The bookbag that never dies...because I won't let it!

So today it occurred to me that my book bag (often used synonymously with backpack) is over eight years old today. I think such a thing deserves applause! *clap clap clap* It's an early 2002 Outdoor Products bag, with a black, gray, and orange theme to it with two main pockets and one front pocket, along with securing straps for the chest as well as across the book bag itself for internal support. It's officially classified as an "extreme sports" model and has the Outdoor Products "lifetime guarantee," which I mean to hold them to should the bag ever spontaneously explode. Over the years, this bag of mine has had approximately 17 rips and tears in the fabric and liner that I myself have patched with a simple needle and thread (who'd have thought those home-ec classes would come in handy?), and with each repair I've gotten closer and closer to it. This bag is mine, and has a lot of history in the fabric. But considering how many times I've had to fix it, which has in fact only increased over the years, is it time to simply let it die?

My answer to that is no. Just throwing out a perfectly good bag because it happens to have a few rips in it is ridiculous, and incredibly wasteful on every level from price to pollution. "Use it until it breaks, then get a new one" seems to be the American motto for most things, and considering that most items manufactured today are of poor quality it's not such a bad philosophy. Still, entropy's running. The energy in this universe will be completely used up someday folks. If you can take something you've owned for years, and for less than a dollar fix it yourself AND add to its sentimental value (thereby preventing the need to manufacture, sell and then have you buy a new one), it seems like a win-win situation.

I mean with the strong level of individuality in America, you'd think that being able to boast that you've had a jacket you've fixed and repaired yourself would be a very cheap way to distinguish yourself from the masses. But self-expression takes a back seat to laziness and apathy, it seems. Why spend all that work trying to fix something when you can go out and buy a new one? It's so much easier. Honestly though, personal pride in small accomplishments are terribly lacking these days (like say what you'd get from knowing you fixed something yourself). Everything about our "self" is already pre-made and waiting on a superstore shelf, and all we have left to do is just pick and choose our favorites. It may make the buying process easier, but it cripples the buyer's ability to maintain a personal image. We're stuck with brand loyalty; consumers use a particular brand rather than a particular product to express themselves. And yet companies are frustrated because consumers are fickle, and product life-cycles are continuously shortening. It's self-induced, my friends. Make the item customizable, repairable, reversible, or whatever other characteristics you can think of and make sure it has that potential when it comes out of the factory. THAT makes a self-image.

But of course, this is simply a rant. I'll go on sewing my backpack whenever a new rip shows itself, or patching a hole that I got from a bike trip along the Erie Canal while the rest of the world buys new ones. I can't change societal norms myself, but at least I can take a small but of comfort knowing that my book bag is 100% unique from virtually any other that has been made, or will be made. It's as much "me" as I am.

And it's cheaper too.

China uses Virtual Worlds to teach kids English?

With all my "wonderful" experiences in virtual worlds lately for my digital media class at RIT, you can understand why hearing news that China has begun using them to teach their children English caught my attention more than it normally would.

Apparently a "virtual school" (in every sense of the phrase) called Wiz World Online is the pioneer that's getting attention. It's run through a computer company in Massachusetts called 8D World, and is a digital haven for Chinese-speaking kids wanting to learn the English language. As typical for virtual worlds, each player in Wiz World gets an avatar to customize. But in order to get through the game and their score, players need to pronounce words properly in English by speaking them into a microphone that uses the latest in speech recognition and pronunciation assessment software. Depending on the success of this campaign in China, the company plans to create a similar school for Korean Children, and then perhaps Spanish, Portuguese, and Russian kids as well.

Honestly I'm all for them trying a similar technique for foreign languages here in the United States. Japanese has been a hard language for me to master because the nature of it is obviously not Latin-based, and many of the sounds and grammar are brand-new. Something like this, even for adults, would be an amazing interactive experience that would help increase language skills exponentially, especially in today's times that are becoming increasingly technologically interdependent.

Liminality and War

Senator Joe McCarthy once said that “a good war has clear sides,” where there is absolutely no question as to which nation or people in question is “right” and the other “wrong.” Psychologically this makes sense; it is easy to fight for a cause when a person believes he is totally justified in his actions, and thus free from any wrongdoing. But if each side has that same view, what higher power decides the true essence of justice? True Morality? Causality? Unfortunately there is no way to tell for certain; each side stands true to their “right” and “wrong,” and history decides which one prevails. This was not a new idea in American cultural history; the American frontier’s “war” had been “fought” with virtually the same ideological fuel: the savage Native American threatened “civilized” American, and had to be vanquished. Two different generations of Americans fighting two different battles, where cultural differences were not resolvable because the enemy was simply incapable of understanding. For the Americans and the Japanese, their World War II in the Pacific was not fueled by political differences or disagreements but rather by cultural nationalism. The same thing occurred shortly after September 11th; there was an outcry against any follower of Islam; anyone with black hair who happened to pray several times a day was ostracized and became the iconic image of "the enemy."

I've always found such things to be a perfect example of Liminality's truth: human beings need clear boundaries and limits to survive. It is the only way that they can create ambition or willpower to accomplish anything at all; having a defined goal also generates clearly defined endpoints and restrictions on how to reach it, which defines "self" propose. In times of chaos therefore human beings will resort to creating limits and boundaries to reestablish stability. We create a clear image of the enemy, who he is and what he represents, in order to direct our energies for war. Without that, we find ourselves in much the same situation that occurred in the Vietnam war.

Makes you think, eh?

Second Life Presentation is a hit!

Alright, so this may be a bit late but I thought it would be nice to have some more images on Second Life posted up here, especially considering that part of my grade in a class I'm taking actually is directly proportional to all of the "wonderful" posts and participation I make on our activities in class in-game. Last week my team mates and I (along with the other teams in class) put together a presentation on the current status of our virtual business plan, and here are the results.
Here is a screenshot of my entire group, sitting together and waiting for the next presentation to begin. This is the first time we met amongst our classmates and sat together as a whole group. Honestly I didn't think we'd be able to fit on the couch together, but surprisingly we did. Yay for us!

Here is a screenshot of one of the presentations inside Second Life. This group did a great job actually building a virtual conference room for which the entire class could sit down and watch the presentation. Props to them, I say!

Overall I thought that, at least in terms of presentation potential, this class actually made me rethink Second Life as a terrible game environment. Don't get me wrong, I still think its kinda bad. But the aspects involved in presenting materials are something to keep an eye on.