I absolutely loved this movie. It’s wonderfully absurd! Anyone watching it and thinking that they know what’s going on, or thinks they know what the director was thinking, is dead wrong, every time! It’s intricate and entertaining at the same time. It’s not like an IQ test kind of entertaining, this movie has got plenty of humour going on, in any way shape and form. Jake Gyllenhaal delivers a perfect performance, managing to appear both intellectual and childish at the same time. The transition from manically stabbing at a nonexistent mirror to ridiculing a school project thingie seems effortless and natural.
One thing that might be a little bothersome is that the movie tries to do just a little bit too much. There are so many things going on at the same time that there simply isn’t enough time to convey the whole message. This goes beyond the intended twisted storyline, I believe, and causes more confusion than what is strictly necessary. What makes this movie wonderful is that it doesn’t aim to be different any more than it aims to conform, it appears as something from elsewhere, void of norms and guidelines, so it’s a shame when what I perceive to be the wrong elements are the ones being emphasised.
Other than that one item of irritation, all the characters are pretty decently fleshed out, even those appearing to be shallow reveal several layers of their personalities, and again, you just can’t beat this storyline, the writer is a genius… Except now I want to shoot him for allowing a follow-up movie to be made. Donnie Darko starts at one point in time, and ends at a very specific point in time. Nothing can be added to this story. The only reason why this new movie claims to be related to Donnie Darko is that it is such a well-known movie, and they’re trying to earn some bucks off of that fact. But I digress.
On a scale from 1 to 10, I give Donnie Darko a 10. Right now it is the best movie I have ever seen.
Song of the Blog: For Whom the Bell Tolls
Sincerely
Bjørn
One of our time’s most annoying problems. The idea that women are inferior to men has existed for ages. It is an archaic idea, and completely unnecessary in our society, yet we cling to it like it’s the only flotation device on a sinking ship. The reasons for keeping it are obvious, capitalists profit from it. If they can employ someone who will do the same job as any other man, and still pay that person less for no real reason, they’d have to be dim to give away that possibility.
Capitalism needs to oppress people to work. If you can’t pay someone less than someone else, the system starts to crumble, and you’re starting to approach socialism! Assigning a lower worth to fifty percent of a world is a very clever tactical decision. They can deny them access to education, they can keep them sexually un-enlightened, and thus increase the working class numbers even more by making these women indisposed towards sending their children to school. It’s all very neatly sewn together to form a highly profitable circle. And the problems are many.
Only one percent of society’s goods are owned by members of the opposite sex. Women on average only earn roughly 80 percent of what men do in one of the richest countries in the world, for the exact same amount of work. Mothers are expected to stay home with their children, and men are expected to work and provide for his family, further increasing the difference between the sexes. This hurts the man too, it causes him to see less of his own child.
Women are used as objects in the media, and our ideas of what women are supposed to look like are twisted into something perverse. Porn, possibly the most un-feministic product ever, exploits women, further adds to the idea that women are nothing but objects, simply there for man’s pleasure. I’m not saying that all porn is like this, but on a whole it’s not a very benevolent business.
When there has to be laws that state the minimum percentage of women that have to be in any administrative body, you know something is terribly wrong. These laws in themselves are provocative! The disrespect that they show for the female sex is astounding. It forces businesses to put women where they might not even want to be, and when something goes wrong they have someone to put the blame on, and they can say that she’s simply there because of regulations. When people think that having a lower pay than them makes a person girly, something needs to be done! All these things that I’ve mentioned are characteristics of what, class? Correct you are, segregation. We’ve moved past that, somewhat, so how come this barrier still remains?
There are those who say that what we have now is as good as it gets, that we should simply pack our things and stop whining, and that we should instead celebrate what we’ve achieved.
Those people are stupid (forgive me Frost.) What we’ve achieved in some parts of the world only shows a glimpse of what we’re capable of. Feminism doesn’t mean worshipping either sex, it means reason.
What we need is a world-wide serious attitudinal change. First the realization that women are being suppressed everywhere. Second that this is ridiculous, an ancient custom that is completely superfluous in the 21st century. Then the abolition. If this were a perfect world, these things would just happen, and everything would be alright, but alas. So there are measures that need to be taken. If I were to write all of them here, I’d be here forever, so I’ll write some of the more important and simple ones.
Porn has to go (sorry guys and gals.) Advertisements have to inform that the actors have been “modified” to look different than they actually do. Attitude campaigns need to be launched. Schools need to educate on this matter. The regulations need to be revised, and probably removed, but that is not up to me, they might be necessary, sadly.
The simplest way of achieving anything on this matter is to vote for socialists. If capitalism disappears, so do most of the reasons for maintaining the sexual apartheid.
Song of the Blog: Satellite
Sincerely
Bjørn
Pardon my absence.
Trying to use Linux on a macbook is tricky, I tell you! Well, I guess it is only to be expected, I mean, it’s not like it’s built with UNIX in mind or anything… But, I guess this is Apple’s way of punishing me for not being content with what they’ve graced me with. It’s not like I actually need Linux, it’s just nice to have it there, in case I need to hack someone, you know.
So, after skimming through quite a few distributions, I finally decided to try the mainstream one, Ubuntu. I was disappointed. It’s ugly compared to the rest, it’s clunky by Linux standards, and it’s also very restrictive. All in all it felt like a stable version of Windows. For most users, this is adequate, but I bought a mac for a reason. So I got rid of it, and decided that I didn’t need Linux after all, and removed all my extra partitions. This resolve lasted for all of 5 hours or so, and I was back scouring the net for anything interesting. I happened upon gOS, while following this rumour I’d heard about a Google OS.
And I find that it’s just Ubuntu Hardy with a custom theme. Well, not exactly, it’s more like it’s Ubuntu Hardy, with a custom theme, even worse support for Macs (it’s built for netbooks), no Compiz (3d desktop environment) but with a few extra apps and features. Once you get it working on your macbook it’s actually quite nice, it’s pretty, functional, and integrates beautifully with google gadgets and apps. If it weren’t for the fact that I had to spend hours trying to get the sound working (and it still doesn’t work while emulating windows), and that it absolutely messed up my external display, forcing me to spend hours to set it up right again (actually the solution was simple and involved the pulling of a plug, but I’m not one to think of that), I would probably be in love with the OS, and tell you to go get it without a second thought.
I’m still going to tell you to download it and try it. It’s a very neat operating system, and it improves the Ubuntu experience dramatically. It’s a live CD, so you can try it before you butcher your disc, and see that it works. The only thing you need to do before getting it is find out if you’ve got a Santa Rosa chipset. If you do, you might as well not bother getting Linux for a few years at all unless you’re quite good with computers. I can tell you right now that if you decide to disregard this warning your computer will be dead silent, you will have trouble getting 3d acceleration going, and your wireless card will make you cry out in agony. The ugly truth is that Intel and Broadcom are utter bitches when it comes to Linux, and the driver support is terrible. There simply is no open source driver for this wifi-card, and the Broadcom partially precompiled driver causes freezes and death all across the land. This makes it all the more ironic that the OS calls itself Good OS.
To summarize: Good OS lives up to its name, but don’t get it if you have a laptop with a Santa Rosa chipset. If you haven’t sold your soul to Google yet, this OS might make you. It is a bit slow at startup, it doesn’t let you customize a lot of your install unless you know where the backdoor is, and if you’ve used Linux before, or even OS X, there are better alternatives out there. If you do decide to give it a try, and run into problems, just call me, I’ll help you out. And if I can’t, there’s always someone somewhere in the Ubuntu community who’s had this problem before, and they’ve fixed it for you.
Song of the Blog: For Reasons Unknown
Sincerely
Bjørn
This blog might not be all that relevant to any non-norwegian readers, but you might find it interesting nevertheless. Considering that you guys do have a pretty similar grading system you might actually find this very relevant after all.
Anyways, as the title says this blog entry is about schools, and which problems there are with today’s system.
The problems
I trust you’re all familiar with the current grading system? Everything you do during the year is boiled down to one number. In Norway it’s a grade from 1 to 6, 1 meaning that you’ve failed the class, 6 meaning you’ve passed it in an outstanding manner, and that you’re a genius because pretty much no human is capable of this feat. There are some very obvious problems to this, and some not so very obvious solutions.
The most glaring problem is that one number can’t possibly encompass your sufficiency within a subject. You might be really good at talking about a few things, and if you’re lucky you get a good grade because of those things, while you’re actually terrible at everything else. In that scenario the fact that you got a good grade on something that you’re bad at might ruin someone else’s chances who weren’t so lucky. Also you might be unlucky and be tested only at the things that you aren’t good at, and thus get a grade that certainly doesn’t encompass your capability. The result is that even if the educational system grants you a vast supply of knowledge you might not benefit from it, because your chances of further education come down largely to luck. When our lives are being wagered in games of russian roulette, the Red Youth protest.
Another major problem is final exams. If you have to take one of these suckers your entire life suddenly hinges on how well you perform on one given day. This is an archaic method, and entirely unreasonable. One test can’t express your knowledge much better than a number can.
We’re not sure what the best solutions are, but want to try out one particular solution over a period of time.
Next problem: Your grades are pretty much the only factor that decide whether you get into a school or not. This problem is specific to Norway I think, as most sensible schools elsewhere have decided to go for personal interviews. This makes it so that someone who lives right next to a popular school will have to move far away to go to school if someone with better grades from elsewhere wants his spot. If the course isn’t offered elsewhere then he simply won’t be able to do what he wants with his life if worst comes to worst.
And lastly the problem that is the easiest to fix, homework. The problem is simple, homework doesn’t help at all. Studies have shown that homework does nothing at all to aid students, and the only reason to have it is so that one can actually get through all the work that needs to be done. It helps to make the difference between rich and poor kids greater, because the only ones who benefit even slightly from it is those with well educated parents who have the time to practically do the kid’s homework for him, thus earning him better grades, but not knowledge.
The solutions
It’s tempting to write “we don’t know” here, and wrap up the blog, but that wouldn’t do much to further my cause, now would it? There are some solutions which we want to try out, but there aren’t really any studies on the matter, because no one bothered trying. The grading problem is the trickiest one. What we postulate is that a solution might be to include all tests, projects, and evaluations, in a folder which the teacher composes for each student. This will better express the student’s capabilities. The weakness is that it is harder to put in a system, but at the same time this makes it so that individuals remain individuals instead of being turned into simple information.
Exams, being inhuman, need to be revised at the least, but we should aim for revolutionizing them. It’s an outdated method for putting people in boxes, and is unnecessary in our modern day society. Finals should be voluntary, that way those who feel that an exam will benefit them can take it, and it is added to their folder. Anyone reviewing their folder will see that they took the exam, and can infer that the person is comfortable with working under stressed conditions, while one that didn’t take it makes it obvious that he is confident that what he has accomplished is sufficient. It also encourages people to make decisions, take charge of their lives.
This also counts towards the folder idea. When you have a folder, and not a sheet filled with numbers, you stand free to concentrate on the subjects that interest you, and that are relative to your plans. When you apply for higher education a folder will show whether or not you are suited for the line that you’re applying for. There’s a good analogy here; Applying for an education in carpentry with a gradesheet that says you’re brilliant at writing essays, is like applying for a job as a journalist with a piece of wood.
As for the homework part, it’s very simple. It’s useless, so take it away. The only reason to have it is that the teachers can’t get through the books with the time that they’re given, so give them more time. This means making schooldays longer. Polls have been held, and students are willing to spend longer in school if it means no homework. This should be pretty obvious, because in essence you are still in school when you’re doing homework.
Song of the Blog: About to Crash
Sincerely
Bjørn
If I didn’t shout it out loud enough before, that’s where I’ve been the last few days. I thought I would get to write a blog entry about it yesterday, but I didn’t get home till it was really late, and I’d barely gotten any sleep since friday, so you had to go for another day without my wonderful words.
So what was it all about? Keeping us all occupied it seemed like. There were so many people there talking to us about so many things, it was insane. A lot of time there were several people talking about different things in different rooms. Choosing which one to attend was tricky business I tell you, everything was very interesting! Suffice to say I’ve got a lot of new things to talk to you about now, and a lot of new reasons for you to start voting Red. I’ll be starting tomorrow, and I’ll write a political entry once every third day or so. Does that sound good? If you have a better idea please put it in the comment box!
Being in a school filled to the brim with people who think like me… It was wonderful being able to talk about communism without everyone frowning and making nonsensical remarks! You may think that we had nothing to talk about considering we all were in agreement. This is not the case, obviously, people disagree on a lot of things, the only thing that we all agree on is that we need a classless society, and once we establish that there’s a world of things to talk about! I feel like I’ve learned more than I have all year in school.
Song of the Blog: Happy Birthday
Sincerely
Bjørn
