FAMILY FEUD2

@kt D@stool cnbcOnTv 100%pi 5:15pm 10/14/14

Tell me something you expect to find in a hotel:
-Beds
-clean towels
-ice
-cleaning ppl
--pool
--bible

LOST

Name a food a toothless person could eat:
-soup
-ice cream
-applesauce (Dad)
--mashed potatoes

Name a food with @least one hole in it:
-Swiss cheese
-donut
-bagel
-cheerios

Name a famous wrestler!!!
-Hulk
-Rock
-Cena
--Flair
-HHH

Fast Money:     LOST
Fate 0 weather
wings 50
marilyn M 39
L ball 51 carrot top
volcano 12? airport

(Level 9! Won 40 coins!)
Romantic place date:
-Restaurant
--Beach
-Movies
-Park
-?

Another word for intelligent:
-Smart
-Brilliant
-Genius
-Bright
--Wise

Something you do if cant sleep:
-Read
-Watch tv
-drink hot milk
-get snack (food)

FAST MONEY:     WON!
Heart 34 Ears 10
Eiffel Tower 5
Apples 55 Tomatoes 14
Betty Barbara
Veronica V?

Name a recreational activity done in hot weather:
-Swimming
-Volleyball
--Golf
--picnic
--?

Know about Beyonce:
-Singer
-Married to Jay-Z
-Destinys child
--?

Creature starts with F:
-Frog
-Fish
-Frankenstin
-Fox
-Falcon

Fast Money:     LOST
Tomato 15
Couch 54 bed 11
Frog 10 Rabbit 57
Food 0 Drinks
Bank 18? Fountain 13?

Something associated with Mickey Mouse:
-Disney
-Minnie Mouse
--Ears
--Goofy
--Pluto
xDonald

Something birds have that humans don't:
-Wings
-Beaks
-Feathers
--Talons
xEggs
xNests

Put on toast:
-Butter
-Jam
-Peanut Butter
--Nutella
xMarmalade
xJelly
x(Cream Cheese) Creams?

LOST (tied but he got it first)

Name a country in Europe that Americans like to visit:
-France
-Italy
-England (Br.)
-Germany
xIreland
xSpain

Popular TV Character last decade:
-Spongebob
-Bart
--Homer
--Dr. House
--Charlie Harper
--?

Something you do stuck in traffic:
-Read
-Listen to radio (music)
-text
--sing
?

Fast Money:     WON!
ER 28 Walking dead 0
Sporting event 12 concerts 30?
texting ? sigh?
sick 30? bad weather 20?
Money 58

200
Found on a computer:
-Keys
-monitor (screen)
-internet
--windows

Famous sidekick:
-Robin
-Tonto (Dad)
--Ed McMahon

Oscar Winner:
-Denzel
-Deniro
--Hanks
--Nicholson
--???
xPacino
xDeniro again
xMcConnaughey

Name something that might be described as steamy (B4):
-Romance(Love-Dad)
-Shower
-Sauna
-- Movies (D)
--Vegetables
xFood

Annoying bad habit:
-Nail biting
-smoking
-chewing loudly
--?
--?

Name a famous Canadian City:
-Toronto
-Montreal
-Vancouver
-Quebec City

Fast Money:     LOST
Exercise 50 diet 12
apple 5 mcds 8
bmw 0 nice car 58?
snakes 58
bank account 12? House 40?

Famous Movie Monster:
-Frankenstein
-Freddy K
-?
-Godzilla (D)
-King Kong (D)
--Sulley
xMummy
xJason
--?

Dress up for halloween:
--Witch
-Ghost
xPum(p)kin
-Vampire (dracula)
xMummy?
x???Pirate???

44 coins left D@stool FoxBusiness on 100%pi 6:08pm

CLASS 13: Identity in the Context of Virtual Worlds

           When examining identities in the real and virtual world, people often think that a person’s virtual world identity is closer to that person’s actual self than the image they portray in real life. Professionals like photographer Robbie Cooper are curious to discover if people's virtual selves are a mirror or not of their true selves. Anonymity of the online world gives people the freedom to be whoever and whatever they wish they were in their own real life. They can live out their fantasies and make up for what they lack in qualities in the real world and be taller, prettier, more muscular, whatever they wish they could change in their own real selves. I, for example, make my characters with smaller noses than my own big one.

Another professional, Nick Yee, who studies immersive virtual reality at Stanford University, see trends in character development. His study showed that introverts usually describe their avatars as someone with the qualities they themselves wished they had. Yee also observed that men gender bend more often than women do. One rationale is as simple as men rather look at a woman for a length of time than a man. Photographer Robbie Cooper found that creators become less self conscious and embarrassed about their characters not being representative of themselves. An example is the Korean professor who assumed the identity of a little girl and volunteered to show his two identities in Cooper’s book. The character becomes a bigger part of your life the longer you work with it. You become so familiarized with the character that you become desensitized about the appropriateness of the character itself.

Even though creators tend to exaggerate or embellish their characters, the creators tend to be true to themselves by carrying over the norms they follow in the real world into their virtual worlds. For example, one knows it is rude to just sign off without a proper goodbye. Another norm that I carry over into my virtual world is to be friendly when I meet a new classmate. I ask them questions about themselves to get to know them. I have done that with members of our class by asking questions like where are they from. I tried to become familiar with my classmates even though I have not personally met them.

           Second Life is developed to break down preconceived ideas about identity including race and gender. This program is needed to educate students on the racial stereotyping language that exists. People judge others from learned norms that often are not true. For example, my father and his brother are Chinese. People always ask them if they are doctors. Neither of them are doctors nor do they work in the medical field. I do believe virtual classroom assignments in Second Live can over time change these identity barriers. Years ago people would ask my grandfather what restaurant he worked in. He was actually a Vice President of Bank of Boston. So people have changed their view of Chinese on the social scale. I do not think most of these offenders realize they are stereotyping when they ask the question about occupation. A first step to erase these labels is to help students recognize these socially constructed barriers that exist.

I learned extensively about immersive education. I did not realize how comprehensive it is. I also now realize that there are numerous virtual worlds for 3D. The class was harder than I thought it would be when I read about it in the catalog. It was difficult getting used to my first on line class. I am the type that likes to talk to professors after class in person. I had to adjust to a new way of interacting with classmates and the professor.

           

 My Four Favorite Screenshots from class:
1.)

2.)

3.)

4.)

FINAL EXTRA CREDIT: BLENDER vs. MAYA

Blender is high-resolution 3D graphics software used in modeling and animation. It creates still frames or video. The software is maintained by the Blender Foundation, a Dutch public benefit corporation, established to support updating Blender and the projects on blender.org. Blender can be downloaded at no cost. Blender has a large user base with over 3.4 million downloads per year. The Blender software is open source and runs on Linux, Mac, and Windows. The graphical user interface (GUI) is designed around an animator’s production workflow. It uses a Python application program interface (API) for scripting.

Blender does not need extra software to complete the workflow. The graphical user interface (GUI) is independent of the three systems (Linux, Mac, and Windows) and looks and functions the same on all three. Blender is maintained by hundreds of people who donate their time to updating Blender. This very active on line community is comprised of artists, VFX experts, hobbyists and scientists. The motivation of the global on line volunteers is to support a free and open source 3D creation software. Sometimes potential users think free means sub-par but this is not true of Blender.

The numerous uses of Blender include game theory and design, video editing, graphics animation and scientific visualization. It is widely used by scientific fields like astronomy. Blender is chosen for astronomical exploratory data analysis for its rendering, projecting and mapping of volumetric data cubes onto mesh surfaces and its animating simulation. Blender has scientific accuracy and precision crucial for analyzing experiments. Blender’s vivid cinema animations bring experiments to life for lay public which is important to this scientific community.

Auto-Desk Maya is also high resolution 3D graphics software. Maya uses a node graph architecture where each node is customized with information and a visual scene is possible from the interconnecting nodes. Similarly used for research and visualization like Blender, Maya is used more extensively by the big movie and television companies. Walt Disney actually requested that Maya have an interface that could be customized to a person’s workflow. This feature popularized Maya in the movie and television industries. Auto-Desk, Inc. was honored with an Academy Award for Technical Achievement for scientific and technical achievement for their development of Maya software.

Maya is not often used by hobbyists like Blender is because of the high average purchase cost of $3675 compared to the free cost of Blender. The purchase of Maya comes with a 36 month license. The purchaser can renew Maya’s license upon expiration and then download the newest Maya version. To compete with the no cost structure of Blender, Maya does have a free Personal Learning Edition that is for non-commercial work. Maya and Blender both have the capabilities of 3D mesh models, animation, 3D texture mapping, internal rendering and lighting control. Blender also includes external rendering, 3D sculpting and node and video editing. Both software programs are constantly being updating. The newest version of Blender has bMesh, bSurfaces and an improved node based shader system (Cycles). Maya has an exceptional widely used render, mental ray. To compete with Maya’s Bullet Physics, Bullet Physics was also added to Blender. Users say that Maya is harder to use. Some users complain that Blender’s hotkeys are difficult to learn especially if you have been using a different 3D software than Blender. 

FINAL EXTRA CREDIT: MESHES

A polygonal mesh is a group of geometric component that when placed together make up a shape of an object. Each mesh is made up of vertices, edges and faces. The shape changes as editing is done to the components. Meshes vary in size. The shape of the object varies from the exact positioning of the vertices, edges and faces. The faces are in the shape of triangles, quadrilaterals, and other polygons. Computer graphics and animation use mesh based graphics.

Polygonal mesh graphics are used to visualize data in many of the sciences. The high quality of lighting and shading of 3D mesh graphics meet scientists’ need to show scientific visualization of their experiments. One area that makes use of mesh-based graphics is astronomy. The astronomical data is visualized by mesh based-graphics for research and education. Mesh graphics also help with outreach programs to help educate the lay public about astronomical advances and findings.

Mesh-based graphics is also used in medical science. It is used in the modeling of body muscles and tissues including the brain and the knee. It helps doctors see these body parts more defined structurally as they prepare for surgery and during the virtual surgery itself. Another area of use is haptics. Haptics technology (using input/ output device like a joy stick) and mesh-based visual displays work together to train people in hand-eye coordination. Space ship maneuvers and surgery are two important uses for this training.

Developing software programs for these meshes is in high demand.  Software programs, like Blender, are chosen for their versatility and flexibility in handling different types of visualization ideas and concepts. The industry is flourishing with the movie, television and virtual reality gaming industry’s extensive use of these 3D meshes. Animation which is widespread use in these industries uses mesh graphics in its development of complex structures used in shows and games. Mesh based graphics is also used in the animation of maps for geographic information systems. Topographic maps show the shape of land surfaces by using mesh based graphics.

FINAL 5c: MY CUSTOMIZED (more lol) JAVA GAME

Evil iED!

This is the newest addition to my Greenfoot game. It is a final exercise from the Immersive Education course that I am taking at Boston College. The course is called Discovering Computer Graphics. For details, visit the immersive BC portal at http://ImmersiveEducation.org/@/bc

Final 5b: Greenfoot Lettuce and Snake

Click here to see my scenario!

This is my custom Greenfoot coding. It is a final exercise from the Immersive Education course that I am taking at Boston College. The course is called Discovering Computer Graphics. For details, visit the immersive BC portal at http://ImmersiveEducation.org/@/bc  

Final #1 (Flash / Powerbullet .swf files)

So... I thought because the program was corrupted that we didn't have to do this...
I also did the in-class work that day on my house-mate Jackie's PC laptop, and she is not here and I don't have access to those screenshots on her computer. Let me try to find them on Blogger already...

Found it! So I remember Prof. Walsh also said he was going to add a Scratch assignment for us to do but he never got around to it I think he said so we are off the hook!

Just got a lil scared when I saw people post Final #1 (Powerbullet/etc.) on their Finals submissions sheet in the Google Group!