Possible Topics

Some topics that interest me are:

• Deism & our founding fathers


• Food & Wine


• mp3s and the music industry

I am interested in writing about deism and our founding fathers mainly because I find it very intersting that many of our founding fathers were considered deists in light of what many believe America to be a christian God's country. I personally chose this topic because on my frist list, one of my primary topics was atheism, while on the list of "things that piss me off" was the religious right. I find that deism within our founding fathers to be a perfect meld of the two.

Some guiding questions are:

• What would the religious right think of the founding fathers as deists?


• The country would be a totally different place had deism remained the prominent stance of America

Sometime last year after the usual Bravo Law & Order: Criminal Intent Sunday marathon they showed Top Chef season 4 and Jeff didn't change the channel. As morally opposed to reality shows as I am, I watched it and surprisingly, it was really good. Finding myself caught up in the battle of the chefs, I followed everyone as weeks drew on. Lisa was my personal favorite, but Richard caught my eye by doing some really cool stuff. Halfway through this season, Jeff and I get the idea to download torrents of previous seasons. By the time we were on season 2, Marcell had really caught my eye. Yeah, he's a total asshole, but his cooking is really cool.
I'm just about to watch the final episode and am really excited to see what he does. Taking note of him and Richard, I notice they both practice a method of cooking called molecular gastronomy, or, simply and ignorantly, cooking with science. Ok. I'm hooked.
Guiding questions:

• Molecular gastronomy makes cooking better.


• Why molecular gastronomy?


• What are the main techniques of molecular gastronomy?


• Why is it so cool?


• Who are the big names in molecular gastronomy?

I am interested in mp3s for the sole reason that I love music and also love living in this high tech world. I feel the mp3 and also the mp3 player has revolutionized the music industry. I also feel it has made music a lot more accessible through either itunes or illegal downloading.

• What effect has mp3s had on the music industry


• How does illegal downloading positivally effect the music industry


• How effictive is youtube's new "buy on itunes" feature?

Molecular gastronomy

I think I am interested in doing something within the realm of molecular gastronomy. Wikipedia defines Molecular gastronomy as follows:

Molecular gastronomy is a scientific discipline involving the study of physical and chemical processes that occur in cooking. It pertains to the mechanisms behind the transformation of ingredients in cooking and the social, artistic and technical components of culinary and gastronomic phenomena in general (from a scientific point of view).

The full article is here.

First Entry

Asside from minor research in middle and high school, this is my first attempt at research in a college setting. However, in my spare time, I enjoy doing informal research with no real "guiding question." Some of the ideas I have involve facebook application development, food and wine culture, mp3s and the music industry, and race relations from the 1st president to the 44nd.

The only concern I have about this project is that I am terrible with organization of large papers. This is somethign I will have to overcome, or at least deal with.