runningidle

Here is my Assignment 3: http://www.resnet.trinity.edu/blederle/3344/assn3/

For my final project I plan on looking at television entertainment from several points of views. The television has come a long way since it’s inception and still does not seem to be settling down. The way we watched TV and what we watched seemed to be pretty standard for a while, but with the rise in computer technologies in recent years this is starting to change. The introduction of on screen display of program information and Digital Video Recorder time shifting and recording abilities are truly starting to have an impact on how we live our lives. It not only has an impact on the consumers, but on the producers as well. I foresee a change the way shows are developed and delivered in the coming future. Much like my project on real world money transaction for digital items in Dr. Delwiche’s Games for the Web class, a major change involving corporate acceptance has just occurred relating to my topic. Last semester Blizzard, people behind World of Warcraft, starting servers that allowed this previously illegal process and just recently Apple and ABC (http://blogmaverick.com/entry/1234000617063228/ http://www.apple.com/itunes/videos/) teamed up to sell videos online. In the near future the way shows are produced and made profitable is going to change. How exactly this change is going to occur and whether it will be for the best is anyone's guess.

The first section most visitors will want to look into is the section i’ll make on the history and evolution of the television. This will cover everything from the 3 channel rabbit ears to cable and satellite of the 90’s to the present digital revolution. The next logical section will cover some of the new technologies that are changing the way we watch TV. Key points of this section will be Digital/Personal Video Recorders (DVR/PVR), streaming video, possible future devices, and more.
The next section will cover how this change will affect the way we watch TV and what videos were being sent (not necessarily broadcasted) to us. The growing acceptance of internet video and DVR’s is going to break the current affiliate/commercial/syndicated system, but will this change be for the better? How will shows/networks/cable companies make their money? Will we no longer “channel surf” and always watch what we want when we want? These will be some of the questions I will ponder. My final section will attempt to compare this change with technological advances of other mediums/products. Off the top of my head I am thinking of music, radio, and movies, but there will be others. The site will also contain a conclusion page which will present my "expert" opinion on this subject.

my 0010nd webpage

I guess I hold an opinion that is opposite from the norm because I see group projects to be essential in preparing students for the world ahead of them. I definitely have had my share of issues with group members I do not jive with, but I also understand that is part of the process. The end result of the project and what grade you get is not the only thing you receive from the process. I see the experience and the knowledge of how to deal with people who have a different way of looking at school work than you is greatly more valuable. This is valuable because in almost every job in the “real world” will require you to work with people who see things a little differently than you.

So in creating a group project for a class I would start by choosing the groups randomly myself. This would be to force people who may never talk to find a way to work together. I would also require a form of gradual set of requirements for them to turn in(i.e. outline, partial finished, final result). This would force them to actually get together and make some decisions because most students will have trouble doing so in an efficient manner otherwise. Because this would be in an educational environment I would have to find a way to make the project to be easily have the work divided essentially equally. In a real environment someone would acknowledge that they are the “leader” and would be doing more work than others. Then after the final project is submitted I would ask for some brief feedback on how things went as a group. I would use this feedback sparingly. Only if there is an obvious consensus that someone blatantly didn’t pull their weight would I give the team members different grades.

Here is my little Leary Website with free random Leary quotes on each page.

THE END!

A job I had in the past was unloading and unpacking boxes off a truck at a department store. This job obviously be classified as a routine production service. We opened up a truck and unloaded and sorted anywhere from 400-1100 boxes for 2 and a half hours involving high repetition. Then we would unpack and prepare the merchandise for another 2 and a half hours which often ended up being more routine then the first part. However, in getting these repetitive physical jobs done there were many ways I was able work mentally. I did this by constantly thinking of new ways to get the jobs done more efficiently. There were many aspects of the job which we were forced to do a certain way, there was enough freedom allow me to think. This often resulted in little changes that reduced trips to the trash compactor or resulted in more efficiently stacked piles of boxes. While this job allowed me to use my symbolic analysis skills, I knew it was not something I envisioned myself doing for much of my life.

In analyzing a job I would like to pursue after graduation I will look at the job I am currently interning at. This job involves creating new and fixing bugs in computer software at a large mutual fund service company. While I am currently paid hourly like I was at my previous job, if I was to get a similar job after school it would be salary. This differentiation is something I am still have trouble getting a grasp on. I find myself working on a problem for hours and then finally finding a solution in 5 minutes. Yet in the back of my head I sometimes feel like I am not earning my money in the hours which I absorbed information about the problem and did not produce anything tangible. But when I do find a solution, it has been a lot more rewarding for me since I was presented with a problem and was given carte blanche on how to devise a solution. It is just odd to see critical thinking with a price tags(salary) on it since all the thinking work I have done in the past was unpaid school work. In looking at Reich's categories this is definitely a symbolic-analysis job.

There have been some classes that I have taken at Trinity which I can see the value of in a post-graduation environment and some that don't. I think the knowledge gained from common curriculum classes has a value that is a lot like symbolic analysis. This being that it is hard to pinpoint exactly how much it's "worth" and when you can "use" it, but without it we would all be less valuable as human beings. But on the whole I feel that a combination of my own initiative and my classes at Trinity have prepared me very well for the future.

The two mediums I am going to comapare are the television and internet. I will first seek to understand and compare some of the basis characteristics of these two mediums. Then in order to further analyze these two mediums I will look at how they treat news events, signifigant and insignifigant.

One area where these two mediums differ is in the "newness" of the information being presented. Television can be an intstantious transmission when it is "live" or it can be recorded and rerun at a time other then the actually filming/production. This lack of consistency can cause confusion, but often aspects of the images on screen can help a viewer determine the "newness" of the footage. There are also times when most of the images on screen are pre-recorded, but an information bar of some sort is at the bottom displaying up to date information. The internet is evolving into a more up to date source, but on the whole infomation displayed is not instantanious. Websites keep an array of information that vary in "newness." You can find contact information on cnn.com that probably has not been changed in years, but you can also find news stories less than an hour old.

Another major difference between these two mediums is the variety of content. Television in this county is mostly run by large corporations which display content that is regulated by the Federal Communications Commission(FCC). As a result, almost everything you see on TV is directly related to a way a company makes money. This is often though the display of adverstisments between and during parts of a show and even aspects of the show. This factor along with compliance issues with the FCC have a huge impact on how and what infomation is portrayed on television. On the internet, there is little to no regulation, so the content can sometimes be a lot more varied than on television. Also, the ease and cost of setting up a website is extremely simple, so there is a largely greater amount of information from a large variety of sources.

Like our class discussion, I will look at the reaction to Hurricane Katirna as a signifigant event. On television, this event was covered on a few stations for a little bit prior to the actual landing. After the landing of it, network stations and almost a lot of cable station devoted at least an a little information related to this event. However, with the ultimate goal of making money( i.e. keeping viewers) stations had to keep decorum and constantly present "exciting" information and images. On the internet, one could find similar coverage from cnn.com, but one could also explore websites from people without a financial goal. Some of these site would be personal blogs and websites. These type of sites would display information in a much different light and possibly allow many people to have a different overall view on the event.

I am now going to analyzing the seemingly insignifigant event of a cat getting rescued from a tree. On Television, this might be protrayed as a really exciting event which they show commercials of for 3 hours prior to the actual news story. A situation like these is a result of the television broadcast company trying to make money by keeping viewers interested in something unsignifigant. On the internet, this story would barely exist, if at all. Since the internet has so much information and people have a huge impact in what they want to see and for how long, an insignigant story like this would be treated just as it is, insignifigant.

In looking at the Television and Internet I can see many medium-specific differences. From the amount of information available to the "newness" of the information to the accuracy, there key differences betweens these mediums. And in some cases, I feel that these differences do have a large impact on the end results of the transfer of information.

One job I had in the past was unloading boxes of clothing and other objects off trucks at the department store Kohl's. Prior to working in
the retail industry I had never really though about how stuff gets in stores for me to purchase. My job only dealt with a small part of a very large network. Since I do not have details of the whole retail trucking network besides the small part I came into contact with I will infer the rest. I can imagine it having a sort of double sided decentralized structure. On one side would be the clothing being made and transported to a warehouse run by the label manufacture. Then the article of clothing would move to the central warehouse of the retail chain and travel though the retail companies network until it arrived at the final destination store. Although each side goes to a central warehouse, I do not believe there is one building that all articles flow though. But rather regional hubs that pass on the clothing to stores in that region. This type of structure would be greatly hurt if connection to one of these hubs is severed, but it would not be entirely fatal unless several go out.



I find it important to understand that my horrible diagram could be expanded to include the creation of clothing that go to other manufacturers and the arrival of those from those different companies to different individual stores. And in thinking about that, it really makes me amazed at how gigantic this network is and how fine-tuned the process is. I also find it interesting that the manufacturer's side of the network is unknown for the most part. This is an intentional confusion on the part of the manufacturers to distance the consumers from the sweatshop work that creates most clothing.

So somehow in the midst of the lovely final stretch of the school year where everyone is running around like chicken with heads cut off I broke a rule, the due date of this weblog. For this I apologize and will be submitting it now. I will be looking into the question "When, if ever, is breaking the rules justified?"

I think there are several situations when breaking the rules is justified. In order to figure out whether breaking the rule is justified one must look at the reasoning for the rule in the first place. One rule that is commonly broken on this campus is people drinking under the age of 21. This age limit is imposed at different levels based on the society. It is not a certain age because people cannot on physically handle alcohol under an age because it has been lower in the past and is currently lower in practically every other country in the world. If people can physically handle it at a "legal age" than what makes "under age" people unable to handle it? I believe law makers feel that there are excessive DUI auto accidents and they can limit this by preventing anyone under 21 from drinking. The theory behind this being that people will be mature enough by the time they are allowed to handle alcohol. However, I find this law is rather excessive being that I was able to legally drink at 16 when I lived in France. Having the age as high as 21 is more of a scapegoat solution to auto accidents, rather than most people being immature prior to that age. Since most members associated with colleges, student court, DCS, etc., agree that this ruling is excessive, it is rarely punished seriously.

I would say that some speeding and intellectual property laws can be broken. Most of the time one can pass a cop going over the speed limit and not get in trouble. This is because the laws are a little stricter than the safe limit, so that people will not break them as much. When a law is commonly know to be unjust then an excessive amount of people will break it, making it impossible to punish them all. In situations like these it makes sense to only punish those who break the law excessively. Laws like these devalue the integrity of the law-making body and can cause chaos if this happens to often.

In general, I think most laws are made with good intentions, but sometimes they can stray away from their original goal. This is seen by realizing they needed an age limit on alcohol, but got to an excessive point by having it raised to 21. We have a good political structure in this county, but sometimes it makes it difficult to change laws. And I just realized that I discussed about "law" breaking as oppose to "rule" breaking. But since laws seem like a subset of rules, it still works.

Fictionary

Marketed as 'Balderdash', this game requires no more than a dictionary, paper, and pencils. Players rotate being 'it'. 'It' looks through the dictionary, finding an obscure word (but one with some relatively simple definition; no rare diseases of lower mollusks) which none of the other players know the definition of. 'It' writes the definition of the word on hir piece of paper, while the others make up likely-sounding definitions on theirs. All sheets are given to 'it', who shuffles them and reads them all. Players vote on which they think is the true definition. A player gets a point for guessing right, and for tricking others into guessing their spurious definition. 'It' does not receive points.

I have not played this game, but have played a board game which appears to be derived from this game.  I can not remember the name of it, but it involved an absurd question  like "what does xxy on a zipper stand for?"  Then cards would be passed around and one person would get the right anwser and the others will have to bluff anwsers.  I really enjoyed this game because you learned some cool random facts and got to test your "bluffing" abilities to your friends. 

Both these games have very simple rules which would make it very hard to cheat.  The only place I see cheating possibly is the person who is "it" not shuffling the papers correctly.  I do see it possible for someone to be a "spoiled sport" and not even try and give a absurd definition.  I think the parlor game version would be a fun way to learn some rare words. 

This is a pool game that i'm sure almost everyone has played. The basic rules are very simple. One person closes their eyes and counts to 10. Everyone else at this point has 10 seconds to get themselves situated before the game begins. Then the person who was counting to 10, still with their eyes closed, must try and touch one person. In order to aid in finding the other people to touch he/she will repeatedly say "Marco" and everyone else must respond "Pollo." Players who are currently underwater when "Marco" is called obviously do not have to respond. There are some variations to the rules which can be modified for each game. One of these is the "fish out of water rule." This rule allows someone to get out of the water and be unable to get touched, but the searcher can call "fish out of water" if he thinks someone is out of the water. The amount of times the searcher can guess for this is about two times. Also, determining if the person is out of water varies. Sometimes being in the pool is counted by having at least one foot in the water and other times it could mean that at least two legs are in the water. There is also a rule that allows the searcher to swim underwater with his eyes open for as long as he/she can hold their breath. This has a name that has to be called before going under water, but I forgot it.

Much of this game is based on a trust issue, so cheating is obviously an issue. People will often claim that the searcher opened their eyes or that someone is out of the water when they were not allowed to be. I believe I stopped playing it often when I got to about middle school age. I have played it occasionally since then, but it is not the first thing I suggest doing when I go into a pool, as it might have been when I was younger.

For my Terra Nova article I headed on over to the April articles to see what was going on during this sunny spring month a year ago. Appearantly some people were not out frolicing in the beams of natural sunlight, but were instead inside at their computers discussing the musings of the MMO community. The main thing that stood out to me was the excessive number of articles about the debate, which we're discussed several times, between the actual real world value of virtual items. I have been rather skeptical about this since I first heard of it since there is someone who can just create stuff and make a lot of money. I mean, Blizzard could go into their code and create as many gold coins they want and run an ebay shop to make some extra cash. The possibility for something like this poses problems like the one some one in China had. A guy had bought a very valuable sword for ~$120 and then shortly after he got it the game developers deleted it because the seller dupped it.

On the other side of the coin, one could trust that the developers have made their game secure enough that duping will not happen and that money will not be created and given to a character who did not rightfully earn it. And some people think that it's "unfair" to purchase items and characters on an external site, but this is really just cheating the purchaser out of their money and the ability to play the game it was meant to be played. Even though these stories were written almost a year ago, similar issues are still apparant today. The headline news on the site declared that a creater of a game in Second Life not only got him over a Million Linens, but a five figure payout from a company to reproduce the game on cellphones. I don't see any slowing down in the sale of virtual world items, so it will be interesting to see if more games start accepting it and actually making it a legal thing to do.

I've really enjoyed these in game leactures so far.  I don't think they are the most effective way to teach or anything, but it's really cool to be able to talk to someone so far away.  I am also always amused at the enviroment(people, NPC's, etc.) still thriving around us while we're trying to hold a "private" meeting.  The enviroment was a bit more of a hassle this time since there were keyboard issues on T.L.'s end and all of us trying to learn second life commands.  A game like that really shows how well Blizzard made it's interface and controls.  I also missed the ability to emote waves, laughter, claps etc. as we did during Yee's lecture.  

The content of the lecture seemed to reside on her work about female representation in games.  While this was interesting, it turned into a debate format rather than a single question to a single anwser.  I don't think this type of exchange in a virtual world is capable of effectively portraying because text is the main format of communication.  However, I don't think it would have been possible to meet any other way before the internet, so it was great to even meet at all.  I was interesting to see that she was studying stuff like this way back in the MUD days.   I wish we would have been able to stay longer, but it was nice to hear her thoughts on other topics, but time ran out. 

An Ethnography of MMORPG game Developers: Catering to the Never-Satisfied Masses

Right now I am thinking of analyzing ways that developing a MMORPG is different than a normal game.  Up front this can be seen by the fact that they have to constantly update and create a product which keeps users willing to pay a monthly fee.  Another major difference is the non-linear freedom that this type of game produces.  I want to look into thier tactics for creating a world where so many unexpected actions can be done.  I am also considering analyzing the nature of customer/developer relations.  I plan to do this by asking some questions on about  the MMO goods black market and their relationship with the customers(and vice versa). 

Last Thursday I participated in the Ironforge activity even though I had already spent 30+ hours in the game. I think was mostly due to the amount of time it takes to arrive at major cities between the Alliance and the Horde. I have mostly been playing horde characters and have not come across a tram, auction house, or Ironforge yet. But we all know that Dr. Delwiche has something against the lovable Horde, so this biased was expected. However, the exercise taught me something I wished I had known about a while ago. This being the ability to ask guards for information.

Over my time playing I have traveled and worked in groups with several strangers. I see this aspect of MMO's as their key advantage over traditional video games. During my first few levels I grouped up with someone do kill somethings and then ran into each other a few days later in the next town. And we have been sending each other items and talking a little though the in game mail service since. I think connections like this are very interesting and really help you connect with different people. Some of my other group experince have ended via a situation in the real world like "wife calling for dinner...gtg." Thinks like this really break the sense that you are in a individual world and make me understand why some people want role-playing only servers. However, I enjoy a break from the WoW world every now and then. Another experience I had which transcended the virtual boundary was watching people debate Bush and his effectiveness as President in the general channel. This obviously caused a few people to complain that this is a game and they are playing it to get away from stuff like that. Well, I look forward to being able to play more and experience missions with large groups.

I took the bartle test and determined this information about my MMO habits...
I am a KEA with the following break downs.
Killer 60%
Explorer 60%
Achiever 40%
Socializer 40%
The survey also mention that only 3% of the people who had taken the test I took fit this category.  I had a difficult time anwsering some on the questions on the basis that I have not spend an exhorbinate amount of time in MMO's.  Another problem I had while taking the test was that my analytical computer science side kept reading into how the test creator was using each question to formulate my type.  Despite these shortcomings, I think I relativly fit my type because of several factors.

The test says that my main traits are as a  killer and an achiever.  When I play, I mostly trying and kill things to better my character and achieve the goals of the given quests.  Then equally behind those two are my wants to explore and socialize.  In typical single player RPG's I have been known to explore more than other people, but I think the excessive number of things to do and insanely massive size of MMO's maps have made me only go places I need to go.  As for the social aspect.  I do enjoy "talking" and working with other "real" people, but I don't see it as my main focus.  I have not made any really strong relationships with people over the internet and mostly the communication I have with people, in and out of games, are with people I know in real life.  However, I will not rule out the possibility of sometime creating a real friendship with someone I only know online.

I thought the scavanger hunt idea worked well. However, as we realized there was too many items and people to find. I wish we would have been able to have time to look at the pictures we took. It helped me learn some stuff about the chat like that it stays on party chat once you do it once. Also, I found out the hard way that when you scroll up the chat log...it stays up there even if people are sending you new messages.

My first experice playing WoW was a few weeks before the in-class playing.  So I will first talk about that experience.  I am very experienced in video games, but the MMO was something new to me.  I have played, and enjoyed several  RPGs, but the real interaction was missing in those.  When I had seen my friends playing the game over the break, the UI was quite intimitating, but once I started playing I caught out and had no problems.  I noticed that the first few tasks were mostly individual, but one could complete them with other real people.  I later completed a slightly more difficult task with someone where we had to get the head of some bad guy.  After completing this, my ally commented that "we got head" and we danced together.  I found this experience quite humorous.

Then during class, I had a different and equally enjoyable experience.  This was playing, and helping , friends who were sitting right next to me.  This was fun because we could talk and co-ordinate actions together.  After a little more playing of the game, one main difference is the inability to "pause" the game.  There have been times where I tried to step aside and do something else and ended up getting attacked.  But this is something that is needed for the "persistant" feature of a virtual world.

Since my first post was just a quick test one, I'll use this one to introduce myself. I am Bret Lederle, a Junior Computer Science major and New Media minor. Until recently, I never really associated myself with any sort of definite stereotype. And this still fits my roles in social and working environments. Since the college structure forces us to choose a "Major" I have fit in with the Computer Science model for my academic identity. However, I still am seen as a "Jack-of-all-Trades" at my current job and in many social aspects. Where many of my friends have "their sport," I enjoy being competitive at many rather than being a star in one, and useless in many. I enjoy this identity because it allows me to become friends with many different types of people. While video games and friends have been a part of my life as long as I can remember, this is my first MMORPG.

I have a few other identities which have transcended into my Warcraft character. This being my race as a Gnome since I am not that tall. Also, my character's name is derived from two French words. I lived in Paris from 5th grade through 10th grade, so French aspects are a decent part of my identity. Those were the only direct associations to my personal identity which my character has.

Ok, time to start this wonderful weblog. While I have tried to keep them before, it seems this one will have to have fairly constant updates being that it is for a class. It will contain whatever trials and tribulations I go though in my tough job of playing World of Warcraft. I know this task seems daunting, but I think I can get by. More info on my first few days in the game to come shortly!