Author: SamuelF

The article outlining the development of new robots to combat the coronavirus was very interesting to me. They showed some interesting facts on the robots’ development, and I was not only informed, but also entertained.

The article starts off about how that the need for robots will help disinfect and can check on patients has grown since the outbreak. They go over that people are hard at work on creating new robots that can accomplish such tasks. This all started with Stevie, a robot created to entertain and combat loneliness. People began wondering if a robot like Stevie could help with stopping the spread of the virus. They added a UV-C device to it that will help disinfect patients. They call this new robot Violet. Other companies have also taken the initiative and have started to design their own, like a Danish company who has created a robot that will disinfect door handles.

After reading this, I felt happy that more and more people are coming in to help stop the virus, and that we are benefiting public heath and engineering.

When reading The Landlady, I found it very peculiar, and took me a little bit to wrap myself around it. They made the story with next to no explanations, making the reader create their own to try and fit the story.

The book starts off with a travelling man on his way to find a motel. On his way to find the Bell and Dragon, which he was told to be not too far away, he encounters a place for bed and breakfast for an extraordinary cheap price. A woman with very blue eyes opens the door as soon as he rings the doorbell. The man notices some animals resting comfortably around the entrance, a dog by the fire and a parrot in a cage. The man finds the woman strangely familiar, and notices she looks like someone he knew.

The woman is very welcoming and sets everything up for him. She asks him to go downstairs and fill out the guestbook to check in. He notices that there are only two other people’s names in the book, Christopher Mulholland, and Gregory W. Temple. And all of a sudden, he notices these names are very familiar, and tells about how strange it is to the woman. She responds that they are all very handsome men, just like him, and they both are on the 4th floor.

She then shows how that all of the animals in the lobby are stuffed, and the man is shocked, looking at them again, and now realizing that he had missed that detail completely. The woman says that she personally stuffs all of her pets when they die. She then tells him that he is her first customer in two years.

I found this story very creepy and interesting, and i created many theories about the backstory of all this. I started to think that only people the woman thinks that are “handsome” can see this building, like the Leaky Cauldron in Harry Potter, because they have such little customers. i also think that the other men in the bed and breakfast are dead and stuffed, like her pets. The Landlady left me very curious to what had happened, but left me hanging on detail. This is the mark of a interesting story, and if the author had continued, I would be thrilled to read it.

I found the Marco Polo video very interesting. It shows me how bewildered the people were back then to this news of foreign lands. I enjoyed the video very much, and learned a lot.

In the video, he started with how Marco Polo had his works spread, by talking to a man named Rustichello, a writer, while in prison. They agreed to write down his stories, and they had them published after they were released from prison. The stories gained a lot of fame, and there were tons of skeptics.

He then talks about how Marco Polo was raised in a family of merchants, which meant a lot of travel. His uncle and father would travel the world, collecting precious goods and selling them back home, providing lots of money for their family. When Marco Polo was 17, his father and uncle took him to China. Here, they were treated as royal guests. They could observer the complexity and how advanced China was. The video also showed me some gorgeous watches that I will be checking out.

When they arrived home after 24 years, Polo collaborated with Rustichello to publish his experiences. The book was a instant bestseller, and many people were shocked by what it told. Many even believed it was made up, by how wild the book was to them.

This video showed me how that important things may not always be heeded, and that big ideas may take a very long time to be accepted by people. Not only Marco Polo experienced this, but other figures in history, like Copernicus. This video not only was entertaining, but also taught me a lesson.

I liked the idea of “Rules of the Game” alot, and I really enjoyed reading it. It tells about how the more time you spend at something, you will get better at it. Meimei, a little girl who lives in Chinatown with her mom and two brothers one day discovers chess. Her brother got the set as a Christmas present from their church. Meimei learns on her own from the library and from an man in the playground. She gets very good, and plays in many tournaments. She is just short of a grandmaster, and is getting slightly annoyed at her family for not meeting her requirements of how the live, and they keep on having to adjust to her needs. She finally has had it when her mom goes around and shows her off to other people. Meimei runs off and returns later, knowing that no matter how famous she is, she just like everyone else and needs to plan things out. I found this story very entertaining by the very Chinese point of view, and the moral that you always need to look ahead

I thought The Ransom of the Red Chief was a realistic and entertaining story. It shows how that not everything is going to go the way you thought, and you’d better prepare. The kidnappers didn’t think very far, and in their plan was way too tunnel-visioned on the money. This has happened in my own life when I wanted to take up landscape modelling without being careful enough. I made some messes and the end product was pretty poopoo. The Ransom of the Red Chief teaches this message in a funny, playful manner.