My contribution...

This was my task in our comic to Mary Ellen - the inking of the comic. I also did a diiirrrrty version:

No, not THAT kind of dirty...

Anyway, I hope the comic pleases her! Seeing as she is one that definitely respects creativity, I would imagine most creative endeavors would bring about some happiness. The absurdity of our comic (along with the Jitterbug and computer trouble references) should hopefully be that little sumthin' sumthin' that makes this work shine!

Classy Classy WOOOOOOOP!

Today was a nice class day. For once, many people seemed HAPPY to be there. Maybe it was the refreshment Spring Break provided? Who knows? Anyway, it was good times and I was happy to see the other random projects (especially the woodchuck, He who knows all).

As you can see from the post over at Aaron Thalmann's post, our collaboration resulted in us removing one Mathew Powers' nametag from his office door. We replaced it with the much snazzier Wooper version.

And here it is!

We even left his title! How sweet!

Anyway, good times today...methinks I should get to work on my question box...

I got rhythm...who can ask for anything more?

http://www.cs.iupui.edu/~cscallah/DDRsource03.swf

Enjoi.

Credits to the tutorials of Mr. Sun.

THE idea...

You want another post? Okay, I can dig...here's my "favorite idea"...

As was told in the good book, "Checking the Cake"...and so, he who hath lost his source of power, rode upon the Internets. And he spake thusly...

"OR...a matching game. A matching game made for kids, but the obviously "right" answers will only generate a "WRONG!" response. The doctor doesn't go with the shot. Obviously, the doctor goes with the marmoset. Makes me think of that song "Everything You Know is Wrong". But then, is it really WRONG? Yes, we would think that a doctor and a marmoset don't go together...however, in the context of my "game" the two are a perfect pair. So...does that make it any more false...?"

The Ideas

Okay, so I approached this assignment in a SLIGHTLY different manner as I wasn't consistently at home. So, I jotted down ideas from time to time as they came to me as I thought about the word, which was cohesive.

Day 1 (3/16)
I actually didn't come up with any IDEAS on this day, but I did use "cohesive" as a sort of springboard in a stream of random thoughts. Most were negligible or wound up being the same thought I had had earlier in a different, shinier wrapping. But...here's a summation of the thoughts at the end of day 1:

Kept thinking of "bonding" between two things. Like, hands on the wall are cohesive. Image of Spider-Man's hands (the little hooks) kept popping into my head.

Two magnetic chunks coming together JUST enough to stick together. That feeling you when the magnets JUST attract each other is so otherworldly and wonderful.

Walking on the ceiling. (not dancing) Imagining the room upside-down and walking on the ceiling as if it were a floor.

Day 2 (3/17)
Once again, concrete ideas were a little sparse this day. I kept going back to the original thoughts, but did think about these for a bit:

We're really a bunch of floating atoms tethered by some force - but we're still just a bunch of cohesive atoms, which led to...

People exploding into atoms and reconfiguring.

(My cat has her head firmly shoved into my shoe, sleeping)

An inkling of an actual project did manifest this day. It wasn't overly out of my area, as I stuck to my experience in Flash, but it might be a little crazy code-wise. Basically, I thought of creating something that, when clicked, would explode into random shards that flew off in random directions. The chunks would either stick to the walls, or bounce off and eventually reform.

I felt high most of today (I was not).

Day 3 (3/18)
Another blankish sort of day. At this point I began to really think about the assignment, and I began to question the value of INTENTLY pulling inspiration from a random word. Sure, it could definitely work. In fact, it's happened to me before (investigating Jell-O turned me on to the idea of thixotropy, which served as a basis for the mechanics behind my capstone project). But for every random thing that inspires, there are millions more that don't really spark anything. Though I succeeded in keeping "cohesive" in my mind often through these days, it didn't really lead anywhere for me.

I removed the source of my power this evening.

BRAIN FLASH
Okay, right as I finished typing the above, I started thinking a little more. Cohesive expanded into coherent (can have similar meanings). From there, I went to INCOHERENT. And then I began to think that having an incoherent jumble of items attaching to other would somehow be sort of cool. I love the juxtaposition. Things that don't go together literally sticking together. A Catholic priest's collar on a puppy. M&M's hot-glued to a Porsche. And then those two amalgamations combined. A puppy wearing a priest's collar getting sick from eating the M&M's attached to the Porsche.

Now this could take many forms. Literally combining the objects with some adhesive, such as glue or tape...or maybe doing it in a form I'm used to - Flash. Perhaps create a Flash app that lets the user just stick stuff together. OR...a matching game. A matching game made for kids, but the obviously "right" answers will only generate a "WRONG!" response. The doctor doesn't go with the shot. Obviously, the doctor goes with the marmoset. Makes me think of that song "Everything You Know is Wrong". But then, is it really WRONG? Yes, we would think that a doctor and a marmoset don't go together...however, in the context of my "game" the two are a perfect pair. So...does that make it any more false...?

Ugh...mindblow!

Alright. I'm done ranting and raving. For the record, I did not tape anything to the mirror. But don't worry - the word was easily visible in the bathroom, AND...I put it on a sticky note on my computer. So...same game, different field, right?

Cohesive

More What If?s

- What if I decided to definitely create a question mark box from Mario?
- What if I made the box out of metal? Would that be doable?
- What if I made the box actually USEABLE for storage?
- What if instead of recreating the box, I modified it into my own design?
- What if there were additional items within the box?
- What if I actually displayed the box somewhere?
- What if I have enough time to create additional boxes or items?
- What if I could rig the box to actually shoot out an item?
- What if I lack the tools to create this box?
- What if I just decide to make the box out of wood?
- What if I could repurpose something existing into the box?
- What if I gifted somebody with the box randomly?
- What if that random person doesn’t get what it is?
- What if I experimented with LEDs or something to jazz it up?
- What if I could incorporate sound into this somehow?
- What if I created other objects that interacted with the box?
- What if I DID decide to go back to the monitor idea?
- What if I made the box miniature? What if I made it lifesize?
- What if the box had swappable sides (as in, removable images on the outside of the box?
- What if the box had a scrolling image of a question mark around it?
- What if I felt the project was good enough to send the results in to a video game-based fan site?
- What if the box became a prop in a video project?
- What if I sealed the box completely and forced someone to break it open to claim an object from inside?
- What if I didn’t tell the person what the object within was?
- What if I found a way to mount the box onto a wall or suspend it in the air in some other manner?
- What if I made a multitude of question mark boxes and hid them around campus?
- What if the boxes were made of a bouncy material so I could hurl the boxes across Michigan St.?
- What if I make the box from the video game realistic, with actual rivets and metal sheets?
- What if, every so often, I created a new object and eventually created enough of a collection to mock up a scene from Super Mario Bros?
- What if I could convince someone in class to hit their head against the bottom of the box to see if something will pop up (easy)?
- What if I made a bizarro question box – all cruddy and with an upside-down question mark?
- What if I took the basic design of the box and shifted it to other containers (a treasure chest, a crate, a bubble capsule thingy)?
- What if I WORE the box (feel the box, BE the box)?
- What if I made a Jack-in-the-Box out of this…?
- What if the box was meant to hold old Nintendo games?
- What if I converted this box into a shell for an old Nintendo?

On Second Thought...

First off, I'm not sure if I'm on that list of uninspired final projects. Just in case, let me attempt to clarify why I want to do what I do.

First off, I spend almost all of my time for school projects creating something digitally. I very rarely get to interact with physically building something, and I want to take this opportunity to do that. For once, my final project of the semester isn't necessarily going to be boiled down to a bunch of 1's and 0's that can be dropped off on a server somewheres.

Secondly, why video games? I love video games. They have been a source of inspiration on many levels. They have the potential to be a wonderful medium to tell a story. Video game music inspires me to seek alternate avenues of music. And on and on...but one thing about a video game is that (aside from the cartridge or disc), there's really nothing physically to it. I figure if I can be inspired by something that I can't really touch, how will my thoughts on that change if I actually CAN touch a part of it (or at least a representation of that object)?

Someone could argue that there's all sorts of video game-related merch out there, and they'd be right. But that's generally limited to specific character-based objects. You see scores of Pokemon plushies, Mario figures, and Sonic-emblazoned shirts. But what about the little objects you may take for granted in a video game? Have you ever seen a physical representation of a Sonic the Hedgehog item monitor?

Have you seen this? Huh? Have you?

That brings me to another point of concern. The actual object I am going to whip up. Originally I was completely sold on mussing about an actual computer monitor to create the above object. I'd hollow it out, and possibly replace the inside with a spinning platform showing off an item representing the goodie inside. HOWEVER, I've been doing some research. Apparently CRTs are vacuum-sealed (or possibly pressurized with gas in some cases) and a slight error in dismantling one could cause it to explode and leak all sorts wonderfully poisonous vapors into the air. As an added bonus, capacitors within a monitor can hold a charge for months and months after being unplugged. Contact with one of these bits can result in a discharge that can severely hurt you or possibly cause instant death. So, I'm thinking the monitor (at least the originally conceived route) is out. I still want to go ahead with this project using a different video game object, but I'm willing to scrap the idea if I can't think of another good item to create.

SO...anybody have anything they'd love to see?

That Plato Show

I sat myself down to take in book VII of Plato's Republic last night. Deciding to give myself a night of sleep to soak it in, I waited until today to comment on it.

First off, I kept getting a visual of Socrates and Glaucon sitting around a table in a basement, heavy smoke filling the air. We see only one at a time, and the camera spins quickly as they trade responses. Basically "That '70s Show".

Anywho, this was a bit of a beast to read. I found myself constantly rereading short sections, as the syntax is a but confusing to someone who's used to reading more modern texts. From what I gathered though, there are two MAIN bits to this book. First, the shadow cave which represents pursuit of truth and how it changes someone. Second, they (they being Socrates and Glaucon) begin to discuss the merits of teaching certain subjects and in what way they should be taught.

Unless I miss my mark, the bit about the cave seems very logical. Much like the prisoners in the cave who can see only shadows, we assume that what we initially observe is truth. That there may be more to what we see or experience usually escapes us initially. The part that really stood out to me most is the discomfort experienced as one learns to look past the observable, physical world. The majority of people DON'T see past what's presented to them, and that's a fact easy to forget for those of us in higher education (not saying everyone who goes to university is automatically HIGHER than anybody, but the likelihood is greater that a college student, especially one in New Media, has different view on the world). You have to be prepared to take a lot of crap from others for your views if they deviate from the norm. But we can't lose heart and just give up, accepting everything as it is, for that's doing a great disservice to our true selves.

Man, this post is getting a bit heavy. But moving on...

I couldn't quite get into the next section of the reading. Summed up, it seemed to say that it's more important to teach WHY something is, rather than simply THAT it is. This is sort of a practical application of the above cave story. It eerily mirrors what I find to be one of the failings of our New Media program at IUPUI, which is that often the teaching is limited to a piece of software rather than the concepts more essential to our creations (which then leads a student neutered as they're faced with a dead end of sorts) . This isn't always the case, but it's a dangerous pitfall that could easily overtake a student. Plato seemed to understand that a student should focus on the bigger picture of the world rather than just simply take what's handed to them at face value.

Finally, Plato suggests that the best method of trying to approach truth is through the dialectic method of education. Socrates was famous for this, using debate and conversation as a means to uncover fallacies and truth. I agree that it's useful, but I don't think it is the one single ultimate teaching method. Sometimes, the best way to learn is to do - jump in there, push all the buttons, turn all the levers, kick things, etc. etc. until you get to know whatever it is you're figuring out.

For all I know I've butchered the intended meaning of the reading. Even if I have misinterpreted something though, I feel that I've bettered myself by just reading this and attempting to latch on to some new ways to think about things.