Chapter 11

Annotations for Chapter 11: Boone Chu
Prepared by LAT, Alvin Brian (051813) COM12 G

Chapter 11 is where we get to meet another major character in the story. In this chapter, Boone is finally formally introduced to us and we were also given an idea on what role he will play in the later chapters. Chapter 11 can be summed up as the first major interaction of Cayce Pollard and Boone Chu. This chapter can be broken down in 3 different parts: their conversation in Damien’s apartment, inside the Pan-Asian place on Parkway, and on Camden Lock on High Street.
In the first setting, inside Damien’s apartment, we can see that this was the “getting to know you stage” between Cayce and Boone. Here, their conversation was more like two strangers who want to get to know each other since they will be working together. Their conversation starts with the phrase “if I Google you, I get?” and they end up asking each other what they do. Boone said that he was a “white-hat hacker” and that he had a security business that tanked. We all know that Cayce job was related to advertising. After the initial getting to know you stage between them, they now went to talk about the proposition of Bigend for them. Boone said that Bigend wants them to work together in looking for the footage. Boone was supposed to “supervise” and Boone was actually interested since no one actually solved the footages and Bigend has the money. Here Cayce mentions the term “mirror world” in which one place serves as the representation of the whole. She applied this term on the footages. Also, despite already working for Bigend, Cayce voices out her apprehension about Bigend. The end of this part is when they decide to go somewhere to eat.
The definition of a white-hat hacker, taken from http://www.wordspy.com/words/whitehathacker.asp, is "a hacker who, upon discovering a vulnerability in a computer system, alerts the system vendor to the problem" and we can say from here that a white-hat hacker can be considered as a "good" hacker. Since Boone has a security business, linking it to the "white-hat hacker," we can say have a mental picture of Boone's business and what they actually do to be like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7nYugB8dsrE

They ended up eating in a Pan-Asian restaurant, the second part of the chapter. This is weird, in a sense, considering that Boone has Asian blood. Their decision to eat in an Asian restaurant is unusual since we don’t usually take visitors to eat in a place that they are very much used to eat. In this part, they started to talk about the footage. They exchanged opinions on what they think about the footage; how the footage was made. One of their theories was that it was made from rendering farms. In this case the footage was only a CGI. But they immediately dismisses the idea since a rendering farms requires a lot of resources that will be next to impossible to keep as a secret for extend period of time. Their next theory is called “Spielberg’s Closet” in this case; the maker of the footage has access to big resources. Again, they immediately dismissed the idea since the emotion that the footage conveys, in their opinion, cannot be made by some big time producer. After this, they decided to finish their meal and walk so that they continue their conversation.
Rendering farms are actually used by big companies, render farms are computer clusters built to render computer-generated imagery (CGI), typically for film and television visual effects, using off-line batch processing http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Render_farm. Render farms look like this:

Render-FarmSANAS.gif

The last part of the chapter, they were on Camden Lock along the High Street. While walking, there was a time where Cayce remembered her past. When they arrive at one point, Boone apologized for having the need to check his mail. The email was about something that was found in one of the segments. Since Cayce already knows what it was, she told Boone that it was a watermark in one of the segments. In this part, there were no longer sharing theories about the footage, now, they actually have something factual about the footage that they need to look for.


Chapter Annotations for Chapter 11
Prepared by Hans Ngo 2 BS-COMTECH

Chinese
I am just amazed on how large Chinese population is and its influence to every culture in the world. As of March 26, 2009, China has a total of 1,336,187,236 in its population both living inside and outside of China. Also, there are around 40 million Chinese around the world. As of 2004, there are around 1.5 million Chinese here in the Philippines. (Statistics). Chinese influence is prominent around the world with their trademark “china town” restaurants and businesses.

Technological Mobility and Ease of Access
Technological advances from simple calculators to super computers to convenient high end laptops. Boone Chu brought his suitcase and told Cayce that he needs to check his email. Right then and there, he opened his laptop and checked his email. Technology now referring to laptops, cell phones, smart phones and the like are super convenient to bring. Aside from this, access to the inte

rnet where a lot of information is, is easy.

Some interesting facts about the internet. It first started as a communication devise used by the Soviet Union during the cold war. This led then US president Dwight Eisenhower to establish ARPA to regain the technological lead over the arms race. ARPANET was produced which then led to TCP/IP which are parts essential to be able to connect to the internet.

Here is a video of the history of the internet.
Video number 1
and another one.
Video number 2

I Googled you
Google is the number one search engine in the world better than any search engine present in the internet. It can find anything we want. Everything, we would most probably find it using the Google search engine. Due to its wide range of available information, some information would be erroneous.
Google would search for anything you want to search. Even names from social networking sites would show up in the results. I searched for the name Andrew Ty and this is what came out. (Click here!).

Urban Disconnect
This idea struck me because it happens to me and is very true. I would sometimes wonder when riding the LRT how the person I am sitting beside or the person in front of me lives and what his situation is. To understand more what this means, we must define the words. Urban means city, progress, prosperity, people. Due to this vastness of urbanity, the connection between its populace is somewhat lost except for the friends and relatives that are formed due to interaction. But aside from these interactions, there is disconnectivity. In the course of the story, I could imagine Cayce living a surrealistic lonely life detached from the society she is living in. Also, the idea of being EMO comes up. Being EMO is being indifferent to the society around. If you’re an emo, you would only think of yourself and wouldn’t care about others. In connection to the story, we would see Cayce’s EMOness and urban disconnection when a single flower petal dropped off from the flower. This symbolism talks about the whole character of Cayce ever since 9-11 and how she is urban disconnect.

Tea VS Coffee

cell-content Tea Coffee
Caffeine Content 55 mg per cup 125-185 mg per cup
Good Effects Good stimulant, Reduced risk of Alzheimer’s disease, gallstone disease, Parkinson’s disease, Increase cognitive performance, Antioxidant Reduced risk of heart attack, cancer, Antioxidants, Improves the immune system, Calorie free, Increased metabolism
Bad Effects Teeth staining, over 1,000 chemicals are seen in roasted coffee. Some of which are harmful, high blood pressure, iron deficiency anemia none

Here are some facts regarding tea and coffee. During the conversation of Cayce and Boone Chu, they were drinking tea. Chinese are prominent drinkers of tea and Boone Chu although Americanized still wouldn’t mind drinking tea even if coffee is the favourite drink of Americans especially in the morning.

TeaVSCoffee1
TeaVSCoffee2

Hands-on Generalist
Boone Chu is a self proclaimed hands-on generalist. Let us first define a hands-on generalist. Although self-proclaimed, Boone Chu proved to be what he said he is. Over the course of the novel, and using context clues, hands-on generalist means reliable and handy. When Cayce was attacked when she was in Japan although peculiar, Boone Chu was there to help.

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