October 2008 Archives

For me, to read such a large text is definitely not east. In one hour, I barely played it! I just tried to X all the things that I could find in the text, and it already spent me one hour!

It is too frustrated, maybe I should not even think about create a game myself.

In this game, what I can say is it has too many difficult words and lack of sense of visible material. (Of course, it is also for all the text game.)

I choice two website for this test, which are nike.com and adidas.com. In the test, the test objects claim:

• Can you find information about its produces on the website?
  1. In nike.com, it is very sophisticated, but it is very organized too. I eventually found all the information I need, however it took so long. In adidas.com, it seems not only sophisticated but also chaos. I could not find all the shoes and closed in this season even I found the introduction page.
  2. Basically, both of these websites are full of videos and pictures, but lack of the information for its produces. It is so pointless to put on so many fancy stuffs that slow down the loading speed. And I found that the information for its produces is incomplete.
• Do you feel comfortable to navigate this website?
  1. No, none of them is readable. Nike.com is better because it gives the text options to jump in the introduction for its produces, but I could not find any option to jump back to the homepage. The adidas.com is way more complex, in the homepage, I could only see tons of pictures, and they did not tell me anything. Moreover, everything I clicked the pictures, I just see some stupid commercials came out, then after the commercial, they just give us more pictures, and then, more commercials!
  2. Well, first of all. I think both of them are very cool. If you ask:"do I enjoy navigating them?" I'll say:" Yes." But I don't think they have any useful information beyond cool. They look more like a website designing major student's final project but not an international company's web page. Anyway, they suck.
• Will you be able to buy something or find the information of buying them on their website?
  1. Not really. I nike.com, I can see the prices of its shoes. But it did not give us any option to purchase online or tell us the location of the store near us. I did not even find the prices on adidas.com.
  2. Oh my god. Didn't I just tell you I can't find any information on their websites? Maybe I'll find out how to buy shoes by clicking Contact Us button.
• Do you feel the culture they try to show us?
  1. Yes. They may interest few young people.
  2. I don't know. It is too dumb for me. I don't like it.

In last class, we demonstrated our website on class, and gained a lot of responses from our classmates. The responses are:

 

Great appearance on style sheet, but seems a little bit off for text games them

All fifteen classmates claimed we have a great outlook of our web design. But some point out our design does not quite match the games theme. A good website designing should help reader get into the theme quickly, and give them a visual impact of the main thesis. Our website, although does look good for reading, is not quite there.

 

Too much text on the homepage

Many indicate that we build the homepage contents too much information. Some suggest we should separate the text to various pages. It is a very helpful suggestion. In the meantime, I also have the idea to build a stack webpage, which can content all the information in one page, but only shows little until the audiences click certain spot.

 

Add more information link

Few say I could add some information link on our website, or link the games to our responses. By connecting to the additional information, we can have a better angle of our responses, and it also helps reader to get more information. Adding information link is the superiority of hyper text, we should use it.

 

We should put our names in each article

Well, it is basically one of the most important things we had forgotten. Give us some credit, young man.

Well, super tough for me again. It seems that tonight is a long night. By reading Dr. Jerz's these three entries, I found the way to extend the electronic media to various theme of writing. For example, in the Storytelling in Computer Games: Panelists; Audience Q and A, I noticed Dr. Jerz combines the sound track to the text. When we read this interesting conversation making by Amanda, David Shih, and Dr. Jerz, we can also actually hear how they develop it. That makes it being easier than just read a long scroll of text. And in the Storytelling and Computer Games: Past, Present and Future, we can find that the annotations in the right sidebar are really useful. It helps you understand the background better without flipping to the last page of one chapter. The Scott Adams Speaks, moreover, combines both these merits. On the other hand, the indicators (or whatever it is called) at the top of the contents are also a phenomenal "trick", especially for the article like this long, to assistant readers. Ultimately, they are really useful reading materials.

This is super tough to me. I do not really know how to express my experiences from these collections. And more difficult is I have to write roughly 750 words for it. Mission Impossible, isn't it?

Basically, I think the most impressive feelings from the collections are:

• The actual example of electronic text
• Electronic text is a very abstract conception. We initially can say any kind of electronic issue is an electronic text. But what makes an electronic text became outstanding, or we can question: "what is the real strength of an electronic text?"
• Various ways to illustrate the meaning for our idea
• More visual and acoustic text
• Easier to spread
• Cheaper for processing
• So, this actual example shows us how an electronic text gain these strength (though not very successfully.)
• It includes many diverse technical examples for the electronic text, say:
• Sun Java
• Adobe Flash
• Microsoft Java
• Microsoft .net
• The explanation and discussion for the rich electronic text
• It helps me understand the definition of a good simple of electronic text. In the meantime, it provides a depth vision for writing a better scroll of copy.

But in the meantime, I also feel these materials still need to be improved, for example:

• Some examples are not stronger enough
• Quite amount of my classmates have already complain about this. In fact, not many people actually want to stick in some new way of reading. So compare to traditional text, the electronic text has to be more interesting and richer to grape one's attention.
• Do not give any tips to make a better simple of electronic text
• Although we can learn a lot from the discussion about how a good electronic simple would affect people's reading experience, we do not learn directly from these texts how to create one by ourselves.
• Lack of context
• It demonstrates a great conception of this electronic world. However the context seems to be a little bit short to support the whole idea. Maybe it is because of my poor English, I do not read the deeper meaning through the context.

Overall, this experience gives me a new concept, a vivid example, and a tough writing assignment.

This is too hard. 10% of vocabulary I have not even seen before. So my understanding will be limited. And actually, after few click, there is always an "Error type 404 - Object Not Found" pops out. So it is really a creep hyper-text. However, considering my poor understanding of this text, it did not really matter.

This text mentions Aristotle, who I admire. It is interesting, because I only considered him as a father of science. But now I know, he also had a contribution to the literature. Then it is not so difficult to understand why Latin is such an organized language - many scientist user it as a scientific language as well. Thereby, for English, it is not hard to compose a Hypertext Fiction. For example, this language is built its structure in a rational way. You can easily add example and logical reason under the main clue. But other language, especially for the non-Latin languages, it will be very tough to do that.

But is it an art? Yes, it is. Any format of composing that can give the enjoyment to its audiences definitely can be call as an art, not to mention the Hypertext Fiction is a much richer and cheaper way to express one's idea! However, as the carrier, internet and audiences' computer, is difficult, we can hardly control the final quality of the composing. And this, I clam, will getting better and better in the future, since the increasing technique in the electronic products.

The one I absolutely like best is the matrix of You, I, and different words. I actually see the visual symbol here. The people, you and me, is just like a huge matrix that interact with each other in a certain order. And this order here has been interpreted to a visual language. It is vivid and correct. Because we have order; we follow certain rude to communicate. And the different activities we do are just like that the moving spot of the matrix, match to each one once a time with certain verb. To think it even deeper, it is a great implication of our society.

These Electronic Literature Collections are REALLY confusing for me. Therefore I wait until the class is over to finish it. After listen to my classmates' opinions, I think I can make my own comments about these collections.

There are a lot of different format of new text have been created in this era. So these collections are for, which I believed, showing us how the new formats can be. I particularly like few of them with the combine of visual pattern. Because the text eventually is related to humanity, express by words but reflect by emotion. That is to say, the text ultimately will transfer to feeling, and convey the experience (or knowledge). So if the text itself has already combines these emotional expression, it will work better for most of people.

What I learn from this course is various. For example:

• I develop the skill of understanding the lecture and the responds from my classmates.
• The organizing skill of my writing.
• Use more legible format in my article.
• Better understanding of the HTML and CSS.

However, I need to confess I did not do enough to reach the requirements both from this course and my own. Basically, I did not do well in:

• Reading assignment
• I do not understand completely the reading materiel in this class.
• Blog entries
• As I cannot complete the reading assignment well, I actually do not finish my blog entries. And most of my blog entries are fracture.
• Writing and Revision
• I did not ever complete successfully once in this class.
• Excise
• I did not finish any of my excises completely.

However, I did learn a lot from this class:

• Coverage:
• At least I finished all the reading requirements, not gracefully though. And click here to read my Kilian Review Essay.
• Timeliness:
• I have to be honestly, I almost have not post anything on time but my webpage designing. But as I am not taking a designing course, I do not think that counts. Here are the only two entries that I post on time:
• Assigned Text: Happy Birthday, Smiley :)
• Clueless Usenet Newbie
• Interaction:
• I did not grape much attentions from my peers. The only three that have someone made a comment are:
• Clueless Usenet Newbie
• Assigned Text: Happy Birthday, Smiley :)
• Is the Internet better than any other media?
• Depth:
• Well, well, well. Depth, seems nothing to do with me. These are:
• What I learned from 'Ten Tips for Writing E-mail Effectively'
• When Young Teachers Go Wild on the Web
• Kilian Review Essay
• Discussion:
• WOW. I do not even have a "Good job!" or "LOL" in my classmate's blog. I am so sorry; I do not even understand their entries at most of the times.

This Writing for the web 3.0brought me some new ideas of writing for the internet. But also as this book is English version, I have a great difficulty to finish reading it. So I actually also read the Chinese version in order to help me to understand it better.

Overall, what I learn from this book is:

• How to organize an entry more efficacious
• Use the subhead for grapping reader's best interest
• When do we suppose to stop giving information in order to sustain audiences' attention
• The easier format for reading on Internet
• Some "technique explanations" for my previous confusion (For example, why do we like to read on paper better?)

Of course, I also need to question this book by asking:

• What is Web 3.0?
• I happened to read a Chinese book about how to write for web 2.0. The explanation is that web 2.0 is a term describing changing trends in the use of World Wide Web technology and web design that aims to enhance creativity, secure information sharing, collaboration and functionality of the web. But in this Writing for the web 3.0, I did not see anything mention about the definition of web 3.0. Maybe the writer only change the number of this serial of books for fun. If so, I will not be interested to read Writing for web 4.0, because it seems to be too confusing.
• How to use muti-media on our text?
• This book does mention about how to use muti-media to grape reader's attention, but it does not say how to. It means that we may notice how importance that one thing is, but we cannot ever know how to gain it until we randomly try it out.
• Is a kind writing format attracting people?
• I consider that the chapters, Be careful about sexual orientation, Be careful with ethnic terms, Be careful about age, may give the audiences a wrong information that we should limit our writing area to a very formal, wide acceptable orientation - but actually a very unique, tit-for-tat webpage might be more attractive for certain people. We are not try to be a nice guy, or at least act like that, but try to be a seductive writer.

       苏丹是非洲第十大的国家。在我们中国人眼里估计多半被认为成一个贫穷落后的国家。但它不仅仅只是贫穷和落后，还有一个巨大的悲剧。苏丹政府是阿拉伯武装力量组成的，但是这个国家里的大部分民族是原始黑人。阿拉伯武装力量出于宗教和种族原因大量屠杀苏丹地区的黑人。

       本来这和中国是一点关系也没有的。然而今天我见到了从阿拉伯人屠刀手下到处的本杰明·阿贾克，我了解到了一些惊人的真相。本是20年前来到美国的。作为政治逃亡的苏丹难民，本经历了无数常人难以想象的苦难。他5岁的时候就失去了父母和族人，和8岁的兄长、4岁的堂弟一起步行8个月逃往他国，最终飞到了美洲的土地。可是苦难虽然减轻却没有结束，二十年的艰苦生活才让本和他的兄弟们学会英语。在朱迪·班斯婷的帮助下，这帮黑人孩子们写下了《他们让烈火降临于我们的天空》,讲述了这场毫无人性的屠杀。而这场持续了接近30年的种族奴役和屠杀还在继续着，每天都有上百的黑人在苏丹被阿拉伯政府无理由的杀害。

       《他们让烈火降临于我们的天空》已经被翻译为法语、德语、日语和多种语言并且在世界范围开始销售。唯独没有翻译为中文，为什么呢？本得知我来自中国以后非常兴奋的和我说："你是一名记者，你要告诉中国人民真相，让他们不要再每年资助苏丹政府数十亿美元，并且给他们提供武器。要高速中国人，这些武器不是用来包围苏丹的国土，而是屠杀苏丹的人民。"他顿了顿又说："苏丹人民是苦难的，他们没有自由，我们的新闻里讲述的都是谎言。是不是因此，中国政府才禁止我的书在中国境内销售？"我答道："中国人民也是没有自由的，我们的新闻讲述的也是谎言。"他惊讶的说："中国是世界上最强大的国家（笔者：这个观点在美国国内是很普遍的），为什么会这样呢？是因为宗教吗？"

       我回答到："中国之所以强大，正是因为它的人民没有自由。每个人都按照政府计划的轨迹，或大致的轨迹前进着。少数高智慧的精英控制了整个国家，排除了杂念。也许在我们看来这是打错特错的，因为它剥夺了人应该有的权利，可是却让国家更加强大。"本诺有所思的点点头。我继续说到："美国政府为了争夺石油的控制权，几乎拖垮了整个国家的财力而去争取一场看起来要是无比"正义"的战争（笔者：目前美国国内大部分人认为伊拉克战争是错误的）。这是因为美国人民是自由的，如果它看起来不正义就不会有有人去支持。而没有人支持，政府是无权发动或者支持一场战争的。"我停了一会儿，思考是不是要继续说下去。本似乎看出我没有把话说完，并没有说什么。我于是补充到："我在网络上查找了一些资料，苏丹发生的战争被我们的政府形容为'苏丹反政府武装力量发动的恐怖袭击'。我们知道这是错误的。但是大部分中国人不知道。并不是因为他们知道'苏丹反政府武装力量发动的恐怖袭击'而错误，而是因为他们什么都不知道。这就是中国政府采取的手段。如果我不是在美国，或许在因特网上甚至不能访问中国官方对外发布的新闻（笔者：在国内的朋友可是试试看）。人民如果什么都不知道，政府就可以为所欲为。"本说到："我相信人们如果被教育，就会得到自由的。"我答道："对的，我的兄弟。可是教育不单单是在学校内完成的。每天阅读报纸，看到新闻也是教育的一部分。而大部分中国人没有权利完成这样的教育。他们没有足够的'知识'或者'信息'去帮助他们做出决定，他们只能跟随政府的指令走。事实上他们什么都不知道，他们甚至不知道政府在做什么。政府甚至不公开财政报告，他们可以随意支配人民的的税收，而对外随便捏找一个数字，没有人去追究这些。"本惊讶的看着我，好似听到了一个神奇的故事。是的，难道不是吗？有多少中国人知道自己纳了多少税？知道自己的税去了哪里？"我必须老实告诉你，我认为中国政府实际上从苏丹政府那里和俄罗斯一起得到巨大的石油资源。这就是为什么它一直在支持苏丹政府而忽视了这些可怕的悲剧。"

       我和本又谈了很多，包括他来到美国以后的经历等等。我感到，虽然他已经从头到位都是一个美国人了（毕竟那是一个5岁就来到这里的人），但是他依然能够呼吸到那已经被火焰污染成焦土的故乡的芳草的香味。