transvestiteism

today, I became a woman

in world this change was extremely easy and painless.

i began by editing my basic image to look like this



i felt that this rather simple womanly look was just too basic so i began to look around for freebie items that enhanced my image and made me look like more of legitimate woman. the boxes in the picture below kept tons of free items.



I finally did some more exploring as a woman, so far I haven't recieved any sort of different treatment, It seems that once i arrive at an island, its the same hello peteo, which by the way gives my gender away, kind of interesting,,,, once arriving on an island its the same hellos i recieved as a man.

cmc

Computer mediated communitcation is in its most simple form communication through the medium of a computer. According to the articles CMC is a method of communicating withing an online world where users communicate through a program and interact online.

the day's observations

Checked out intel island but it froze me. Aol island was cool with the free skateboards however they were'nt very easy to use. Nci island had a sweet free hobo bike which was fun and made it easier to get around. cool stuff.

third times the charm

so i was beginning to think that i would find no one in a previously visited place.


the playboy yacht was EMPTY... what what what. couldn't be, i ended up the sole person on the playboy yacht, what a bust.
second i when back to the pornstars island, which i found was no longer 100% porn stars island, it has become 1/4 inhabited by the fat tiger retreat place -- a walled in place for gay men to chill in second life. There was no one there except the "manager" who spoke to me, and being the only person there i figured i could break my cover for a little bit and talk to. He was very nice and seemed to wish me well in finding whatever it was that i needed. Shortly after our short convo, flow away.


FINALLY ariving on my third and final option i landed on nude island which seems to be eternally popluated by horny and currious second life users. the bar here became a cool place to sit and look inconspicoius. One guy walked around looking for sex and telling the "ladies" he had a 3 inch penis. I'm not sure what this guy was looking for, the novelty of having sex on a computer screen or being the one to just blurt out that he was proud of his 3 incher. Anyway, there were loungers here getting paid to lay out naked, and people wanting sex. Intersting.

Still working out the kinks of the interface and trying to get used to the controls of the game.
need more time on nude island ha.

second life is SLOW

My second venture of the night back into sl was much more interesting. First off though before i dive into that sl is so slow on my computer. many of the places are ruined due the the slow loading times. aside from that i just had some really cool explorations.

in search of the moma- museum of modern art i found an island named "moma." This island ended up being a sick japanese garden complete with tori gates and all. I spent quite some time here.

Cherry blossoms are everywhere and i sat in a very picturesqe hot tub. Its funny how a non real world can evoke real world emotions.

Took a screen shot but for some reason it wont let me put it up here.
anyway this place is way cool and resembles a place i would love to visit in real life thus making it so intriguing.

no one else here though, kind of lame. wish there were more people around.

second life 1

an exhibition to nude island:


most peple are not naked here. bathing suits are in full fashion. I was kind of intrigued by the fact that people are being payed linden dollars to lay around. I wonder if you can just sit there all day and make money that way when you're at class or sleeping. No one really seemed to be doing here, just laying and making money. kind of boring after the first couple minuites.


Next, in a sort of dirty exploration I next went over to porn star island. For some reason this place was empty. I dont understand this. Either way there was a cool tsunami beach thing.

Playboy was by far the most happening place I have been so far. I got "invited" to the yacht which was bunch of people dancing and screaming lude things. Either way the people were nice there and happy to be just hanging out on a virtual yacht with some virtual playmates. I got bored there rather quickly.

Ithaca College Library 1st Floor 8:56pm

Work in pairs appears to get the work done 1/2 as fast but with 2x the fun. Everyone seems to have a work partner keeping them awake or at least entertained. Aside from the couple in front of me flirting so much that it makes me quezy the kid snapping his fingers to get his friends attention causes everyone to look up. Working in the library is almost the perfect disguise for such an observation session becuase everyone is guilty of the "i'm so bored" stare. Mine however is under the bored guise however it is of use. As far a academia goes the red coumfy chair is death. More people have been spotted stareing and texting than I can really count. One girl couldn't seem to sit for more than 5 minuites without moving, checking her phone, or getting up to find a friend. This seems to be a transition period for the library, many are coming in and out. More out than in though. I have spotted one dedicated worker who hasn't seemed to blink for more than 20 minuites this one seems hell bent on finishing his paper in record time. Without supprise I find that the snapper is friends with the wikipedia abusing kid sitting in front of me. and the more i look the more texting is going on everywhere, EVERYWHERE. Everyone is wearing sweaters, myself included, its very chiling outside or this time of year. We go to ithaca, we came preparred. Everyone seems to be longing to a bed somewhere, if your not holding your head you're not in this library right now. The girl at my 8 o'clock seems to be doing more stareing than i am, mabey she's in another section. She's on her mac. WordAn hour is up and I have become a head holding, bed longing, sweater wearing, library attendee.

sl exploration

Within sl interaction seemed a bit hard. lag caused things to be a bit shakey. things were not how i expected roma was more crowed as far a architecture went but the burning life was kinda abstract. I thought i'd seem more people around that weren't in the calls but it seemed that everywhere we went we were most of the inhabitants. My assumption is that things will get a bit smoother the longer i am in sl. I would like to see more people and find what kinds of people hang oout in this game all thhe time.Ben and jerrys was cool. wish i got an ice cream. Interested to see a concert with this.

a whole new world

"a whole new world" To quote Aladin, this lyric seems to embody all of my expectations for second life. It seems that for some reason this virtual world avoids the computer gaming barrier and allows many people who may have never thought of using the computer for anything other than e-mail and powerpoint to exist and interact virtually.

Akin to walking the streets of Manhattan, I expect to find a diverse assortment of people. I know I will be seeing a very different world than I live in for this one is completely user created. Anything can exist on second life so I don’t expect things to be reserved.

There appear to be many reasons for using second life, thus there will be many people attempting to accomplish different things. I know that businesses are run using this program alone so I won't be surprised if I find that people are wanting my virtual money. It seems to me that Second life is meant to be a virtual simulation of human interaction with creative control over one's environment.

With a virtual civilization having over a million inhabitants this is an ultimate resource for information. The ultimate platform for uninhibited conversation and endless fact finding, q&a. A great place to conduct qualitative research.

Def of game

A game is an activity that facilitates entertainment; it contains a set of rules and either user definied or creater defined objectives; must utilize skill, chance or endurance.

Which are games?

It seems evident to me that all of these online applications are video games. In the broadest of terms they all provide some sort of entertainment. In all of these there is an end goal, something that the player is aiming to achieve from playing.

The one that I struggled most with was Mr. Piccasohead. At first I felt that there was no goal to the game, no motion. However as a continued to play and get sucked in by the creativity of the interface and the many creative controls I felt that this game fulfilled Caillois Paidea, having few rules and no inherent competition.

Samarost was intriguing through its puzzle like nature. A bit more competition came into play where the player pitted their wits against the computers puzzles. Moving more from Paidea toward Ludus it was always me vs. the computers "intelligence."

The Goat in the Grey Fedora operated on the same level as Samarost where you are pitted against the programming and story writing of the game designer. With the computer programmed with many many variables It is easy to run yourself in circles or stumbling upon a challenge.

Collapse is in a much more raw way a game. Relying heavily upon Ludus one is directly competing with the clock while following strict rules regulating the players actions.

Finally FunkyTruck4wd is an interesting mix between Paidea and Ludus. There is a point system in the game and you are always trying to better your score, however creative moves and physics defying game play leave a creative flow to the game that is entertaining when you don’t feel like competition.

The most important change in my judgment of games is that I now allow Mr. Picassohead to be considered a game whereas I may have set it aside from such a classification. I have come to the realization that games are for the most part tools for entertainment that can be competitive against another or oneself. The Mr. Picassohead centering around Paidea entertains without being highly competitive, it provides the framework and you challenge yourself within it's parameters.

searching

I found 115 Academic Journal Articles with Video Games as the subject matter.

-Videogames and Ideological Frames- is the article by Ian Bogost.

I found 187 academic Articles on Qualitative Research.

Reading Notes

Qualitative research is the act of finding out a person or persons' total story regarding a particular topic. Both articles made the point that qualitative research methods are used for finding motive, and reasons for an occurrence; the details. Conducting qualitative research, one can find important data that might have been labeled as transient or erroneous.

This quote from Airy Fairy seems to sum up what is unearthed by qualitative research: "Direct quotations are a basic source of raw data in qualitative evaluation. They reveal the respondent's level of emotion, their thoughts, their experiences, their basic perceptions." Qual is interesting to me because one is able to peer into another's life and find out WHY things are happening not just that they ARE happening.

Much along the lines of what the Methods workbooks says is that in life there is no control, things are always changing; "In order to find the relationship between two variables, all others must be controlled, whether by a reduction of actual variety, or by the establishment of control groups, or by statistically factoring out other variables. But how do you control the lifetime of experiences that a person brings to an experiment? What is the significance of a causal relation that does not occur independently outside the laboratory? And do results established by examining group tendencies then apply to individuals. Control is problematic in complex physical systems; imagine the problem with human beings." This seems to be extremely true.

I can understand that it is important to know how frequently things are happening but I find more substance in knowing why.