Jibberish

Libraries in Second Life do not serve the same purpose that libraries do in real life. Physical libraries nowadays serve little purpose except as an outlet for those looking to seek a quiet environment to either study or relax.

Penn State's Pattee and Paterno Libraries are an excellent place for students to crank out their 10-page papers or study for a killer exam. It's also like any other library, with a wide selection of resourceful books and a coffee place.

Penn State Investment in Second Life Library

Purchasing an island in Second Life is an expensive proposition. Therefore, it would be imperative that those with the capitol to purchase said islands to populate them with something useful. Many ideas spring to mind to do something useful with the virtual space of Second Life but it seems that those with resources to implement them are too busy with other noble endeavors, like populating the world with more and more complex hookers and other nefarious types of porn.
Second Life has many potential uses. Libraries are not and should not be one of them. Every library in second bears almost no resemblance to that of a real life library. Libraries in Second Life are the bastard offspring of real libraries and MySpace due to the fact that is absolutely no substance to the virtual libraries. Much like MySpace, a social networking site that offers absolutely nothing useful to society, libraries in Second Life do nothing to further the evolution of real libraries. There are not more efficient, not easier to use, and definitely do not offer the same level of selection of even the smallest county libraries. They don’t do anything at all useful. The following pages and paragraphs will go into detail about why Second Life libraries are useless.
All of the libraries that we found during our adventures in Second Life did not resemble their real life counterparts to any great extent. Libraries in Second Life contain a lot of vanity; for example, the Cleveland Public Library consisted of chessboards. Yes, chessboards are the best thing the Cleveland Public library could come up with for their virtual library.
Here is an article about Cleveland Public Library's Second Life project:
http://www.cpl.org/?q=node/2311
After reading the article it becomes apparent that calling the virtual library a library is really a misnomer. Cleveland Public Library's goal in creating their virtual presence seems to be showing off their chessboard collection. In their defense, they do have largest collection of Chess items in the world but we do not feel that they should market their library as library. There are no books to be found anywhere on their space. One would think that libraries in Second Life would work much like digital books, only instead of browsing for new books in a traditional sense a user has the opportunity to traverse a space that resembles that of the real thing and actually look at and borrow books. This would be very useful, because there might arise a situation due to weather, emergencies, etc that would prevent someone from going to an actual library.
This is not the case, however. Second Life libraries do not have books, and if they did they would likely charge linden dollars for their rental. This is turn goes against the concept of a library and defeats its purpose, which is to provide free information to students in the form of textbooks, articles and magazines.
The problem of not having books in Second Life libraries is not limited to those libraries ran by cities and private individuals, university libraries are lacking as well. After exploring Stanford’s library in Second Life we were left extremely under whelmed.

Here is some information of Stanford's Second Life Library:
http://speaking.stanford.edu/library/SULAIR_in_Second_Life.html

We felt that the best chance of finding a good use of a virtual library would be in the academic sector of Second Life, but we were proven wrong. Stanford’s library provides links to its real life library operations and other Stanford related things.
What is the point of this? Most college students, especially those enrolled at a prestigious university such as Stanford probably know where to find their library. How likely are average students to be influenced to go to the library, which they already know of, by a virtual space that they are likely to never visit throughout their entire academic career? This is the number one knock our group has with Second Life activities. A lot of them can be done much better and have been done before on a traditional two dimensional web space. Who wants to spend the hours needed to become proficient with Second Life and its terrible interface to find information that can find on their university's website? Why do something in an hour that could take 5 minutes with a simple search of the Internet via Google?
There are a couple interesting things about Stanford's place that could prove interesting and useful, however. Inside the library there are virtual study lounges. These could be useful for group projects when members of the group are out of town for various reasons. Second Life does provide a more personal interaction than that of instant messenger. We feel that this sense of realness that Second Life provides cannot be matched by traditional means of communication. Stanford's study rooms in library would be useful to have but we do not feel that would be used by most students. Technology is only useful if the users of the technology know how to use. We do not feel that a randomly assigned group at Penn State that has an Economics General Education project to do could pull off the virtual meeting. Even if the group had the technical knowhow to meet up in Second Life it is likely that Second Life would crash, slowing down any progress the group has made.
Instead of forcing users to find their answers to their questions scattered about the Internet on YouTube and Google the maker of Second Life made an island known as Information Island. The Second Life Information Island Library actually provides a useful service, and probably does the best job that a library in Second Life can possibly do. This library provides links to useful information about Second Life. We found out a lot from Information Island about how to manipulate the world of Second Life. We feel that it is much easier to learn how to accomplish various tasks in Second Life via a source of reference inside the world itself.
Information Island works by being separated into different section that deals with different aspects of Second Life. From building to movement it has it all. Most of the click able things inside of the library provide note cards that give users the information they seek about the world. If the answer needed cannot be answered by just a single note card then the user is directed to a website that goes into more detail. This concept works, in our opinion. People want this information while they are in Second Life and it is readily available to them. This is the problem with most of the other library applications in Second Life. They do not do anything better than their real life counterparts. Information Island provides more information faster than one can find it on the traditional Internet.
Second Life shows a lot of promise for the future, but in its present state it is just not useful for very much of anything besides forwarding people to a more official entity on the world wide web. This is not really the fault of the idea of Second Life but rather the current technology of today and poor design. World of Warcraft handles almost 10 million active subscribers while Second Life handles 200 thousand relatively poorly. If a company with the money, time, and technical knowhow decided to make their own version of a virtual land it could prove to be useful and become a new way of organizing information. We are looking at you Google Metaverse. There a lot of things in Second Life that are just inefficient. There is no tangible advantage to doing some things on Second Life that can’t be done in a more traditional. Is it really more of an immersing experience to have a low resolution and polygon count avatar in a meeting than it is to have a video conference? The same principle holds true with libraries. What is the point of having a library in Second Life that just points the user of it toward the real life counterpart? There isn't one. The main thing that Second Life libraries do today is point users at information on the web. This is not a good use of Penn State’s resources. The money would be much better spent getting more books for the stacks of Paterno and Patee. In the future, when the average computational power of the average person increases to an acceptable level companies may be able construct new more efficient versions of what we have. For example, a company like Amazon could have a virtual library that allows users to preview different books by clicking them in their virtual aisles. If the user is intrigued they could then check out a virtual copy of that book for free and read it at their home in Second Life or in the lounge of Amazon's library. If they like the book, they could then by a real life copy of the book through the library and have it shipped to their real life house. This sounds great in concept, but again there is a lack of interest for the tremendous investment required to make this happen be returned.
We feel that Penn State should not invest in a library in Second Life, for many of the reasons already stated above. To conclude our points, Second Life islands are disproportional in cost to the amount of use the University would get out of them. It would realistically cost thousands of dollars a year to own a library in Second Life. This does not include the time and money that would be spent on creating a quality library system in the virtual space. Throwing that much at a project that will at best direct students to an official website about the Paterno and Patee library and show a little bit of Penn State Pride seems like a bad investment at the time. This is not to say that it may not ever be a good time to invest in a virtual library, the time is just not now. There are not enough people in Second Life and there are definitely not enough students at the university that would even attempt to use a Second Life library. The final issue with investing in a library is that there is no chance of making any money back on the investment in a traditional library sense. Libraries are public services that provide free access to information. How could the university make money back on an investment for something that is inherently free and nobody wants to use?
The island of Istania already provides the same amount of use that these so called libraries in Second Life. It provides links about the University, just like Stanford's does and Cleveland's provides links to its physical location. It is the opinion of Team Skynet that Penn State should not invest in a virtual library at this time as they do not provide any tangible use that cannot be accomplished with a traditional library or with current forms of communication.

Here's the link to our Powerpoint:
Download file

I recently watched a series of classic films all of which were re-made with digital remastering. These films would be the Star Wars (Episodes IV - VI), and Jaws. Matt Maisel and I spend 2 days watching 3 Star Wars films. It was quite the marathon. Over break, I watched Jaws for the heck of it. Digital remastering really improves the experience of the classic films that have effects that just don't quite cut it. So how do they make old films into mind-blowing theatrical eye-candy? Heres how: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digitally_remastered

The wikipedia article mostly refers to audio remastering, but also references to video remastering. Basically, there is a master copy which is the recording which experts state will be definitive copy that is duplicated for before being provided to the end user usually into other formats i.e. LP records, CDs, DVDs, etc. The mastering is the the process of creating a master. This might be as simple as copying a tape for further duplication purposes, or might include the actual equalization and processing steps used to fine-tune material for release. The latter example usually requires the work of mastering engineers.

For the dance party, my roommate Garrett brought up the idea of having music and even speakers for the party. Since I am interested in music selection (which according to Garrett will be techno) and speakers, I thought of designing/building the speakers in Second Life. Discussing this idea with Garrett, I came up with the idea of the speakers vibrating to the music by analyzing sound waves. This could be difficult, but it was just a possibility. Would anyone know how to script something like that?

Here is an image of a dance party i found on Google Images. The party seems to have a glowing dance floor, but it is awkward being outdoors under daylight. This party was for the Michigan Library Consortium. The picture belongs to their blog. There are more pictures on that blog for those of you who seek ideas about the dance party.

So...I recently beat Street Fighter II Turbo for SNES. My roommate and our IST 110H classmate Garrett Miller gave me the emulator for Super Nintendo including every possible game out there. To revive my childhood experience with SNES, I've been playing a lot of Street Fighter II Turbo. It is probably the game I played the most, because the other games I had were boring once you beat them. Other games I had for SNES was Donkey Kong Country (1 and 2), Batman Returns, and of course Super Mario World. Street Fighter was more like an arcade game. It never got old. It was also playing against my sister until we had blisters on our thumbs. Playing these SNES games on my computer got me thinking how much video games have improved and how old games can be popular to relieve gaming veterans' nostalgias.

My favorite fighter was definitely Ken. So much better than Ryu.

The emulator that I have, with all the games, is less than a GB. It is only 658 MB. That is so surprising that all of the games and the system can fit in my 1GB USB drive, instead of hundreds of cartridges and a 10" x 8" x 3.5" box. If the SNES system was .1" thicker (height), you could fit 4 of Garrett's IBM Thinkpads in the volume of that SNES system. Each of those Thinkpads can process over a thousand times the speed of a SNES system, based on clock-speed. That is how much technology has improved since 8/13/1991, the release date of the SNES. Although you cannot compare gaming systems with a computer, nowadays, Xbox 360s can run as a PC very well with a triple-core processor at 3.2 Ghz.

One of my favorite movies of all time is Transformers. Action-packed and hilarious, this film is the perfect movie for the ultra nerdy IST/SRA student. I would say that it would attract more SRA students than IST students, mostly because it has a lot of hacking involved. The three cyber security analysts in the movie seemed really young and clueless. I wonder if that is what I will be like after college. I also have to take into consideration that it is, like every movie, unrealistic. Every single movie that involves hacking or code breaking looks ridiculously fake. In Transformers, decrypting process looks more unrealistic than the matrix. Also, how is it possible for a cyber security analyst to look like this?

Optimus Prime is the most technologically advanced Autobot in the movie. He took only about 10 minutes to fully transform from a Truck to a robot the very first time you see him. He also has an energy sword that pwns. He is larger than the other Autobots, and is the leader. I still can't get over the fact that he picked up Captain Witwicke's glasses with his 2 fingers without crushing them.

Tonight, I learned how to salsa dance. Me and a group of friends went over to Tony's on Pugh St. and salsa danced for 2 and a half hours. I have gone only once before, and this time I improved a lot. As I stood by the side to take a break, I noticed the intricate music equipment that the DJ was operating. It was a laptop. Isn't it amazing how we evolve from disc records to 8-tracks to cassette tapes to CDs? Now the ultimate way of storing and even playing back music is a computer.

This picture is from the movie "Along Came Polly" when Reuben (Ben Stiller) secretly takes private salsa lessons to impress the girl Polly (Jennifer Aniston).

The only other forms of technology in a salsa dance club are lights and speakers.
Below is an instructional salsa video for beginners:

Here are a few links that can help people interested in salsa to get started:
http://www.salsabootcamp.com
http://www.ballroomdancers.com/Dances/dance_overview.asp?Dance=SAL
Some good salsa songs to get you started

The Second Life Dance party tonight was a lot more fun that I expected. The lights and lasers looked really awesome, and props to you, Steve Dodge who made this event possible. The glow sticks were a cool idea, so props to u Pat Mulholland.The bar was fun to sit on, since I have always wanted to do that in real life. I liked seeing Prof. Tapia in her red gown! That was pretty cool. The only thing I was disappointed with was the outcome of number of people. I was hoping that it would be packed and a ton of people dancing on the pretty dance floor. However, the music selection, which was basically techno, was great. It was a cool place to chill and end the IST 110H semester.

My household has 3 hi-definition TV's. What is the point of them if you don't use the Hi-Def feature? For Christmas this year, I want to buy either a HD DVD player or a Blu-Ray Disc player. The question is: which one?

Blu-Ray

Sony's Blu-ray disc is probably the better choice for me. Mainly because I am tempted to buy a PS3. I know its big and bulky but the graphics are spectacular. How nice would it be to have a built-in Blu-ray DVD player also? However, this does not prove the fact that a Blu-ray DVD player is better than an HD DVD player. Supposedly, http://www.blockbuster.com/ has chosen to use Blu-ray discs instead of HD DVD in their stores. (read more here)

HD DVD

HD DVD players are cheaper (from what I know) or tend to be on sale compared to Blu-ray players. I also like the selections for HD DVDs better. The first draft for HD DVD has been cracked. This means that HD DVDs can be ripped and copied illegally. They will not be able to sell as well as Blu-ray. For the Xbox 360, there is a $180 add-on HD DVD player. Now this debate has turned into an Xbox 360 vs PS3 debate. I guess this just comes from my gaming-filled mind.

My recommendation for those of you who also can't decide is to go by the titles. But you also have to take in consideration for the long run. Eventually, one will die out. It is still vague at this point, but if it were me, I'd just try to decide between an Xbox 360 and a PS3.

for more rumors/debates between Blu-ray and HD DVD:
http://www.hddvd.org/hddvd/

I'm sure by this point, you've all heard about this. The blood rushes in my body and my heart beats faster as soon as I read the instant message from a friend saying "there was a shooting tonight, there are 10 cops outside of my dorm." The police stormed through Atherton Hall to search for a murderer on the loose. Especially after Virginia Tech, students are frantic about a shooting here at Penn State which hopefully will not happen. Click here to read the full article from the Collegian.

If there was some sort of shooting rampage on campus tonight, I would have been very, very lucky. Although I was not in Atherton Hall, I was in Simmons, which is right across the street (Shortlidge) and left right before I heard about the whole deal.

Although this blog post is very, very Penn State related, how can I relate this to technology in order to make blog post count? Well, honestly the process of tracking down criminals these days is far more advanced than it used to be, thanks to TECHNOLOGY. Communications devices, navigational devices, vehicles, weapons, and security devices can help capture criminals faster than back in the day. The actual equipment of police officers has improved over time, but really has not made that much of an impact. What equipment the police have, criminals can get hands on. One of the biggest changes in technology that has improved security are security cameras.

Interviewing people can be tedious. But recorded evidence on tape is unbreakable. More importantly, webcams have improved security greatly by providing live-feed for security officers. Although in this case, the suspect was not spotted on a webcam, he would be busted by now if he was.

I am completely dedicating this blog post to my roomie, Garrett. Just saying the name Garrett Miller makes this post technology-related.

The following outline is based on a typical M W F for Garrett's first semester.

8:30 a.m. - Both of our alarms go off. I hit the snooze button. Garrett sits in an upright position for 2 minutes, then heads to the boy's room. He comes back and turns on the PC. I'm still in bed. I awaken from the sound of the loud beep of the computer booting up. He quickly logs onto Gmail to see if he has any new e-mails, such as a class cancellation. He also preps himself for the day by looking at his calendar on Microsoft Outlook.

9:05 a.m. - Garrett's computer science class begins. I am just about to lock the door and head out to my 9:05 a.m. class. During the class, Garrett can become curious sometimes and browse the Internet. He must stay connected all the time.

10:10 a.m. - Garrett goes into English class which he hands in another paper that he spent hours on the computer typing up.

- LUNCH BREAK (occasionally Garrett brings his IBM/Lenovo Thinkpad to the Commons) -

2:30 p.m. - Garrett goes to Security and Risk Analysis class.

Today, someone just decided to spill his/her Slurpee on State College. The roads were so horrible that my 9am music prof AND my SRA prof both cancelled! w00t. It's amazing that even with the technology today, we can still not defeat mother nature's forces. We use satellites and emergency systems only to be pwned by Hurricane Katrina. The cover of a TIME magazine actually emphasized how we have not improved our natural disaster technology since then. Although there is not much to do about the forces of nature, I find it fascinating how we can build hybrid cars and super computers but still cannot find a way to counter-act nature.

It may seem impossible to completely block a storm from affecting a population, but technology these days can do so much better to clean roads and transport commuters faster. However, I am not complaining. I didn't go to a single class today!

To conclude my days of blog-posting, I will sum up my first semester at Penn State as an IST student. I have divided this post to four sections: Housing, People, Courses, and Activities.

Housing
Thompson Hall 2nd Floor. That says a lot. Being in the IST Special Living Option has so far been a great experience. Because a lot of the guys on the floor are in my classes, I sometimes seek them for help in programming assignments or SRA labs. It has become convenient to meet up in SRA groups and IST groups for meeting/planning. Also, there is a lot of gaming going on late nights. My all-time favorite, Counter-Strike, thrived at first, scheduled to be played every Thursday on the IST floor. However, that died out once Team Fortress 2 was released. Now, there isn't much gaming. Even though gaming can be done online, it is a lot of fun gaming w/ other people on the floor when u can hear other people yell curse words after being killed. Being in the IST-House has also really helped me make new friends and stick with them throughout the semester.

People
Knowing one person leads to knowing 4 others. Then it leads to 16, and so on. I have met a wide variety of friends, and some of my best friends live on my floor. They include Matt Maisel, Harry Miller, Kyle Dodson, David Recker, and of course, my roommate Garrett Miller who was featured in a previous post. I'm really glad that I've met these people, and I'm almost sure that I will stick with them for the rest of college.

Courses
Classes this semester, in my opinion, are ridiculously easy. My toughest class is economics (micro), mainly because there are about 700 students that fill up 100 Thomas. It's hard to stay focused, with my friends next to me and the freedom of doing whatever you want (or showing up whenever you want). The result of not paying attention became apparent when i got a 54 on the second exam! I still didn't pay much attention after that, but studied hard the night before the third exam and only got a 84. The IST 110H course was not cake, but it was definitely unlike any other course I've taken or expected to be. It was a lot of fun just being on the computers for the entire class, because that is basically my life. I liked how there was no textbook or tests but still a lot of work. The work done for this class was meaningful, and it gave me a kick start into Information Sciences and Technology. The SRA class was somewhat poor. The new professor was not 100% of what he was doing, and relied on Gerry Santoro to come up with class projects and assignments. Quizzes were 6 questions, and technically you only need to answer 4 to get a 100. The last question was always a Penn State question that has nothing to do w/ SRA, and a 5/6 would automatically be a 100. I don't remember learning much during class. The textbook was technical but did not really help us with what we were learning in class. We learned more about terroristic threats and emergency plans instead of encrypting and viruses and hackers. Comp Sci was a joke. My music classes were fun because I got to meet people (especially females) outside of IST.

Activities
I joined Club Tennis and Sinfonietta, which is one of Penn State's three orchestras. I am also in SRA club. Club Tennis is pretty useless; it is just a way to get court time on the varsity courts. They do not really run anything, except tell you to go out there and hit. Sinfonietta was brutal. It was an orchestra that had 100% acceptance rate and was intended for music grad students to gain experience in conducting. Also, it was aimed for those who are not music majors. Every Tuesday night for 2 hours. I have already played the pieces we played. I did not meet anyone, because there was no time to talk to anyone and I knew no one in the orchestra. I will try out for the Philharmonic Orchestra next semester, which will be much more intense. SRA club was a lot more fun that I expected. Capture the Flag was a lot of fun, and I met my roommate for next year Justin Brooks from SRA club. There were also some good speakers for the club, such as the lady from IBM and Joe Koletar, who wrote the FBI Career Guide.