Me, Myself, Michele
My name is Michele. I was born and raised right here in St. Pete. I have parents, a brother, a really rad dog named Spunky, and a rabbit that I named Toki but my family calls BunBun instead. In life, I'm sort of in a limbo state right now. I worked all through high school and never really had a break or got to get involved with clubs or anything that I was interested in. I quit so that I could focus on school and learn to be interested in things again now that I have time. I'm an "english writing" major which I take to mean that I write things in english. I don't know what I want to do for sure, but I think I'll end up working with animals. I'm not very good at being a people person, but I'm awesome with animals, and protecting them is important to me. I like being outside; riding horses, paintballing, rollerblading, and the dog park are all ace in my book. I'm both apprehensive and excited about this class. It's a little overwhelming, but I think I'm getting a better idea of what we're doing.
Gaming Experience
Ever since I first began playing Poke'mon Blue version on my Gameboy Pocket in the fourth grade, I haven't looked back. I now own a PS2, Nintendo DS Lite (on which I still play Poke'mon Diamond, Dungeon, and Ranger), Xbox 360, and Wii. I play on Xbox Live, such games as Halo 3, Mercenaries 2, and Guitar Hero, as well as using the WiFi on my DS to trade Poke'mon with other people. However, the game that has probably immersed me the most in "gamer culture" is Guild Wars, a game often compared to World of Warcraft, that is played online. I also belong to an online guild called Angels of Death, which has a variety of factions for different online games, mine of course being Guild Wars. I have posted some screenshots of Guild Wars below.
Michele's Unit One Paper Peer Review
McDonalds Game
I thought the game was funny in an awful sort of way. I got very frustrated when I first began playing the game, but when I finally got the hang of it, I got pretty far. It made me sort of understand how the president of a corporation in the real world might feel as if it really were just a game. While in the McDonalds game, we can clear the rainforest with the click of a mouse. But could it really be so easy? I think, for the big dogs running major corporations, that it can. A phone call, maybe, or an email. A little more than a click, but still a command with the potential to decimate a rapidly disappearing tropical ecosystem; an ecosystem which hasn't even been fully explored, in which new species of flora and fauna are waiting to be discovered. Perhaps it's easy. It's only an email. Perhaps the growth of a superficial empire is worth the destruction of a natural one, regardless of which was there first and which does or does not cause harm. We humans only live once, after all, and isn't it the "american dream" to make big money for yourself? It has to be worth it, right? A person is measured by their success and if the supermodel gold-digger on your arm and the Porche, Ferrari, and Lamborghini in your garage aren't worth the destruction of a little rain forest and a few endangered species, then what the hell is?
I don't eat at McDonalds. I don't consider what they serve to be "food" and I would never give that stuff to a child. I grow my own spices and I only buy organic. If anyone agrees or is interested in living healthier, or perhaps wants to see their impact on the world, http://www.myfootprint.org/ is an interesting site to look at.
Creative Commons
As you can see beneath this, I chose an attribution-noncommercial-share alike license. While I believe that works and ideas should be shared and expanded upon, I think it's important that creators of abstract ideas, even those building off of other people's abstract ideas, should get credit for whatever their spin on things happens to be.
Using another person's work is, to me, the same thing as fan-fiction. It's a compliment to the creator; it means that they have reached someone else with their idea, inspired them to create something of their own. This then has a chance to inspire someone else. It's a neverending web of possibilities.
It reminds me of the Foldit game we looked at in class, the one where tons of people contribute to science just by playing. The more minds working on one problem, the better chance that the problem will be solved. It's the reason that human beings are the most advanced creatures on this planet. If the caveman who discovered fire, let's call him Gorak, had kept it to himself, where would we be today? It would have been illogical for Gorak to keep fire for only himself. So Gorak shared his knowledge of fire, which his fellow cavemen surely took and mayhap expanded upon, Ug figuring out how to roast food and Thor creating the first torches (I do apologize for the extensive cavepeople analogy). In my mind, Gorak did the right thing, but also deserves some recognition for providing the original idea (if it was the original). He deserves to be referred to as "the guy that found the fire".
Michele's Wiki by Michele is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
Nice analogy!