I.R.P. - Kevin

Welcome to my final blog post!  The Maltese Falcon has been a great read, and I decided to make a song about it to the tune of TRUST! by JPEGMAFIA, because that song focuses on a similar theme of deceit as well. Thank you to Kadester36 for featuring in the song and helping with editing. An explanation of the lyrics is at the end of the video. Enjoy! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dAmlLddtWmI&t=125s

A lot has happened since my last blog post. Mr. G, now identified as Gutman, meets with Spade himself. He reveals more about the origins of the bird and how valuable it is supposed to be. This conversation also clarifies Brigid's relevance in all this, because Brigid herself is untrustworthy to believe. Gutman hired her to steal the blackbird for him, but he now believes she has hidden it. Unexpectedly (once again), Gutman poisons Spade. Mysteriously, after knowing the bird was on a ship, Captain Jacobi of the ship hands Spade the blackbird seconds before dying. Throughout this section of the book, the reader grows more and more untrustworthy of all the characters. Stories challenging Brigid are introduced, and certain events are hidden from the reader, some for hours at a time. As the author states, "An hour and a half later, at twenty minutes past five, Spade returned" (166). Nothing about Spade's whereabouts is revealed, adding to the mystery and lack of trust that...

https://youtu.be/Ej4XqyC-A9E Here's the Crash Course video on the first section of The Maltese Falcon !

I really enjoyed The Soul of a New Machine , but it's time to read for my new fiction book: The Maltese Falcon  by Dashiell Hammett. It took me a while to find the right book, but I am very satisfied with my choice. It is a mystery,  starting with detectives Archer and Spade asked to follow Floyd Thursby. In a quick turn of events, Archer is found dead, presumed to be murdered by Thursby. Spade arrives at the crime scene and promptly after leaving, is informed that Thursby has also been killed recently. Spade was initially suspected because he was thought to have gotten revenge for Thursby killing Archer, but at this point, I am not sure who was to blame for either of the murders. This book is full of messy twists and turns. Iva is introduced to be having an affair with Spade. Oh yeah, Iva is Archer's wife . Maybe Iva killed Archer with all the cheating going on, but with mystery books, it's never that straightforward. And that's where I'm at now. I haven't real...

Hey, everyone! My last blog post for The Soul of a New Machine  will be a comic, focusing on how management and corporate structure play a crucial role in the success of Data General. Hope you enjoy it! You may want to right-click and open the image in a new tab to zoom in to the comic.

The Soul of a New Machine  is written in a way I have never seen. Usually, non-fiction books seem to focus on only narration or information, while only briefly touching on one another. This book, however, blends the two perfectly, describing the details of Data General's advances, such as with their NOVA CPU to even logic analyzers, down to specific tick times in nanoseconds. These technical details may seem to be boring to the reader, and I felt the same way at times, but it was integrated perfectly to highlight the importance of these specs in relation to Data General and the pressures West's team faced there. In competition with DEC's VAX 32-bit minicomputer, West and his team attempt to design a new and better computer. He spends all his free time on this project, stating, "It just gets so scary I can’t even talk about it. I may have to take Rasala into the lab and work on that thing myself twelve hours a day" (152). I am interested to see who comes out on top...

 Compare the following book covers. Which one do you think I designed? I know, it may have been hard to tell by my professional design skills that I designed the first cover of The Soul of a New Machine . I think the mixture between a real computer and a cartoon monster eating money really brings it all together. Anyway, let me break down each component of my proposed book cover one by one and express its superiority to the true book cover. The Title I believe that titles in book covers need to be highlighted, especially when titles hold great meaning and relevance to the story. My book cover does this, but not so much the real one. The title,  The Soul of a New Machine, represents engineers essentially putting their own souls into their new machines. It seemed as if engineers' lives were consumed by the development of these machines for the entire computer industry was moving forward rapidly. Observers of this industry noted, "Things change fast in the computer business. A ye...