Well, my opinion is that, although it is very easy to get into these virtual worlds, we are controlling something that we have created just as we direct our mouse or type on the keypad. Yes, it was a way of communicating very much like IM but it is not "us" in Secondlife. We can not accurately represent ourselves in a virtual world, not matter how close technology may take us, in my opinion.

That being said, I do remember playing Everquest II in Dr. Delwiche's Games class last semester. In that competitive setting, I have to admit that I got really attached to my character and I really hated it when she died (which was pretty often because I am not very talented in virtual fighting). I also would get really offended and take it personally when another avatar in the game would make fun of my lack of ability, or "hit on" my character (she was a very pretty elf), which is really silly to think about. Why would it offend me if it is just a game, which a little digital character that I am controlling?

It is very easy to be taken away by these games and escape this world, which is why I think this would be wonderful for children with cancer in the hospital to create avatars that can run and fly and have long hair...anything that would take them away from the boring hospital ward for a little while...

The discussion about meeting people in Secondlife is also a complicated issue. You are capable of meeting people, but it is not really you that they are meeting and it is not really that other person that you are meeting. You are meeting on some sort of middle ground that is clouded by virtual representations. Who knows! Very complicated!

In exploring Second Life, I found some very interesting places after finally navigating away from "mature content". As in real life, my favorite way to pass time in SecondLife is to shop. I found many stores for clothes, shoes, etc. I even bought new hair. A few stores even gave away certain things.

One similarity to the real world that I discovered is that you can be ripped off if you do not know what you are doing. I bought what I thought to be two pairs of jeans, and when I tried to put them on, it just attached a box to my arm. I don't know if there is a way to open the box or not, but I doubt it. I also find it very frustrating to wait for the different locations to load, although I understand how complex the world is. I am just too impatient these days.

Being an art major, I am always interested to see the different designs in SecondLife. For example, I found one island that, although it was very empty, had beautiful landscapes and buildings that were very surreal. It reminded me of the movie What Dreams May Come where Robin Williams ends up in that world made of paint. I appreciated this island because even this virtual world seems to be very commercialized, covered with ads and stores, so it was nice to see that someone stepped out of the ordinary for a while.

Although, I do love seeing all of the different stores and I find it intriguing that this world is a source of real world business. I also find it hilarious to watch people and see how they choose to present themselves in this virtual world. It would be interesting to compare real world identities with virtual ones.

Unfortunately my SecondLife froze on me this morning. I couldn't move or teleport, so I will have to add in my last two landmarks a little later. Sorry!
My favorite coordinates:
175.8.23

Channels in Photoshop:

Channels refer to the overlays of colored light in a Photoshop image.  For example, RGB Color mode consists the three following channels:  red, green and blue.  CMYK = cyan, magenta, yellow, and black channels.  This is useful when you want to manipulate one color at a time with out affecting the others. You can do this by selecting the color palette and moving the individual bars. The book says that you should use RGB for creating web images.  However, the color palette may not match your viewer's browser.  There are loadable devices that allow you to fix this issue within Photoshop, but seem to be more complicated than I care to know.

Image Modes within Photoshop and their Default channels:
Grayscale, Bitmap, Duotone, Indexed color= 1, RGB, Lab = 3, CMYK = 4.

If you would like to know more, I am happy to continue.  There is an entire chapter on color.

The Military-Industrial Complex was introduced by Dwight Eisenhower in a speech in 1961.  He uses this term to refer to the fading boundary between weaponry and military advancement as public service versus a profitable business.

The Speech

"Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals so that security and liberty may prosper together." - Eisenhower

This warning reminds me of three things.  First of all, I think it could be paralleled to the warnings of Einstein and the impending bombs.  Both men express a fear in the advancement of military power; one through weapons of mass destruction and the other by diminishing the lines between profitable business and public service.  Second, this could very easily be discussed along with the Singularity.  Within these concepts, we have a meshing of men + machine as well as business + public service.  Both of these can go hand in hand.  Finally, a perfect example came to mind of the Military-Industrial Complex.  The film Lord of War chronicles the power of an arms dealer, and his connection with countless governments.

First of all, I am very frustrated because I can't seem to get my site published because I have the worst memory ever when it comes to Dreamweaver, apparently.  I also can't put my Mindjet maps in the ftp folder for some reason so I apologize for that.  I will have it all sorted out this afternoon I hope!

Virilio Discussion:
I found this article to be very depressing to read, although he brought up some interesting concerns about the future of technology.  I have been told before that I am too much of an optimist and that I live in a fairy tale world, but I don't think that human existence will be brought to an end by the cyber bomb.  

I like to think that we will eventually be able to harness what we have devoloped.    I lean more toward Kurzweils ideas and the wide range of exciting possibilites.  Of course there will be risks and "accidents", but I do not believe that they will outweigh the positve developments of technology.  With any luck, we will be so advanced that we can curb any of those predicted accidents with further technology. 

I had originally planned to research something involving the sport (or game) of golf, but I do not know enough about golf to be very specific. Therefore, I returned to my own sport, tennis. For 10 years, I have been hitting and teaching with a closed - stance forehand which basically means that you step with your opposite foot and turn your shoulders as you hit the ball. Recently, there has been a shift in the popularity from the closed-stance to the more powerful open-stance forehand, in which (being left-handed) I would step with my left foot instead of my right foot. I have been discussing this with some friends from the John Newcombe Tennis Ranch where I work, but decided to do further Internet research.

I turn to Google for all of my problems. I love it, and I don't think that it ever fails me. I particularly love that you can customize your Google page now. My customized Google page includes: San Antonio movie times, weather for three cities, daily quotes, links to People.com, etc.
It is wonderful!

In searching for my new tennis swing, I simply typed in "open stance forehand" and plenty of information came up. The first site I went to was: Hofer Tennis: Tip of the Week, which defines the open stance forehand as keeping your feet parallel with the baseline. I learned from this site that the power in this swing comes from flexing the body and loading the muscles, producing the rubber band effect, as opposed to a weight shift from the back to front legs in the closed-stance position. Benefits include greater power and quicker recovery.

My second helpful site was TeachingTennis.com,  which used Andy Roddick's forehand as proof of the power of the open-stance forehand. This site discusses the possible racquet grips and more benefits to this particular forehand as well! Now I just have to find time to practice!!!!

My final web design project will be a continuation of last semester's research paper from Dr. Delwiche's Games for the Web class. My project researched the use of make believe and fantasy to improve the quality of life among pediatric oncology patients. I argued that virtual worlds would be a perfect way for children to take part in make believe, particularly young patients who are immobilized due to treatment or effects of the cancer. The virtual worlds would provide the much needed interaction that is not always available to them.

With the help of Dr. Delwiche, I will try to start a non-profit organization and gain funding for lap-tops and testing, etc. This website will be the official face for the organization. In developing it, I will look at how non-profits are initiated and how to go about funding such things. I will also incorporate my previous research and determine what I need to do next throughout the remainder of the semester.

Although I have not yet developed specific design ideas, this project is devoted to children, although the site should appeal to business professionals as well. I definitely want the viewer to understand that the emphasis is children. Therefore, I was thinking that I could possibly (if I find that I am capable of learning Flash in a few months)incorporate an animated figure that I will develop for my animation class as the "virtual face" of the organization. This could also go towards my digital art independent study, which would be great.

Friedman's "Flat" article definitely made sense to me, with the idea that the world is becoming flat technologically. For the most part, I see this as a positive and natural occurrence that cannot be avoided with oncoming technology. With the rise of mega-corporations, outsourcing makes perfect sense to me. I may be naive to the evils of such corporations (because I hope to work at a law firm or ad agency), but I think that outsourcing certain aspects of business is a positive way to allow the leaders to focus on greater projects, and to allocate more employees on these projects.

For example, if an advertising agency outsources maybe the accounting and possibly the creative, they will most likely have a stronger media planning system. The agency I worked at this summer only did media buying and planning. The creatives came from outside. The accounting, however, was in the office. I would have been perfectly happy not having to verify invoices for a few hours every morning, although I learned a lot.

I suppose a few downfalls of this outsourcing would include a decreased necessity of knowledge among employees and my greatest fear; a lack of personal communication. Combining the ideas of the Singularity and the Flat World, I do not want to live in a world where robots and computers handle all daily transactions. I like telling the bank teller to have a good day. I enjoy my conversations with the cashier at Central Market, and I would greatly miss the funny baristas at Starbucks. I would not want to see more people without jobs.

Finally, this article fixed my misconception of these Indian call centers. I was amazed to hear that they give out English names. I have never even thought of that before. I have to admit, I hat those calls as much as anyone and I usually don't listen. I always think that this would be the worst job in the world, though, because everyone seems to be so rude to these people. I feel even worse, now, because I did not previously understand that these were outsourced outside of the corporations. I always wonder about how much profit these calls produce. Everyone I know hates them and never actually listen to the calls but I guess they are effective or I don't think that companies would continue to do this.

I guess I am on both sides of the fence on this issue. I suppose I am support this outsourcing as long as we are not taking advantage of less fortunate people or countries and as long as we don't lose all personal communication.

Ladies Journal

In the year 1900, women were being fed some futurist predictions from their magazines. Although this comes from a childrens website, I thought these ideas were very interesting. My favorite one is the mail being delivered by tubes. This is the only one that is completely random to me. It is amazing to sit and think about how far we have come, as well as how spoiled we have become.

I sit and yell at my computer if it takes more than 5 seconds to connect to any website from anywhere in the world. These women were concerned with affordable automobiles and keeping their food fresh. I think it is important that when we become consumed with being "wired", we should be both grateful and amazed at how far our technology has become, particularly concerning the medical field.

This 1900 magazine predicted that a doctor would be able to see a beating heart. Look at what we can do now, with open heart surgery and angiograms, etc. These advances have recently saved my grandad's life! With the rate of advancement, I am confident that there will someday be a cure for cancer and other diseases that haunt us. I can't imagine living through the twentieth century, from beginning to end, being witness to the amazing technological advances that we have seen.

I have always supported technology and the idea that it will benefit us all to become as 'wired' as possible. I love computers and I believe that they benefit us in a million ways. However, after our recent discussions and readings these wild ideas about the future of technology scare me a little bit. How much things have changed! I am reading a book for another class called "I, Rigoberta Menchu", which is memoir of a Guatemalan peasant woman. She was told that they should not drink Coca-Cola because it was made from machines.

I have never before considered the extent of the "Singularity" as defined by Kurzweil. I find the ideas of nanotechnology and nanomedicine absolutely amazing. To be able to "extend biology and correct its obvious flaws (such as our vulnerability to disease)" seems very exciting. However, my only issue concerns ethics and religion. If we were able to prolong life through technology, there seems that there would be many laws, as with artificial respiration. There would need to be legal documents to determine whether or not people want the assistance of robots in their recovery. Also, does God want us to meddle with such things? At what point does it stop being medicine and we are living off of machines? Even with these issues, for certain cases (cancer especially), if nanotechnology could wipe out horrible disease and viruses that are plaguing society, I would support them 100% and be okay with taking a few risks.

Bill Joy's article is a little darker, suggesting that we will almost become cyborgs. This, I find disturbing. In my opinion, we should be wary of the consequences of this ever becomes a reality. Human beings possess compassion and other innate qualities that I can't imagine a machine ever having (all though I loved the little robots in Bi-Centennial Man and I-Robot). If such important qualities were to go away, then this would be a terrible world. The Albert Einstein articles are a great comparison because these predictions are just as frightening. Scientists would be taking on huge risk if they were capable of developing such sophisticated robots. This would affect the way of the world, just as the atomic bomb did. I hope that the ideas to the extent of Joy's article are bound within science fiction movies for a long while, if not forever.

In ten years, (this is more of a wish than a prediction), I would like to see a cure for cancer and other diseases, thanks to technological advances. Also, I would love to see advances for disabled children and adults, in which they can feel as much a part of society as anyone else in their physical capabilities. I am afraid that technology will affect warfare in a negative way (if that is possible), although I wish scientists would just step away from that aspect of life. Beyond disease control, I do not imagine flying cars or house robots or anything like that, although those would be interesting. Maybe, however, there will be some amazing new sports cars. I love cars.

My name is Megan Loving and I am from New Mexico. Here is a brief summary of me: I am a communications+art major with a minor in new media. I have recently decided that I have to go to law school and I take my LSAT on September 30. I am interested in copyright/intellectual property law. My first choice of schools would be USC where I can receive my JD and a masters of communication management, both in three years. I absolutely love all forms of art, particularly photography, painting and sculpture. I played soccer for about 15 years of my life, and tennis for about 10. My new thing is running and I am working toward a half-marathon at the moment. I love finding fabulous new Mexican restaurants, shopping, and being around kids. Working with kids is the most rewarding experience in the world and I terribly miss working playing with them in the hospital and coaching my ten-year-old soccer team. I love people who make me laugh. I absolutely love my friends and I will always back them up. I go crazy if I don't have a million projects going on at once. I think that I will end up in Austin, TX, Atlanta, or Charleston, SC. My dream is to start a non-profit organization and have a family.