second life activity

1) What is the nature of social life in Second Life? Hanging out, chatting, waving their virtual bits and pieces in your face, etc. Sometimes people, such as Yoko Ono lend a bit of art or stump for a cause.

2) How do people converge and what is the main purpose of this form of online community? They check the event guide and look for someplace to gather.

3) What types of behaviours do you notice about your own relationship to the world and that of others toward you? I am an observer, they are participants...except for one avatar that represented a psychology student from Texas. I suppose she (he? it?) would be both observer and participant.

4) What type of people do you imagine are mostly attracted to life within SL? Lonely people, bored people, people searching for a way to live vicariously through an avatar...and Yoko Ono.

5) List five types of virtual goods for sale this week - describe a) how much they were and b) who would use them. Virtual clothing, virtual real estate, virtual homes, virtual furniture, and avatar animations.

8) List five people you met online per week and a) who they were and b) what they hope to get out of SL and c) how did they view you? I met a psych major from Texas. One dude said “hello” and then disappeared. Like pulling teeth getting people to talk. Vixen said “i jsut come here to chill with my mates”. One person Scott Neutron is a musician from Germany and linked me to his band Circles. Maybe he’s there to promote his music. River was helpful and explained about SL concepts. Universally they said that they were there to hang out with friends. They viewed me as my avatar I would imagine, or maybe wondered what I was really like.

9) Is how you are treated as a 'newbie' different from how those are treated who have custom avatars etc? It’s difficult to get into a conversation. You may just be ignored.

10) How do virtual goods get bought and sold in SL? Buy purchasing virtual money with real currency. Then spending virtual currency on virtual goods. It’s virtually rewarding.

11) What types of virtual goods are on sale and how does the economy of virtual goods sales work in relationship to the broader online economy? Really didn’t get a chance to examine that in depth. Sort of an extremely broad question.

12) How do the 3D spaces used by different people online in SL reflect their interests & personalities? By type of goods sold, design of area, music being played, etc.

13) What type of informal and formal behaviour are visible in SL?
Role play and others.

14) How many compare to rituals etc in everyday life? A few. Interaction hampered by interface.

15) How do people respond if you tell them that you are a student studying SL as part of a university project? The university project didn’t cut a whole lot of ice in most instances. It was easier to try to strike up a normal conversation and then introduce the questions.

16) How closely does behaviour in SL correspond to that in RL (real life) I think it’s meant to be very different. An escape from RL.

17) Summarise your experience in SL from the point of view of a researcher, what did you learn? I learned that SL is a good place to burn through money for no apparent reason. I learned that many people don’t behave according to the same mannerly conventions of actual life. I learned that kindness goes a long way in SL and in RL.

DAI227 week 7 Q&A

1) Who invented the first computer game on the PDP1?
 The first computer game was invented by Steve Russell on the PDP 1.

2) What was the name of the game?
 The name of the game was Spacewar.

3) What was the name of Morton Helig's amusement device that let you smell, hear and see in 3D filmed experiences?
 The device was called Sensorama.

4) What early 1970s movie does an arcade console machine of Spacewar appear?
 None. The coin-op video game Computer Space appeared in the 1973 release of the film Soylent Green.

5) What was the name of the man who developed the first TV tennis game?
Ralph Baer developed the first tennis game that could be played on a television.

6) Who was the man whose company Atari commercialized the idea of the arcade computer tennis game?
 Nolan Bushnell

7) What was the name of this version of the game?
 It was called Pong.

8) What are vector graphics?
Vector graphics are created using geometric forms to create images.

9) What types of games do vector graphics lend themselves to?
 Vector graphics are likely to be used in games that attempt to create realistic physics models.

10) When home computers were first made available, how did owners load games into them?
 The first home computers used cassette tapes to load games onto the computer.

11) What is the name of the 1985 film in which a young Matthew Broderick starts World War III with his home computer and modem?
 Wargames.

12) From what sources did the designer of the Space Invaders aliens draw inspiration?
 Tomohiro Nishikado drew inspiration from the octopus like aliens from H.G. Wells’ “The War of the Worlds” and from sea creatures (Squids & crabs).

13) What is the name given to the contemporary subculture of 8 bit music made with gameboys and other 80s game technology
 Chiptunes.

14) "Escape from Woomera" was a videogame which was used to draw attention to the plight of inmates at a remote detention center in desert town in what country?
Australia.

week 6 lecture questions

 
QUESTIONS FOR DAI227 WEEK 6 LECTURE

1) Steve Mann describes his wearable computer invention as a form of ________ for one person (fill in the blank)
(see youtube link to Mann interview in web resource page)

Inverse surveillance.

2) Steve Mann's concept of opposing camera surveillance with "Sousveillance" is described as a form of “reflectionism”. What is meant by this?
(in ReadingsF)

Reflectionism is a term coined by Steve Mann. Reflectionism is the practice of surveilling those who practice surveillance, or to mirror the behavior of bureaucratic institutions that regularly surveil everyone passing through their buildings.


3) In the section of "Sousveillance" called "Performance Two" Steve Mann describes how wearing his concealed device becomes more complex when used in what type of spaces?

Wearing the wearable computer with video camera glasses becomes more complex for Steve Mann in spaces such as a shopping mall which he defines as a semi-public space. The potential for confrontation increases relative to the amount the area is being surveilled.

4) The final paragraph sums up what Mann considers the benefits of "sousveillance" and "coveillance". What are they?
(ReadingsF)

Mann feels that “sousveillance” is a liberating act that disrupts the power relationship of surveillance, restoring a balance that levels the surveillance playing field.

5) In William J Mitchell's 1995 book "City of Bits" in the chapter "Cyborg Citizens", he puts forth the idea that electronic organs as they shrink and become more part of the body will eventually resemble what types of familiar items?
(ReadingsF)

Pieces of clothing.





6) From the same book/chapter, list two of the things that a vehicle that 'knows where it is' might afford the driver & passengers.
(ReadingsF)

1. Could calculate efficient routes from origin to destination.
2. Could keep driver appraised of current traffic conditions.

7) Mitchell tells the story of Samuel Morse's first Washington-to-Baltimore telegraph message. What was it?
(ReadingsF)

The message was “What hath God wrought?”

8) Donna Harroway in "A Cyborg Manifesto" argues that women should take the "battle to the border". What does she say are the stakes in this border war?
(in ReadingsF)

The territories of production, reproduction, and imagination.

9) Harroway posits the notion that:
"We require regeneration, not rebirth, and the possibilities for our reconstitution include the utopian dream"
What is this dream?
(in ReadingsF)

The hope for a monstrous world without gender.

10) Many have argued that 'we are already cyborgs' as we use devices such as glasses to improve our vision, bikes to extend the mobility function of our legs/bodies etc, computers and networks to extend the nervous system etc. What do you think? Are we cyborgs?
(one paragraph)

My definition of cyborg is an organic life form with some internal synthetic parts. External synthetic parts I would define as tools, made by man for the use of man. Man with pacemaker - maybe he’s a cyborg. Man with bicycle - a man riding a machine.

Week 5: Vintage Gaming Exercise

 
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 24, 2011

Vintage Gameplay Activity
Go to http://www.atari.com/play


Play one of the classic vintage arcade games online via a browser - e.g. asteroids, battlezone,

And answer the following questions:

Student Name: Charles Therrell





Today’s Date: March 3rd 2011





Game Title Examined: Missile Command




Year of Publication: 1980




Game Publisher: Atari





Game Developer: Atari

1 - What is the game genre (e.g. shoot-em-up, racing, sports, puzzle, MMORPG, ‘sandbox’, music sequence following game (e.g. DDR, guitar hero)
The genre is shooter.


2 -What is the type of game ‘world’ or environment (e.g. flat environment, puzzle/maze space, 3D world?)

The environment is six, land based cities, protected by three missile batteries.

3 - What is the perspective taken by player (e.g first person, third person perspective, top down, isometric) in relation to main player controlled character.

Third person perspective, head on cross-section view.

4 - What is the actual gameplay – what does the player have to do?

Protect your six cities from being nuked by multiple inbound threats.

5 - Is the gameplay intuitive? (i.e. is it easy to understand what to do without instructions?) describe.

The gameplay of the arcade original was very intuitive, not so much using a keyboard as you must check key assignments first. Game play also intuitive on XBox 360 version.

6 - Is the gameplay patterned (game does the same thing over & over) or is it random (happens differently every time?)

The missile attack is different every time.

7 - What does the type of graphic approach used as well as the audio tell you about the limits of the technology at the time the game was published?

Looks like 8-Bit raster graphics. The ROMs for cabinet arcade games were hard-soldered to the motherboard. These ROMs had a very limited amount of storage capacity, which made objects rendered in raster graphics sort of blocky.


8 - Describe your views about the game from the point of view of


1. ease of play

Easy peasy, missiles come - I shoot them.

2. enjoyability

Fun and games, brings back lots of High School memories.

c) level of engagement/immersion

Level of engagement high, level of immersion low, easy enough to quit and return for a reality break.

9 - Had you played this game prior to this time? If so, when?

Demo on XBox Live within the last few years.

10 - what does playing the game remind you of in terms of other games/media?

Playing Missile Command reminds me of (many) other arcade games, and the 8-Bit Nintendo Entertainment System (a/k/a Famicom). Also reminds me of playing Missile Command on the Atari 2600.