My favorite assignment was the video project. I loved going into the sound studio and recording my voice. The group work was a little frustrating but I managed to get through it. Next semester I am taking CAS 100B (Working in small groups) Hopefully, that class will give me better tips on how to be an effective leader. I just hate it when I let where I come from get in the way of my productiveness.

This class really makes me want to participate in more honors classes and I hope they will be a great as this one.

In the beginning, I really hated living in Pennypacker Hall. However, I found out that living in the honors dorms is so BORING. The quiet hours begin at 6 and no one goes out during the weekend so you have to always be on the hush. I could never do that. Throughout the entire semester, I have been to a party or two or three every weekend. I have even partied on some Thursdays. The semester has been like nothing I expected and I have adapted to college life wonderfully.

Classes have been a breeze and I hope that it just isn’t Freshman luck and that I really am smart. I have joined so many organizations. To compliment my major I joined the SRA Club and to compliment my ethnic background I joined S.M.A.R.T. (Student Minority Advising and Recruitment Team), the Black Caucus, S-Plan, and FastStart. I have been very involved in most of them and I plan to run for the exec board for SMART next semester.

This semester has been a blast. I have met many new people and I have made everlasting friends. I hope next semester is just like Fall 2007.

“Oh my gosh guys, my friend just told me that there is a gunman loose on campus. He shot someone on North Atherton and in the HUB. I’m really scared and you need to stay inside.”

After that, I wasted no time while I texted all of my friends on campus about the event. My text read,

“This is not a joke. There is a gunman loose on campus. 2 people where shot in the HUB and on Atherton Street. Please stay indoors and send this to anyone you know on PSU campus. This is not a joke or a chain letter.”

By the10:15PM, my boyfriend heard about it on the West Side of campus and it had turned into a completely different story. Now, there were two gunmen and they had shot 3 people on Atherton Street, 2 students in the Honors college and 3 people in the HUB. I was shocked but I was too scared to not believe him. Anything could have happened. I called my mother for mental support and she must have called all of the family. And by the time my grandmother called me, terrorist were bombing the BJC. This just shows how stories are twisted and how Penn State needs to work on their communication skills. Around 10:41PM, I received a webmail message from Jason Hunt stating:

“Hi everyone, hopefully you have heard this information from your resident assistant. First and foremost, Atherton hall is completely secure and safe and there is no reason to be alarmed. If you have any comments, questions or concerns, please contact your resident assistant or myself directly.

Apparently, there was a murder in CambriaCounty and the suspects are supposedly in the State College area. State College Borough sent out a code red to all State College residents asking them to remain in their homes and to keep their doors and windows locked. Supposedly, the suspects were spotted on or near the vicinity of Atherton Street. An on campus resident found out and assumed it was Atherton hall which prompted an immediate response by university police. University police did a thorough search of Atherton hall as well as the surrounding exterior areas and EVERYTHING IS SECURE, THERE IS NOTHING TO BE ALARMED ABOUT! If you have not heard an update from your resident assistant, you will soon. I realize that those of you who were around while the police were canvassing may have been taken aback by their presence and response but please understand their diligence was for your safety. Thank you to all of you who immediately complied that made their job a lot easier.

In sum, there is no threat to our building the campus (or any buildings for that matter) is NOT on lock down. As a reminder, if there is an emergency or something looks suspicious, please make sure you dial 911 or contact university police at 863-1111. Safety in Atherton hall is everyone’s responsibility which is why we need to make sure that people ARE NOT piggy backing into our building that do not live here. Please make sure you are doing your part to assist myself, the RAs and the housing staff in keeping our building safe and secure!

Best,
Jason Wade Hunt

Penn StateUniversity, 01'
M.Ed. Candidate, College Student Affairs, 08'
Secretary, PennState Figure Skating Club

Senior Coordinator
Office of Residence Life
The PennsylvaniaStateUniversity
119 Atherton Hall
University Park, Pennsylvania16802”

I was so relieved that everything was okay. This morning in the Collegian, the real story was final told. Click here to read the article.
I hope nothing like this ever happens again.

I am so glad that our class pulled this off. I just wish that I could have been there earlier. The costume contest was amazing. I thought that here would be more than 5 entries but those people won some major Linden Dollars. The wolf face Gerry Santoro won first place for Original Design and that Blue Blob thingy won second place. I thought that it was an amazing creation and I loved the way it danced.

My costume was a glow in the dark stringy thing. It moved great with my dance moves.

Andrea looked great with her red dress. It looked like something I would totally wear to the prom (It was actually kind of similar).

I had a lot of fun being a judge and I am glad that I got to be a part of this historical step in PSU’s dabble with technology.

I want everyone to visit the offical web site for our IST110H Dance Party @ http://istdanceparty.weebly.com/

1. Top-25.com

Top 25.com is the only place to find the best information and entertainment sites. From the menu on the left, you can choose which topsite to view. We are constantly adding new lists and features to Top-25.com, so if you have any suggestions, please feel free to contact us using our contact forms. If you are a webmaster, then you have found one of the best resources for traffic around. This is one of the best places for website promotion. If you are interested in joining one of our topsites, you can do so from the menu on the right.

2. Top 25 Highest Paying Jobs

Saving my readers from the pagination hell of Forbes’s website, here’s the list in friendly form. Forbes has one of the worst websites out there: cluttered, crammed with tiny-print links and ad-packed, it’s just plain awful.

3. Top 25 Songs
The Billboard Top 25 songs of 2006. This is where you can go to view the most popular songs from 2006.

4. Top 25 NFL players
Okay so we all love football and I know that you want to know who the best of the best was.

5. Top 25 Movie Stars

These STARmeter™ rankings were not based upon critical assessments or box-office performance, but the actual search behavior of over 42 million users of IMDb.com. These results are an aggregate of weekly STARmeter rankings from IMDbPro.com, IMDb.com's professional subscription service designed specifically for people in the entertainment industry.

6. Top 25 Most Emailed Articles

Most popular articles sent by NYTimes.com readers in the last 24 hours.

7. Top 25 Innovations

So it should come as little surprise that the Internet (as we know it) headlined the top 25 innovations of the past quarter century, according to a panel of technology leaders assembled by the Lemelson-MIT Program, which promotes inventiveness in teens.
In creating the list, the group hoped to single out "25 non-medically related technological innovations that have become widely used since 1980, are readily recognizable by most Americans, have had a direct and perceptible impact on our everyday lives, and/or could dramatically affect our lives in the future."

8. Top 25 Fastest Growning Tech Business

Our annual rankings show another banner year for the businesses leading the tech revival.

9. Top 25 Urban Legends
Sometimes people believe things that are just not true. On about.com, there is a top-25 list for the top urban legends.

10. Top 25 SEO Blogs

Once again the list should be useful because it is based on objective factors. There are many “Top SEO Blogs” lists around the web, but most of
them are based on the preferences of the author.

11. Top 25 Blogs About Blogging

The “Top 25 Blogs About Blogging” list ranks blogs according to their Google Pagerank, Alexa rank, number of Bloglines subscribers and Technorati authority.

12. Top 25 People Searched on the Internet
This shows the name of ther person, the number of searchers the have, weather they had web, images, news, or videos.

13. Top 25 Movie Directors of All Time

In art, politics and history, each generation finds its own heroes. In the motion picture industry, is that really the case? The innovators who shaped the art form are the ones still asserting the most influence on moviemakers today. That is according to a poll of directors, writers, actors, critics and others who were asked : Who are the 25 most influential directors of all time?
Influence is defined as that intangible power which can affect a person, thing or course of events. Many believe that motion pictures, more than any other art form in the past century, have had a profound influence on modern life. I would say it was hard to argue against that. If one also accepts the generally held premise that directors, more than any other creative force in the film industry, are responsible for steering and shaping motion pictures, then perhaps film directors as a group have had a vastly underestimated effect on the way society thinks and behaves.
But who has had the most influence on other directors, as well as the public? In the past 100 years, which directors have made an indelible impact on our lives, and on the face of the movie industry? In what ways have these directors helped to define cinema as we know and see it today? With the help of some of our most celebrated moviemakers and industry professionals, we have counted down the directors who made the most difference—and continue to do so today.

14.Top 25 Most Influential Executives

What, exactly, is influence? This year, CRN editors took a slighly different tack with the long-running Top 25 Most Influential Executives report, building a list of the executives and technologists that got people talking in 2006. What more telling sign of influence than the ability to inspire a debate or conversation?

15. Top 25 Horror Movies
You can not say you love horror movies until you have seen these 25. They are the scariest horror movies of all time.

There are over 60 libraries already established in Second Life. Many are private and you have to be members of a particular group or area in order to visit the library. However, plenty of them are available for you to teleport to and explore. Second Life also has a place called Info Island. On Info Island, you can learn all kinds of things about the island and the game in general. It gives you tips on getting around, teleporting and anything else you could want to know about Second Life. (It’s also decorated for Christmas right now – it’s so pretty!) Info Island has its own library. They have many different things in the library. There are codes for objects you can create or own, and there are links to actual websites on the Internet (one of them is even Facebook!).

There are bookstands so you can preview pages of books. You can get ideas for classes, view picture or message boards, or go through filing cabinets to find information. There are note cards, areas to teleport to other parts of Second Life, and pictures or advertisements for teachers and other people heavily involved in Second Life. There is even a feedback desk, so that you can tell the creators what you like and do not like about the library, so they can adjust it according to what users would like.

Talis Cybrary City has a public library. You can read books, hold a conference, or visit the science library. The Kuhrang Public Library has free books, as well as freebies for other things, like radio stations or moves to help you relax. They have big comfortable chairs for you to sit in. There are several other libraries with services similar to these. Some are basic, and others are more ornately done, like the Cleveland Public Library. There are also a few libraries based on schools and colleges. There is a library for the McMaster University (in Ontario, Canada) and for Tufts University (in Massachusetts). These libraries serve as places for students to meet up with and get information from other students and their professors.
During research, I came across a website called “Second Life and Libraries: What’s the Point?” (http://infoblog.infopeople.org/2007/02/second_life_and_libraries_what.php) It is a blog post written by a woman who volunteers her time as a librarian in one of the libraries within Second Life She explains that what she does in the Second Life library, which is much of what a librarian in a real-world library would do. She helps people to find books and information. She goes on to say that in today’s day and age, more people use Google or MSN or other internet searches to find out what they’re looking for. It has been several years since people have headed to an actual library to do some research. If you can find that information by searching the internet or teleporting to another library, what is the point of going through all the work of building and setting up another library?

Penn State would have many options on purchasing land in Second Life. If they wanted to purchase a total new island for the library, they would have to follow several steps. First, they would have to purchase a Premium Second Life account, which includes the signing bonus of 1,000 Linden Dollars (L$) and the weekly allowance of L$300 (for upkeep costs). This option minimally cost $9.95 per month. However, if they wanted to spread out the payments they could pay either $22.50 each quarter or $72.00 each year. Those options, eventually, would save the school money. The Quarterly plan breaks down to cost $7.50 per month and the Annual plan breaks down to $6.00 per month. With the Monthly plan, the school would end up paying $119.40 per year. With the Quarterly plan, they would pay $90.00 per year. And, with the Annual they would pay $72.00. The savings between the Monthly and Annual are $47.40. After 10 years with the Annual plan, Penn State would save $474.00. That can be used for the upkeep of the library if turned into Linden Dollars, which would be L$12,324 ($1 = L$26).
Also, remember that every week the “Library Island” would receive L$300 every week for an allowance. After 10 years, if saved, that would equal L$156,000 or $6,000. After subtracting the Annual bill of $72.00, the school could actually make $5,280. If Penn State could build and upkeep the library with L$12,324 for 10 years, they would end up making money. That could be used to pay the students helping with the project (which I am sure there will be) or even help pay for upgrades in the library.

Those possible savings may have to be used for buying the actual island. After doing further research, I found that an island is not included in the Annual membership price. Islands cost $1,675.00 each and $295.00 per month for land fees and maintenance. However, there is a sunny side to all of these dollar signs. Second Life offers “a 50% discount to verified real world educators and academic institutions…that will be using the regions to support their organization's official work” (http://secondlife.com/community/land-islands.php#edu_fineprint). That would allow PSU to pay $837.50 for the island.

Over a 10-year span, the Penn State Second Life Library would cost over $36,957.00. That is a very large amount of money in my opinion. However, keep in mind that PSU has enough money to pay Joe Paterno $512,664.00 each year, so I think they can manage to afford a Second Life library. It would be very helpful to PSU students for a Second Life library, especially in the winter (as long as the book were available on line). They could check out the books with their ID # and download it in a .pdf file. This could be a huge success but, as always, there will be complaints.
Second Life is pretty cool—or it is in theory anyway. Who wouldn’t want to be able to run around in a virtual world doing the things you want to be able to do in real life without any of the consequences? It is an excellent tool for simulations, social networking, and creative expression. At least it would be with some major improvements. The fact of the matter is that although Second Life has the potential to be an amazing tool, it isn’t there yet, and the Penn State Library has better things to do with its time and money than invest in an unstable, unpopular online presence.
Many see Second Life as the wave of the future; however, it is a wave that not enough people are choosing to ride. After a high point in October 2006, growth in Second Life membership has been underwhelming, especially compared to the explosive growth rates of Facebook and MySpace (http://blog.wired.com/business/2007/10/research-firm-d.html). This seems to indicate that Second Life hasn’t exactly achieved “trendy,” and probably won’t without a major overhaul. There’s a lot not to like. Although the ability to build nearly anything is an amazing feature, the building process is difficult and not exactly easy to learn. The creators obviously tried to strike a balance between simplicity of use and the ability to freely manipulate objects, and customizability won out. Also, the program is prone to crashing unexpectedly, and even while enjoying periods of glitch-free time, the few areas that are actually populated are typically full of idiots or labeled “mature” for a very good reason. Due to the significant amount of adult content, it can be hard to take Second Life seriously, especially due to the cartoon-like avatars that contribute to the impression that the entire thing is a joke. While there may be emerging businesses presence on Second Life and simulations and even other libraries, when most people who even know what Second Life is hear about it, the first thought that comes to mind is sexual deviance. Is this really what we want the Penn State Library associated with?

Having the library available online would make it easily accessible and much more convenient. If our library existed in Second Life, we would have the benefit of being at the forefront of a new technology. Supposedly, even if some other virtual world rises up to succeed where Second Life has failed, having experienced Second Life would give Penn State an edge in the new virtual world. Still, no matter how valuable that experience would be, would it be worth sinking actual money into a virtual world that may or may not hold out in the long run? Although many will defend the idea of a virtual world, most people seem to agree that Second Life, while foreshadowing what is to come, is not going to be the virtual world that catches on. Apart from the money spent on creating a Second Life presence, there is also a time investment to consider. What would it take to develop the library? To make it appealing and easily accessible? Would Penn State staff and students be put to the arduous task of building such an area, or would more money be spent on having one built for us? Time and money spent on something that probably won’t hold out for many years, and for the time it does last, will likely be unpopular, seems somewhat foolish to me. Creating and maintaining this presence would be an experience which may or may not be useful when newer, better virtual world technology comes around, depending on how similar the new technology is to Second Life. If the virtual world that eventually catches on is nothing like Second Life, everything put into it would be a waste.


As I have indicated, a workable virtual world, one worth putting the library into, would require some significant changes to be worthwhile. It would probably be best if this program’s beginning years of development were restricted to the military, research facilities, and educational uses, which would create a more solid, respectable foundation for the new world. Obviously, once it is open to the general public, this virtual world would be teeming with idiots and mature content just like Second Life, but at least its original purpose would have been focused toward being useful, so this kind of obnoxious behavior may get less attention. Also, while access to this virtual world is restricted, many of the kinks can be worked out of the interface before it hits the masses. This will hopefully lead to better, less annoying “game play,” which should also help it catch on. In addition, there should be just a tad more structure to it, or at least to the social networking aspects of it. If networks could be somehow brought to par with, or at least near the standards of Facebook and MySpace, it would be a much more useful to more people, and although it wouldn’t be a “game” there would at least be more of a purpose.

When given the assignment in class. We, as a team, thought of many different things to make. Some ideas that crossed out minds included a cheeseburger, a poster of the IST building, a movie theater showing an IST movie created in class, the nerdy Nittany Lion playing golf, and the nerdy Nittany Lion on a laptop buying clothes. We choose the nerdy Nittany Lion on a laptop buying clothes. The reason behind this is that the Nittany Lion represents Penn State and the laptop represents IST. We wanted to convey that everyone including the Nittany Lion uses technology and that technology/Penn State is not exclusively educational. It can used to do fun and useful things such as shopping online for hot clothes.

After thinking so deeply about that matter, we brainstormed about how we wanted to present our Nittany Lion. We thought about having him sit Indian style with the laptop in his lap or even laying with the laptop in front of him. Those poses were too casual for what we were trying to convey. We wanted the lion to be sitting up right in a chair with the laptop on a table in front of him. This shows the intelligent side of the Nittany Lion. The computer screen shows a few women dressed in beautiful clothes. This shows that he was pondering weather or not he should buy his girlfriend those clothes for Christmas.

In order to create the table Jamilah used several cube shapes and altered them in a way she saw fit. She made sure that the arms and legs of the chair matched from each angle. The table took a bit longer to create because she wanted it to look rather modern. She used round shapes and altered them in order to look like a table. The laptop was by far the easiest object to create. It only took 3 cubes altered in different ways and a couple of different textures. The texture for the screen was from an outfit I brought on Freebie Island. When you buy the clothes, you get the poster just in case you want to advertise it yourself. Jamilah didn’t have access to the IST 110H zone, so she created her object in the sand box and Abby kindly brought the Nittany Lion over so it so everything could be resized.

Abby created the Nittany Lion. She used a lot of spheres. She altered them by making them bigger smaller, flatter, and taller. When she put them all together, she found a texture that matched the Nittany Lion’s fur and used it. The Nittany Lion she created very closely resembles the Nittany Lion found on Penn State’s campus.

There were many obstacles we, as a team, encountered while trying to complete this project. First, Jamilah was never able to get access to the IST 110H zone. Therefore, she decided to make her objects in the sand box and save them to her inventory. Then she and Abby were online at the same time and she sold the items to Abby so she could link them all together as one object. Jamilah made sure that all the rights on altering her object were given to the next owner. Then Abby had no problem adjusting the chair and table to fit the lion she had created. Abby had problems building the lion. At one point the entire lion was gone and she had to start over. Another obstacle we faced was the other users in SL. While Abby and Jamilah were trying to take pictures of the finished product, a guy with a motorcycle kept running into them causing the picture to change. It took a while for him to realize that we were trying to do homework. The last problem we encountered was with our team member Jocelyn. She was responsible for creating this document that I, Jamilah, am now creating. When I checked her blog, the posts was nowhere to be found. Earlier this semester, she stated that she was having problems with her blog and I suggested that anytime she has to post something for the group to send to Abby or myself. But she did'nt so this is yet another problem we had to face.

I explained to her that if she does not have the information she needs to finish her part of the project, she should email or call us to ask for help. If that failed, she could have easily gone into SL, examined the object we created, and thought about what we did to create those items. We all learned the same thing on how to create items in class so she should have had a pretty good idea. However, Jocelyn did not put any effort into her part of the project. It seems as if she simply wanted to copy and paste the information given by Abby and myself. In the end, I, as the team leader, tried my best to compose a document that fulfilled all of the requirements stated on Angel.

I am sorry if the above stated problem sounds harsh but thats the way the cookie crumbles. No one is perfect and we all, including myself, have to remember that. Right?

Overall, this project was one of the most creative I have encountered throughout the semester.

Linden Lab’s virtual world “Second Life” has over 11,085,666(1) residents that conduct their everyday affairs through it online. There are over 140(2) “real life” companies and organizations in Second Life that carry out “real” business within it. Federal agencies such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and Congress have islands within this virtual world. On March 19, 2007, Government Computer News reported that the Department of Homeland Security is considering doing business within Second Life(3) .

GCN spoke with DHS’s deputy director of the Office for Interoperability and Compatibility, Tony Frater about having property in Second Life. According to GCN, “DHS is just at the point of having informal discussions with one company about setting up a virtual island for its Safecom program”. The purpose of the Safecom program is to set up a wireless first-response system for natural disaster, accidents, and terrorism. It is there to make sure the public is safe after such events. DHS as a part of Safecom has the responsibility of creating meetings with the public safety experts. Sometimes these people live across the world and it would cost a lot of money to get them to America for meetings. This is where Second Life can help. If each expert and DHS member created an avatar in SL and there was a secure place to meeting, they could certainly have their meeting through SL.

Not only could the Safecom program member meet in Second Life, but they could also simulate first-response events. These simulations would save the program a great deal of money. “Most public-safety agencies don’t have the resources to conduct “tabletop exercises,” which typically are simulations of first-responder events such as a pandemic or a biochemical attack, Frater said. One of these exercises usually requires public-safety workers to spend an entire weekend working at the event. And a tabletop exercise can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars” (Walsh). They could conduct mock hurricanes or oil spills and have the agents’ avatars follow regular procedure.

Aside from the excitement of this new idea, DHS is worried about Second Life’s “mature audience” aspects. It must take into account that SL is full of “casinos and unclothed beaches. The site also has its share of vandals, such as the “griefers” who recently defaced the Second Life site of presidential candidate John Edwards” (Walsh). In order to avoid exposure to such things, they are asking Linden to create a secure and private meeting place that only DHS can visit.

Personally, I think that the idea of the DHS’s Safecom program running though Second Life both can and can not work. The aspect that would reasonable work is simple meetings. Sharing ideas in an orderly fashion could definitely work. Each avatar could come to the secure private area, sit in a chair, and share their ideas on public safety. I have had a class or two be conducted within Second Life. Sometimes there are immature people flying into the lead speaker while he or she is talking, but DHS would not have to worry about that in their private area.

The aspect that I think will not work is the simulations. Second Life, while surprising and innovative, is surprising and innovative. Other avatars could attack while one strolls down the street. One could be teleported to “Sex and Orgy Island” at any moment. The virtual world is also very new. There are many times that I have been online and the game has crashed. Sometimes I would be flying and when I would try to stop flying, the game would freeze and my avatar would fly into the water around whichever island it was on. If the game did that while in a simulation, they would have to start over and time would be wasted.

Another strange thing I noticed is that the avatar cannot be hurt. As many times as I have flew into the water or dropped 20,000 ft, I have never had a scratch or bruise. I think that will affect the results of Safecom’s simulations. In the real world, if there were a hurricane, people would be hurt and unable to walk. However, in Second Life there could be a hurricane where people are flung around with it, but then walk away from it as if it was nothing. As Second Life grows as a virtual world, there will be fewer glitches and more realistic situation and consequences. When that time comes, I think, it will be safe and effective for the DHS to conduct their meetings and simulations in Second Life.

(1) “Economic Statistics.” Second Life. November 25, 2007. November 25, 2007 < http://secondlife.com/whatis/economy_stats.php>.
(2) “Companies and Organisations in Second Life – Portal.” New Business Horizons. November 25, 2007 < http://www.nbhorizons.com/list.htm>.
(3) Walsh, Trudy. "DHS ponders foray into Second Life." Government Computer News. March 19, 2007. November 25, 2007 <http://www.gcn.com/print/26_06/43315-1.html?topic=homeland-security&CMP=OTC-RSS>.

Steve Nelson, an executive VP at Internet marketing company Clear Ink, took me behind the scenes last week for the TV show The Office in Second Life. The company created an elaborate Second Life sequence -- most of which ended on the cutting room floor. I'm hopeful we'll see the rest of The Office's Second Life adventures later this season.

On the show, we learn that Dwight Schrute -- the Frank Burns of The Office -- has been active in Second Life for the past year. He got involved in Second Life, he explains, because he loved his first life so much that he wanted more. Now that his first life has gone sour, he has retreated into the virtual world, going so far as to build his own "Second Second Life" inside Second Life, because retreating into Second Life isn't far enough.

We see a couple of minutes of Dwight's avatar flying around Second Life, as well as a close-up of another avatar that Jim, the show's hero and Dwight's nemesis, has built for himself.

YouTube has a clip where Dwight introduces Second Life to Jim and to us, the audience:

I talked with Clear Ink's Nelson on the phone and in-world Thursday afternoon, a few hours before the show's premiere.

The production started with a phone call from Kent Zbornak, co-executive producer of The Office, just a month ago, Nelson said. Clear Ink received a copy of the script, and set to work creating the Second Life sequences.

The work Clear Ink did for The Office is an example of machinima , video animation created in a game or virtual world. One of the weird and wonderful things about machinima in Second Life is that it's very much like filming in the real world. Clear Ink did the things that a real-world production company does when creating a video:

They scouted locations. Where they couldn't find suitable locations, they built sets.

They bought wardrobe and props.

They lined up extras. Like real-world extras, the avatars used in the sequence proved tricky to manage, prone to hamming it up and trying to steal scenes.

And then they got it all together and filmed and edited the results.

"We shot about eight different scenes," Nelson said. "Five of them were in locations that we found in the real Second Life, and three were sets that we created." Clear Ink also created avatars for Dwight and Jim, which closely resembled the characters on TV.

Clear Ink shot about 21 minutes of video, and only about two minutes made it to viewers. However, the scenes were so open-ended that I'm optimistic that we're just seeing the setup for future stories to play out over the course of the season.

Nelson gave me a tour of Clear Ink's production sets. They included a simplified version of the offices shown in The Office, with Pam's reception desk featured prominently.

The Second Life area also includes a neighborhood bar, a city street, a paintball field, and, on the second floor of one of the buildings on the street, Dwight's apartment.

(Yes, I know that in the show Dwight doesn't live in an apartment; he lives on a beet farm. But, Nelson explained, for the purpose of this episode, Dwight lives in a Scranton apartment. Nelson didn't resolve the discrepancy, and it didn't come up on the Thursday episode.)

A barroom. That's my avatar, Ziggy Figaro, on the left, standing next to Nelson's avatar, Kiwini Oe, in the Schrute Farms Beets sweatshirt.

The Dunder Mifflin offices. That's Troi Timtam, avatar designer and builder, between me and Nelson.

Dwight's Scranton apartment.

Exterior of the Dunder Mifflin offices.

Click Here to read the entire article

Click Here to read more on "The Office's" apporach to Second Life

I choose to explore Scion and ACE. They are both corporate companies.

“SCION NETWORKS is a partnership of experienced professionals who develop technical writing and training materials for IT clients. Our eLearning emporium is a hangout for instructional designers, technical writers, trainers, and geeks of all sorts.”

Scion has a Japanese look about it. Once you get there, you can sit many ways. I had my avatar sit in those many positions. I do not see what that feature has to do with the company as a whole.

There was a room called Workway. Workway is a corporate company within Scion. While in the room, I could see the available job openings in that company. I could also find out more about their different types of jobs such as Banking, Title, Escrow, Finace, Accounting, and so on. When I clicked on the corresponding picture, a box popped up with information about that position. This box was for the Finance and Accounting position.

“Workway Finance and Accounting was founded with a commitment to finding and providing highly qualified employees to the financial services and accounting industries. Workway is serious about providing professionals that have the ability and desire who meet your stringent demands and high quality standards. Workway’s recruiting managers have backgrounds in the financial industry, which affords them a unique advantage in working with clients and candidates. Workway helps clients locate the qualified professionals to get the job done. Workway Finance and Accounting staffs positions from Accounting Clerks and Payroll Managers up to the Chief Financial Officer level. A complete list of positions placed can be found in our online brochure.
Visit us on the web! http://www.workway.com”

There were a couple things that I found frustrating. There was another room with an art gallery. The art gallery was beautiful. However, I had to stand in front of each picture for about 30 seconds before it loaded. On top of that, the buildings were very far apart. I think the company could improve upon this. The buildings could be closer together. It took a while for me to realize that there were, in fact, more buildings on their space. They would not appear until I flew by them on walked into them. I was just walking around and buildings started to form around me.

I would recommend this space especially to someone who wanted the experience of applying for a job through Second Life. I would have applied if I were interested in the types of jobs they were offering.

The company I choose to compare was the Ancapistan Capital Exchange. “ACE stock exchange, run by responsible professionals holding high standards of ethics, transparency, & comm. governance”

There was a huge difference between the companies’ spaces. In ACE’s Building there was no description of the company or job openings. The ACE Chaairman’s Avatar IntLibber Brautigan gave me a little more information on the company. Here are the links he suggested http://www.ancapex.com and this past weeks episode of Metanomics at metaversed.com. The building was very beautiful but it was very empty. There was a board with some numbers that, I assume, correspond to the stock exchange values. The problems were the same with the load time and the building separation.

The Scion experience was definitely better than the ACE experience. There was a lot more information with Scion than ACE. I really like Scion’s town better than ACE’s town. The owner of Scion had a house there. All the doors were locked so I could not see what or who was inside. ACE’s town included a nightclub, but it as empty. There were pin and blue bubbles that were supposed to make my avatar dance but they did not work. Overall, Scion gave me a better experience than ACE did.

There are also scary vampires that want my blood.

A CT scan of two-year-old Indian girl Lakshmi before she underwent surgery. A The girl separated from her conjoined twin was doing well Saturday after regaining consciousness for the first time after a gruelling 27 hours of surgery(AFP/Sparsh Hospital)

This picture received 06 November 2007 from Sparsh Hospital, shows Indian girl Lakshmi (R) who was born with eight limbs sitting in her mother's lap at a hospital in Bangalore. The girl regained consciousness on Friday, two days after undergoing a gruelling 27-hour operation in a Bangalore hospital.(AFP/HO/File/Dibyangshu Sarkar)

In this undated computed axial tomography (CT scan) image provided on Thursday, Nov. 8, 2007 by the Sparsh Hospital, Indian girl Lakshmi is seen before she underwent a 24-hour operation on her, in Bangalore, India . The 2-year-old girl born with four arms and four legs was in stable condition Thursday Nov. 8, 2007, a day after surgeons completed a marathon operation to remove her extra limbs, doctors said. (AP Photo/Sparsh Hospital, HO)

Chief orthopedic surgeon Dr. Sharan Patil, right, addresses the media after the completion of a 24-hour operation on Lakshmi. Surgeons said the 2-year-old, revered by many as a reincarnated goddess, has a chance at a normal life. (AP Photo/Mahesh Kumar A)

We chose to address this issue with a public service announcement video. We took many steps to create this video. During the last couple f weeks, we have been meeting in the IST building. We had a very clear vision of how we wanted the video to progress. We did not want to physcially be in the video, therefore we deciede to use out voices, still shots from popular games, and video clips from the Sims 2.

In order to achieve our dream video, we had to spilt the responsibility between the 3 of us. Abby was responsible for creating the movie clips from the Sims 2 and creating the script. Jocelyn was responsible for combining the pictures and movie clips with our voices. Jamilah was responsible for documenting the paper and uploading the video to YouTube. We all shared the responsibility of finding a place to record out voices and arriveing to that place on time.

After Abby wrote the script, we did not waste any time before finding a place to record. We heard that there was a “recording studio” in the IST building so we wandered around aimlessly on the third floor until someone asked us if we were lost. This very nice lady pointed us in the direction of this recording studio. There we discovered Joe Zupka. He is a graduate student working on his PhD in game research. About a year ago, he was pursuing sound recording. He worked in that industry as a Semi-Pro for 6 years. Now, he is a TA for SRA 111 and 211.

Joe was essential in us having quality sound for our project. He dusted off IST’s sound recording booth and let us record our script. Our script was developed by Abby and you can read it in the quoted text below.

“WARNING! This is a public service announcement: recent research suggests that videogames may cause psychological dependence in the weak-minded! This may lead to severe health problems in those who have defective survival instincts! Does playing videogames consume time you might have otherwise spent with real people? Do you find that videogames sometimes interfere with your daily life, such as causing you to be late for work or school, or preventing you from eating and sleeping as much as you should? Do you feel that you prefer playing videogames to your real life? If you answered yes to any of these questions, you may be at risk! Please pay attention to the following….

Over the years, videogames have evolved and changed, becoming more impressive, more fun to play, and more dangerous. They started out as relatively benign beasts. No one had anything to fear from Pong. Pacman offered gamers cutting-edge 8-bit graphics, but even that dashing yellow hero and his pixilated contemporaries did not achieve the same level of addictiveness as the games available to players today. When pixels became polygons and videogames moved into the realm of 3D, this spelled the beginning of the end. After all, if an entire generation could be sucked into the Pokémon phenomenon, gamers obviously stood no chance against the hours upon hours of endless leveling up that awaited them in such games as World of Warcraft and NeverWinter Nights.

As videogames have evolved, their improved graphics and seemingly endless (or, in some cases, actually endless) gameplay has made them immersive. Some games, such as the infamous Final Fantasy series, will drain away hours of a player’s life; however, at least with these games, there is a light at the end of the tunnel. When the final boss is defeated, gamers are released from the spell and allowed back into the real world. Also, when only one human player influences the game, there is less pressure to stay online to continue quests with a party of other players. Massively Multi-member Online Role Playing Games, more commonly known as MMORPGs, CAN be played in a safe and healthy way. Here are some strategies:

EAT! It’s good for you! If you can’t be bothered to get up in the middle of your game, BRING A SNACK! Anything, as long as you don’t die from starvation. It doesn’t even have to be good for you! Just remember, playing videogames does NOT count as exercise (except for Dance Dance Revolution), so think twice about that bag of chips!

GO TO THE BATHROOM! When nature calls, listen! If you’re in the middle of something important, it’s okay to wait for a little, but be reasonable. The members of your party will understand—they all have to do it too.
SLEEP! When the screen starts to blur, it doesn’t mean it’s time for another energy drink. You’re tired! Go to bed! Similarly to going to the bathroom, you can stretch this one a little, but again, be reasonable. Wouldn’t you rather stop playing at a safe point instead of falling asleep in the middle of combat? If you have trouble with this one, try setting a bedtime for yourself, and when you say “I’ll go to bed at two,” remember to actually go!

Within these very immersive MMORPGs, players create their own avatars, which in some cases are very highly customizable, creating characters who are, in fact, individuals. In the games where leveling up is very time consuming, people will eventually end up with hours, days… weeks of fighting enemies and completing quests into a given character. Some players may even begin to identify more with this avatar and their in-game persona, which may lead to feeling more “at home” in the game than in reality. DO NOT LET THIS HAPPEN. Preferring the fantasy world of an MMORPG over real life is a bad sign. If you begin to have these feelings, it may be a symptom of videogame addiction. Experts suggest: GOING OUTSIDE or GETTING A GIRLFRIEND.

Keep in mind, while videogames have become more and more social over the years, they are not a substitute for actual social interaction. Having online friends is not bad, but these are not people you will rely on in a pinch. They won’t come to your house and take care of you if you get sick, or help you get somewhere when your car’s in the shop. In many cases, they have no idea where you live, and don’t even know your real name! This is not to suggest that you should start giving out your name and address online. Try making real friends. Then, instead of playing games online, you can play multiplayer games together at someone’s house. At parties such as this one, please continue to keep in mind that you should still eat, sleep, and use the bathroom when necessary.

One last suggestion we have for you is the Reality Check. In this exercise, we would like to take the time to point out that your skills in videogames do not necessarily carry over to real life. For example, please note that:

No matter how powerful a mage you play online, you still don’t have magical powers.
Being able to triple A songs on heavy in DDR does NOT mean that you can ACTUALLY dance. While we all commend your arrow mastery, please keep it in the arcade. On the same note: no matter how good you are at Guitar Hero, that does NOT necessarily mean that you can ACTUALLY play the guitar. Deal with it.
As we have mention before, videogames do NOT count as exercise, with very few exceptions. Please keep in mind that, although your avatar may have enough strength to uproot a tree and wield it as a weapon, you should still consider getting up and moving around every so often to work off all those chips and sugary energy drinks.

Videogame addiction is a serious problem, but it can be overcome with these few simple techniques. The best part is, you don’t have to quit entirely! Videogames can be a manageable part of your life as long as you control them instead of letting them control you.

This has been a public service announcement, brought to you by the Cheesy Closing Remarks Foundation.”

On Sunday November 4, 2007 at 2:00PM, our group met in the IST building. Joe connected his computer to the sound recording booth and the magic begun. Abby was the first to record. She was amazing; it only took her one take to record her entire scene. The same goes for Jocelyn. She was terrfied of the litle black sound recording booth she had to stand in. She didn’t want to freak out so she gave it her all and did her part in one take. On the other hand, Jamilah was very nervous. It took her longer because she had to start over every time she messed up a word. By 4:00PM we had finished the recording and Jocelyn had taken the file to Windows Movie Maker.

In Windows Movie Maker, Jocelyn had to combine our voices with the clips Abby recorded from the Sims 2. For all that do not know,

“The Sims 2 is a strategic life simulation computer game developed by Maxis and published by Electronic Arts. The players control their Sims, as they interact with their virtual surroundings, engaging in various different activities and forming relationships in a manner similar to real life. Unlike its predecessor, The Sims 2 does not have a defined final goal; gameplay is open-ended. They do, however, have life goals, wants and fears, the fulfillment of which can have good or bad effects. There is also a wide-range of cheats to be used. All Sims age, and generally live up to sixty five Sim days, if the controller treats their Sim well.

The Sims 2 builds on its predecessor by allowing Sims, the simulated human characters, to age through six stages of life and incorporating a more powerful 3D graphics engine. As of July 2007, the base game has sold more than 13 million units worldwide, making it the 2nd best selling PC game of all time, only behind the original The Sims.[5] A sequel, The Sims 3, was announced in November 2006 by EA to be released sometime in 2009.[6] [7] ”

With that said, Abby arranged for her Sims to interact in a way that showed video game addiction. It is very difficult to control the Sims because they have a finction called free will. Yes, free will. They can do whatever they want whereever and however they want. The user is just there to guide them in the right path, similar to God. From the sound of her blog, she had some problems control her Sims.

“So I think this video project is what's going to officially drive me crazy. Seriously, headdesk doesn't cover this one. I'm ready to slam my face through a wall, and though I don't think my face would be very happy about it, I'm pretty sure the wall would still lose.

Realistically, the only good thing that has come out of this experience, is that it will make a fabulous linkdump SO I'M GOING TO TAKE ADVANTAGE LIKE THE WIND, BABY!

Right, so this has been my day:

Woke up at one. W00t. Then again, I'd been up until 4:30 this morning writing my NaNo. Not so w00t. Roommate and her boyfriend were already out. Very awesome. Opened Sims 2. Took a shower while waiting for it to open. It wasn't finished when I got back –

When I finally got Sims going, I then proceeded to devote the next 5 hours to taking video. It was actually pretty fun, in the way that wrestling with sims and forcing them into submission is fun. For my efforts, I managed to collect all the video we needed for our project and then some. Unfortunately, the "high" quality video setting is a rather misleading label, but you get the idea of what's going on, especially if you've played Sims 2 a lot. Sim videos are much funnier when you know all the different actions the characters are doing. You know, funny in the way that your soul is dying from the knowledge that those brain cells could be devoted to something else.

So I've got my video. Now, a less paranoid person might have just sent it over to the person responsible for putting the video together in Movie Maker and gotten on with her life. However, instead, I opened up Movie Maker and made sure that the files I'd just created were compatible with the program. Go to import files. They show up; all seems well. I click on one, just for fun. A black screen appears in the movie preview screen. I try hitting play. Nothing happens. I add the movie to the timeline. It adds as an AUDIO FILE.

This was still around when "headdesk" was appropriate. However, after searching through official help sites, unofficial help sites, downloading codes (that didn't help), searching for other codes (that also did not help), and most likely exceeding my bandwidth limit, I was no closer to having useable files, and I was frustrated on top of that.

Finally, a friend pointed me to download.com, where I was able to find a converter that allows me to convert my useless files into useable ones. Of course, since I'm not buying the software, it only lets me convert one at a time, and asks me "would you like to buy it now?" between every conversion, but I am still satisfied with my victory.

Unfortunately, due to this aggravation, I'm not going through hell and back AGAIN to find something that will convert Flash files into something useable in Movie Maker. We'll see if anything in the way of animations made by Abby makes its way into this movie, but as of now, I'm converting the files, and recovering for a while.”

As you can see, Abby had plenty of problems. After she got some amazing clips from the Sims 2, she sent them to Jocelyn. Jocelyn then had the trouble of matching our voices with the actions of the Sims. “It’s all about timing - it's kind of hard to make sure all the pictures line up to the words correctly. Just takes some patience.” She also could not add music to the background. “There is only one sound track, so I can't have background music behind us talking.” She compiled the final video and uploaded it to Angel. But as Karma would have it, she forgot to publish it. Now, she is the only person who can open the file. It is 12:52PM, 8 minutes before we have to present the video and she is across campus trying to fix her mess. I hope this works out okay.

Now, it is 2:03 and class is over at 2:15. Jocelyn is still not here. She texted me saying she fixed the video and she was on her way. It is 2:05 and Andrea Tapia expects us to sit it out because she knows that we do not have our video ready. However, I refuse to “sit it out”. We have something to say. I decided to give her something and talk about what our video was about, how we made it, and the problem we had. It was extremely difficult to stand in front of the class with nothing to present except excuses. But by the grace of God, Jocelyn walked through the door at 2:09 with the video on her flash drive and we had 6 minutes to present our video, which turned out to be pretty good with the exception of the lack of music.

In conclusion, this project was extremely stressful but it beats a midterm.