Paper 2: Thesis / Blueprint

does anyone know what command-line interfacing is?

also, I would like the Kindle on thursday

subject: virtual worlds and how they hinder and help society.

thesis to come tomorrow

Command line interface -- it's how we interacted with Deadline (the text adventure game) in class. The computer would display a prompt like c:>_ (with the underline symbol the equivalent of the vertical i-beam that marks the insertion point in Windows today), and the user would type a command like "word.exe myfile.doc" which would be the equivalent of double-clicking the "Word" icon and doing File -> Open -> "myfile.doc." Just as it was impossible to use graphics for games back in the day, it was impossible to use graphics in the operating system as well. To use a computer, you had to know what commands to type -- you couldn't just select options from a menu. So playing text-adventure games seemed a lot more natural to computer users 20 years ago, since reading a bit of text and typing a bit of text and getting the computer to give you a bit more text was the way that everyone was used to working with computers.

The command-line interface (CLI) was replaced by the graphic user interface (GUI), which is what most computer users are familiar with today.

Your topics sounds worthwhile, but remember the focus of this class is on the technology of reading and writing. There have been (and still are) virtual worlds that involve words along with images, and in-game text-based chat are important features of most virtual worlds. However, voice-based chat is another feature of some popular multiplayer combat games.

I don't plan on speaking about the voice -based game

A lot of the paper is on MUD's and the chatroom, which they evolved into....

My goal is to just get everything down on paper today. I plan on spending as much time revising as I do writing.

I don't think I should exclude the violence issue, since Dungeons and Dragons contained slaying and killing. I will just not mention the graphics

Dani, you know your own working style best, but I don't recommend that you write it all out now.

I recommend instead that you assemble quotes, and write things like [connect MUDs to violence] or other shorthands that announce what you plan to do. Then perhaps you can spend time reading more sources, instead of turning what you've got into the perfectly-crafted prose that I know you value.

Feedback from your classmates, and from me, might lead you to change your paper radically -- and that may mean overhauling or even completely cutting sections that you've carefully crafted.

The syllabus says that the first draft (which you seem to be trying to do now) is not actually due until Thursday, and that the revision of that will due the following Tuesday.

Again, only you know how your working style best fits into the schedule you're going to face over the next few weeks.

You can certainly mention graphics, and I agree that we can't ignore violence.

Dibbell's My Tiny Life (which expands on the "A Rape in Cyberspace" incident about the effect of a virtual assault in an online text-only community) is available for free on the author's site.

http://juliandibbell.com/news/2008_01_15_mtl_is_free.html

ok

and here's the tie in to literacy and reading:

"literacy is about social power" () When people who cannot find power through traditional media, such as books, they turn to the interactive computer world, which provides oppurtunities for power and important that they would not ohtwise find. However....problems with power, etc.

I think the outline is best; although I have about 23 articles sitting in front of me, there may be some more sources out there.

I figure pulling quotes into an article by article outline is best. I'll start there.

the reason is wnated to mention graphical games is because we have been talking about orality into manuscript, manuscript into print, print into digital. Video games are what the inerative text game evolded into. As we have learned, there are always issues and problems when evolving.

I think now that it was rediculous for me to try and hammer outy something in an entire day. No matter if I have time or not-my brain gets fried. I guess I don't have to use the mixture of red bull and mountain dew I made now...

an extremely rough thesis. I know ther are faults; I see them, but if anyone has any feedback, they could possibly point me into anothjer direction. Again, very rough:

“In the 1980’s, ‘interactive’ technologies began to proliferate” (Mcmillan and Morrison 73). The creation of interactive games allowed people to create a community that allowed ‘”any symbolic pleasure imaginable” (Aarseth 114). The creation of these virtual worlds was a “convergance of utopia and dystopia” (Roberts 93). Interactive media pushes people apart and brings them together; it offers an escape for “those who struggle with what reality is” (Kennedy 17). The sometimes violent content offered an outlet for frustrations. They offer a person the chance to have control over a “life”; but too much control has spawned a new genre called “cyber crime”. The creation of interactive media equally benefits and hinders society.

my philosophy paper draft is pretty much there, my paper on Christopher duragn can be written in one night, so I will focus on this for the next week.

it offers an escape for “those who struggle with what reality is” (Kennedy 17)...

I suggest that you balance this with something like "and it also turns strangers into international collaborators" or some other statement that recognizes that good things can and do happen in virtual space.

This is fine for a working thesis, but you will probably want to come up with something more definite than "equally helps and hinders" -- maybe you could say "benefits societies but threatens individuality" or something like that. Of course, what you say will depend on what you find in your readings.

Yes, put aside the Red Bull and Mountain Dew for now.

A long paper is the result of a process, and you need time to sleep on your ideas so that your subconscious mind can find interesting details in your short-term memory and weave it into your deeper brain so it can jump out at you in those "aha!" moments that are impossible to have after 12 or 18 straight hours of work.

Sleep, or do laundry, or go sit under a tree with a blank pad of paper, or do something else to let your brain rest. You have the time to do a good job on this paper, and as you know I'll be happy to offer feedback as it progresses.

that comment really caught my intereest, and I have my thesis subconsciously. It just hasn't come out in thr right words yet.

I've found that it doesn't threaten individualyity as much as people think it would. The stereotype of the nerd alone at the computer is not as big a reality anymore. it's there, I'll have it tuesday, but tursday's paper certainly won't be gold.

23 articles in 22 hours takes a lot out of you.

I'm glad to hear it, Dani.

I'm thinking about going in a completely different direction.

I'm really interested in the durability of memory. Books as memory, but manipulatible memory. Reading Down and and Out just a little while ago, I see ample oppourtunity for manipulation when people have to fill in missing gaps. Plus, we were discussing method acting in F and A and it lead to a discussion about a recent experiment about how memories can be erased and prevented.

maybe on the fallibility and importance of memory, which is what I see Doctorow is heading in the direction of.

Memories are only what you THINK really happened; there is no certainity and no way to completely back it up.

By only backing up once a week, Jules is vulnerable.

it would be sort of a sequel to my last paper

So in the shower just now (best place for thinking because you're doing such robotic actions, in my opinion) I remembered my dad was in Army intelligence during the Vietnam era in Korea-- who better to talk to for ideas on my paper concerning information technology and how it changed warfare? DUH!

Jeremy, I'll find a way to get you some info too if you'd like. I haven't actually seen my dad since Thursday and I may not before tomorrow(sad when I live with him)...but I'm thinking about tape recording what he's got to say.

No point to posting this, just more as a reminder to myself and FYI for Jeremy. =)

I am definitely interested in what he has to say, Stormy.

Any help that you guys can give as far as feedback would be great. I am a little bit lost at the moment.

http://blogs.setonhill.edu/LeslieRodriguez/025474.html