#interactive19

[leiawiththeforce-blog]

Duck it instead of Google it!

I wanted to share the search engine I nowadays use. It’s called DuckDuckGo, and it’s just one of the things you can do to protect your privacy. However, in the era of all the apps, phones, websites, and maps we use I know it’s impossible to hide everything I still believe we can do something.

DuckDuckGo is a search engine that protects its users’ privacy by not storing or saving the IP addresses, does not log user information, and uses cookies only when required.  Gabriel Weinberg, the creator of DuckDuckGo, states: "By default, DuckDuckGo does not collect or share personal information. That is our privacy policy in a nutshell."

DDG doesn’t do user profiling, and that gives all the same results for every user.  It emphasises returning the best results, rather than the most results, generating those results from over 400 individual sources.

It’s very user-friendly and looks a lot like Google; simple and fast. You can choose your location, web/pictures/videos/news, or time and safe search.

If you are interested, give it a try!

[vegansorceress]

Post #1: Interactive Media

The first week of Interactive Media was a total blur. I am just now catching my breath. I have a couple ideas floating around in my head for my independent personal project, and both have to deal with veganism and eco-friendly tourism. I am excited to embark on the second week of this program to keep learning, growing and evolving. 

As a Creative Writing major, this program is totally out of my comfort zone, but interesting nonetheless. I am really not a “techy” person, so that aspect of this class is slightly intimidating. Yet, I am comforted to know that I do not have to invent a video game to excel at this course. (Yay!) 

Onwards,

Jessica

[sophielouiselinehan-blog]

\\ you can’t do that right now //

I just played, or should I say ‘tried’ to play, Exoriare. It was my first experience playing an Alternative Reality Game and it was, to put it mildly, challenging! 

I have just spent the last half hour trying - and failing - to instruct someone (?) to do something (?) for some reason.

Our exchange went something like this:

Exoriare: You are standing in an open field, west of a white house, with a boarded front door. There is a small mailbox here.

Me: Open Mailbox.

Exoriare: \\ you can’t do that right now. //

Me: Go in House.

Exoriare: \\ you can’t do that right now. //

Me: Look in window?

Exoriare: \\ you can’t do that right now. //

Me: Call an Uber?

Exoriare: \\ you can’t do that right now. //

Me: Order pizza?

Exoriare: \\ you can’t do that right now. //

Me: Shoot me!

Exoriare: \\ all you have to do is find the red button. There is one in the house. //

Me: Oh FFS, you just told me I can’t go in the house!!!

Exoriare: \\ you can’t do that right now. //

Me: ARGGHHHH!

Frustrated but determined to work it out, I googled ‘tips and walkthroughs for Exoriare’ but the results were useless. Then I went back and ‘skimmed’ the Exoriare graphic novel for a clue to the game, and while the graphics are really strong ...

I remembered how I just.can’t.stand.comic.sans.font and couldn’t absorb any of the information in the captions.

So, in summary, I’m clearly not the target audience for this game. Unless, the game’s intention is to drive people insane, in which case … BINGO!

[leilas-digital-scrapbook-blog]

Seven Digital Deadly Sins: Human Frailty and the Internet

Just to let y’all know how tech savvy I am – I really wanted to write about The Space We Hold, an immersive, transformative project about the experiences of three women forced to become sexual slaves for Japanese soldiers during WWII, but I couldn’t for the life of me figure out how it worked. Feel free to look it up and let me know just how easy it was for you.

Anyway, that left me with one other option: National Film Board of Canada and The Guardian collaboration Seven Digital Deadly Sins, a platform that uses brief articles, cheeky video interviews, an interactive interface and a vaguely dystopian but strangely satisfying polling system to discuss the way the Internet is taking up more and more space in our lives. Social media, of course, is a big part of the conversation.

And this is the part where normally I’d start rolling my eyes, for the same reason why I avoided essays on the topic like the plague throughout high school and couldn’t make it past the first handful of Black Mirror episodes. It seems like the only thing more pervasive in our society than technology is the constant rhetoric of how bad it is for us, how it brings out the worst in people or, even more often, how it turns us all into brainwashed zombies incapable of critical thinking. Hell, even people who use social media on a regular basis feel the need to add the disclaimer “I know most of it is stupid, but…” whenever I mention that no, I have no interest in using Facebook, nor am I likely to post a single picture on my Instagram in the foreseeable future.

I’m not saying none of it is true. Like the guy in Seven Digital Deadly Sins’ article “I click to get angry”, I have wasted time basking in online content that I knew from the start would fill me with righteous fury. I used to take it as a personal offense when I was hanging out with a friend and they kept checking their phone, and while I’ve learned to accept that it’s not ‘cause I’m a boring useless person, it’s just that most people my age can’t help it, it still stings a little. And yes, of course it’s terrifying to think of thieves stealing your car from their laptop, of bullies being able to spread their hate with a simple click, even just of parents snooping around on their children’s social media. But is this really about the Internet?

This is where, in my opinion, lies Seven Digital Deadly Sins’ biggest strength in discussing the topic. Forget the cool interface and the charm of the interviewees – by framing the discussion into the context of age old deadly sins, that (this came as a shock even to me but I guarantee it’s true, I checked) predate even Friendster, the platform has brought the focus back on what this is really about: human nature. The Internet might be giving us new, more extensive ways to express ourselves, but everything we post, text, upload, PM, DM, and all those other acronyms I totally know, ultimately comes from us. The book of human history is basically an itemized list of sin and wrongdoings – just ask the women from The Space We Hold – so why would it be different on the Internet?

That’s the thing about sin, though – it’s always a choice. The Internet gives us the chance to be as envious prideful wrathful greedy as we’ve ever been, but it’s also a chance to reach out to each other, to be compassionate, to be kind. I think we can start by not condemning people for sharing pictures online to feel a little better about themselves. Yes, even if said pictures are not as candid as they’d like us to believe.

More to come…

[leiawiththeforce-blog]

My Interactive Media Project

Alright. .............. So. My project is. I don’t know. I know some people struggle with the same thing as me that they don’t have a clear picture of what they want to do or what they can do for this project. I have some ideas or topics that I find interesting, but I feel that I’m not either smart enough or I don’t have enough imagination to make the idea something new and different or funny and useful.

I started listing topics and ideas I find interesting;

- Hiking app that connects people interested in hiking.

- Writing app that somehow gives feedback, exercises etc. to writers

- Politics

- An app that has a database so a screenwriter could check if a scene they are writing already exists

- Practise a new accent app (or get rid of your own accent) 

- Brain games

Then I started to think if I have some problems that I want to fix in my life. Many obviously, but I couldn’t connect those problems with new app ideas. There is an app for my issues, not that I really use them because I would need to pay and I don’t want to. Or I would use them if I had money to travel, buy certain products etc. So app for making money :D?

I love dogs. So maybe a dog app? But there are so many of them already. I just don’t know how to make it different.

Anyway, I think I am concentrating on a couple of ideas, and they are; the hiking app, writing ap, and an accent app. Accent one because I think that could be funny! Writing app might be a bit too complicated.

The hiking app would be a mix of Couchsurfing, TripAdvisor and Tinder. You could see the best hiking routes in your area, the weather, the conditions of the routes, how many people are there (using the app) if someone wants to hike together if someone has problems etc. You could upload pictures, have chats, exchange some details.

The writing app you would give feedback, partner up with other writers, do some exercises, read articles, watch videos, chat with people, and publish your texts.

The accent app would be very simple. You choose the language e.g. English and then the accent you want to learn e.g. Texas. Or you could choose an accent you want to get rid of e.g. German accent and it would give you the “problems” that make you sound like you sound and the advice that would make you sound more like you want to sound.

[leiawiththeforce-blog]

Interactive Story Workshop

So this week we had an interactive story workshop with Gill White, and it was lots of fun. I especially enjoyed the part of Sherlock Holmes and the Internet of Things, the murder part.

The first part was about an object that we found meaningful and why. It was interesting and useful as well, but I enjoyed creating murder scenes more because we got to do things more.

In a way thinking about objects was more useful that we learned how and why something is meaningful for someone. No matter how small and insignificant it might look for other people but for the owner it’s not just the object, it’s everything that connects the object to the owner. It tells a lot about the person. I chose the TAL-1 star telescope that I bought when I was 12 years old, so I have had it for a LOOOOONG time :D

There are only very few objects that I find very meaningful for myself. Most of my stuff is just necessary, or I store it in my mum’s storage because I will get it back and don’t need to buy new ones. A few other meaningful items are my silver heart-shaped neckless that my mum gave to me when I turned 8 and another jewellery that all, me, my mother, and my sister have.

But this star telescope was and still is something that connects me with this other world. I can’t tell how many cold nights I spend in my mum’s back garden in the winter, looking at Jupiter and its moons, Saturn and its rings, or trying to find star clusters. It was so much fun. And all of this tells something about me as a person and these kinds of things I, as a screenwriter, can use in my stories.

The murder part was more just fun. Useful in a sense that it was a way to find inspiration or just to work on how to create a story, murder scene, back stories and clues. And also to learn how the same clue can mean so different things to different people.

In my master project, there is at least one, probably two murders and I think I will try to do something like this. Try to create the scene, at least on a paper, and see what a detective would see. Or what the murderer would see or leave behind. We’ll see how that goes!

[leiawiththeforce-blog]

Tweet Tweet!

I have a fake account on Twitter and once I tweeted 200 tweets in 10 days. It was so hard!

It was part of my creative writing course that I took. It was two weeks intensive course, and we had to write in character. In a way, we wrote “our” story on WordPress, had two accounts on Twitter and Instagram and we had to give a presentation as our character. Her Twitter account was @helenilove_ and Instagram @helenilovethemost. The story can be found in https://itsmehelenblog.wordpress.com/ She was a woman from Eastern Germany called Helen Svalberg, now in her 50′s. She lived in Cape Town, South Africa. She left Germany in the 70′s, ran away from home at the age of 16 and travelled around Europe before ended up in southern Africa.

It was interesting to create a person and a story through social media and connect that with a story. Helen is based on an actual person I met in Botswana. She owned the only fancy restaurant in Francistown, was in her late 50′s, ran away from East Berlin when she was 20 and married an Afrikaan who took her to South Africa, she divorced him after a year and since then has lived in several African countries. Barbara was her name. She was a funny person. Everyone knew she was sleeping with everyone’s husbands but because she owned the only fancy restaurant in the town women stayed quiet. True story.

Nowadays I use Twitter to follow some news channels, screenwriters, and some funny things like my ultimate favourite VeryFinnishProblems  @SoVeryFinnish that proves that Finns know how to laugh at themselves. Fine. It’s created by a British who lives in Finland but anyway...

ha ha ha ha

hahaha

ha

So I can enjoy Twitter. I can even use it if I have a fake account. Which is interesting by the way. I feel like I can be “myself” when I’m pretending to be someone else. I believe it says more about me than it does about social media. I also had a fake account on Tinder once. That’s a funny story, but maybe next time!

[leiawiththeforce-blog]

My Project

So a little update about my individual project. I decided to go with an accent app. I started to find several different hiking apps adds on my Instagram feed. Is my phone listening to me?!?! :D Also, my group was very supportive of the accent app.

I feel this app would be simple enough to develop during this module and it also interests me. It could be both for fun and for more professional use, such as for actors or people who really want to change their accent, both native speakers and foreigners.

The app would have a free version as well as a “premium” version. It would work similarly as language learning apps such as Duolingo or Speakly. It would give vocabulary what a certain accent/areas/countries use. E.g. South Africa / Australia / UK. There would be a part for idioms and saying what people who use this accent use. But the main focus would be how to pronounce words according to that certain accent.

The user could only learn a few sentences (free version) or go more deeply into the accent by learning more details.

The user would learn it by seeing how the words are written and hearing how they are pronounced. There would be short videos teachers explaining differences of “o” sound and how your mouth and tongue should be when using that sound etc.

Ok, so this is where the project is so far. There are still lots of stuff to do and to think about!

[leiawiththeforce-blog]

Games

I do realise that I seem to be a very negative person according to my blogs! Always ranting about how I get frustrated and angry! But I’m really not. I’m just a bit out of my comfort zone. My family got our first desktop computer in 1995, and it came with some games, and I did play some of them. They were very very simple. We also had some games on disks, but mainly I used these history, science and space “games” that weren’t really games but just pictures, texts, short videos and animations. A few times I played something at my friends’ house, and even if I enjoyed it, it wasn’t something I got excited about. For me, they seem like a waste of time unless there’s something you can learn or gain that benefits you. I know it sounds unfair since I read fiction books and watch films, but mainly I just don’t see what’s the point of playing video games.

I understand it’s a huge industry and there are all kinds of games for everyone. And I understand the fascination about the games. I admit that they do look great. I’m just not into them. I tried to find some reasons why people don’t like video games. Here are some answers I found;

1. They are time-consuming

2. They don’t like playing alone

3. Games are too difficult

4. Games are too expensive

5. Games are too violent

6. Games are for children

7. They never actually tried playing before

8. They are too lazy

9. They don’t like the game industry

10. They don’t find them productive

11. They think it’s unhealthy to play

12. Games make people more violent and or aggressive

There are a couple of reasons that I agree with, such as, that games are too expensive, time-consuming, not healthy or that they are not productive. I also hate when some of my friends play games on their phones and totally ignore what’s happening around them. Pokemon go is one example. A friend of mine came to Edinburgh to visit me, and all she did was walked around, not looking but just following the game on her phone.

If I understood right a game we are supposed to explore this week is called Ingress and it has a similar idea behind it. So you walk around using your surroundings as a platform, and you need to find portals. Then you collect them, protect them and attack them. It sounds interactive and fun, especially if it’s played with other people. For me, the videos I watched on YouTube looked like a board game taken outside. 

Anyway. I DO play some games. And I know I can get addicted, so maybe it is also a conscious choice that I try not to play too much. I mainly play games on my phone. One of my ultimate favourites has been Angry Birds, several different ones. And I know why it’s so addictive (or any that kind of simple games); you get frustrated that you lose your lives or any help what you had. You might have some extra powers at first, but the first levels are so easy that you don’t need them. The time the levels get hard these powers are not enough, and you use them at once or very quickly. There is always a way to earn them for free, but it takes time. So then, you go on AppStore and you buy. And once you buy them, it’s easier to buy some more gold coins or whatever.

My other favourites are Sudoku, brain games such as Peak where you can practice your memory, reaction, reasoning, problem-solving and so on. So even I’m not perfectly immune for games. I guess they can be fun but I’m just not a game person in general.

[sophielouiselinehan-blog]

Socially valuable gaming

This week I did some online research into existing video games, targeted at primary age children, that develop empathy, aka Socially Valuable Gaming.

According to data from the Kaiser Family Foundation, in the US on average, youth between 8 - 18 years rack up more than 70 minutes of video gameplay daily. This spike in gameplay during adolescence coincides with an explosion in brain growth, as well as a time when kids are susceptible to first encounters with depression, anxiety, and bullying.

In 2018, researchers from University of Wisconsin-Madison decided to see if they could use video games for positive emotional development by designing a game to boost children’s empathy.

The game they created is called Crystals of Kaydor, and its aim was to use gaming technology to create games that are less addictive and also socially valuable*.

Crystals of Kaydor begins when a space-exploring robot crashes on an unfamiliar planet, leaving its spaceship unusable. The only way to repair it? Build emotional rapport with the local alien inhabitants. The problem is that the aliens speak a totally different language. Luckily, the aliens’ facial expressions are remarkably human-like. To win the game, kids have to learn to identify the type and intensity of emotion the alien’s faces are displaying, whether it’s anger, fear, happiness, surprise, disgust, or sadness. And as they played, the kids learn how to better understand emotions of their fellow humans.

In as few as two weeks, kids who played the game showed greater connectivity in brain networks related to empathy and perspective taking. Some also showed altered neural networks commonly linked to emotion regulation.

In 2016, another video game designed to build empathy was designed. It was called That Dragon, Cancer. It forced the player to experience what life was like for a normal suburban family after one of their sons, Joel, was diagnosed with a brain tumour at the age of one.

While it was dubbed ‘unforgettable’, 'remarkable’ and 'beautiful’ by critics,it was no doubt hard going for the young players.

That Dragon, Cancer highlights the distinction between a game that is overtly good for you and one that presents as entertainment. While I want to create something with a meaningful educational experience, my goal is to create a game that primary age children also want to play.

An article in Killscreen titled The Problem with Empathy Games highlights how video games that strive to forge empathetic connections between players and subjects rely on encouraging perspective-taking. And many game developers struggle to get players to form true emotional connections with the characters and storylines.

So how do you create storylines and characters that help players form these connections?

“You have to start with, ‘I want to take someone on an emotional journey. What is that emotional journey?’” Vander Caballero, Creative Director at Minority Media said about the development of empathy games in an interview with Gamasutra. “Then the question is, ‘what can I bring to someone’s life that’s going to be important and meaningful for them, a lesson that will help people in their life?’”

*Games that develop empathy skills can also benefit individuals on the autism spectrum.

[leiawiththeforce-blog]

Online Games

Most of the times online games turn me off. I haven’t experienced the world of games that much mainly because it just doesn’t interest me so much. However, this week I was trying to find out what is Exoriare and Fort McMoney.

I couldn’t get very far with Exoriare. Either I didn’t know what to do, or the system just didn’t accept my answers. Basically, it didn’t let me continue but took me back all the time. So I lost interest very quickly. Also, I have no idea what the whole game is about. So thumbs down from me.

Fort McMoney is a great idea I think. It says that it’s a concept where film marries a video game. It’s basically a documentary where a player follows real people, a real place and real events. So, I was kinda excited. But it was just short videos, and I had to reload the page after every time one video finished. I couldn’t interact with the game in any way nor could I choose basically anything. Maybe it is lack of my knowledge in games, but for me, it seemed that it’s just watching those short videos.

I did register as a player, but it just didn’t let me do anything but watch the videos. I did use Firefox as the advice was. Chrome, on the other hand, didn’t work. It took me on a page where it was advised me to use Firefox instead. So I don’t know. Maybe I did something wrong, but I have no clue.

The idea for Fort McMoney gets thumbs up from me but the performance not. I’m just disappointed. Both in me and the games.

[leiawiththeforce-blog]

Seven Deadly Digital Sins

Oh, how I wish this webpage, http://sins.nfb.ca/#/Grid, is a joke. I really do, and I’m afraid it’s not. There are so many problems there.

I have never been a massive fan of social media. I do have a Facebook account, an Instagram, a Twitter that I barely use, Youtube, and Whatsapp (is that really part of social media if I use it for texts and calls and I’m not part of any weird group chats?)

I do follow news from social media; news channels, vloggers, and a couple of blogs. I post pictures on Instagram, and I always find it hard to come up with a clever caption. I’m not smart in that way. Or funny. Or I just don’t fucking care.

The problem with the majority of people nowadays is that they really think that other people care how they look like, what they think, or what they do. No one has time for that. Everyone is too busy to think about themselves. Well, apparently some people do. People like presented on this webpage.

One person wrote that he needs Twitter to feel validated. That’s just sad. How empty your life is that you get your validation from Twitter?

The other one said that she was cyberbullying a girl from her school that she knew had mental problems. She was bullying her anonymously and was very scared that she would make a mistake and would reveal her true identity and face the consequences which she didn’t want to. When she stopped, she didn’t even think of sending an apology and said that it might make her look selfish. No. It makes you selfish and a horrible person that you have to that kind of stuff to another person for you to feel better - or feel something.

The third person was part of an extramarital webpage and telling the same story as anyone else; my marriage is better now. Don’t people, especially if they are in a relationship, talk? Why are you with someone if you can’t talk, but to feel better with them you need to do things behind their back?

Everything about this webpage was about “me”. If that is how people feel and think I’m not very confident about the future. They lose their time in a fake world that has nothing real. They can upload their last words into a cloud for 999 years, but it doesn’t change the fact that they lost so many things because of their addiction to social media. No matter how many followers, views, or likes you get, they don’t make you a better or more interesting person.

And did you know, the inventors of these platforms don’t use or don’t let their children use these platforms because they know what they do to people? They turn people into zombies. 

Anyway... #follow4follow #somethingclever #interact19

[leiawiththeforce-blog]

Money, money, money, must be funny!

So where to get money?!

That’s the thing, you have a great idea and other people feel the same but no one is willing to contribute to your project! 

I guess the first step is to make sure that the project really is good and that there is a market for it. 

No matter if your project is an app or a film there are several options. I have been part of several film productions and we had to come up with several ways to get money; 

- Organisations and foundations that have some kind of funds or competitions. Applications take lots of time but when done well they can pay off of your hard work.

- Crowd funding is very popular at least among short films. If you can film a trailer or take pictures as an example of how the film will look like it always helps. Also, including social media page make it easier to reach more people and people to follow what’s happening with your project. Just remember to be active!

- Public funding varies from country to country and there are several regulations, but it is an option. I have never received any public funding because most of the projects I’ve been part of have been student projects.

- SPONSORS! So many of the projects that I have been involved wouldn’t have been possible without sponsors! Basically they give you something for free and you include them in your credits. Me and my friends have been given food, cars for rent, props for the movie, ferry tickets, clothes, and services. I have learned to ask. People can say no but there are companies that are happy to help and to be involved in several projects.

All these are especially for films and can’t all be applied to developing apps. Luckily as a writer I don’t always have to worry about funding, just to find an awesome producer, right?

[leiawiththeforce-blog]

Educational Apps

So last week Francis O’Neill was talking about a different kind of educational apps, and I found her class extremely useful and exciting. My own project, Babble, falls into that same category. Also, on my phone, there are several educational apps about astronomy, languages, brain games, photography, and an app that you can learn anything from playing the guitar to fixing your car by watching videos. Almost like Youtube!

So clearly, I am very into these kinds of apps!

Francis told us about educational apps that can help schoolkids to learn and allows them to take a walk in a forest and listen to the class just wearing their headphones and that this made their learning better. Kids nowadays, huh :D! I still think you also need more traditional classes, but I also believe this is an excellent way to engage kids and maybe make learning more fun. Then again, I went to school in the countryside, and in our schoolyard, there was a forest, and at least five times a year we went to some bigger forest anyway. Plus all the skiing trips, so we spent a lot of time in nature. So I have to understand that that’s not the case with everyone.

Francis also talked about apps for museums. She said that her goal was to make an app to make people look up from their phones. I had a similar experience. I am a bit of an art geek, and I spent eight hours in Louvre, which wasn’t nearly enough and didn’t look at my phone even once. But don’t get me wrong, I’m not perfect, I use my phone sometimes way too much and also in wrong places. But in museums, this time in Louvre I got so angry at some people who were sitting in front of these incredible masterpieces, back to them and they were playing with their phones while other people were trying to get a closer look at the paintings. So when Francis told what she wanted to do I was like;

She also mentioned a company called Seppo that she met at a conference. Since the name, Seppo is very common among 50 something men in Finland I ducked it.

And right I was, it was a Finnish company! A company that develops educational games and seems to be doing very well. So maybe I’ll contact them ;) Maybe not Babble, but I could come up with something else, who knows.