ninja mode

I’ve been keeping a blog for one of my classes this semester, VS 415: “Designed Play.”

You should go check it out.

Reading response question for ?¢‚Ǩ?ìFree Labor?¢‚Ǩ¬ù:
?¢‚Ǩ?ìIn the overdeveloped countries, the end of the factory has spelled out the obsolescence of the old working class, but it has also produced generations of workers who have been repeatedly addressed as active consumers of meaningful commodities. Free labor is the moment where this knowledgeable consumption of culture is translated into productive activities that are pleasurably embraced and at the same time often shamelessly exploited.?¢‚Ǩ¬ù

Terranova?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s essay was written in 2000. Yet much of what she states about free labor still pertains to the present moment.

Define the following terms used in the essay and give examples of how each term still exists in 2007:
knowledge worker: As used in the essay, a knowledge worker is someone who engages in work that is not typically considered ?¢‚Ǩ?ìwork,?¢‚Ǩ¬ù or whose work is primarily immaterial and intangible rather than physical. A knowledge worker’s work is conceptual, based on ideas or social processes. The end results of their work may not come in forms that are ordinarily associated with work, or are not directly quantifiable in the same way other products are. An example of a knowledge worker could be a blogger. While they may not necessarily be compensated for their work, they are contributing to the collective intelligence of the internet.

gift economy: A gift economy is an economy based on the free exchange of information and other assets. Items are exchanged without want for reimbursement or other gain. It is based more on the idea of benefiting the group as a whole rather than the individual. An example of the gift economy could be Wikipedia. Individually, users can contribute and edit entries within the encyclopedia. The efforts of the individuals benefit the encyclopedia as a whole. Other users can then use the articles created and edited by the efforts of the community, and further benefit from the project.

free labor: Free labor is the ?¢‚Ǩ?ìmuscle?¢‚Ǩ¬ù behind the creation and distribution of assets. Free labor is, by definition, unpaid work, which fits into the ?¢‚Ǩ?ìgift economy?¢‚Ǩ¬ù in the way that it is freely created and shared. Free labor workers do what they do out of a sense of personal duty or fulfillment, and for the good of the community, rather than for monetary gain. An example of a free labor worker could be someone with a personal website. They can use this platform to convey and share any information they choose, which benefits the internet as a whole through the contribution of new information. They are considered ?¢‚Ǩ?ìfree labor?¢‚Ǩ¬ù if they are not compensated for their efforts, which is often the case. They do what they do out of personal interest rather than for personal gain.

I’ve been really into cooking lately, and for the longest time I couldn’t really figure out why. I like cooking, but really for the most part dislike baking, despite their similarity/interrelatedness. Then today, I decided to make chicken tetrazzini tor dinner, and while I was cooking I think I may have come to some kind of conclusion.

Baking is a lot like science. You have to measure very precisely, get temperatures right, and generally be much more careful than with cooking. When you’re cooking, you can sort of (in some cases) guess at temperatures, selectively measure ingredients, and make up your own techniques as you go. Now I’m sure I’m insulting some culinary types with all this, but that’s what I like about cooking – the ability to completely ignore the rules and still “get away with it.” Not that it’s necessarily a positive, but you can basically come out with really ugly food that tastes really good, and sometimes really pretty food that tastes really good, if you do it right.

The conclusion I finally came to is that cooking is a process that is in many ways very much like design: you’re given a very small margin of space to work in (a specific dish – grilled cheese is fundamentally very different from chicken soup), a set of requirements (a set of constituative ingredients that comprise whatever you’re cooking), and you can do whatever your heart desires within that small space., but it’s what you do (or don’t do) that makes food good (or terrible). In some ways, cooking is a lot like Photoshop. You have an end result that you want to get to, and a collection of assets you can throw into it, and a set of processes to modify those assets – like photos and filters. Gaussian blur + photo = blurry picture. Mushrooms in olive oil + sauteeing over heat = tasty. Something like that.

I suppose this is all okay until I start trying to posterize the chicken or something. Then we have problems.

I sat down this evening to try and get some Second Life time in. I’ve played with it a bit in the past, but not substantially since I could never really get it to run well for very long. It seemed to behave for now, which worked out for me.

I spent a bit of time customizing my avatar, “Bug Roux,” for a while, since she was mostly made of default clothes and pieces and I wanted her to be a little more unique.

This is Bug!

She looks like she’s pretty much totally skeptical of absolutely everything, all the time. I find this somehow very appropriate.

Not really knowing what else to do, I decided that I was going to try and provoke some kind of interaction with some random strangers somewhere in the SL world. My rules changed as I went along based on the situations I found myself in. First, I needed a place. Second Life is massive, so I did a search for “gallery,” not really sure where else to start looking. I hopped into a gallery called MMCA, which seemed to be a multi-purpose space for displaying art, music performance, and other cultural types of activities. There were a few people around, but quite honestly, it was pretty boring. I stood up on a stage in front of a bunch of people hanging around and yelled random phrases (“THIS! IS! CAAAAAKE TOOOOOOWN!”) only to be met with absolutely no reaction. I tried to physically put myself in the middle of their gathering, but no one took notice. I needed excitement. I needed drama. I needed furries. I did a quick search for furry related areas, and hopped into the first one I saw. (I don’t mean to offend anyone if you actually are a furry, but really it seemed like a good place to start my mini-social-experiment since they seem easy to provoke and that was what I was aiming for. No offense, really.)

This place started off looking pretty normal.

…and then I met the residents. I couldn’t really figure out what was going on here, so I just tried to draw attention to myself somehow. I tried dancing, putting myself uncomfortably close to people, everything I could think of. Nothing worked.

Bored again, I pulled up a list of “popular” places in the world and picked one at random. Some type of jazz/dance club place, with what looked like a large gathering of people. Perfect. Let the chaos and evildoings begin!

There were people dancing everywhere, and the music was really pretty pleasant, so I couldn’t really bring myself to try and cause trouble. It just seemed too nice an atmosphere to ruin for everyone else. Instead, I sat down at one of the gaudy tables and struck up a conversation with a rather quiet avatar named “Karmayogi Zheng.” We chatted for a bit about hardware and getting SL to run smoothly, and realized that we were both pretty new to the world. We ended up discussing the different types of avatars people have. We wondered how many people were actually the same gender as their avatar. I’ve played other online games before where it’s often the case that people will play a character with a gender opposite their own, but it’s not something I’d ever put much thought into. We talked about places we’d been in the world so far, which between us didn’t amount to much. He did, however, tell me about a place a new friend had shown him: a botanical garden within SL. I was intrigued.

He teleported me there, and I spent a good half hour just exploring. The amount of detail and care put into the space was unbelieveable. It was a very relaxing and peaceful environment, much like a real garden.

Bird’s-eye view. There are all kinds of places to explore here.

There are lots of water areas, which I found especially pretty. There are boats you can take out on the water, and a small canal system through the island itself.

There’s a large arboretum on one side of the island with huge palms inside. If you visit, you have to go in, switch to mouselook, and look straight up. The view is incredible. I wanted to take a screenshot, but I wasn’t sure how to from that view. It’s something you really need to see yourself, anyway, which sounds odd for a virtual world, but it’s true. These screenshots really don’t do it much justice.

I’ve visited botanical gardens before, and always wanted to be up among the treetops, but unfortunately I can’t fly in the real world. While the gardens in SL paralleled a real garden in so many ways, this was one small but very meaningful difference.

After checking out the arboretum, my new friend and I walked around a bit more and then parted ways, since it was getting pretty late. I found it odd that the most interesting place I found (so far) in an entirely virtual world is one that I could easily visit in real life.

1) Explain what Gelber means by ?¢‚Ǩ?ìdisguised affirmation?¢‚Ǩ¬ù.
Gelber’s term ?¢‚Ǩ?ìdisguised affirmation?¢‚Ǩ¬ù explains the behavior of replicating the positive intrinsic feelings generated by accomplishing work through leisure activities. Taken literally, the term means just that – ?¢‚Ǩ?ìaffirmation,?¢‚Ǩ¬ù or a positive statement or truth, ?¢‚Ǩ?ìdisguised?¢‚Ǩ¬ù by the process of work or the action peformed in a hobby or leisurely activity. Disguised affirmation provides us with a way to feel as though we have accomplished something important or positive, a sense of fulfillment and self-value.

2) Give an example of ?¢‚Ǩ?ìflow?¢‚Ǩ¬ù within the context of leisure or labor.
Flow is described by Gelber as a ?¢‚Ǩ?ìtranscendent experience?¢‚Ǩ¬ù which occurs when people engage in self-directed activities that optimally use all of their skills to the fullest. Flow is a positive state of being which helps a person accomplish the task at hand. In the context of labor, I have experienced a flow-like state in my work as a computer support technician. This type of work is typically performed by one person, with a well-defined goal in mind, i.e., returning a computer to a specific state of proper functioning. I often find that while working on repairs, I am in a state where I can effectively ?¢‚Ǩ?ìtune out?¢‚Ǩ¬ù other activity in the room and focus entirely on the task at hand. In this state, I feel that I can function ?¢‚Ǩ?ìautomatically,?¢‚Ǩ¬ù without much guidance, in order to achieve my goal. I don’t need to pause and consider what steps to take next, because I already have some predefined mental concept of how to achieve an end result and the steps can only flow in one logical order. One specific example of working in this state would be ?¢‚Ǩ?ìimaging?¢‚Ǩ¬ù the lecture hall computers, which is a process by which the computers are all formatted and ?¢‚Ǩ?ìcleaned?¢‚Ǩ¬ù to a newly-installed state. Following this process, certain settings need to be applied in a specific order and certain software needs to be added to certain rooms. The process becomes automatic through my knowledge of computers and my knowledge of the desired end result.

3) After reading Gelber?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s text, can Second Life be considered a ?¢‚Ǩ?ìhobby?¢‚Ǩ¬ù? why or why not?
I feel that Second Life’s categorization as a hobby depends primarily on the way it is being used. Since Second Life has no defined end result, its use is entirely dependent on the desires of the user. If a user chooses to use Second Life solely as a business endeavor, with only the intent of making money, then it might be considered work. If they choose to use it because the action brings them some type of pleasure, then it might be considered a hobby. As the uses of the system vary and change exponentially, so too must its definition as a ?¢‚Ǩ?ìhobby?¢‚Ǩ¬ù or ?¢‚Ǩ?ìwork?¢‚Ǩ¬ù activity.

4) What do you think would be a good class project to create in Second Life?
I think it would be interesting to try and create, distribute, and promote (and potentially find some way to track or follow the use of within the Second Life world) a unique ?¢‚Ǩ?ìfad?¢‚Ǩ¬ù item. In the real world, items like iPods and other gadgets are incredibly popular, but it’s hard to think of an object that would be as useful or necessary in the virtual world. These types of items are often seen as status symbols, and I think it would be interesting to find out what could be considered a ?¢‚Ǩ?ìstatus?¢‚Ǩ¬ù symbol in a world that doesn’t always (and doesn’t need to) obey the ?¢‚Ǩ?ìrules?¢‚Ǩ¬ù of what is true and logical. What would the value of such an item be? Who would buy it? Why?

My “cool link of the day” for class this week was vectorpark.com.

I feel that it relates to the class in that it is an interesting interactive experience that doesn’t really classify as a “game,” but rather is more like a childrens’ toy, or a puzzle. It doesn’t really serve a productive purpose other than being entertaining, though if pressed I suppose it could be used to demonstrate various computer usage skills, like basic clicking and dragging, or interacting with elements on the screen.

Rules of Play, Ch 11-12
Homo Ludens, Ch 1

Please address the questions below in your 350-word reading response:

1) List and explain 5 criteria that define play according to Huizinga.

5 criteria that define play according to Huizinga are the fact that play exists outside of ordinary life. It is not a necessary function for survival, and it is not part of a typical daily routine. Play is completely not serious. It is something done for fun, but is not necessarily humorous in nature. It is completely absorbing. Play exists as a sort of escape from ordinary life, and while one is playing, they become part of this fantasy; nothing that is not part of their play matters. Monetary or other gains are not part of play. Play is not something that can be used to generate money or product, the rewards of play are personal and intangible. It takes place within its own boundaries. Whether these are physical, spatial, temporal boundaries, play has certain limits that it exists within. Play might be limited to a room, a field, or other place, or possibly require the imagination of such a place; or limited to a certain space of time, or require one to imagine that a certain expanse of time has (or has not) passed.

2) Why is ?¢‚Ǩ?ìplay?¢‚Ǩ¬ù important to society according to Huizinga. Give 2-3 examples. Do you agree/disagree?

According to Huizinga, play is important to society because it ?¢‚Ǩ?ìadorns?¢‚Ǩ¬ù and ?¢‚Ǩ?ìamplifies life,?¢‚Ǩ¬ù acting as a lens in many ways to magnify the important or worthwhile aspects of life. Play brings into the world a temporary, absolute order and perfection, whether this perfection exists in the real world or not. Play also acts to represent and identify. It allows people to experience being someone else temporarily, and imitate events which have already occurred. I agree with Huizinga’s points. Play is a unique experience which allows us to to view the world in a different way and take part in aspects of life we may not otherwise recognize.

3) Explain how the constituative rules and operational rules intersect beyond the formal rules to create a unique game identity. You can compare 2 popular games for your explanation.

Constituative rules are the mathematical and formal parts of a game which actually make it work. Operational rules are the rules given to players of a game so they understand how to play. These two sets of rules make a game work, as well as make it unique. Chutes and Ladders and Candy Land are two similar games which have similar sets of rules, but are both very unique. Chutes and Ladders is played by spinning a spinner and moving a piece on a board a number of spaces according to the number given by the spinner. Special spaces on the board complicate the rules slightly by forcing players to move forward or backward a designated number of spaces. Candy Land is played by moving a piece on a board a given number of spaces based on a spinner, and drawing cards which can modify the number of spaces moved. While the operational rules of both games are almost the same, it is the constituative rules which make each game unique. The Chutes and Ladders identity is created by its constituative rules – the characteristic ?¢‚Ǩ?ìchutes and ladders?¢‚Ǩ¬ù up and down movement of pieces created by the special spaces on the board. Candy Land is made unique through its cards which direct players to move in different ways than just backward and forward.