Homework again!

Im sorry i've been slacking, things have been remarkably stressful around my house and unfortunately my school work has been suffering. i'm trying to jump back on the ball, but it's a touch difficult. I did all the homework assigned on the website but for the life of me i can't remember how to submit it :( so i did what i could, and i still have the files... and here's the other assignment.

http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dcx6ptwn_0dr6mh2c8

flat? not a problem for me...

The face of the world has changed drastically over the past 100 years.
The world has shrunk to the point that the smallest video clip of any
signifigance can be seen by people all over the world thanks to Youtube.
If the world has shrunk this much in such a short period of time, what
will the next 100 years bring us?

Dangers of Blogging

In the article Blogger becomes casualty of Iran cyber-wars. the story of a blogger in Iran was arrested and sent to prison for hi blogging practices.

It's ironic that i'm using this medium to talk about someone who died doing
what i'm doing now.
It's easy to take for granted the freedoms we have in this country. While
it is by no means perfect, we have far greater freedom of expression then
a lot of countries in the world. It is a tragedy that this man was locked
up and died in prison for criticizing his government. How many of us do
that on a daily basis here? Not only at work or at home or with friends,
But on our own blogs and facebook postings and protests.

I am thankful that we have the freedoms that we do here.

My sympathy to the family of Omidreza Mirsayafi.


As For Skankblog...


I fail to see what exactly this woman is suing for. If you act like a skank
and you dress like a skank, where does she get off being angry for being
called one?

Even if the article isn't accurate, who cares? Is she really so insecure
about her self image that some random blogger's opinon of her set her off?
Seems more likely to me she's trying to clutch at anything that will put her
in the media and therefore make her feel like her tired aging self has some
little bit of signifigance left for random people to validate her self worth.

Maybe she should get a puppy....

I'm just saying

Second Life (for those without a first...)

Well! I followed the directions and researched Second Life on google.com and was redirected to this website that looked black and chic. It's essentially a game akin to those apps on facebook, the extremely boring yet somehow addictive apps like FarmVille or CafeWorld, where you don't do much besides control a character through mundane endeavors.

I signed up for Second Life, downloaded the program necessary to run it on my computer and entered the world. I spent the first 45 minutes learning how to move and things, discovering that my character can fly and traveling to the different "Sims" they have available. Sim is short for simulation, and they're basically worlds that users have created via programming. This was around 4 in the afternoon and not many people were on. I have some experience in MMORPGs (Mass Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games), i play World Of Warcraft (not something i'm super proud to admit to but whatever) and know that people log on for games and such around 6-7pm, so i waited until then to log back on.

I started out in the starting area again and discovered the "Voice Chat" function, and was able to talk to people through a microphone on my sister's laptop. There were people chatting, there was one girl and a number of men talking, and of course from my observations it seemed as if they were all talking to her/flirting with her (essentially she was leading the conversation.) I started out waiting for a lull in the conversation (it was about Mudkips, a Pokemon or something) and i spoke out telling them i was writing a blog and asking if someone could show me what the game was about. Immediately they asked who i was and the focus of conversation switched to me, i assume because i was a new girl and young sounding (this is my experience with these types of things, men over the internet will just about bend over backwards for a young girl who plays video games and has a "cute" ((or so i've been told)) voice) and obviously looking for help.

Right away one friendly individual, who's avatar's name was True Delight called dibs on me so to speak, and proceeded to show me how to play, "teleporting" me multiple different places and explaining basic program mechanics. He explained how the currency system in the game worked and how it could be purchased with credit cards and exchanged in game. He showed me how people can buy new things for their character's appearance, particularly hair and he explained how the hair was designed by a real person who plays the game. So when you buy the hair that that person designed, you are giving them real money. So a living can be made off of this program which i find interesting. Of course there are other things such as clothes, houses, dance moves etc. that you can buy for your character, and real people who play the game design these things, build a world where they can be sold, and market them just in the game. All this is done with programming and such. I'll probably investigate more later.

Aside from the game itself it's an interesting social experiment. It's fascinating to watch how people interact with eachother using the internet as a medium. The internet gaming community is a subculture within our culture, and that subculture itself has even more subcultures.

Tech stuff: Real world outcomes predicted by something or other

http://science.slashdot.org/story/10/04/02/1435243/Real-World-Outcomes-Predicted-Using-Social-Media?art_pos=15

This article talks about how data collected from popular social networking sites (namely Twitter) accurately predicted box office trends of upcoming movies.

Essentially, if people were excited about something they talked about it on Twitter and then went to go see it.

Duh.

It's not like Tweets are by computers, they're real people talking about things they like. Example: I am super excited about -insert some cool upcoming movie that is not in theaters yet- so i post something on my Facebook (since i don't Twitter) about how i want to go see it and i invite friends to go with me to do so. Thus, my friends and i go see the movie, just like millions of other people and we drive up the box office revenues. For some reason, i really don't feel that this was some amazing technological breakthrough. Anyone with half a brain in their heads could have pointed that out.

Perhaps i'm pretentious.

As to what's going on in class, pretty simple stuff really, not much to write about (sorry!) lots of time to check my facebook while you show people how to navigate their email, use clipboard, save and retrieve files. I'm looking forward to learning about the hardware though!

meanwhile i have calc homework to do.

Ta-ta!
-Annie

My experience with computers

i'm the big black one.



















Hello! This is me, Memo, and Ophelia.
I have to say, I have never actually Blogged before.

I always thought it was kind of silly. I've never had the attention span for it, being Attention Deficit and all that jazz. Nor do i think anyone would be terribly interested in my day-to-day experiences. If i have something witty to say, i tell my family or text a friend, however i do not feel it's necessary to broadcast to the world... but whatever! such is my personal opinion.

My experience with computers is pretty extensive. Being a grand total of 18 years (going on 19 years) old means that i am at the very head of the generation that is being raised on technology. I've taken multiple computer courses throughout my schooling, even in elementary school we had a class once a week that was designated to teaching us how to use computers. We joke in my family that i'm the in-home tech support, if there's any problem with a computer/phone/ipod/tv etc... i am given the task of making it right again. While i may not know as much as some, i feel that i am proficient enough with technology to get by without a hitch.

The only reason i'm taking the class is because it's required for my degree, and i couldn't afford the test to bypass that requirement at the time. Right now i am a student participating in the Advanced Diploma Program that Redmond High School offered, so all my schooling is free. Thus, i am knocking these credits out of the way while they are free.

Either way, i'm sure i will learn useful things in this class!