Virtual Communities links

I gave a speech in class about online  gaming communities. He're a couple links to the videos I used.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UjZYMI1zB9s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3N3U4FejlOI

The emerging third explosive jump class.

     An often overlooked class for jump maps has recently made its way into my repertoire. Favoring an all-or-nothing style of jump the engineer abuses building clipping for stored momentum and /save /teleport server functions to haphazardly complete some of the more complex jumps. Displayed above is my first completion of jump_sexydev_v3 on tempus networks' server. Seen by me to be one of the harder jump courses (the last three jumps in particular) I was surprised by how well the engineer made his way through the seemingly impossible jumps for his method of jumping. The accuracy fall-off to the wrangler's bullets was a large hindrance for engineer jumping, but nothing that properly utilized momentum building hasn't solved for me so far.
     Although engineer will never be the most fluid of jumpers, he does present a new set of challenges and mind-set for every jump.

A Visit from Derek Young

     Derek Young struck me as a high class working individual. Between taking contracts for Lamborghini and traveling to Japan for business he has had time to form social connections though his self-founded club "Tacoma Runners". He went into depths about how he maintains a contract based job by knowing business owners, influential people, and top quality specialized individuals. After drawing what I could from his life's experience I'd like to say that he is an imaginary person straight out of a Bond movie but I cannot- his methods are sound and have led him to a prosperous life. He has revealed to me how generalized contract work from small teams that can fulfill quotas as reliably as in-house teams is the way of progression.
    I can only hope to become proficient enough in my career path to be seen as a reliable member for contract jobs if business shifts all in favor of Young's method of work.

Erik Hanberg

     Erik Hanberg, the first professional to present his success story of his online career to our class. A writer by trade and online social psychologist and mechanist by experience; Hanberg spoke of how he was able to have his novel placed higher on a list of popular books than those affiliated with a major publication company. Without going too deep into the specifics he acknowledged the website's ranking algorithm and played it to his favor. What interested me more than that was his experience with maintaining a work related social presence online and the downside to having one.
     Hanberg recalled his experience with groups of online trolls who formed a loosely organized group to cause him problems in the real world. Sending falsified calls to his local police station to have the police-force barging down his door during the early hours of the morning was the story that stood out the most to me. I am amazed that an independent author of one future sci-fi series and one small business related series could garner enough attention to warrant a following of trolls.

     Foremost, Erik Hanberg has taught me that to be successful in an online profession you must maintain a virtual identity.

The Machine is (Us)ing Us

     After having watched this video on Youtube as part of the classes' schedule I have a greater appreciation for how early search engines worked. Having grown up around a computer without access to the internet until 2007 I have always assumed that the internet searches had always functioned similar to how they do today. It was surprising to learn that navigating the internet without search results listed based upon site traffic and relevant criteria was possible.
     The Machine is Using Us has shown me that every facet of the web exists because of the brave pioneer's of the early internet decided to implement and develop a way of linking websites. This symbiosis of humans developing the internet continues at a more complex level with more diverse viruses, utility websites, advertisement methods, online commercial practices, and social media. As we improve each of these fields we adjust how our machines can help, harm, or entertain us.

Optimal search engine useage

       There was an internet "scavenger hunt" in class today. My professor wanted to show us just how extensive search engines are. I ended up finding an itinerary for Disneyland for a party of 3 adults and 3 children, getting to the last step of buying a segway(vehicle) specific book with a general title and a Roomba automatic house cleaner, and finding a paper the professor submitted to a committee quite a few years ago. Those were the easy results- found them within ten minutes on my low receptivity smart phone. One of the more challenging things to find was the professor's sister's married name. Only knowing the professor's first and last name I found out that he had three sister's and only two were married. I ended up picking the one he wasn't asking about but it was still frightening how easily the information was available.
      As a global society we're going to need to improve our habits about how we treat trolls and haters who bring their negative intentions into the physical world. It's one thing to talk trash to someone online but when the information is available to bring pain to someone in real life; a limit has to be set.

Expectations for my first technology class at the UW

     My professor appears to be quite accomplished and shares my fascination of computers and their massive rate of improvement in the last couple decades. I'm looking forward to hearing his recollection of the development of computers prior to my birth as some sort of nostalgia trip(for me). I can remember back to the days of sitting at my family's first computer. It ran windows 95 and ran one program that impacted my toddler years. What now seems like a fossil, the premise of 7th Legion is still as grand despite the game's shoddy coding. To see where my early days are placed in the professor's scope of history is one point of importance to me.
     The second being how to present myself online with my future career in mind. Up until this blog I've been solely a consume of media and am concerned with how future employers might view my online presence, or lack there-of. I'm expecting the class I'm taking will steer in that direction during the latter weeks of the quarter.