rochelle.mazar.ca

I wandered through the pride parade to get to the bus station, which of course took me a good two hours at least. Then I missed the bus. So I went to the eaton’s centre to kill time, and someone walked into me at Old Navy and tore off half my toenail with her shoe. (Big toe.) She didn’t even turn around when I screamed. And it bled and bled and bled..the staff thought I should go to the hospital, it was very ugly. Now it’s all wrapped up in gauze and I’m scared to look at it. have I mentioned my lack of a pain threshold?

Well! Emma was over today and we generated some ideas for the GUI…for the complete rewrite of the GUI. We have a series of complaints about how it works, some things that are fairly straightforward, and some things that we need more time and imagination to work out…

But other than workish stuff we actually did fun things too…we wandered around the pride carnival that is taking place in my neighbourhood, and went out for a bite, sat out on my balcony and chatted….Emma’s decided that she should come over and moo from my balcony with me. (Thank God for dsl.)

So a very fun day all around….oh, and I bought a new peasant shirt, to add to my peasant fashion wardrobe….and an orange skirt, which will comprise my pride day outfit tomorrow for the big parade! wooohooo!

Happy Pride day, everyone!

Thanks emma, for being my first sponsor! I can’t wait to see how much we can raise for Triangle….and I hope we can see the look on their faces when they get it….:)

WELL! Now I’m going to participate in the blogathon! (See all relevant links above.) This is going to be a blast, I can hardly wait. We’re hoping that fry kitty will invite everyone to congregate at achieve so people can meet and chat and talk about cool blogs and stuff…Emma’s idea, truly brilliant. I’m thrilled. Now, what on earth and I going to blog about all that time? Tough to say. but, heck, I’ve talked for 24 hours at a stretch, no doubt I can blog that long. 🙂 Please sponsor me! Every little bit counts! The triangle program meets in a church basement that is on loan to them, and they still need to beg for enough money for books. You can imagine that gay-positive resources aren’t something you can just snatch from the textbook pile from the regular school system (like there’s a pile.) The teachers and staff of the triangle program do some really amazing work…if you follow this blog, you’ll know how much I adore Patty, and how hard she works to give those kids every advantage in the world. She’s fabulous, this program is fabulous, the kids are fabulous….they’ve actually changed the way I look at the world now, and I’m so thankful that I want them to get some cash to support more kids….more kids I can play on the MOO with next year. 🙂 So sponsor me! Please!

C.Y.B.O.R.G.

M.O.O.: Machine Optimized for Observation
A.C.H.I.E.V.E.: Artificial Cybernetic Humanoid Intended for Efficient Violence and Exploration
S.A.L.M.O.N.: Synthetic Artificial Lifeform Manufactured for Observation and Nullification
B.R.I.N.: Biomechanical Robotic Infiltration Neohuman
H.I.L.D.E.: Hydraulic Intelligent Lifeform Designed for Exploration
J.A.S.O.N.: Journeying Android Skilled in Observation and Nullification
T.S.R.: Transforming Synthetic Replicant

Heeeeee…..

VOTE for blogger, help them win a webby! (Under personal sites)

Choose Your Own Damn Harry Potter Adventure.

Hildegarde rolls around the office, gasping for air, clutching her stomach, and otherwise laughing like an idiot.

The Alanis Morissette Lyric Generator. Need I say more?

Somehow, we managed to convince tsr that he really needed a character at achieve. Unbelieveable. tsr is, hands down, the best moo coder I’ve ever seen. And I know 0bsidian is pretty good as well, but tsr manages to code the most useful things you didn’t know you needed….and it looks like we caught him just in time. He just quit his job, and has decided to take a break from work for a little while. Wonderful news for us…I hope we can get lots of good advice from him. he did meander on and check my code, I’m happy to say. He says my code is good, I’m thrilled.

And he’s learning perl, so it will be interesting to put him and emma in a room together.

Hopefully tsr can help us with PCs, and with guest chars….since we have a bunch of new ideas about guest chars. Fun fun!

Can’t wait for Jason to get back…

[note: mechtild is my other alias. Don’t be alarmed.]
You say, “it’s an educational moo.”
You say, “I do historical simulations there.”
Mekon [to Mechtild]: really? What’s the name of it?
You say, “project achieve”
You say, “http://achieve.utoronto.ca:2221”
You say, “you can reach it with savitar too, that’s the GUI”
Mekon [to Mechtild]: I think I’ve heard of it
You ask, “really?”
You say, “wow…”
You giggle.
Mechtild is excited
Mekon [to Mechtild]: I came across one moo at utoronto a few weeks ago; I’m guessing that one was it…
You say, “there’s also MOOkti…”
You say, “and another one, I can’t remember…all on the same server.”
Green_Guest teleports in.
Mekon [to Mechtild]: OK,
Mekon waves at Green_Guest.
Green_Guest waves.
You say, “they give me tons of quota…”
You say, “so I’m happy. :)”
Mekon [to Mechtild]: Yeah, that would do it 😉
You giggle.
Mekon [to Mechtild]: What sort of simulation do you do on your moo?
Mechtild [to Mekon]: well, I do historical tableaux…
Mekon [to Mechtild]: for example…
Mechtild [to Mekon]: I recreate historical snapshots.
Mekon [to Mechtild]: For what purpose?
Mechtild [to Mekon]: okay, I recreated the moment when Luther argues for his beliefs in front of the emperor and his cronies, right before his excommunication…
Mekon [to Mechtild]: So someone can go to that room, or whatever, and read Luther’s speech as it scrolls across the screen, and as the characters do whatever it is they did?
You nod to Mekon.
You say, “it’s not so much a speech…”
You say, “it’s a conversation between bots.”
Mekon [to Mechtild]: OK, that sounds really interesting…It’s like you found a use for this sandbox 😉
dracus says, “neat”
Mekon [to Mechtild]: I mean a practical purpose, besides netsex and timewasting.

Well, still thinking about the doctor’s office. I’m worried that my verbs aren’t really inuitive enough. I’m not sure people will really prompt the verb properly. So many guests can’t tell the difference between speaking and actually using a verb….I’d love to have a newbie come on and just watch them wrestle with the space as it is….

I’m still not 100% happy with the marketplace. Sometimes I wonder if it’s possible to do what I’m trying to do at all….but then I shake out of it pretty fast. 🙂 But still, I need more guest experience with the place….as soon as my splash page is up, right, then I’ll start pointing people to it…

Oh, man, this is hilarious….The Truth About Sesame Street. If you ever wanted to see a racist deconstruct a perfectly wonderful bit of television programming, click above. This is just unbelievable.

New thought for Bingen….I think I’m going to make a doctor’s office so that you can go in and get purged. I’ll write a series of verbs to make it authentic.

salmon and I were talking about collaborating for her english class next term…she can do something shakespearian with me. Great fun! I feel like we’re really on the brink of something there…I have this feeling we’re about to do something quite big and amazing there. A little outside of my usual stuff, but probably the most familiar for others…

salmon found some interesting comments about MOO and the humanities….apparently historians don’t work the way I do, what a big surprise. Every once in a while I get a glimpse that I’m actually doing something quite radical, but mostly I think it looks pretty obvious to me. Ah well…hopefully one day people will understand. I guess if all else fails, this idea will just die a slow death…

Well, I mentioned that I added some little exclamations to my town. I think I went a little overboard with them. I think they confuse people. I should use that sparingly.

I’ve also decided (and this is SO not historical, just fun) that I will skew the say verb again somewhere else (somewhere) so that characters SING everything you say. Heeee….

Oh, also, while I was at work today, I met a really enthusiastic guest who is a teacher in Hawaii. She teaches 6th grade and she was THRILLED with the MOO. I showed off my stuff (a bit) and some of Vickie’s stuff (Vickie and Cara have some really lovely stuff on achieve). I did that without her permission and I feel badly about that….I going to get some blanket permission to tour their stuff. Actually…now that I think about it….that’s something for the Project for the summer….an A list of projects (how elitist of me) for people who visit who want to see some stuff…just a thought.

Last night I finally tweaked the say verbs in the streets so that random shakespearian phrases are added before or after the argstr. I’m quite pleased with how that works, but I wonder how it will be recieved. They’re all pretty meaningless exclamations, or generic enough that they shouldn’t actually skew what the person says…but i tried to pick things that had a different feel to them, where the language wouldn’t be what we would choose, just to bring the visitor right into the place where they have found themselves. Hopefully EvaB will bring someone by shortly to test it…and we’ll see what they think.

I’ve also decided to start another ‘section’ of Bingen. This part is neither particularly spatial nor narrative (well, it will probably be slightly narrative.) I need to get back to work on my comps, so I think what I’ll do is create a timeline online. So far I’ve decided that this should be a series of ‘rooms’ organized by date, started from #1965, and moving forward. I suppose the description of the ‘room’ will detail the major events, and possibly I’ll have objects representing some other events. I haven’t entirely decided yet. But I will link out from the timeline to the relevant portions of Bingen. Actually, the timeline may actually just be another way to access Bingen chronologically instead of spatially.This isn’t so much a place as a series of notes. And I expect it will help me remember some of the details (ie, names of kings, important documents, etc).

Well, new thought….I talked a bit earlier this week about using *lists as blogs until we get edublog up and running. That will, of course, be better, because that would be usable inside and outside the MOO. And I see that salmon has some interesting ideas about how these inMOO blogs will look and function, though I’ve only heard a touch about that, and probably shouldn’t be blogging about that even if I *did* know all the details (wink wink), but I think I can safely say that with all these new ideas, we will end up something very educationally useful and very different from other blogging software….

But anyway, I’m still interested in the idea of *lists…at least in the short run. It’s because someone asked me when I first talked about blogging inMOO how it would be different from an *list…and in many ways it’s not different at all. The main difference is that it would be accessable outside the MOO as well, and that it’s html, which lets students add links and images and have more control over how their text is being presented… that it would have a GUI, but essentially, at its heart, it’s the same idea.

So: I’ve blogged about this before, I know….say we have a class coming through. When their characters are created, they are equipped with a *list. So, we have generic character, Emily. Emily has her character, her chunk of the server for uploading images and sounds and html docs, she has her chunk of MOO quota, and she has a *list, *Emily. Her teacher will subscribe to it. Possibly there’s also a *list for the class, say, *CTL2231 the *list for questions to all, like a bulletin board of sorts.

Then what’s the point of a personal *list? Hmmm….well, maybe not all classes require a personal *list. But I think generally there’s a place for the concept of journaling your experiences somewhere, particularly inMOO where it keeps some continuity…and, really, for a classroom setting, it would certainly help in assigning a grade to what’s going on…if people are journaling what they’re doing and why and how and how they feel about it. It could be set up like…once a session, send a message to your *list about what you accomplished today, what trouble you ran into, what frustrated you, what pleased you. What your goals are. Have your goals changed on the basis of today? Teachers could post questions that need to be answered. Teachers could…oooh….teachers could post questions on all the personal blogs in one fell swoop. I think the *list commands might need a bit of tweaking to keep the journal metaphor consistent, but that’s pretty minor. Just to have it not be mail so much, but…’your journal entry has been saved’ or something like that. It would also be cool if the *list were an object that the character carries, which it usually is. It could be a book icon, so there’s a sense of ‘writing in your journal’. I suppose the description of the *list would be something like, “To add an entry to your journal, type @send *Emily” or, I don’t know, to keep things consistent with the journal imagery, @write *Emily, or @blog *Emily, or @newentry *Emily. I don’t know. It hardly matters, that seems to be the most minor of details….

Just a thought.

Wow….

This woman on the radio, she’s an interior decorator. She said:

A room is like a blank page. I get to tell stories without writing.

Wow, that’s so MOO, isn’t it? Och, there I go again, being narrative….

Sorry about that, I had to close up and run like the wind after that last time….

2) Paging versus being in the room. What the heck is paging all about, anyway? Yes, I know I use it all the time…but it’s a terrible metaphor, actually, and new users seem to have a tough time understanding the concept. So I don’t know what I’m suggesting exactly, but I know it stumps people (responding to you when you’re not in the room), which, again, might be made easier with an introduction that focuses on objects (look around, watch people come in and out of rooms….aha, that should be in the scavenger hunt too…something about being consious of what it looks like when someone’s in the room…)

3) and….oh, sheesh, will you believe it? Janine and her friend Nancy are on her way up as I write this…so I have to run off again before finishing. Bah.

Well, we seem to be meeting on Tuesday to talk about online teaching. I think that will be very profitable, because I’m still trying to figure out how to formulate in my own mind how I think it works. Or, how it doesn’t work. Trying to target problems, and think about what we can do to fix those problems. It’s really an amazing feeling to know that you can actually either fix some things yourself, or get someone else to fix them….so much control over your environment, making it easier/better.

But certainly right now achieve is designed for new users by people who understand the space inside and out. So that can’t really help the process…

Things I’ve noticed:
1) students often have trouble with the concept of looking at things, looking at themselves, and looking at others. Possibly a scavenger hunt helps with this: what’s an object look like? A person? An exit? I expect some focus on the ‘visual’ elements of the moo as well. Maybe? I don’t know. We need to remember that that requires an orientation too.

2) paging versus being in the room. Granted, I think paging is….hold on, gotta run…

EvaB says she’ll meet me at work today…wooohooo! More talk about online pedagogy tonight…and maybe mysticism. EvaB thinks I’m a mystic, after all.

Argh, exhausted…though, today went by so quickly…I think I can thank the CBC for that. I brought in my solar radio and listened to that all day. That really helps a tedious day pass…

and now I am totally exhausted….

EvaB is coming to visit tomorrow, and salmon and I get to take her out and show her a good time on Friday! I’m so thrilled! We stayed up way too late having an strange and revealing conversation about dreams, and God, and mysticism….

And this morning I thought it prudent to bring my radio in to work today, since this is my last full-time day, for the moment…though, I may shift between CBC and NPR, since I’m hogging one of the work ethernet connections…

More later.

I read somewhere recently that the older you get the harder it is to get your heart broken…because every time someone breaks your heart they also break open all the old wounds, and those heartaches are compounded until, after many heartbreaks, we’re left consumed and overcome by it, the echoes of all those painful moments, the disappointments, the loss, that one person breaking our hearts (again) becomes 5, 10, 20 such experiences, becomes all the pain of our lives in a single stroke, becomes the single voice of all those who have hurt us. And that much heartache is dangerous.

I want to go see the body of St. Bernadette outside of Paris.

It was too cold for the dresses, but it worked out okay. We processed one by one across the covered bridge over to the boathouse on the other side, and the actual ceremony took place at a memorial for the victims of the Montreal massacre. The wedding party faced the river, and the entire crowd stood behind us holding candles. Poor Peter bawled through his vows, it was very sweet. Blake told me afterward that she saw a tear hit his lapel And of course Melissa laughed through it, so that was cute. And afterward we ate and talked and the crowd thinned out and finally I could sit.

At about 11pm I got Janine to take the bobby pins out of my head. Argh. It didn’t even look too bad afterward, thank god. The boathouse looked remarkably good and I think it all went pretty smoothly…though, Pete’s mother made some *interesting* comments at the cake cutting…and Shawn, Peter’s brother, took over the ‘MC’ tasks, wonderfully. He did a nice job.

And then finally the dancefloor got cleared, and the computer got cranked up and MP3s played for the rest of the night….my parents and grandmother and aunt stayed longer than I thought they would…the liquor licence was in my father’s name, so he stayed until 1am when that was *supposed* to give out. I don’t know what really happened after that…I tried to tidy up some, and then I passed out on a couch. For a bit. Then I got cold again and Erik drove me home.

Everyone else else stumbled in in shifts at some point after that…and I woke up thinking that a cat was creeping into my bed…but it was Krista. She decided to share the futon with me.

And….well, I got home yesterday, completely exhausted. And went to bed and got up this morning to go to work…still exhausted.

But…this afternoon I did manage to do some good work on Bingen…I’m writing verbs to make the marketplace more interesting. Now you can buy stuff there, if you have enough money. And then I think i’m going to make the rest of the project interact with you based on what you’re carrying…

Anything else? Hmmm…I made soup. And I bought apricots, too early, but still good.

I simply adore the Busty Whores, and Krista. (And Erik, an honourary BW, and their neighbour, Lisa, honourary Starbucks(tm) BW.) So in spite of some of the inherent difficulties with this weekend, it was saved by the BWs. I even got a cute shirt out of it.

Well. I’m home now, and my head is still hurting. Could I possibly complain about that any more than I already have? Argh. What a weekend. The ceremony went remarkably well. Though, to start, Melissa and the rest of us girls (Blake, Andrea, Krista and me) left her house and were to walk to the boathouse, where the ceremony was to be held outside. We went two blocks before Melissa realized she’d taken us the wrong way. So we walked way around the park and got honked at by several passing cars. And then we walked across the park, and we all got wet feet and Blake got maple keys in her shoes.

It was too cold for the dresses, but it worked out okay. We processed one by one across the covered bridge over to the boathouse on the other side, and the actual ceremony took place at a memorial for the victims of the Montreal massacre. The wedding party faced the river, and the entire crowd stood behind us holding candles. Poor Peter bawled through his vows, it was very sweet. Blake told me afterward that she saw a tear hit his lapel And of course Melissa laughed through it, so that was cute. And afterward we ate and talked and the crowd thinned out and finally I could sit.

At about 11pm I got Janine to take the bobby pins out of my head. Argh. It didn’t even look too bad afterward, thank god. The boathouse looked remarkably good and I think it all went pretty smoothly…though, Pete’s mother made some *interesting* comments at the cake cutting…and Shawn, Peter’s brother, took over the ‘MC’ tasks, wonderfully. He did a nice job.

And then finally the dancefloor got cleared, and the computer got cranked up and MP3s played for the rest of the night….my parents and grandmother and aunt stayed longer than I thought they would…the liquor licence was in my father’s name, so he stayed until 1am when that was *supposed* to give out. I don’t know what really happened after that…I tried to tidy up some, and then I passed out on a couch. For a bit. Then I got cold again and Erik drove me home.

Everyone else else stumbled in in shifts at some point after that…and I woke up thinking that a cat was creeping into my bed…but it was Krista. She decided to share the futon with me.

And….well, I got home yesterday, completely exhausted. And went to bed and got up this morning to go to work…still exhausted.

But…this afternoon I did manage to do some good work on Bingen…I’m writing verbs to make the marketplace more interesting. Now you can buy stuff there, if you have enough money. And then I think i’m going to make the rest of the project interact with you based on what you’re carrying…

Anything else? Hmmm…I made soup. And I bought apricots, too early, but still good.

I simply adore the Busty Whores, and Krista. (And Erik, an honourary BW, and their neighbour, Lisa, honourary Starbucks(tm) BW.) So in spite of some of the inherent difficulties with this weekend, it was saved by the BWs. I even got a cute shirt out of it.

I’m in the middle of wedding hell. Well, now I’ve got 15,000 bobby pins in my head. I have a very cool hairdo, admittedly. It looks like a fountain. I’ll have to get some pictures of it up one of these days. And roses, little roses in it. But it hurts some, because I have a pretty sensitive head, and sheesh, those bobby pins aren’t forgiving. (Who is the bobby character, anyway?) And I got some knee highs to go under that dress, which, I think, is currently at the Mazar house being worked on by my seamstress of an aunt, who want to add an inch or so under the arms. And all I really want to do is take a nap, but I can’t lie down on this hair. But my sandals are damn cute.

So that’s the current update…it’s not raining at the moment, but just you wait….no doubt it will be POURING come time…it would be kind of cool if it were thundering madly too. Memorable. Of course, that navy taffeta won’t like the rain much. Sheesh.