Home and Work

If the line between work and play has become blurred, so has the line between work and home. Although Dibbell states that the downfall of his marriage was not due to his work with Play Money, he mentions how some especially hardcore players have ruined their relationships by exerting so much effort into their games. One would imagine that many of these players are using computers in their homes. The wife (speaking generally -- I'm sure there are exceptions) can physically see her husband. She can glance over his shoulder and look at what he's doing. But this "home within a home" for a husband is a world that she cannot enter. It's easy to imagine her frustrations. Her husband is tangible, yet gone into a virtual realm that she cannot access.

Traditionally, workers can "leave business at the office" and return to home as a place of refuge and relaxation. Now the computer screen glows as a constant reminder that "there is always more to be done." For those who work at home, the only time they close business is when they turn off the computer and walk away from the desk. Yet instead of a commute, their office is a button and a few keystrokes away.

Dibbell enjoys working out of various Flying J rest stops, taking the time to pause and look around him in his quest to meet his April goal. And indeed, computer-based work does allow for mobility. Yet one can easily imagine family vacations interrupted by clacking on the keyboard, "just to read this one e-mail really quickly." I took an online class over the summer and brought my laptop with me on a family vacation to Colorado. While I wouldn't say that having the computer with me detracted from the "vacation" experience, I felt obligated to do work and communicate with friends from home (not that I DIDN'T want to communicate with them, mind you) just because I had access to do so.

My future career will involve writing in some (hopefully great) capacity. But if the majority of my work took place at home, I wonder if I'd begin to resent people who traveled to and from their jobs. I'd want the change in scenery. The people surrounding me. The ability to say, "I am DONE for the day!" and go...home.

Question for Dr. Reid!!!

If you can help me with this burning question, that would be glorious. It relates to another class -- Evolution of Writing -- but it's still "writing in cyberspace," no? :-)

I am currently making a webpage on Dreamweaver, and I want to insert a movie clip from YouTube and have it play right there on the page. I have seen you do this on several occasions. I embedded the link that YouTube gave, and a box shows up, but the box turns white when I press Play. I think I'm supposed to upload some applications and the like, but my experimenting has so far proved fruitless. So therefore...what do I do?

THANK YOU!

As the semester winds down,

I realize that one of the positive aspects of this class is that our accomplishments are posted on the Internet, easily accessible and difficult to lose. We can see who has been posting and who hasn't, listen to the podcasts, watch the movies, and perhaps read the articles if more get published on NeoVox. As someone who is very intent on getting all assignments finished at the proper time, I like being able to keep track of what I've done. (Besides, of course, in the cases where I couldn't find my Wiki entries, but I'm trying to be strong.)

Online education encourages self-discipline. The student has to remember to check the particular pages and complete the necessary tasks without verbal reminders in class. This class has also created a sort of bond for those of us who have found each other in person and asked, "You're in Cyberspace, right?" Heck, I've talked to some of these people more than I've communicated with classmates in face-to-face classes, like History 101.

On that note of self-discipline, the amount of fresh topics on the course blog has dwindled. I'm wondering if it's from a lack of posting, or perhaps a lack of new things to share. Although it's not my group's week to post, I followed Philip's lead and posted anyway. I was really intrigued by Play Money and may write my NeoVox article based on the conundrum of work and play.

Let's keep truckin'!

Scholars' Day

To everyone who came to the "Page to Stage" reading -- thank you!!!

I saw GarageBand hard at work at several sessions. I'm curious to know about the quality of the recordings. What will they be used for? Will they be put onto iTunesU? Any editing first? It's a unique way of preserving the day's events besides videotaping, especially since all of the events I attended relied almost solely on words rather than images.

Deeper into the virtual economy

Play Money has an addictive quality. I found myself at page 200 yesterday rather unexpectedly, curious to see what would happen next. I particularly like the "evidence" that Dibbell employs, such as the online conversations, blog entries, and letters. It's become an adventure story.

"For every new digital application we adopt, the same decision must be made, consciously or not: to affirm that some make-believe replica or another is, for all pragmatic intents, as good as real" (109).

This quote is the most succinct argument I've heard for, "Everyone needs to chill out about technology if we're going to use it." In a sense it's that willing suspense of disbelief required for reading fiction. If a new piece of technology seems useful -- such as the computer, as Dibbell points to -- then we don't need to hem and haw about the loss of paper. The computer will do the same job in a more efficient manner.

And so the same point goes for virtual economies. "It's ridiculous! It's pointless!" Etc. Dibbell doesn't deny that his quests is somewhat absurd. But at the same time, it's undeniable that these games are taken seriously by a good number of people who, within the context of the game, hone their craft and have a great deal of success. Who's to say it's not more ludicrous to devote one's life to the collection and spending of paper dollars? To have a job in creating webpages which, technically, are intangible? To work entirely online, for that matter? We're all heavily invested, to some degree, in cyberspace: an entity that is not really there.

But here we are anyway, and here are these words.

And at least gold coins are a lot cooler-looking than American coins.

Wednesday

I'm a pretty big stalker and noticed that Liz had this on her blog. Come to "Page to Stage" on Scholars' Day!!! :-)

Dear Wiki,

Thank you for consistently refusing to load the page and losing my changes.

Blacksnow had particular success with items from the Dark Age of Camelot, a game produced by Mythic Entertainment, Inc. Blacksnow ignored the end-user license agreement, which explicitly stated that "playing the Game for commercial, business, or income-seeking purposes is strictly prohibited" (15). When Mythic received wind of Blacksnow's business, it contacted eBay and had the auctions shut down in the name of violating intellectual property rights. Blacksnow in turn filed a lawsuit against Mythic, citing "unfair business practices" and "interference with prospective economic advantage" (16). -- To store here and re-paste when the page is functioning again.

Must be all that snow.

Video Project

Before the snow arrived, Liz, Philip, Rachel, and I met at the library to begin (and end, as it turned out) our video project. We received a key to a small room where we would not be disturbing other patrons. Initially, Liz and Philip did research on two dating websites, creating profiles on eharmony.com and match.com. Rachel and I filmed and asked questions about their thoughts on the process, and how online matches compared to meeting someone in person. The latter hearkens back to Rheingold's thoughts that youths are especially inclined to meet/communicate online.

I was impressed with the video and sound quality that the digital cameras produced. While they could not support a lengthy recording, they worked well for our short project. We uploaded clips as we went along in order to open up more free space. I have experience from editing movies in high school, and I must say that iMovie was much smoother and faster than the program we'd had, which often croaked and crashed. We had about eight minutes of footage. Some carefully cutting and rearranging put us at five minutes exactly. The entire process of research, filming, and editing took nearly three hours. However, it was a relief to know that the project was finished and safely uploaded onto iTunes.

Although the project was a positive experience, I'm not really sure how it was necessary to our Cyberspace experience other than as another way to use iTunes. I'm also not sure of how in-depth of a movie can be made within three to five minutes. After our first interview with Liz, we had about one minute of uncut footage already.

Then again, perhaps we're learning to write, talk, and now physically present ourselves online.

Play Money begins

As soon as Chapter One unfolded, I was psyched about the book. "Yes! I KNOW this!" I cheered inside as Dibbell chased lizard men, fully aware that his cause was slightly ridiculous yet completely addictive.

I am in no way a video game connoisseur, though I did dabble in World of Warcraft for a time. However, I can draw upon the experiences of my boyfriend and his brother, who have played World of Warcraft, Final Fantasy, Gears of War, and plenty of non-Internet-related games.

"How was your birthday?" I asked my boyfriend, Brian.

"Oh, it was good. Matt and I drank beer and played WoW until 5 in the morning."

"I had the best Sunday ever," Matt randomly said one day.

"Oh, yeah?" I asked, thinking that it had something to do with his girlfriend.

"I got up at 12, played World of Warcraft until 8, and went to bed. Amazing."

But as Dibbell points out, the joy is not perpetual:

"And everyone, of course, must make a separate peace with the profound ambivalence of the 'grind': the tantalizing, enervating treadmill of monster bashing, which promises a never-ending daily burst of experience points, gold, loot, and other tokens of self improvement but all too often leaves you feeling sick, unhinged, and inexplicably compelled, at the end of a long, late night, to try for just one more mongbat or ogre lord or lizardman when every rational fiber in your body is cringing at the sound of dawn's first songbirds tweeting outside the window" (39).

In an infamous turn of events, Brian quit WoW after his "guild" dumped him because he had not yet hit Level 70. Brian had recognized that he needed to go to class and do homework, which lessened the time he had to "raid" with the gang and gain experience points. There was, of course, one night over the summer when he was unsure if he'd be able to hang out with me because of a very crucial raid. I smiled and kept my mouth shut. He realized on his own that there was something to be said for the tangible, rather than struggling for fantastic manna.

Video Project

Rachel, Liz, Philip, and I managed to find a common time to meet. We perched on the couches outside of the Caleion Room and brainstormed. The objective: Create a mutually agreeable video proposal that would also be entertaining.

After tossing about some ideas, we decided to explore online dating. Philip and I will research and create profiles at a dating site. Testimonials will be featured from individuals such as Liz's sister, who met her husband on eHarmony.com. We'll track the sort of responses we receive and compare our experiences to going out and randomly meeting someone in person (i.e. at a party), from the male and female perspectives. We'll also explore the rhetoric of presenting one's self to an Internet audience that may be filled with predators or the just plain desperate. There may be a bit of a creative nonfiction twist at the end -- we shall see. :-)

Should we be approved, we shall begin shooting on Sunday night. Yay!

For all the wonders

of "Spell Check" and Microsoft Word underlining (some) of your errors, we can't ignore the need to learn grammar.

A small part of me dies each time I see "in it's home," "your pretty," "over they're," excessive comma splices, and semi-colons strew at random to create an "intellectual" effect. (Affect?) I'll have to jump on the bandwagon here and say that AIM certainly does not improve these errors. However, instant messenging gets people to read, write, and interact. For these reasons, I will not point to AIM as the downfall of grammar. The medium simply allows any sort of writing to pass through. Frankly, students should know, somewhere deep inside, that writing "lol" or "btw" in an academic paper is not acceptable.

I become especially concerned when people who wish to be English teachers or editors consistently make errors in their online postings. Do they proofread? Do they just...not know? Just before, I skimmed through NeoVox and noticed numerous grammatical errors. I can't bring myself to read The Dragon Chronicle.

I apologize for any errors which may appear in this post. I am not the Know-All of Grammar. But poor grammar distracts from clarity, regardless if the writing piece is printed on paper or published online. Writing can be bolstered by computers. But it begins in the mind.

A Whole New Mind, in review

As Philip and Lizzi mentioned on the course blog, Pink's book gives the reader a sense of empowerment. He's not knocking the "traditional" left-minded occupations, but he shows that everyone can afford to tap into his inner capacity for storytelling or empathy. We often look to office work as "dehumanizing," and the idea of sitting in a cubicle makes me cringe. Yet Pink describes a shift in the business world -- one towards aesthetic and emotional appeal rather than just numbers and dollars (although those will never cease to be motivating).

Although they weren't "mandatory," in a sense, I enjoyed reading the Portfolios between each section. Through these areas of additional information, Pink shows that the qualities he endorses are indeed attainable. The section on detecting a fake smile was especially revealing. I looked through the pictures on my computer and wondered how many of my friends' smiles had been fake for the moment of the picture (probably many, including mine). In regards to "Meaning," I actually walked in a labyrinth in New Mexico. While I wouldn't say that I had a transcendental experience, it forced a girl like me to slow down the pace and follow the lines that had been dictated for me. Granted, at any moment, I could have broken from the path and walked directly to the center. But that's not the point.

Why, Wiki?

I signed in, wrote a Wiki entry, and saved the page.

Why is there no proof of this effort under the "history?"

Wikipedia and I are about to fight.

Podcast and Pink

Being the overachievers that we are (or as Rachel phrased it, "We're just too lazy to do it later in the week"), Rachel and I performed Podcast #3 today in good ole G-17. The process moved quite seamlessly; the sound levels cooperated, we had plenty to discuss, and the file saved and uploaded easily. Our first podcast was such a planned production. This one took about an hour at most, with uploading the file.

Rachel and I discussed how we find A Whole New Mind to be encouraging to people like "us," the Professional Writing/English majors of the world. I was especially interested in his sections on metaphor and story -- two things that writers clearly focus on, and two things that the world needs. "...Only the human mind can think metaphorically and see relationships that computers could never detect," Pink points out (139). In an increasingly technological world, we still struggle with the ageless quest of finding and making mean from our lives. The metaphor makers find connections. They draw together everything that appears random and distant. They make sense out of what would otherwise be a cold world.

Stories are indeed more memorable than a string of numbers. I think that the number of moles in a molecule is 6.02 x 10 to the -23 power. I can't remember what's after Pi beyond 3.14. But I can certainly recall the crazy Spanish story, "El ramo azul," in which a stranger tries to get the protagonist's eyes because his girlfriend wants a bouquet of blue eyes...

I especially like the idea of narrative medicine. To be sure, plenty of hypochondriacs will be spilling their life stories. But if you're alone and frightened in the hospital, you need empathy and compassion. "Story," says Pink, "represents a pathway to understanding that doesn't run through the left side of the brain" (115). We all have stories. It's not longer just about the numbers.

..

Apparently it's just to the 23rd power, no negative sign. And the next number in pi is 1, according to Wikipedia.

..

As a response to Dr. Reid, I did indeed log in before I made the changes on the course Wiki.

Wiki concerns

I've done at least six Wiki posts and created the topics on behalf of Group Three for Snow Crash. Why are only four changes present in the "History?"