My Carbon Footprint

I'm horrible! After completing the fun little carbon Footprint game, I realized it would take 5.7 Earths to provide enough resources if everyone lives like me, and I release 29.5 tons of carbon dioxide. That's a lot! After seeing this, I decided to cut back on a lot of things that caused my Earth consumption and carbon dioxide releasing to sky rocket. Now it would only take 4.3 Earths and as a whole, we'd release 21 tons of carbon dioxide.

24 Hour, No Technology

Wow, so no technology for 24 hours... I managed to survive this homework assignment, but only because it just so happens the day I chose to put this "no technology for 24 hours" into effect, I already had a day full of events planned ahead for me. I realized how much I really do use and depend on technology. since I started in the morning it was really hard to go the whole the day without checking my emails, texting friends about lunch, or even watching TV. After this experiment, I've come to the conclusion that there are positive things to technology as well as negative. Having technology is wonderful and great as it allows you to do numerous things while you're away but, the negative side is that you get drawn into a word of dependence and when you don't have that little peice of technology, you go crazy or feel left out of the loop.

Possible Challenge

Generally, there are a lot of challenges we encounter daily, let alone encounter over the course of four years. But, one challenge that is perhaps over looked daily is global warming. Global warming is by far our most lingering challenge as it has already disrupted numerous amounts of lives daily in the forms of loss of habitat and destructive weather patterns. If we DO NOT cut back on our GHG (greenhouse gas) emissions, then possibly hundreds of millions of people may be exposed to water shortages, to famine, extreme weather conditions and a 20 - 30% loss of animal and plant species, which is dire. I believe some ways we could cut back on our GHG emissions are to choose energy-efficient appliances, maybe carpool a little more, and plant a tree!

Paper II

General Ideas:
-GTA portrays "gangsters" as the cornerstone of society, thus telling or young it's okay to be a gangster.
-GTA desensitizes those who play to killings, as the creators of the game have found ways to make cruel and unusual punishment and inflicting pain on others, fun.
-GTA causes a lot stereotyping as well as a degrading ethnicity, race and morals of human beings.

Thesis Directions:
-Playing Grand Theft Auto will leave you desensitized to death, and you may find yourself plotting to commit crimes as performing them in the game has shown you, you can get away.
-People who play Grand Theft Auto will automatically be perceived as a delinquent or someone who has no general direction in life, as the game undoubtedly will cast a negative image on those who play.
-Grand Theft Auto will lead to a life of being a "gangster" and wanting nothing but money, guns, sex and having the biggest name on the streets, thus proving that you are the biggest "gangster" in town.

Video Game Reviews

Article I: http://www.apa.org/releases/videogames.html

Study has proven that playing aggressive, violent video games increrase anger and violent thoughts in a person's mind. Although the games may stir anger to different degree with each person, I generally agree that after playing violent games you do become angry yourself. Take for instance Mortal Kombat. After playing most people probably visualize themselves fighting someone and beating down to the point where they are just staggering, and then this little voice inside their head says "finish him", thus making the person want to perform a special finishing move achieving a fatality. So yes, I agree that playing violent video games stir emotions of anger in the player, they may not be permanent, but for at least as long as they play the game.

Aritcle II: http://www.ipa.org.au/publications/1323/the-moral-code-of-grand-theft-auto-iv

A lot of people believe that Grand Theft Auto will make people playing believe they can commit crimes and be a gangster. But I believe, along with this article that it teaches and demonstrates a sort of logical thought process. In the game, if you carjack a car you run the risk of the police catching you and "busting" you. Although, you may not go to jail, it's sort of a lesson that could be applied to everyday life. Steal a car, and get arrested. I'm not saying that the game is depicting how we should live and what we should practice in our everyday lives. The message behind the game isn't to corrupt our young ones thus leading them to a life of crime and being a gangster, I think it's more of a way to show what goes on in the real world in some areas and how gruesome it can be.

Outline and Thesis

Thesis:
Realistic games are much more effective in portraying issues of suffering and attempts of survival, rather than sinister "fantasy" shooter/torture games.

Outline:

A. Introduction
-Thesis

B. Paragraph One
-Describe, and reveal both games purposes so the audience may better understand them
-Bring about the issues for both games

C. Contrast Dafur is Dying
-Realistic game
-Has hints and messages throughout game portraying the everyday suffering
-So real you feel as if you're a tribe member trying to make your escape
-Wants player to donate to the Dafurains cause
-Plays directly into your emotions thrying to persuade the player

D. Contrast The Torture Game II
-Sinister "fantasy" shooter/torture game
-Human roped up is targeted by variuos weapons
-The bigger the gun or weapon, the more damage done to the human roped up
-When the body is simply shot in the head, or the body is fully mutilated, the game is over,
but you can continue to sever all body parts... If you so desire

3 Video Games to Play... Or Not

While I browsing the list games to play, I wanted to find a game that was appealing enough through it's name to play. The first game I came across and played was Fat World. Fat World is a game that allows a character to run around town eating, and eating everything. Fat World incorporates many different meal plans, and recipies, or the player can simply create their own dish to eat from. Fat World is advergame about nutrition and obesity in America. This advergame isn't portraying the message that many may think, that it's okay to eat whatver you want and get really fat then live a 'fat life'. No, instead Fat Wolrd is trying rely towhoever plays, the importance and relationship between nutrition and the physical aspect of life. One of Fat World's main purposes is to explain that daily exercise and nutrition are important as they are everyday practices.

The second game I played was entitled, 'Click for Obama'. This game was very straightforward in what it's purpose was, although, absoluetly no fun at all. Click for Obama is a game that is all about challenging Americans to lean more about American History, Government, Politics, Race Relations, and Current Events, provide everyone an easy opportunity to become involved in the future of America, and most importantly, support Barack Obama's dream to bring about real change in America. What you do is answer simple questions and if you get them right, "Obama for President" adds supposedly go all over the web promoting Obama as the lead presidential candidate. This advergame does a good job in incoprorating a little game to advertise Obama as who should be next as president.

Finally, the thrid and final game I played was Dafur is Dying. This game really plays into your emotions after you play and read the captions afterwards. At first, you may chuckle or find a little girl runing through the dessert with a little water pale in her hands amusing because you see no purpose. It isn't until you see the truck of militia men driving towards you that you realize what's going on. Dafur is Dying is actually a game where the character, a Dafurian refugee, negotiates with the enemy in order to save his refugee camp from being destroyed. The games purpose is to try and get the player to help the cause of the Dafruians by showing the terrible genocide that is activley a part of their society, thus getting them to donate.