What is reality?

Something struck me during the course. People we're judging the people who played online games like Second Life. They thought it was foolish for people to invest in something that they considered as not-real.


But what is reality then? It's not like those people sit behind their computer playing Second Life all day, it's just not possible to survive this way (well at least for most of us ;-). They are just entertaining themselfs, wasting time, because with everything we do we are 'wasting' time. Are the people watching television not being real?

I believe we make our own reality, try to imagin someone on the other side of the planet, they are living a different kind of reality then you. But still it's reality. Reality is something we created, just like we came up with the 'Sun'. Most people consider it as the bringer of all life on earth, but as soon as you pay a closer visit it is considered as a place called hell! Think about it..

Social Networks and their effect on friendships

I recently found an article about the growing trend of social networks for young people, see it here.
Well we all could see this one coming! I remember when I was young, playing football and even some hide-and-seke outside. The last few years I noticed that the youngster go out less and less. 


They call the use of social networking sites by children a worldwide phenomenon and despite the age requirements 25% of the 8-12 year olds have profiles on Facebook, Myspace and bebo. Moshi Monsters, a kids social network has over a staggering 22 million users. But what is the long term effect of joining a social network at such a young age?


I think at time we people will have less and less problems with being on a social network. Now you have quite a lot of people that either don't feel the need for a profile or are against it. A part of me thinks that having a social network at such a young age can give them some sort of an advantage later on. But I also feel that it might have some serious effect on the way people treat each other. Will we at one point have so much platonic-friendships that we don't have time to make friends for life? I think that's what worries me the most, I get "friend invites" from people who made my life sometimes miserable or I had no social connection with. 


At the moment I generally don't accept them, just because I (think) I know how they are like in real life.

I firmly believe in second and even third chances but through a click of a button seems way too easy.

Loosing control

I am a person who likes to be in control. The thing I noticed on the course was that we had too make so much accounts I felt like I really was losing control. Maybe this so called 'feeling of control' is an illusion and I already lost control over my personal information.. I always said to myself: I don't mind if people know some personal information, I have no secrets. 


Well I must confess that when I actually lost that feeling of control I felt really weird about it, and that surprised me. I have nothing to hide, but letting all these services have so much information about me, makes me feel even more like a statistic (if that makes sense).

Currently i'm sitting in the sun, thats not a secret by the way ;-), talking to a fellow student about this very subject. 

What are you blogging about?

I told him that I was writing about loosing control over you personal information and how that can make a person feel. When I was telling him that I had a realisation.. why did I go through with this when it gave me a bad feeling? Why didn't I object to the teacher? Why did I sign on to all of those services in the first place?
I think I knew in the back of my mind that there is no such thing as privacy anymore. Well you could look for it, run away deep into the forest and never return but is that something we really want? Well I have much more questions for myself but I will reserve those for maybe a later date! ;-)

My thougts on vlogging

What are my thoughts on blogging/vlogging after the Online Videos and Social Media Technology course from last week?
Let me go back to the point when I decided to take the course. My reason for following this course in my exchange semester was to have something to blog about, since that was my main problem. 

I was either to scared to start keeping a blog/vlogs or I just could not find a subject to do it about.One of the assignments was to produce 4 video's of around 1 minute in length. This showed me that you don't have to do a whole lot of pre-production to get a nice end result.


To answer my first question, I really enjoy it now! It has the possibility to bring a certain moment in your life, that you found special back to life again. In a way that a picture can not. For example, I have a classmate called Pame and she is from Chile. She speaks a certain way that I think is very special and she got a really good sense of humor and a certain way of bringin it. I'm sure, even though I would try really hard not to, I will forget those little details when time passes. Luckely I have numerous clips now to remind me of those special people I meet here.


I'm not sure I will vlog as intensively as I did the last 2 weeks but when the moment feels right, I would do it and with no reservations!

The second life experience

So yesterday evening I decided to try out Second Life! I felt a bit hestitant to download and install it because I heared so many bad things over the years. But curiosity got the better of me and so I decided to see if it was really that bad. I will divide my experiences on the following three topics, 

1. My general experience
2. The posibility for designer
3. The possibilities for distance learning

General experience

• Booting second life makes me scared
• People are sitting on the weirdest places
• Feels kinda weird to walk around a place in second life.. like your sneaky or something... why is this feeling?
• The controls are really weird and not like any game I played previously
• My head is always down because it follows my mouse and the camera button is on the button of the interface..
• I grew bored of places because there were no people to be found
• I have to touch everything but somethings I can't touch?? 
• Haha, I decided to visit a live classical performance.. what do I get Toni Braxton... :-(

Possibilities for a designer

• You have the oppurtunity to design yourself (outfit and appearance)
• Customize everything, from socks, to hair, pants, eyebrows, etc.
• You can edit your profile
• I changed into some Bollywood-themed clothes, just because I can!
• You can leave your digital fingerprint with leaving notes and making adjustments to the surrounding of some objects
• Most of the time the build function is turned off though

Possibilities for distance learning

• In the destination guide I filtered for the educational spots
• I went to the University of Texas because I would love to get a feel of the size of a real American college campus!
• This is enormous!! 
• I also looked for destination that includes science and I went to one from Nasa in California where you were able to learn more about jet propulsion laboratory and to experience the Apollo Moon landing
• But of course, as it turns out nobody seems to be interested in learning.. they are probably at the aphrodiziac beach

As a conclusion: I find the possibility to learn through a simulated world intriguing. I think it's oke to learn in a way for a small period of time, maybe for one course. But here are some drawbacks I found:

• It might be harder to ask questions to the teacher since you don't know him/her on a more personal level
• Or for some it's easier, so you ask a lot instead of finding out for yourself
• Not everybody has played a game before and isn't used to moving a avatar around
• I rather have yourself, maybe via webcam, as avatar, sitting in digital school benches.

I think college life is something you have to experience before you go on with digital learning. College life has a big influence on how you life your life, what your dreams are and sometimes thats where you meet friends that last a lifetime! That's why I do not see a digital way of learning taking over soon.

Giving a lecture to myself

Toni Braxton??

I did some modelling

Nasa site (California)

Outside at the jet propulsion site

Lunar Landing simulator!

Wow.. somebody made all of this..

Create your future @ UTD

Facebook-holic?

"Is facebook your home now, or something?" 

A few days ago I got this question from a friend.. He noticed that I was spending more and more time online on Facebook. At first I was a bit upset because that would mean I turned in to a 'facebook-junkie' like I promised myself to never be. But after a few minutes I realised that I use it for it's original purpose, keep in contact with close friends/students and since it's a cheap way to stay connected (I don't have mobile internet in austria nor a wifi-router for Whatsapp) I pretty much stay online for whenever I work on my laptop.

Facebook is just a means to an end, for me it means contact with a lot of people. This is also important for my professional 'career' since I started my own little business at the beginning of this year. It has come to my attention that I get a lot of assignments from the people I met in real life or through someone else. If it wasn't for those connection I probably had to invest a lot of time looking for assignments. Having a connection through Facebook also enhances my personal life. I learn so much about the people from the pictures and stories they share with me (and the rest of their world). In the end it's way better when you can meet the person in real life but that's not always possible. Facebook provides a good alternative to stay in touch untill you are able to meet again.

I know people who have thousands of connections, I'm not sure if I could ever let it come to that. I really enjoy a personal connection so I wouldn't accept everybody for the soul reason that I can't think of a way to keep up with so many.

Mexican Night

Actionshot! a photo by Mulder6063 on Flickr.

These are shot we made of the mexican pre-party and party night! These have a non-commercial creative common.