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!

Texture Mapping: Six New Meshmoon Screenshots

FINAL PROJECT: ADDING 10 NEW CONTENT ELEMENTS TO MY IMMERSIVE LIBRARY

I believe my library is both practical and aesthetically pleasing. I noticed the "view frustum culling" when I was building my library. The videos and articles would go blank (with the grayed out Google Chrome logo) and stop playing if my avatar was too far from the object. I believe that my library is "performant" and they are spaced close enough where you can easily find them and yet they won't get too jumbled.

This is the process to building an immersive library in Meshmoon. 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 PROJECT: ADDING 5 PDF PAPERS TO MY IMMERSIVE LIBRARY

This is my Immersive Library with HTML articles and journal researches to the left. The blank one to the right is what happens when I try to link to a PDF. 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

Another new font! So because this is what happens when I try to add a PDF, I decided to just keep one in just in case and get the HTML versions for the rest. Prof. Walsh said in an e!-mail to me that I do not have to get them to work as long as I tried to input them through the steps listed in the Lecture Notes and that is exactly what I did! He said multiple times that Meshmoon is still in development and has many bugs, errors and glitches they are working on so it is okay for that to happen. Thanks Professor Walsh!

FINAL PROJECT: TESTING MY FELLOW CLASSMATES' IMMERSIVE LIBRARIES

So I tested this guy named Andrew Hong's library first.
Although he is not in my class, I saw it on Meshmoon and wanted to see how his was.
It was WEIRD! Kinda cool but creepy and freaky too, probably because it was unfinished.

It was very strange because of the face(s) on the dome piece (lol) thing. It was also weird because this audio came on of a woman speaking, but it was like she was talking about someone who was dying. It sounded like what you would hear on ER but a bit less dramatic, it was about some guy not breathing and to put the pads (defibrillator) on him. Very strange...

I checked out Jamie's on multiple occasions and really liked hers. It was simple but effective. I thought it was kinda weird that she used cubes as cubes and didn't stretch them to be more easily visible.

Here is a SS of the loading screen for Diana's. It crashed on me 3 times or so before I finally got in. First time I got in but lagged incredibly and then crashed and the other two (I think) times it crashed before it got to 30% loading, like at 27 or so. This time below it actually did let me in, but her world was too spread out for my liking and none of her billboards had working sites. She did have a picture of pink socks of cats or something I thought was interesting.

I wanted to log into Edward's but it told me I didn't have permission! Edward you secretive guy!

I checked Curtis' the other day and he has two that are both glitchy. But they worked today and one was bare empty, and the other was this:

Are these oil barrels?

He did these cool brick materialed cylinders and blocks and this throne looking thing with a rock material. It was cool but had no articles or videos...

There was a place called "VK Final Space" by "VIRGINIA" so I assume that's the Virginia from our class. But once I spawned in, I also fell through the sea floor (same as Andrew H's) and couldn't jump back above ground when I clicked respawn.  But it looked like there were no articles or videos in there either.

Lastly I looked at Sam's. It was good, like a castle and he definitely got creative with his placement of things like the articles and videos. It was a little convoluted though and not easy to navigate and see clearly, but entertaining. I felt like I was in Game of Thrones!

This is visiting my classmates immersive libraries in Meshmoon. 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 PROJECT: BUILDING MY IMMERSIVE LIBRARIES/MUSEUM

So new font!

I am making my new library here! And although Prof. Walsh said people don't want to be in buildings, I like to stick to tradition, and traditionally 'Libraries' and 'Museums' are indoors! So I found this nifty layer called 'Campus Party 2013' and that's what I am using. Weird name, because I would expect a dorm room or a frat house for a campus party but maybe this is the kind of campus parties they have in Finland!

It said to put in 3d objects that would make the place look neat and unique. But the only items you can add in are blocks, spheres, donut shapes and that's really it. So I cannot but in a 3D tree or a car or something cool like that. The only thing I can add is a monkey head! (How random! Meshmoon really needs to step it's game up and let you import objects from the outside.)

Monkey (do you) see, Monkey (I) do!

And it said to not but 2D items in, but this is technically not 2D, as it is a rectangle that is raised up to be like a slab. And I wanted to add some character and cuteness to the library, so I made a welcome mat!

Here is another image of my slabs that have the Google Chrome icon in the middle, but when you get up close, it renders into the webpage you can set it to display! For our Libraries, we are putting in PDFs, HTML webpages of articles and Youtube video links all about Immersive Education. I focused most of mine on the healthcare field since I found that the most applicable and interesting!

If these were to all render... visual and audio overload!

It was weird because I had my Facebook browser up behind (or maybe minimized) the Rocket app window, and it glitched up my tablet of info on a webpage article and meshed (pun intended!) them together!

I am happy with my library and I think it looks good. This screenshot below is from me getting the hang of it and uploading the articles to the flat cubes after the Facebook glitch was fixed.

I had seen Jamie's Library and liked it a lot, so I used her layer at first and then was going to delete her items and put mine up instead. You see I didn't realize that hers was Campus Party '13 also. So in this SS you can see I have the default layer they gave me (How'd they know to title it that? Wow!) and her layer also. This was causing glitching. I didn't want to delete my layer, but read in the troubleshooting notes for the class that you might need to delete the layer. I took a SS to show the API # and etc., like document that I was doing so. 

You see, my avatar would spawn a couple (like 30 or so actually) yards to the bottom right of the world and would just fall into the blue/gray sky. I tried moving the coordinates of the layer to no avail. So I thought maybe deleting the default layer would fix this but it didn't. I couldn't find a way to fix this so instead I tried the Campus Party layer and it worked so just built everything for my library from scratch!

This is my earliest of processes for building an immersive library/museum in the virtual world of Meshmoon. 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

Examining Gender, Race and Body Image in a Virtual World

 So for the final class tonight, we are doing an experiment with our avatars! We are going back to Second Life and changing it a few times in accordance to GENDER, RACE and PHYSICAL ATTRIBUTES/BODY IMAGE. I predict that people will treat me kindly and flirtatiously if I am a hot blonde Barbie looking chick, but if I am a regular dude, no one will notice. I first heard of Second Life when a friend told me how it was full of weird, creepy, single men who prey on young females as much as possible. Let's get started!

This was weird because my computer (My Dad's actually!) was fritzing out when I tried to expand the browser window. So I just stretched it out instead of 'expanding' it. 

I found an avatar that was the same as mine without the white coat. I called her out for copying me, but got no response, so said "yes you!" but she didn't respond to that either! NayrKcoh was being weird too haha!

Since no one was answering me I decided to take a bit of a risk and go to an 'Adult' world! There were naked people everywhere! (Don't worry not in my screenshots!) It was a BDSM world I think, and this guy's name was "Female Supremacist" but he was a male!! And he was on his knees!

That guy finally got back to me and kept calling me 'Goddess' LOL! Then this guy named 'voxfini' I talked to. And also this TwistedAngel person asked me stuff! That was funny.

So I messed around with TwistedAngel1995 a little bit before moving on to try to nudge someone named Gabriela or something and nudge her into the fire pit! It didn't work though, she eventually would move away but not chat! Haha! I then tried pushing around PurplePanda and talking to her also.

I got a tip from Jamie in the class, to go check out this place called BAD 80's and 90's Music. So I invited the voxfini guy that was flirting with me I think haha, after we exchanged where we were from. He is from the UK he said, England.

When we got to the world, he was 'sleeping' LOL and asked me how to get up. I also flirted with this chick who's thumbnail pic from what I could see looked cute ;)

Then I changed my avatar to the fox head! And in an 1800's wheelchair! And wrapped in fat bandages.

This was funny because he started flirting with me more trying to help me with getting my feet back, and he called my lady doctor a nurse! LOL I started putting the 'Male Action Hero' clothes on my fox.

I got some hands! Blue dinosaur hands I think lol! And the vinifox guy kept flirting with me and calling me 'hun!' I wanted to call him son or something that would've freaked him out but he left already. Pretty interesting.

The Education Grid

Here are some screenshots from the website : http://theeducationgrid.org/
Click on the bottom link that starts with "Learn more..."

The top of the page, has a flash banner that goes from "Media Grid" to "Ed Grid" as the other letters fade out. I thought that was pretty clever! It has the table of contents and then starts to talk about the history of TEG.

 Skipping ahead to talk about the range of the access of TEG and who can use it and what rights they hold with it.

And finally other options for exploring TEG and services.

inbedleftelbow,Dinkitchen,Mjustgotback,onlybballshae5/8up,ltsoff!

Class 11 - WebGL Chrome Experiments that FAIL IN FIREFOX

Only Tiera, Jamie, and Diana had theirs up at the time I came to this part of the assignment. And like Jamie said, they may all run in Firefox, but the quality and speed are much better in Google Chrome. I believe it is because they were created with the intentions of being run in Chrome, so while they are still compatible with Mozilla Firefox, the preferred browser for optimal results in running these Experiments is to be in their natural habitat made by the all powerful Google!

WebGL Chrome Experiments using Google's Chrome Browser

This is a sculpting tool. It's pretty cool. That rhymed.
I put my initials on the sphere with the bump tool and then spray painted it in green!

 Here is a link to the Experiment: Sculpt Link

 This is not a screenshot here, but it was the picture that was taken and saved onto my computer when I was trying to put a 3d animal head on my body. The Experiment reminded me of some of the iPhone apps my brother gets that does weird things with your image. I pressed all the different icons and buttons but no horse head came! 

Here is this one's link: Umazlizer

 This was a cool Experiment also. It is used to light 3d objects. You can see the difference between the two pictures. The first one does not have my arrow curser (the light) over the images, while the second one I placed it over the Buddha's chest.

 Link for this Experiment: Jonas Wagner

 This one is NOT 3D but I put it up for fun. I took these SS's before I realized it wasn't a 3D thing that I could use. It reminds me of iPhone apps like I said earlier, this one more like the heat sensing one or the lighter that you flick and wave the flame. It reacts to your mouse and how much you move your cursor back and forth. If you do it a lot, or "vigorously" like it suggests, the worm guy goes into a psychadellic freakout and we get a hippie strobe light attack! Pretty cool dude!

Here is his link: This guy is awesome

Final #3: Group 3D Building Project & ROLLCALL CLASS 11

This is our group in the Second Life world Sunamari. We worked on building a home for us in the class. 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

Sam started a carriage house and then a pool which I worked on as best I could. My computer was lagging like no computer has lagged before. It was horrible.

Here is Jamie and Diana (I think) in the background. There was a lot of 'stuff' in this world which was probably why it was lagging so hard.

More building. Diana put up a funny door.

Here I am trying to build some pool games. That block was my sad attempt at a basketball backboard. I eventually made a rim also and would've made a net. I then would've textured/materialized them to look like what they were supposed to be. Ie. White backboard maybe with a red square, an orange rim and a white meshy net.

Here is the roll call stating what we each worked on. I thought the food on the table that Diana made was a really nice touch!

So I was able to borrow a family computer and Second Life ran much better on it. So here is our 'family portrait' at the picnic table outside our castle! And look! Someone is driving a Delorean behind us! LOL