Blade Trinity
Consensus: If you like a lot of action, go see the movie. If you like some sort of plot, don't bother.
Pluses: There was a lot of fighting in all the usual "Matrix" special effects. The actress was pretty hot, but those I would say are the only two things going for the movie. There were some scenes that I'm guessing were meant to be symbolic, but they were out of place with the plot.
Negs: The plot was pretty weak. The only time you know where the scene is taking place at was in the very beginning of the movie. The rest could happen anywhere. Perhaps the director intended it to do it that way to show that vampires were everywhere. Compared to the Matrix, you don't really have any idea where you are.
The characters seemingly knows where the enemy is located and vice versa.
Ocean's 12
Consensus: The sequel is not too bad, but the ingeniouity of plots isn't quite there.
Pluses: Very comical like its predecessor, especially during the execution of the second theft, which Julia Roberts gave a helping hand..You also get to see the gang plot two thefts instead of one.
Minuses: The second theft seemed pointless. There is no indication of another sequel :-(
Bourne Supremacy
Consensus: Out of the three movies I watched this weekend, Bourne takes the honors.
On of my classes for the Winter quarter is Magic, Tech, and Society. As the name implies, the class talks about how magic has influenced society throughout history.
One of the first question that my professor asked was what is your earliest encounter with magic? It took me a few minutes to try recalling that moment (yes, I have poor long-term memory), but even to this day, I always looked forward going to MSI (Museum of Science and Industry). I remembered always wanting to do the hand-on experiments because I get to interact with the exhibit unlike 90% of the other exhibits in not only in MSI but other museums as well.
Since then, the hands-on exhibits have lost their luster since they have not changed over the years. However, it still amazes me what humanity can do today. For example they have a Boeing 727 hoisted up to the balcony level in the west wing. Many people wanted to be up in the sky for thousands of years and have failed to do so until the last century, enabling us to travel much faster and reach far off destinations in less than a day. On the flip side, we have humongous machines digging coal deep from the earth. President Bush announced his intentions to send an manned-based exhibition to Mars last year and SpaceShipOne's claim to the Ansari's X-Price signals the start of commercial space transportation. With technology marvels such as these listed, it will be a challenge to find a place where we will not be able to reach in the future.
Now, if I was to answer the question in the present time, I would have to say the most magical effect is computer networks. Who can imagine that having computers talk to each other would have a most profound effect on our lives? Even Microsoft did not recognize the usefulness of computer networks until it was well past its infancy. Of course, computers are amazing in their own right, but connecting them togehter makes a very powerful combination. In my opinion, the most important quality of a modern computer networks is the phenominal speed. For example, the time it takes me to fly from Chicago to Tokyo is about 16 hours. Then I would have to take another 4 hours flight to reach Manila, Philippines. Now if I wanted to visit a Filippino website, the round trip woud be less than a second. Imagine if you could travel nearly 6,000 miles and back in under a second. I don't know about you, but that is really fast. As one Disney ride claims, "It's a small world afterall."
Of course, there are numerous applications that are not related to the Internet. Lighting technicians are able to control thousands of conventional and intelligent lights in perfect synchronization to give the desired look. Thrill ride operators knows the status of every car so they know that the passengers will be safe. The POTOS can issue orders with remarkable response time.
If you wanted to know how a computer network work, you could do what I'm doing and take a Cisco CCNA course where they attribute the device responsible for networks are routers. You could also go in the atomic level and learn that the speed mainly stems from how electric fields work. However, computer networks allows our society to do many things at an incredible rate that you tend to forget how they work. Like viewing an artwork, you have to stand back and view it from a far to appreciate its value.
So enough about me. I ask you, what is your earliest experience with magic?