Midnight Musings...

You know what? I wonder how many bloggers keep a diary with their intimate thoughts separate from their actual blogs?
I know I do. (Well now anyway, I didn't just a year or so ago)

There are some things that as a person you need to write down but which no-one else needs to see or read, and if they do they had better be ready for the consequences of knowledge. With great insight can come great pain, although also great love and joy.
But the pain is what you have to be worried about.
What is private is so for a reason, it isn't anyone's business to snoop while the person is still alive.

Notice I said still alive. It is my personal belief that the truth is more sacred than most anything else, that knowledge triumphs over secrecy.
That even the most shameful or lustful individual should not be frowned upon for their actions, or more accurately that they should be able to record their thoughts and that shouldn't have to be destroyed because society is too immature to handle them and treats the individual with less respect or even with humiliation. As if society itself is perfect, the perverted thing.

I believe that most people write in their diary because it eases their conscious and relieves their soul, but also because deep down somewhere they want others to know one day. They want to be honest.
I'm going to be overly broad here and claim that no-one really wants to hide their true thoughts or feelings, to lie and be dishonest to the world.
People want to be accepted for who they are and want to be able to act themselves in the real world.

Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately in some twisted cases, certain things are frowned upon by society and are thereby suppressed.
People commit suicide because of the bullying and oppression they face because of who they are, it is wrong and very uncivilized.
We are not advanced as a society, as a race, not yet.
The way we treat our fellow men is too savage, we are too primal, too sexual and driven by impulse and desire, and we don't rely on logic and reason enough.
Although I will say that ask anyone worth their salt and they will tell you that a truly advanced civilization relies not only on logic, knowledge, and reason, but also on emotions, because emotions are what ties us together as humans and is what gives meaning to so many trivial things such as spending time with your family.
Pure logic would say time spent doing one thing is better spent doing something more valuable, but emotions say that family is the most valuable thing of all and reinforces this concept with the sad knowledge that someday your family will depart from this world and leave you alone.

Our emotions allow empathy, which I believe is a characteristic of a higher society than the one that we now have.
(not to sound snobby or idealistic or to put-down our society, which I am fond of even though I am so critical of it.)
(I am just critical of most things though, as I am an idealist and a perfectionist in some sense of the word, and I thus like to theorize about areas of improvement.)

My personal diary may not be life-destroying material, but the concept I am trying to get across here is that the more personal and secret the information within is, the more unorthodox or counter to the beliefs and experiences and customs of those close to you, the higher the risk of it estranging them from you should they find it.
(or so I would suppose)

I just feel worried that if anyone finds my diary in the future, perhaps after my death I'd say, they would misinterpret what I meant to say in my flustered and awkward confusion, in my terrible attempts to explain what I think, mean, feel, and do.
I am all too well aware that many things I write in my diary come off differently in writing than they do in the context of my recollection and the framework of the environment I am in when I write the entry.
And since I don't write every single day, as I don't have the time, the holes in the telling of my story make it nigh impossible for a reader to ever fully grasp the meaning of what I was trying to get at.
(or to grasp it accurately I should say.)

But the truth is that all I can do is what I am doing.
There is little I can do other than change my writing style, try to write more often, or to explain better or more or go into more detail in my entries.
All of which sounds nice but which are very hard to do.
(Yes adding more details is hard because it is boring and it is hard to know which ones you should include and which you shouldn't. Should I mention every single trivial thing I do each day?
Will that matter in the future when I or someone else reads my diary?
Yes because hong kong is unique, yes because it can take you into the context of my life and what it was like for me, no because it is boring and no-one wants to read that kind of long drawly crap, or no because it is unnecessary and unimportant and does not convey what is important.

As you can see, there is a lot I consider each time I write, and this process of overthinking things should likely have some noticeable impact on my writing style if I acknowledge it, or perhaps even subconsciously.
(writing style in my diary btw)

Anyway, I am losing my train of thought easily now that it is getting to be so late.
Thank you for reading!! ^u^!!
I hope I didn't bore you or make too many typos lol.

I'll update again soon! :P

Sincerely,

~James Dodon
(12.29.12, 12:05 A.M.)

Programming Midterm

Hello There!


It’s been forever hasn’t it?

I’ve been working on a ton of various projects, all of which have been stalled due to midterms and schoolwork @~@

But great news, I have been accepted to college! =D
And I have a 2 week break in two days!! YAYY!! xD
Means studying, blogging, coding, and everything else I have been itching to do

Anyway, now to discuss the various midterms that I have had…

The only one I feel like discussing is Programming, since I worked on it like all day today and yesterday @o@!
It took so long, I almost got a headache! Lol
(and I am a tech-man, so headaches are rare and far-between)

Here it is! =P

It took forever to code! I had to figure out how to animate the sprites for pickachu, how to do messages for buying products, how to do an inventory, and how to do boundaries all on my own!! Which means this was the most fun and challenging project yet!! xD

Here is the shop screen I designed.
As you can see, the prices are beneath the items and they each have a letter associated with them for interacting with the old man and purchasing items.
After you purchase some items they will appear in your inventory:

 

As pictured above!

You will see the amount of money you have left is next to the rupee symbol, and the items you have purchased will be in the upper corner of the screen! =D
Each item has a number below it that tells you how many of it you have purchased and have in your inventory! :D
(Although, each inventory spot is hardcoded to an item, so they don’t move up spaces if you don’t buy a specific item. All the possible items in this script are pictured above)

There is also a hidden screen for the credits
(I have blurred out my personal information on purpose)

 

 

 

Various other photos:

As you can see, I named the store “Dungeons Warehouse” xD
And it is borrow heavily from The Legend of Zelda and other things. (mario)
Speaking of which, I have the desire to play Ocarina of Time, but I am too tired for that kind of focused game-play.

Anyway, that was just a quick update!! :D
I guess I could post snippets of the convoluted code next time, so you can see the horrors and the crazy logic that went into coding this crazy thing! xD
After all that time I spent and all it does is allow you to buy things and has them show up in your inventory, it’s quite shocking really.
Took sooo much coding to get the dialogue and interaction with the old man to work, so that you could talk to him and buy items that way.
It would have been sooo much simpler to have used a mousePressed type of setup, but if I had then it would have not been rpg like. *shrug*

I should make one like those classic text games!! :)
That would be awesome!!
And at certain parts you are able to control a character and then do some task vital to the game, and then you go back to only text.. O_o
Eery, interesting… I like it!! ^u^
(Like text text text… you are in a room in a house and lights flicker and move across the room… eery sounds are playing… you feel chills down your spine… you know you need to move and move fast… you need to get out of this room… before it is too late!!)

OoO!! Fun fun fun!! xD
I might work on an epic text adventure game over the break, who knows?
I probably won’t though, because I’ll be too busy doing other things *shrug*

Oh well, I think I’ve rambled on long enough!!!
That’s enough for now!

I’ll update again soon!! (since I have time now that I have a break XD)

Thanks for reading!! ^o^

Sincerely,

~James Dodon

Night-time musings...

Well, yah. How's everyone doing? :D


As for me...

Schoolwork never ends, and the ambitious dreams of the damned surface every night only to implode upon themselves, a million noble ships striving for individual beauty and accomplishment being crushed by the tidal wave of absurd homework.
(no really, it feels like that.)

I think it is rather my fault with regard to my ambitions, as I seem to wax strongest in desire when multitudinous opposition comes crashing into my life through the guise of academia, when the noblest endeavour is considered the least practical and is the least appreciated.
But then, when did a one ever do a noble endeavour to be appreciated?
Oh no, the appreciation is wholly in the mind of the endeavouror, he who strives for the beauty of self-actualization, he who works for the sake of the work itself, oh yes it is he and he alone who moves to convey the beauties of the world and the mysteries of the heavens, he alone who understands the beauty in creation and in understanding.

But I ponder, is it truly a fault in mine mind, in my ethic, that I should undertake so many endeavours at once as to detest the generalities and hoops through which the education systems insist I must prove my intellect? My worth?
Since when is worth a measure of measured success?
Isn't it our desires, our ambitions, our goals, and our actual un-influenced, un-perturbed, untainted works that show who we really are and what we really have to offer?
Sure, that is what the college essay is for, but the brevity of an essay with respect to the growth of an individual through his own desires and ambitions is akin to the difference between a high-school student learning chemistry and a professional chemist with a P.H.D in chemistry and a majors in biology.
The two exist on different planes, virtually incomparable except in the fact that they both are concerned with Chemistry, albeit on different levels of intense devotion and complexity.
The point here being that secondary schooling the way it is currently being done does nothing to foster the true agenda and purpose of the individuals that it is purported to help become better, well-rounded, and more intelligent people.

Forcing students to do work is psychologically foolish, as what could have been seen as a chance to take ownership of some creation and work to test their own skill and to grow as a person is now being bastardized into a stressful evaluation of their individual worth to society as a whole.
How smart are you, how well can you do what we tell you, regardless of how much work we may overassign you.

Well I can tell you one thing for sure, no matter what happens with schooling, no matter whether I do great or poorly, I know that I am capable of doing whatever I wish and I know all the realms of knowledge that intrigue me most.
I know which professions I have the most respect for, and I know which profession will be my main one, which one I shall devote all my time and precious thoughts to, all my creative energies, my everything.

Everything that prevents me from pursuing these avenues, now that is crippling beyond any damage I could do to myself.
Indeed, the testing schools do does not seem to be about making sure we learn content and solve problems, but rather seems to be about evaluating our abilities as learning machines and pushing us through to the next test to be taken.
I think it should be more focused on learning and sharing ideas and knowledge, different applications and ways of using the knowledge, and should foster creativity and ingenuity.
Ingenuity is the rarest and most precious of all the qualities that a school could foster in it's students, and it is the single quality that the school structure innately opposes.
It would be interesting to see self-motivated students come up with challenging projects that they desire to do on their own, and then to have them submit them to their professor for critique and perhaps praise as well.
The best thing you can do is practice, correct, practice, correct, discuss, discuss, theorize, practice, correct, discuss, etc...
All this test taking, all these boring assignments that do nothing to capture the power and the essence of what it means to be human and the truths of reality and humanity, is most definitely NOT the best way to prepare for our careers in the future.
It is not. It only creates stress and competition, both likely to shorten your life and cause issues in your psyche and how you view others and the world.
There is little open about the environment in which we are thrown when we go through high school, despite our rational capabilities and our relative maturity.
We are still treated like children, when many of us are itching to jump straight into learning what we need to and desire to for our professional careers.
Let's just suppose a long life is 80 years.
(As the average person lives for like 75 or something years, 80 maybe, I don't know for sure but it's around that range.)

If we consider schooling prior to college, then most people graduate highschool at age 18.
If we round up, that is 20.
20/80 is 25% of your life!
You spend a fourth of your life and you haven't spent most of it studying the core tenets of your profession.
Think about how much more we could advance if we focused more on our professions.
Of course, many people don't know what they want to be at such a young age, and I suppose that is why we don't focus on our professions.
But the moment that we know what we love and what we will become, that is the moment that all the restrictions should be lifted and we should be able to soar as high as we can and whenever we can, until we reach college and the higher fringes of achievement that our profession offers.

Well...
I have to stop here.
I know I have made a lot of claims, and have stated things that you may blatantly disagree with and outright see as misunderstanding.
But please understand that I do not intend the above to be seen as truth, nor to be seen as pure understanding.
I have not had time to analyze my thoughts and to articulate them coherently, to say what I mean accurately instead of misinterpreting my own thoughts and saying something that is absolutely ludicrous.
This body of text serves merely as a method for me to boldy state what is on my mind without any real editing or correction, for the purpose of sharing my thoughts so they aren't cluttering up my mind and so I may then analyze my thoughts to then agree with myself or disagree with myself, and then from there improve my thoughts and adapt to the proper perspective on this subject matter.

Any person who purports to know the sole truth of the matter of any topic is a person to be wary of indeed, as such a claim is both improbable and narrow-minded.
I am open to your criticisms and thoughts, as this helps me to grow and is essential for seeking the pathway to the truth of the matter.
I cannot do it alone. (most likely, and if at all never completely.)

That is all I have to say,

Sincerely,

~James Dodon

Homebrew and Rom Hacking

Greetings everyone!! :D

Okay, you know how I never took enough time to actually learn a language completely?

Well I've decided that I want to do some kick-ass nintendo ds homebrew, which means leaning C++/C and using the Devkitpro software I downloaded.
I am excited!! But it is going to be uber hard to do @~@
(thank goodness for the community! They can help if I need help, although I think I will take on some of their tutorials first. ;P
(gbatemp.net))


In class we are learning the Processing programming language, but only the Javascript port of it for now. (at the end of the year we will switch to the Java version and code Android apps with it :DDD)

I want to use HTML5 local storage to make a file editor or romhacking utility for a specific game or specific games.
Like the files in acww are lz77 compressed, but you have to do some mojo-jojo when decompressing them and recompressing them so they will work in the game.


I want to make the process automated, make it so I don't have to boot up the good ol' hex editor and mess around with the files.
(Like programming functions in Javascript to handle the details, I want to encapsulate the low-level details and keep them out of my mind, so I can just focus on my rom-hack)


Speaking of my romhack of ACWW, animal crossing wild world for those of you who don't know, I am finally able to edit the text in the game and replace it with my own!! :D
(thanks to a member of gbatemp.net, I won't mention who here, just because I think that is a bit weird, but if you want to read the thread it is there at gbatemp.net under the translations section I think.


I want to make my romhack survival themed, complete with a custom save file that you are supposed to download with the game, patterns and custom textures for the ground, and hopefully some game-logic mods to make the game replace trees that have been cut down during the day.
(because it is a scarce resource survival game)

I will have to hide Tom nook in some far corner, and make it so every day an axe appears in a hidden spot, not a golden axe for that matter, so you can only go so far into the forest each day when you are foraging.
It would be interesting to introduce a mechanism of health, and if you don't eat any fruit for a while your health drops until your character is erased and you need to get a new resident.

(maybe that's too harsh? xD)

I think there was a way to do that... deleting the bed? ehhh or does that just make it so they cannot sleep by rolling onto their nonexistant bed?
Who knows lol *shrug


Apparently the New Super Mario Bros editor has the capability to interface with code you write to "hook" into the games code and modify or add to how the game works.
That would be extremely useful for acww!! :D
The possibilities are endless!! (the coding would be hard at first too, however)



I am working on finishing my romhack, atm I am editing the menu's text
(so like Friend Roster = Survival List now :P)
However, I am having trouble with the title menu...
I think perhaps I made my relacements too long for the tiny screen they inhabit, but mehhh all well...
Maybe I can find a way to hack the menu screen size? XD ehh probably out of my skill level at this time..>.>



But yeah! That's the jist of it for now, I also plan on re-attempting to make custom models for acww, using a virtual windows xp and good ol 3ds max 6, although the other hackers recommended the old version of maya....


Aside from these activities I am uber uber busy with school, so there is no guarantee for when I will get any of this romhack done, and I have no clue when it will be completed.
(though hopefully before ac3ds is released xD that is my goal!!)


I do wonder if it is possible to hack the game so one of your house/mansion rooms is replaced with Tom Nooks or the Abel Sisters house?
(or if it is possible to expand the size of your house via rohacking)
It probably is as far as the tom nook idea goes, it probably just involved changing where the entrance to the room points in memory...
(or something like that)

But when you leave nooks you will, undoubtedly and necessarily, exit out his frontdoor and not be back in you house.


Well, these are my thoughts and ideas, activities rather, as of late! :)

hopefully the next time we meet I will have more to discuss with you!!
Farewelll!! :D

(oh and I will post piccies of my progress next post, I promise!! ;})

'Til next time!! ^.^


~James





- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Random Nighttime Thoughts...

//Here is a draft I wrote a while back but never posted, enjoy lol :)

Hello again!
I will warn you before you read this, that I may end up rambling quite a lot and it may be a very biased and at times angry read.
Whether or not it will be as described above, I do not know yet, but it might be so fair warning lol ;P


Okay so here we go!!

Nothing we imagine is impossible to create.
Or rather, anything we want to create we can.
Today's world is consumer-driven, based on products and subscriptions and the like..
So then, it is also passive and based on lack of creativity and originality for the majority of the people-only those who create the content achieve anything original or express any creativity.

I do not feel I am expressing this right or proper, but I shall forge onwards nonetheless!! :)
It is not that it is impossible to create things on the iPad or the latest technologies, it is that it is very hard and limited when compared to what you can do on a computer or full fledged personal computer.
(windows, mac, etc)

There will always be ways of creating things for and on devices, but the means may not be feasible for all those interested.
For example, it is not always the best idea to create art on a tablet like the iPad. It is hard, the software isn't industry standard (think photoshop), and it is probably good for sketches at best and isn't very precise.
(from a non-artistically talented perspective, so keep that biase and lack of ability in mind)
But on an iPad you can write documents, manipulate photos, or do simple things.
So far we only see simple things.
Editing a text document is simple and limited. (satisfying but not the true potential of the device(iPad))
Editing source code, compiling it, and then testing your applications... now that would be more like it!

I should be able to write and code iPhone and iTouch applications on my iPad, and I should be able to run it in a special environment on my iPad if I so wish to test it and whatnot.
I do not need to run it on my mac, my iPad is pretty beast too.
Idk, just random thoughts I suppose.. I think I am too tired to warrant a focused and well argued blog post, but mehh whatever lol.
(and perhaps not well-informed enough to know if my arguments are wronged or right, and why they would be so.)

Programming is hard work, but satisfying and with infinite potential.
It would be so cool to say "Hey I like this game but there isn't an emulator for it for XYZ device. Hmm.. I'll code one!!", and then to actually be able to code an emulator that works on the device?
That would be awesome!
Anything that you could imagine, that you could code, you could create.
That would be amazing!
But it takes a long time to code, and it has a steep learning curve.
(takes a lot of dedication and time too >.>)
But it is definitely worth it, even if just for the ability to make your own games and applications :D
(which is why I want to learn C#!
Robust language with many useful features, implementable on the popular Windows, similar to Java which can run on most any computer, and it allows for rapid development of awesome applications!)

We seem to be headed towards the whole "user-created content" era of the web and of products, if we aren't there already, where a lot of the most popular websites and valuable services/products get their value entirely from the users that use their service.
(youtube -> user created videos)
(facebook-> user created posts and content)
(forums _> user created)
Let's face it: anything worth consuming is something that is dynamic, has fresh content daily, and has a variety of things to consume, experience, or interact with.
A site devoid of user interaction or contribution is most likely a very dull site indeed.
Thriving E-Communities are some of the most hopping and interesting places to visit and contribute to, and websites like Youtube can just draw attention and keep it for long periods of time.
And if the creator of the website can make money off of it, sweet!
Free, never-ending content, users, and a thriving community!

This is the power of the web as it stands today, the power of free user-created content and it's widespread popularity and the money and power it can lend to you and your endeavours and website.


I strongly suspect that a lot of the 'expert' or like beyond expert information in computing and programming, computer science or whatever it is called, is kept secret on purpose.
Either that or you have to be a select individual, a gifted genius, to figure out some of the things that people these days have figured out.
(reversing data types, programs, etc.
coding an emulator, an assembler, a compiler, etc)

I am sure knowledge exists on how to do the second line of of things I listed above, but as for the other things... they approach the realms of the semi-legal and illegal, and while it is not illegal to do such things perhaps the knowledge is suppressed to prevent any issues from it being misused?
Or maybe it is just too damn hard to do, let alone explain.
Or maybe it can only be learned by experimentation and brainstorming.
I have absolutely no clue, all I know is that more and more people can do more and more crazy hacky things with technology, and that I have no idea where they learn this shit.
(sorry for the expletives... but it is appropriate in a sense.. this is like WTF territory, talking about people hacking into ipads and iphones etc, people coding entire emulators and reverse engineering all the data types needed to make them work, all of this against failsafes and mechanisms set in place to prevent it from happening. That is amazing!)

Well I am tired and should be sleeping, gotta get up early in the morning to walk doggies, and then shower and then off to hang out on a boat all day @o@!!
Wish me luck!! :D
Haha!!

Sincerely,


~D.




- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Lovely in Life, Darling in Death;

Hello readers! :D

I thought I would update with my thoughts and views as of late, on life, death, and all the stuff in-between. ;P
It's ironic how we evolved to be aware of our life, to instinctually do everything we can to survive and stay alive, and yet we all will die no matter what we do. Is that the reason my gut tightens and my heart beats faster when I consider that I will one day experience life no more?
My survival instinct?
Or is it the knowledge that one day I will be unable to revisit the movies and works that I hold dear in my heart, one day I will be graced by this world and it's wonders no longer, one day all I care about will go on without me. That one day my lovely family and friends will be lost to me forever.

It's odd to think there are so many people in the world that one could not possibly get to know them all. To think that we could die, leaving nothing behind that testifies of our existence except for faint memories, and never forge connections with all those around us. To testify of and resonate with their existence, to validate it in those few precious moments we spend with them, a stranger now but soon no longer.
It seems to me that the reason corruption and greed dominate politics and ruin utopian ideals in societies is due to the fear of lack, the power of the ego and the power-issues it causes, and the fact that as humans we don't balance population with resources.
We don't follow natures intended path of equilibrium and thus we introduce a wide gap in the quality of life for our fellow humans as a society.
One could say that we need large populations to increase the likelihood of good genetics and resourceful children being born, but that argument could be countered by incorporating recent technological advancements such as genetic engineering.

With genetic engineering we could have small populations of only intelligent people who would be able to advance the aims and accomplishments of mankind with rapid strides, who may eventually eliminate the need for balancing population with resources one day.
If there is enough for the people then everyone can truly be equal and theft and the like would have no meaning or purpose any longer. (in theory)
This is just an idea, there are probably numerous reasons why this is a bad idea, but I just don't understand what good comes out of uncontrolled and rapid population growth.
Everyone knows that as population increases, space, quality, and resources will decrease causing major issues and problems for everyone.
But then theres the issue of 'what if everyone wants to have children? Shouldn't they be allowed to?'.
The problem here is a conflict of what we should do and what we should have the right or what we as a people want to do.
But honestly, would you want to have a child if you were only able to do so by putting him through terrible conditions and by causing major issues that would plague him/her for generations?
(^^ bit extreme, but it's true. This is population increase is alarming, and will also increase pollution levels amongst other problems.)
As a society we seem to be disinterested in the facts of reality, we need to open our eyes and act accordingly. We don't need any enlightened despots, we need enlightened citizens who are aware of issues of national and global scope, and who act accordingly!
We have to consider the bigger picture more so than we consider the whims and fancies and desires of ourselves!
It's a noble sacrifice and one that is necessary for total equality.
(as far as this theory goes, there could be better alternatives idk)

I don't understand how we could possibly continue to live on after death, it just doesn't make sense. To me it seems like a selfish, and rather convenient, belief for one to take up. Why should we live forever?
Why? Because we want to? Because we didn't get enough time on Earth?
Nope, that is a greedy and selfish idea even if it's rooted in soft and fluffy idealism and the idea of living forever with your family and friends.
I don't need to live forever. I am okay with what I was given.
I do not like the idea of desiring for more than what I recieved in this life, it seems like it would impune my whole existence to surrender myself to the fantastical desires of infinite life and mesmerizing heavenly wonders.
It's too conventient too, it serves too many functions in one's life, from helping people cope with death, to giving them a sense of self worth and community, and ultimately giving them a set of codes to live by that makes them feel good as a person. Is there anything wrong with believing in a religion, even if it was false? Not at all!! It is actually far better to believe in religion than not to, as it certainly frames your life in a positive light, and gives you a way to deal with life and tragedies, etc etc.
It is a wonderful way to raise children, as it is a wonderful influence and serves as a positive role-model to your children.
It teaches them morals and wholesome values, things that make wonderful and great adults one day.
If it's false it is a beautiful lie, one that God would approve of for giving the world hope, and if it is true, then it is a beautiful existence that we have been blessed with, but then again it is beautiful either way.

Now that I have thoroughly destroyed the beauty of this web-page with my long rambling, and terrible formatting, I shall wrap up this post and go back to my daily work and life. :)

Religion may or may not be true, but to me it seems to be selfish to believe in life after death and to want it, it seems to show no appreciation for what life God did give us here on Earth.
Religion helps us by serving multiple functions in our lives that otherwise would be left empty and cause us much grief, functions such as mitigating the agony of death, directing our sense of purpose and validating our sense of self worth, and giving us a wonderful sense of community and importance in the grand scheme of things. It takes that empty feeling of the whole matter of the truth behind existence and paints it with vibrant and lovely greens, dashing blues, luscious reds, and all the magnificent colors of the rainbow.
Religion is a stronghold against political corruption, and as we can see once we separated the state it became self-evident that politics was the corrupt influence, not the Religion. (maybe, maybe not)
But in this day and age Religion is a unifying force and a purposeful force, something that has and can help many people find peace with themselves and the world.

All of the above only makes it seem more likely to me that religion is untrue, because it is too convenient and it would be easy for church leaders or the like to justify fabricating such a belief for the greater good of mankind.
Like I said, there is nothing wrong believing in it even if it was false: it is a wonderful tool, resource, and influence on your life, and it will inevitably make you a happier and more peaceful person.
But I suppose this information could also be interpreted as evidence that religion is true, given that God would create such a device that would take care of our needs and help us through this life, which is what religion is purported to do: tell us God's plan for us and give us a focus and direction.
I haven't drawn conclusions on this matter, but I do feel that God exists, whether or not we are intended to live forever.
But it does seem likely that we were sent down here to experience God's creation, and to study it and marvel at how beautifully and intricately he designed and weaved this reality and existence. It's truly a masterpiece.
But alas, that is a comforting thought, and comforts and desires and emotions can lead a man astray from reality and give authority and validity to mere illusion.
I do believe I have expressed my views well enough for now, and so I bid you ado.

Til next time I write you, my dear citizens of the vast and inter-connected Web and it's unique and awesome culture, farewell!

Sincerely,

~James Dodon



- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Update on Macao!

*EDITORS NOTE*: Well, I had this saved as a draft since my trip to macao... I didn't post it apparently. I probably have a much larger and extended draft saved on my pc in an app... but this will do for now lol.  I will see if the above is true and post an updated version as soon as I can if it is.
Thank you!! ^u^ *END NOTE*


Hello dearest readers!! :D
I am on a boat back from Macao!
The traveling by boat is very similar to going by airplane, it has these soft seats and food trays to put whatever you want on (cough* my ipod and bluetooth keboard ;P *cough)

Upon arriving we were instantly hustled by a dude that wanted us to take his tour service, and my father decided it was a good idea. (much to the dismay of my sisters)
I just told them that it was a good idea because we could see more by car than if we had walked, because it was really hot out and the car had AC, and because the tour guide new more about where to go than we did (we knew nothing) and we would waste more time walking around in the heat trying to figure it out than they would (cuz they wouldn't waste time.)

Well, we were hungry so we asked our driver, her, to take us somewhere where we could try the local food, and since the island used to be owned by Portugal we expected to find portuguese restaurants and food to consume.
Well, we found a McDonalds and a starbucks! XD
We were looking for a town "square", were we heard there would be a ton of portuguese food shops and other things.
Well we ended up eating ice cream instead! XD
They had a whole lot of fruit flavors, but my sisters and I got te "cookie" flavor, which was actually like chocolate oreo ice cream. It was good :P
(oh and it was on a waffle cone!)

The buildings, structures, and neighborhoods were magnificent!
Apparently there are more casinos in Macao than supermarkets! How crazy is that?!?
And Macao is just a river away from mainland china!
(if that is indeed the right thing to call that part of china)

It's only an hours boat away from Hong Kong, so that is pretty sweet, and it is its own country!
(they use our currency as well, hong kong dollars, but have their own currency too @O@ CrAziNess!)

We went around, ate some egg tart thingies (which I sadly didn't take a liking to), and saw some cool things. (for a lack of better description! XD I'll have the pictures later in this blog post (pretty soon actually :D))
Then after the tour was over we went and ate dinner at a portuguese (expensive -o,o-) restaurant :D
Of course I got chicken! lol
It was fried chicken of course, and had the bones in it and other such stuff...
I'm not used to taking the meat off the bone, and avoiding any bad parts, so that was a cultural enriching experience for me! haha :>

They did have potato fries thingies, and those were delicious! :} mmmmm yum! ^u^

Then we got a taxi and now we are on our way back to Hong Kong!
(it's crazy, we had to use our passports and go through all the processes to get out and get into Macao! The whole shebang! And it's so small, and so close to Hong Kong! lol)

Well, I didn't use much description (to my and your dismay :<(presumably)).
But fear not, for here comes the millions of pictures I took with this very ipod that I write this blog on! :D
(if it doesn't die first, this bluetooth thing and millions of picture-taking I did is seriously killing my battery (OH NO- this very sentence was intupted by a "20% battery remaining message .o. it's a sign that i should save a local draft real quick! And so I shall! ^u^)




- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

A Small Insight into My Life:

Mini-Blog Update, A Small Insight into My Life:

Please excuse the current formatting, as it was intended for a facebook post but then grew so large  I labeled it a blog and put it here instead :P
This is an update on my life out in Hong Kong, and is quite frankly what I am up to as of late.
(mostly anyway hehehe...)
....


School out here has begun :O (this last monday out here)
It seems no matter where I go, CA or HK, I am always plagued by living so far away from the school that I have to wake up super early!! XD
Oh well, the school is fun so far :)
AP Calculus AC/BC, AP English, AP Chemistry, Programming, Design and Technology, and... Economy. (apparently AP econ didn't line up, but I am going to self-study and take the exam anyway!! :P yaayyy!! XD)

Oh and yes, that means I have AP Calculus every day, :D, and will get two scores on the exam (hopefully two fives ^u^)
Programming just entails Javascript for right now, so web programming scripting in a simple sense, but it theoretically will culminate into designing an Android application by the end of the year.
(right now they are introducing basic concepts that I already know about, Methods, Parameters, etc etc)
(a method is a function into which you pass parameters, which are objects(data/variables) that the function uses for computations or for whatever it is the function is supposed to do.)

I am running for the athletic council in my house, as my school separates students into houses and I was put into the Senior Dragon house (in contrast to Senior Phoenix, or Senior Tiger), so I have to prepare as short two-min speech tonight :P
Fun fun! XD
(aside from still having homework lol. I may love learning, but homework is something I shy away from. 
Not because it's hard, not because I can't do it, but because I'd rather not do it.
Idk, it is just so much nicer to relax and chill.
But alas, that work ethic is unacceptable and must be changed if I wish to succeed in life. So change it I will!! :} )

The school has a strict dress code and uniform enforcement, which is why in my "first day of school pic", courtesy of my wonderfully awesome and wonderful mother, I am wearing what appears to be dress clothes at first glance.
I haven't had time to run since school started yet, but I shall work it into my schedule as I get more efficient and situated. :D (or at least that's the plan XD)

Tomorrow will be the first time I meet the XC coach for out here, and that will be after school.
(It can't be that exciting, considering we didn't even have summer practice D:
Just me and my sis running by ourselves all summer long... not a terrible fate, because we still had the beautiful nature and running isn't terrible when solitary, but a sad thing nonetheless.)

I can't wait for the AP exams later in the year!! What kind of challenge awaits meh? :P
What constitutes the "AP Calculus" exam? mwuahahaha!
Only taking it will give me such insight... ;D

There is more to talk about, but that will come later.
I have to do homework now. XD
Awayyy!!! :P

~James Dodon ^u^

Well Onwards to Macau!! :D

7-21-2012 hong kong (should be M/D/Y, cuz in hong kong , but whatev lol. This is a post from yesterday, I have one more from yesterday to post as well )

 

Hello readers!! :)
Today I have the privilege to go and explore Macau!
(in RL not SL XD)
Apparently it's this little country that was settled by the Portuguese way back when!
I have no idea what to expect, but it should be fun :>
I plan on studying the architecture, if possible, and designing copies or derivative structures in my OpenSim land! :D

I currently follow, as of today, two Second Life blogs: New World Notes, and Virtual Christine.
Both are interesting, though I just subscribed to Christine's blog today, (www.virtualchristine.com), and I would love to meet both of the blogs writers in Second Life or on an OpenSim grid! :P
They both seem really friendly and helpful, and very knowledgeable about the virtual realms.
I think it all comes with time and experience exploring SL and OS and making friends and learning all about.. well, everything!
The content creation system is totally robust, I want to learn to make custom avatars, to script, and to design awesome things and such :)

I will try to write a few more blogs before the day is over, keeping you up to date on Macau and showing you picture of what it is like out there.

i should conduct an experiment one of these days, just go to like 5 different sandboxes and introduce myself to ten to twenty people randomly, ask them what they are doing, and asking them if they have anything they could teach me.
It would be interesting to see how many of them, statistically, would be friendly, how many would share any knowledge, how many would say they are just starting learning, etc etc.

The possibilities in SL are endless!
If people are willing, it is a very good source for conducting surveys to understand people and answer any questions you may have about anything in general. (of course, these questions are just going to be aimed towards that percentage of the population that plays online games, and then even smaller: that percentage that specifically plays Second Life.)

Onto the idea of "Playing" second life...
I don't like the terminology, Second Life is so much more than a mere game.
It should be called... exploring? all the people that explore and inhabit Second Life, not play.
Oh but for sure, there are people that just "Play" in Second Life, perhaps in Linden Realms for example, but the majority of what I consider to be Second Life consists of people that create, buy, and explore Second Life.
There is no "playing", playing implies the world is precreated and that you have a goal that the creators have defined for you (creators being Linden Labs not the Residents, for they surely do create some rules in their sims), instead we have people exploring a dynamic, constantly in creation and destruction, world with no real objective given to them other than to do what they please.
(with a major exception if they want to Grief(cause trouble), that is not something that is an acceptable choice in Second Life.)

I cannot wait until I find a community of virtual explorers that meet within a time frame that I can manage in my daily and (when school starts) professional life.
I could be immersed in languages other than those that I speak, discuss philosophy with people I have never even met, and potentially give speeches one day if I gain traction and figure out what it is I stand for and believe in.
I want to rally the world, unite the community, and make Second Life all that it can be! (and is supposed to be! Or (imo) should be!)
I want to foster a sense of community, create an easier way for people to find others interested in what they are, and for people to figure out where the events and places that they want to attend are.

It would be really fun to attend a virtual reenactment of historical events, people dressing up as Presidents or famous speakers and giving the speeches to the resident base of SL.

I should, one day when I get a job, rent a lot of land on SL and do a communal living project (I think that's what it's called?), where I build some apartments and allow some large number of people to live on my land.
It would be so fun and rewarding to have a close-knit community of people, all living under one roof.
I would have a fireplace, and at night we would sit around the camp fire and tell stories of our real and virtual lives, tell jokes, laugh, and just bond as one big virtual family. (well, I should say one big awesome family, as family transcends the boundaries of the virtual)

We would script and build together, and have community projects. One day we would build a garden around our apartments, the next day someone would suggest that we build a path though the garden leading to some benches and birds and a pond for a relaxing time to read newspapers or whatever else.
We would have a community board where people could pin or post their ideas or ads or whatever, so whenever someone wanted the others to know about their awesome idea or whenever someone misplaced their creation, the community would always be their to organize discussions and come together to build it.
Honestly, in order for all this to work I would have to be lucky enough to get 50 people (or perhaps 10, 15, or 20 at first) with the right personality types to be willing to participate in my little community.
All these people would be living on my land for free, of course, and all that I would ask in return would be that they participate and give back to the community, that they help give our humble region some spark and flare, and that they are kind to all those inhabiting my land.
That would be extremely awesome, and I would enjoy the community so much.
I would try to build a speaker emporium, so I could schedule occasional speaker appearances for my residents (with their voting or approvals or whatever, or not) in case they wanted to attend, everything from politics and philosophy to scripting and theology.

It would be sweet, I'd try to invite people of renown or good report to my lands to enrich the lives and minds of my people, and I would try to get sculpting and programming experts to come and give classes occasionally as well.
I would provide a feedback box/mechanism whereby Residents could let me know what they thought, and I would openly discuss the ideas I received (though careful not to mention anyone specifically, as I believe in anonymity and discretion) at perhaps the community camp fires, and I would try to get a general consensus as to what the community wanted. I would try to make compromises, and to see where the community moved from there.

There is so much potential in Second Life, but much of it stems from social interaction and events.
So if you're socially awkward like me then you might need to explore and talk to residents a bit more, make friends, and become more relaxed and happy. (<-- my plan for myself lol)

I thought Second Life was dying, but I do not know yet.
It's prices are atrocious though, like 1000 (US) dollars to buy land, and then like 300 dollars a month just to have it?
(thats 4,600 dollars the first year, and 3,600 every year after!)
By contrast, many OpenSim grids charge far less
and offer more land. (although I think they only offer undeveloped land.)

Think about the Kitely Startup 35$ a month for 20 worlds (63,000 square meters I think) and unlimited usage.

Oh we are at Macau!
I will update later!

Thanks for reading!!

Sincerely,

~James Dodon :)

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Quick update before bed! :)

Hello everyone! I thought I would post a quick update before I went to bed today!

Today I explored Linden Labs ehh.. Linden Realm, I think it’s called, to see what the new tools for creating mobs had created, and to see if it was any fun.
Well, it was beautiful and actually pretty fun! XD
I ended up earning 31 L$, of which I spent 10 on a handheld image projector, so that is pretty sweet.
That’s like enough to upload a texture or object or something, idk lol :D

I also went to see Batman Rise of the Dark Night, and it was a phenomenal movie, extremely well done!! I love it, it was written well and was enjoyable.

I didn’t get any pictures of Linden Realms, as I was running from the Rock Monsters that will chase and “kill" you (teleport you to a nearby respawn area.

I was reading more of The Making of the Metavers on my iPad, taking notes and highlighting and stuff, and it is very very interesting!!
History is so interesting! (not only SL’s history, but video game and tech history too! But that’s a story for another time (well it’s like a ton of stories, volumes… but whatev lol))
It was talking about LL’s first attempts at socially engineering Second Life to be what it thought it should or would be, and the extremely negative reaction of the Residents.
It tells of the abuse of most all of the features of the early systems implemented in Second Life by the userbase, with people running around in mobs mind-raping people with mass attacks of negative rating them (had to be in proximity to rate someone).
And business owners paid people to “camp” out on their property, to increase traffic and get the rewards offered by LL. (camping = being paid to just hang out)
Ironically, it probably wasted more RL money than what you made in SL just running your computer for the time necessary to earn anything useful.

People often muse that it’s best to make money in real life if you want to have Lindens$, because the jobs in Second Life don’t make as much money and are more time consuming.
Devote yourself to your RL, and spend any excesses you may have on SL if you wish.
(at least, I read something like that on an article google gave me for how to make money in second life)

One of the most interesting aspects of Second Life and of the whole SL experience is the whole concept of the self, the ego, and one’s identity with the world and one’s beliefs.
There are people who are racist if you decide to wear a black skin to see what it’s like, and there are people who gender-bended (role-played as the opposite sex) and fell in love with other people of the same sex within second life!
There are people that have met in SL and then have gone on to overcome international boundaries and to become married!
It is certainly not a game, the effects psychologically are too strong to ignore.
(this is where a “video games are bad for you” complaint could be thrown in, but it’s opposite could be furthered here as well.)

I think it’s effects on us and our emotions result directly from the fact that we are constantly interacting with actual people and humanoid things that, since they are human, say the most interesting and touching things.
It’s the souls of the avatars, the humans that inhabit them, that transcend the confines of the virtual world and embellish Second Life with more than a mere existence as some trivial game.
It’s still bad to spend too much time in SL, but it can be fun and rewarding, I suppose it’s not too bad if you are uber rich and have absolutely nothing to do. (like you already achieved your life goal, raised a family, and completed and Iron Man for fun)

The learning curve for content creation and for scripting is such that I am not surprised that so many people shy away from engaging in such activities.
It is very time consuming and hard to master.
(I haven’t really gotten far yet, but I suppose I could watch tutorials.. but then I feel like I am cheating or something @~@ idk, stupid psychological weirdness I suppose lol)

It would be good to learn for project design and management, and to learn Scripting in general. But it takes a lot of time to do!
The whole Linden Realms side of Second Life is more geared towards the consumption and entertainment portion of SL users, those who cannot or do not want to create and build the metaverse. (Which is perfectly fine, and arguably even more enjoyable. (although odd if they only are interested in the “game” part of SL and not the community, the beautiful creations, and the rewarding process of building something in SL itself.

SL does have advanced building tools, it’s just awkward because it’s like trying to figure out how to use Autodesk 3ds max with no manual: soo many features and tabs and options, it’s very confusing at first!
Luckily the whole framework that makes SL possible, the internet, is an amazing and wonderful resource for tutorials and help!
One of the interesting things about the internet in my opinion is that even if what you are looking for isn’t out there yet, since the internet is connected to actual human beings, much like SL is, you can get help and information from asking questions and joining communities online etc etc.
The other users of the platform are willing and happy often to share their knowledge with you and nurture you, to welcome you into the fold.
It is in this way that knowledge  can transcend the boundaries of the mind and physical regions. However, it is all dependent on your desire and choice to or not to ask for help.
Being sociable is important.

I personally have found that, just like in Real Life, I am socially awkward in Second Life!
How strange really, my Real Life experiences have psychological impacts on my Second Life experience: my mind does not distinguish between virtual and physical interaction, but rather chooses to be awkward and nervous, worried even, when interacting with anyone that I am unfamiliar with.
Maybe SL will help me get over my issues with being sociable. Who knows?

The whole idea that putting on an Avatar other than the one that you feel is you, and it’s subsequent effects on how you feel and what you think of the experience, are very interesting as well.

Well.. I think I squeezed enough out of this topic for now!
(it was, after all, supposed to be a quick blog post!! XD)

Thanks for reading!

Sincerely,

~James Dodon :)

Designing Really, Creating? Virtually!

Hello everyone! :)
I recently took up the task of designing something to build in OpenSim to gain skills in building, to have a potential place for friends to visit one day that would be fun, and to see what I could come up with and to have fun building it myself!!

I cannot wait until Linden Labs pathfinding tools are released, for game-related thingers so I can add monsters to the thing that I am making :D
It is supposed to be a giant rectangular box, that is actually a maze that when you enter it you wander around and fall through the floor to the next stage in the maze.
There are only three floors in this beta model that I designed, but eventually I will design one with many more floors and secrets, one that will be super massive and awesome!!
(and take up a whole sim!! @O@)
For right now my meager beginnings with building and with this project will suffice ;}

Here are some pictures basically sketching out the project:



These are the basic sketches I did to get a general idea of what I wanted to accomplish with my project.
The pictures go as follows: sketch of entrance, sketch of top floor, second floor, third floor, and sketch of final destination (which you teleport to).

I have also drawn out blueprints on graph paper, which I will include in a blog post tomorrow hopefully. (wait today is tomorrow, it’s 12:58 at night xD so… later today then I suppose lol. Though I am sleep deprived (of own choice) and can’t guarantee quality lol ;p)

Here, I’ll boot up OpenSim real quick to grab a screenshot of what the project looks like thus far (which isn’t much):

Here’s OpenSim running (yes, it runs in command prompt! lol)


Here is the humble project thus far!!
What you see is going to be part of the top floor, with the left cylinder being a secret room.



As you can see, my current level of expertise requires me to make a giant triangular prism in order to allow people to get in and out of the secret room. Interesting huh?


As you can see in the above picture, there is a hidden ramp to go up through the phantom roof and out across into the secret room!!
(originally I had planned for the roof to be phantom and if you jumped right you’d go through it, but without providing a custom avatar to allow me to make the maze height smaller (and thus allow a jump to actually go through a phantom ceiling, instead of popping up and falling back in).
Actually, giving a custom avatar at the start of the maze would be a wonderful idea!
It would make the space needed for the maze much smaller! lol
And would make interesting features and obstacles in the maze easier to construct.
The idea is that as you progress there are more enemies and more chests, and the chests you open have weapons made by me in them (or treasure/freebies).
The weapons allow you to defeat enemies, and the weapons you get-get stronger as you progress through the floors.
(but so do the enemies you face, so there is a balance.)
Only weapons created by me will damage the mobs (mobile objects xD),  and thus you cannot cheat by bringing in your own weapons.

I found out that in OpenSim it is really easy to create a user, but hard to delete them!
You have to edit the database files or something, .db in the bin folder, and manually modify whatever is needed!
I thought I needed it to set the owner of my land, when really I just needed to click “request admin priveleges” or whatever it is in-world, so I downloaded a few programs and tested them out.
The one you want is called SQLite Manager, and it is an add-on for firefox.
When I load it it takes a while, firefox seems to be not responding for a few secs, and then it loads.
Then I click the .db file I want, and then I edit what I want!! XD
(you can change the name of your land and whatever too)

So I am not sure if that is useful, but there you go! \(^u^)/
I really hope to learn Linden Scripting Language and become proficient in it!
It would be a great skill to know and have, and would allow me to create absolutely whatever I wanted in Second Life or OpenSim.
I am curious as to how textures are made for objects with weird shapes, such as cars and bikes and other weird complex things, for things with curved surfaces, etc..
It has to be hard I’d think!
Unless there is a program that can take your model and take your image and take your input and directions to make it look how you want it to.
Like… you it knows which parts of the texture image to distort, enlarge, and shrink in order for it to show up properly.

Idk, I need to figure out sculpty prims and whatnot lol.
Apparently to make doors work you have to cut  a cube in half so you can trick the physics engine into thinking the center of your object is where the doors hinges are, so when it rotates 90 degrees it opens like a door!
(cuz objects in second life do not rotate on a hinge, rather they rotate about the center of themselves. (so a door would “open”, but right in the middle of the doorframe | \ | <—type of deal))

I would like to create replicas of virtual items I have seen in other games so I can enjoy them in Second Life and OpenSim, as I would love to have all my virtual items with me no matter what game I am playing, (so I suppose that would be cross-virtual-universe item compatibility, idk), and I think it would be interesting to do so.
I would like to create a replica of Tom Nooks Pic, from ACWW.
I can rip the sprite from the game, import it into Second Life, design a frame, and be happy with that.
But that image is probably copyrighted, and if I ever sold it I probably would get in trouble.
(I don’t even know if I am allowed to even distribute that image, it’s probably the property of Nintendo or something. Maybe they’ll let me get away with it when I tell them I am a huge and loyal fan, and when I tell them I bought 3 acww game cartridges, two of which I still have.)

Or… I can make a work of art based on Tom Nooks Pic, and import that into Second Life or OpenSim to enjoy or sell for whatever reason I wish to do so.
I just don’t know if using Tom Nooks Pic as a reference for my work, thereby making it a derivative work I suppose, would still violate copyright laws because it would be considered a derivative work building off of and dependent on the original Tom Nooks Pic.

Woah, my brain is like shutting down! (probably literally lol)
I am super tired and it’s becoming harder to focus…
Maybe I should go do Linden Realms to try and earn some free Lindens xD
Well, that’s all I have to discuss for now!! :D
I hope to see you in-world one day!

’Til next time! (prob later today )

~James Dodon


(P.s. mehh kinda lame bonus pic!!
birds-eye view of project aMaze so far!!

                                                                                        )

Life, philosophy, and OpenSim

Hello everyone!! :D

Yesterday I converted the OpenSim installation on my laptop into a local server so my sisters could join me in OpenSim!! ^u^ (I still feel like calling it Second Life for some reason XD it just sounds… cooler, or something, idk lol)
My younger sister got crazy with the creation of prims, making fishes of all sorts and rezzing them all over the island, while my older sister began to play around with terraforming!!

I finished up building my house and found a LSL script online so my door can actually allow people in and out of it: if you click the door it becomes “phantom” and you can walk through it, and if you click it again it becomes solid once more.
All the scripts to rotate doors were making my door rotate in the middle of the doorframe, rather than on a hinge. >.>
Hopefully I’ll figure out what went wrong with that some day soon lol  :)
I am currently reading a few books on animation, texturing, and scripting in second life and I hope to practice and garner these skills in my offline OpenSim server.
It should be awesome!! :D
(though confusing, hard, and time consuming XD)

There are a ton of OpenSim grids that sell cheap land that is then on a public grid!! :D
(although you could probably make it private too, idk)
The most interesting of them that I have seen so far is Kitely, where instead of paying a flat rate per month or per year, you only pay for the minutes you are in-world.
So if you have a large company that meets in-world like twice a month, you only pay for the time spent in-world those two times each month.
(but, mind you, that’s paying a price for each and every person in-world. I think it’s cheap, but I do not recall.)
But think about this, the free account gets 120 minutes free each month and get’s it’s own world for free.
Yes that’s right, this is the only website I have seen so far that offers free land. This is puzzling and interesting, perhaps made possible due to the unique payment structure of the Kitely startup itself.
It has it’s own currency now which can be used in-world, and you can actually pay for your account with the KC currency if you make enough in-world.  
How crazy is that?!?

I applied to joing the google group “The Hypergrid Adventurers Club”, but I do not know if they got back to me yet or not. *shrug
I hope they can teach me how to hypergrid and why it’s not working currently!! XD

In one of the books I am reading it was teaching me about Sculpty Prims, which are basically a prim that you make customly outside of second life and then import into second life as an image that can be applied to a normal prim to turn it into a Sculpty. Whew! what a long sentence! lol
The simplest program to use is SculptyPaint, written in Java, which has some predefined shapes that you tweak and then import into the game. (sphere, flowers, stairs, etc)

I actually made something and imported it in :P
Here look:

There it is! Isn’t it loverly! :p
Reminds me of a chest piece really haha :>

While I have these pictures up, here I’ll post some of the others!! :P


Here is my beautiful house!! As you can see, I even created a ramp to the door!! :P
The only issue that bothers me right now is the tiling of the textures on the two pieces of the house itself above and to the right of the door: they don’t match the other parts of the house!! D:
I believe that is due to me stretching the objects rather than changing their size.. .grrr
I will try to fix that later…

Here is our humble island!! As you can see there isn’t much yet, but what there is makes me happy and is pretty awesome in and of itself!! :}
You probably have noticed the triangular orange thing on my roof, and the big floating blob in the sky, and are wondering what in the name of OpenSim are they?
Well…


They are flying fish!! XD
Flying fish created by my younger sister whom I was mentioning earlier :>
Above in this pic is the Flying Fish Brigade, and if you look carefully you can see a school of triangular fish down under the sea…



Triangular fish look like fish from the front, ya see?
They have two eyes and a triangular body, and like to travel in packs it seems.
Oh, they also like to hide on top of buildings and such it seems.


Here are two fish staring at me and wondering why I am not suffocating under water.


Here you can see triangular fish and a big blobby fish under the surface of the cool and rippling water.



And in the above picture you see yet another type of fish my sister created, a (dare I call it) spherical fish?
I’ll have to ask her what she named these different breeds of fish, because as for right now I believe they are all named the default “Primitive”.


Here is a little family of the circle fish thingies <3333
:3 awww lol


And here is a rogue blobby fish with triangular fish and another blob fish in the background.
Maybe they are playing tag and the blob in the background is chasing him down? @o@


Hmm… speaking of blobby feesh, this is Big Fish Mountain!! :P
Named that while I was naming the picture files for this blog upload, Big Fish Mountain is a spectacular sight, with a giant turquoise fish sticking out of the top of it.
It’s a hard climb though, so steep it may take supernatural flying powers or something to get up there



Here is a gigantic copy of my house that I rezzed in the sky!!


There’s my avatar standing in the gigantic doorway!


Here’s what the inside looks like, and there in the background is my sculpty prim :D

On top of my giant house is a little circle fish I asked my sister to put there so I could nab a copy!! TuT aweee yea!! lol :>

Here is my sister standing on top of another of her creations, clearly posing for what would become her introduction on my blog.
Look at that spirit of adventure and passion in her eyes! She is scanning the horizon, thinking of all the possibilities and planning something new…


Here she is from farther away
(btw, I do not know what that is that she is standing on!! I think it’s like a non-snowman snowman creature thingy that she created!! I think its awesome!! ^u^
It kinda reminds me of a creature we would have seen in Super Mario 64, when fighting the giant (cardboard?) rectangular boss that you had to ground pound on to destroy)


And here she is from the side, about to fly off into the sky, an eagle scoping out her surroundings and planning her next great endeavour…



Well, that’s all the pictures I have to upload today!!
I feel like I have talked about the following before, but I think it’s an important thing to discuss.

Second Life is dying. It’s true. Many people are leaving virtual worlds entirely, and some of them are moving over to OpenSim.
The Residents in Second Life likely aren’t aware of the OpenSim grids, as I wasn’t until I discovered it and wanted my own OpenSim land to play around with, to learn the skills prerequisite to excellent Second Life building and scripting. (and opensim building and scripting for that matter.)
The physics engine of Second Life is superior to OpenSim, sadly, and OpenSim is way harder to navigate.
However, I believe it has always been the plan to make Second Life open source at some point in it’s future, and perhaps if it dies that will be sooner than many of us would have thought possible. (not that I want it to die! it’s something that is really sad, it has the potential to completely destroy the future that I believed in when I chose to believe in Second Life and all that it stands for, to destroy a future of a massive social internet experience, with things such as in-world supermarket stores that actually ship the food you buy and the items you buy to your real-life house.
(for this type of idea, the land regions where the supermarkets would be would have to only allow you to be there with so many others at the same time in your viewer.
I.e. the sim actually has like, lets say, 1,000 people on it at the moment. All shopping for food and items and etc.
Why is it not lagging?
Because it doesn’t load you all into the same instance of it, it loads groups of 50 or 100 together.
You are stuck with the same 49 or 99 people that you entered the market with, until any number of them leave and are replaced by new people teleporting to that sim.
It’s the same sim for everyone, but the people that are allowed to see each other and coexisit have been limited due to space and lag issues. (among other issues)

This is the future I would love to see…
I actually have an idea I would like to pursue one day, but I cannot mention it here for fear of it being stolen by someone with more resources than I currently have at this time.
(not that someone might come up with the idea independently from me and make it all the same)

Second life is like the human face of data and the internet, it’s beautiful and interactive, social and economic, and political and educative, among other things.
There is so much potential!!
All it needs is a really organized and good system for interaction and other things!
It needs a way for like-minded people to meet!
The tech is outdated as far as finding and meeting people, things, places that you would like to, and it’s about time it changes!
Second Life at it’s best would allow so much more than any of us could imagine, but it currently is not as I would hope it would be.
Wouldn’t it be amazing to meet foreign language speakers who speak the language you are trying to learn on Second Life? And to have them help you out and become friends with you?
That would be sweet and awesome!

I read that one of the best ways to learn a language is to go out and be immersed in it, to speak with the locals.
Many of us cannot do this, and many of us will never even leave our country!
Second life allows us the opportunity that we could not have.
It allows us to observe the culture and spirit of other nationalities as well, through their artistic creation and expression in Second Life itself, and through conversing with them.
It allows us to attend speeches, to attend virtual classes where everyone can easily change their view to see the powerpoint if they can’t easily do so without detracting from the lesson or anything at all really.
It allows us to have fun and explore a world of infinite possibility with our loved ones and friends, and allows us to learn programming in a very rewarding environment.
It can teach us project management skills, with designing something and the building it in-world, and allows us to foster a sense of community with community projects building things.

It’s a world that we make ourselves, for ourselves and for others.
Ideally it would be able to support multimedia formats in-world, and have them part of the Second Life world itself, such that you could read pdfs in world, buy pdfs in world, watch movies in the in-world movie theater (movies that you bought tickets for with the virtual currency you bought or earned), the list goes on and on!

One of the issues with Second Life is that we can’t all have jobs in Second Life and make money in Second Life.
There needs to be consumers and producers, it won’t work if there is only producers!
That would also damage the Economy I think, flooding the markets and drastically reducing any existing buyer capacity.
(not sure if I used the right terminology, but I think my idea came through pretty well!)
Not all of us can spend a lot of time in Second Life, the community cannot grow past a certain point unless it is adopted widely by Schools and other organizations, and is an accepted medium for such professional usage.
Once all kinds of jobs can be done within Second Life, or within a computer, then the user base, community, and cashflow should increase.
(although I do believe there is an increase in home-jobs these days, I also think that those jobs are probably time-consuming and that many people who consider themselves professionals would never use Second Life unless it was an industry standard.)

Second Life should have been geared more like Open Wonderland was.
Open Wonderland was developed by Sun Microsystems, and when Sun was acquired by Oracle funding was stopped.
It is currently an open-source community project, if I recall correctly, and it even has a little video detailing how it was (is??) supposed to be used.
It is totally geared towards doing business and towards businesses, and seems to be more along the multimedia idea I mentioned earlier.
http://openwonderland.org/
There’s a link to it, you should go check it out lol.

It’s written in Java so it is truly has the potential to be a  wider in scope virtual realm that allows for what I envision in the above paragraphs.

Well, I think there was more that I wanted to say… but this post is waayyy to long as it is!!
Thank you for reading!! :) (even if you just skimmed for the pictures XD)
’Til next time

~James Dodon


(bonus Piccy!

Hmm.. I don’t always think while sitting on prims, but when I do I hang off the sides of them by my legs!! XD :P ;})