gods, terrifying.

Tuesdays always seemed to end up worse than the rest of the days in the week; it had always been like that, as long as I could remember.  This particular Tuesday had been mucky, the air so thick with humidity that it could be sliced open with a knife (and then water would pour out of it like a supernatural waterfall).

It would've been normal if it were anywhere but central Texas on a perfectly sunny day.

I should've taken this as an omen, but I didn't, because I had learned the lesson over the years that Tuesdays were just weird.

But, opening the door after walking home from school on a Tuesday afternoon in July, I walked into my house after struggling briefly with the keys.

Nothing was the same.

The house had been constantly changing.  It would progress from states of clean to unclean and back to clean again in ridiculously short amounts of time.  The paint was chipped at the edges of the doorframes, a result of the various man-height projects me and my family had to haul through entrances to small rooms.  The walls had been a pale yellow, rather ugly but still somehow comforting, and there had been thousands of holes in the walls from various works of art.

Memories were embedded in every inch of the house, from the stains in the carpet to the paintings to the shelves of books to the small cracks in one of the den windows from when a fox had once rammed straight into the glass as if it had been drunk.  It was home, and that meant something.

Of course it meant something.

So walking into my house—my home—this odd Tuesday afternoon, only to find that everything had been changed...

"Am I being pranked?"

(I wasn't being pranked.)

"This isn't funny—Stuart, what did you do?"

(My older brother hadn't done anything.)

The walls were a vibrant blue, the carpet was white (it had been brown, before).  The furniture was completely different—instead of a deep, forest green, it was brown.  The bookshelves were gone, leaving bare walls devoid of any holes in its place.  The glass tables were replaced with wood-topped coffee tables, the tiles in the kitchen were four shades darker, there was a new microwave, oven, fridge, and dishwasher.  The piano was gone altogether.

There was a different bed in my room—I had a special relationship with my bed!

After pulling out my phone and frantically calling my mom, she picked up, and eventually the conversation ended in her saying, "Honey, there's no way.  I'll be home in a few hours.  Love you."

Grumbling, I took the phone away from my face, scrolled through my contacts, and tapped on the name "Stuart."  If he had done this...

(He wasn't.)

"Why are you calling me?  Rehearsal starts in two minutes."

"Hello to you, too, my dear brother."

"What."

"The house is different—did you do this?"

"Different, how?"

"The walls are blue!  The furniture is brown, the carpet is white, my bed is two feet shorter and lumpy, all of the posters in your room are gone..."

"Shut up; I don't have time for this."

"Stuart--"

Just as I was about to investigate further, though—the cliché happened, and I woke up.  In my bed.  The same old one, with the memory foam and the permanent water stain in the headboard.  Thank the gods.