

Task Discussion

  • Lotus Greene   June 11, 2012, 5:01 p.m.

    These experiments in making machinimas are drafts of a possible assignment/quest for my ARG poverty project (see my earlier description a few entries below this one). It's also my first attempt to try to download screencasts to anything besides PowerPoint.

    ATTN: Blue, my machinima mentor :^): - I recognize that I haven't followed the rule of thirds, oops! and that I need music over the homeless images one - which is basically a slideshow, an experiment in using transitions and including screenshots in a machinima.

    Introduction to the assignment - 3m 45s

    "slideshow" that accompanies assignment - 49s

  • Jack Mosel (Jack Buxbaum in Second Life!) @moseljack (Twitter)   May 18, 2012, 1:37 a.m.

    ... some shots I'm accumulating on Flickr

  • R8chel Wolynez   May 17, 2012, 9:10 p.m.
  • Shila   May 11, 2012, 3:33 p.m.

    Hi, guys, I'm mostly lurking because there's so much info to take in, but I wanted to link here to an ARG I'm working on, very early stages. You'll see if you look around that I don't really have links set up yet except for most of the core narrative (week by week), but the description and video give an idea of what I'm trying for....

  • Lotus Greene   May 10, 2012, 8:11 p.m.

    Here's my response to the Challenge to begin creating an ARG:

    Ending Poverty in the River Cities: Epistemic Questing in Social & Political Philosophy (PHI 242) – Draft 1

    Background. PHI 242, a frosh-soph course in the UW Colleges (13 U of Wisconsin two-year liberal arts campuses), has no prerequisites, but students do need to be competent readers and writers. The catalog description allows for a variety of approaches and simply states: “Studies of differing philosophical views about humankind and its political and social life.” The population of the counties that my campus draws from are among the poorest and least educated in the state.

    Guiding questions: What is the poverty rate in River Cities and how and why has it changed over time? How does poverty affect the children, the schools, natural environment, health system, and local government (this list will surely grow) in River Cities? What institutions and programs are making efforts to decrease poverty? How are they funded? How are they utilized? By whom? What are the successes? How is success measured? What do our elected office holders and representatives (local, state, federal) know about the poverty rate, its causes, and its effects on the community? What are their attitudes toward poverty? How are they trying to help? How can we help?

    Narrative. It turns out that River Cities is located on the edge (if we can call it that) of the Seventh Dimension. A dimensional rift has occurred due to the misery caused by the high levels of poverty in the River Cities. The beings who dwell in the Seventh Dimension are experiencing increased “psychological storms” (for lack of a better human term) due to this misery. SD engineers and physicists have not been successful in patching the rift. So the SD High Council, though loath to intervene, have decided that the misery itself must be the cause and must be tackled. As a last resort, SDHC has contacted the not-so-reputable (in the Archons’ point of view) Justice League to intervene.

    The Justice League has sent a team, the J-Team [students can come up with their own name(s)], to River Cities to investigate the problem and submit a recommendation for a solution. You are members of the J-Team. Each of you has taken on a human form and an identity that will help you easily blend into the community, even as new comers to the area. Additionally, each of you has been chosen to serve on this team because you each have a unique special power that can help the team during its investigation. You will regularly be receiving assignments from the JL-Head [me] and submitting reports and making suggestions for follow-ups to her.

    1. Door. As a class, see the first episode of Third Rock from the Sun (or something like that) and discuss the concept of ETs blending into a community. Questions: xyz.

    2. Design your character (provide worksheet), including a name (your SD one and your Earth one) and your proposed special power (special powers will be negotiated within the team). Then work with the team to flesh out, so to speak, your character. You’ll need to have a strong sense of who your character is since you’ll be playing it for a while.

    3. Receive first assignment: As a team, go in search of Dr. Dismal to find out about the demographics of River Cities. You may find him in the Field House, but your best bet is to find his office phone number and set up an appointment. [Keith, our cultural geographer, has agreed to serve as Dr. Dismal.]

    That’s as far as I’ve gotten.

  • Kae   May 10, 2012, 8:45 p.m.
    In Reply To:   Lotus Greene   May 10, 2012, 8:11 p.m.

    I'm going to have to re-read because there are so many comments I want to make. But I absolutely love the inclusion of Dr. Dismal. Did he choose his name?

  • Lotus Greene   May 11, 2012, 5:25 p.m.
    In Reply To:   Kae   May 10, 2012, 8:45 p.m.

    Thanks, Kae, for taking the time to respond. Dr. Dismal is a place-holder. I'll let Keith choose his own name to suit the role he'll play. I made up "Dismal" because what the students will learn from him will be just that,dismal, e.g. lots of alcoholism, drug abuse, and family violence. If you have the time and inclination to make suggestions, that'd be great. If not, I do understand - busy times.

  • Jack Mosel (Jack Buxbaum in Second Life!) @moseljack (Twitter)   May 10, 2012, 12:22 a.m.


    Tesla Vs. Edison...


    Dateline: April 2012 Planetary Resources' annonuncement this week beg's the unearthing of "The Missing Tesla Paper's"... Will Planetary Resources, Corp. The Mega-Corporation which just announced it was going to harvest Asteroids for profit and maybe just usher in "The Golden Age II", be the CATALYST for changing everything we knew of as being "Fact" with regard to our electric world?... Our electric Universe?... Our immediate need for clean, freely distributed energy?


    The 'Perfect Storm' of economic downturn, massive unempolyment, War for Oil and natural Resources, Virtual World's being used for education, the privatization of space and the sense that SOMETHING'S gotta give... Free energy and wireless energy transmission was Tesla's greatest aspiration.


    Tesla was begrudged by Edison and thwarted by J.P. Morgan after he realized he couldn't hook a meter to charge for freely generated and freely transmitted electrical energy to the world.


    Tesla, after succesfully proving these theories did in fact work at Wardenclyff, his Long Island, NY lab (funded by J.P. Morgan), was crushed by Morgan after realizing this and ordered the destruction of the lab, which it's shell still stands today in the back lot of a commercial property and the anchor moorings for the Wardencliff Tower device Tesla built still is visable from what was probably the greatest crime against humanity in modern history...




    Rumor's of the beseiged Tesla memoir's being unearthed are all the buzz among the "right circles"... Can this be "the End of The World, as we know it"?


    God I hope so.