Khalil Jerdak- Jane Goodall

No other primatologist or ethnologist has made the cover of National Geographic more than her.  She’s called Jane Goodall.  Jane Goodall is more than just the "chimpanzee lady". Her work gives new insight to our own humanness.

Jane Goodall created the Roots & Shoots program. Today Jane’s work revolves around mobilizing action on behalf of chimpanzees, which are endangered, and all wildlife species. The Jane Goodall Institute works to protect the famous chimpanzees of Gombe National Park in Tanzania, but recognizes this can’t be accomplished without a holistic approach that addresses the real needs of local people.

Goodall, J. (1986). The chimpanzees of Gombe. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Publishing

http://www.webster.edu/~woolflm/janegoodall.html

 

Ola El Barkouki- What a life would it be to become..

My dream is to become a professional soccer player in my second life. Not just a professional but the best footballer in the world. I would love to become very famous and be the first female footballer to become known worldwide. My main aim is to make my parents and my friends proud of me and let people remember me even after I die.

My avatar is Ola Rooney, a 15 year old girl who thinks soccer is her life. She lives in a castle which has a football pitch and she has each and every item related to football in a big room in the castle. The gate of the castle has the logo of her favorite club, Manchester United, and the whole castle is decorated by soccer decorations.

Her daily routine is getting trained  in Manchester United soccer school and then she goes back home to have lunch which is served by her home maids. She always has her friends invited to sleepover so they can spend the whole time playing soccer and having fun. She is very fit and healthy. Her photos and videos are everywhere over the internet as the best female footballer. Even though she is very famous and rich, she is always very humble and talks to everyone no matter what their age, color or religion is.

Second life is such an important topic to me as I really need to imagine myself and live in it. I tried a lot to achieve such things in real life but I never succeeded. I use to be a very good player and I always challenged and won my opponents. But as I grew up, I started getting less fit and less challenging. I started giving up on everything. This made people think that I am not a good player anymore. And now, being a professional footballer is my only dream that I cannot achieve in real life so I would love to imagine it in my second life.

Suzanne Darkan - Virtual Second Life

In second life, I learnt the importance of expanding my horizons. I created an account a few years ago on this virtual world called Habbo Hotel, I did so to experiment as I was curious and wanted to find out what the big deal was.

 In Habbo Hotel, every character made is a guest at the Hotel, the Hotel is run by Habbo Staff, who basically make sure that everybody is happy and follow the terms and rules they have agreed to once they have signed up for an account. They have full rights to do whatever they please to do with Habbo Hotel and their Hotel members.

The policemen of Habbo Hotel are called ‘Hobbas’ they do not have as much rights as Habbo Staff, they report anything that is out of proportion to the staff, and will ban any character with inappropriate behavior or who have attempted to hack into the program.

The money made is Habbo coins. There is furniture, rooms and food. Characters (Habbos) can meet in coffee shops, restaurants, dress elegantly, design their own rooms, make their money, get jobs, paint their walls, send each other gifts change their styles and live a life very similar to the real one.

Ofcourse being a member of Habbo, you have limits, you are not entirely free to do as you please, you cannot steal, you cannot swear or break any of the Habbo rules which is listed under ‘Habbo Law’.  An example of a situation you may be put in is being banned for swearing.  A swear word is always automatically turned into ‘BOBBA’ once type it.  So if a Hobba (Habbo police) noticed someone say : Bobba you! They would get you into a problem.

 Habbo Hotel is serious about respect.

I was engaged in the power of living a virtual life. It is an experience worth having,  I got to meet professional  people who live perfectly  normal lives and share interesting stories from all over the world. I learnt to negotiate, bargain and trade for profit.  It was all so time consuming, Virtual money, virtual gifts, virtual looking characters, virtual furniture. But the friends I made, were friends, they were not virtual friends. They were real people just like me and you, with their own special characteristics, who put in what they are good at and shared it online. Through second life, I made friends I have kept till today. I understood the importance of trying a bit of everything. It has not turned me into an awkward and anti-social person (at least I believe so).  I do know that too much of anything is bad. And that is why every individual should draw their own lines. I respect the opinion of every person who thinks that second life is pointless; however they should understand themselves that creating a character in a virtual life does not mean you lack all these things in reality. You would be surprised the people who engage in second lives. Singers have made accounts on Habbo Hotel and were asked to visit and spend a few hours chatting with other users from all over the world. Im sure many of them don’t lack communication in their lives, but have enjoyed the remarkable things that comes out of a second life.

 So did I.

Ashwaq Hasan- My Avatar (Pop Star)

My avatar is a young pop-star, a very famous pop star that has no personal life. It has many fans from all over the world and a busy schedule. Every day, there is drama or a movie to shoot, modeling for a photo shoot, and interviews.  It has a big fancy house where no one lives in. The media is all over it and stalker it wherever it goes. Moreover, it is a very decent talented star. It has an angle voice and look and very stylish. Anything it wears it becomes a trend. It is a role model for every talented person. It can play piano, guitar, violin, and drums. It also can draw beautifully.

Honestly, about my avatar I do sometimes imagine myself like that in real life when I watch my favorite stars. I know that this type of life is not acceptable to me as a real person with real goal for living because I believe that all these things are temporary and can be gone in one day. However, I still sometimes wonder about these people’s type of life and imagine myself in their places.  It is like a desire we have when we want to try everything that looks or appears attractive to us like celebrities’ lives.

 Besides, what makes this type of avatar interested to me in a way is simply because it is the opposite type of life of what I have in real world.  I’m a quite, conservative type of person and that’s why I find the idea of virtual world is interesting because we can create exactly what in our minds without any limitations or thinking. We can explore any idea that comes to our mind without any regression because everything will be unreal.  Therefore, I’m with the virtual world idea because it is like an option we can access to release our crazy ideas.  

Noura Al Zaben:Facebook and Twitter

The January 2010 "Security Threat Report: 2010" from SOHOS starts with a section on social networking sites; the summary includes the statements, "2009 saw Facebook, Twitter, and other social networking sites solidify their position at the heart of many users' daily Internet activities, and saw these websites become a primary target for hackers. Because of this, social networks have become one of the most significant vectors for data loss and identity theft." 

The section on social networking (page 2) reports, "Companies now commonly use blogs to disseminate and share information. Forums serve as a form of technical support where professionals can troubleshoot with peers and colleagues. Meanwhile, many companies embrace Facebook and MySpace because the sites present a great way to connect with customers and spread the latest company news or product offerings to the public."

Do you receive a steady stream of invitations to join Facebook, MySpace, and Friendster? I have been told repeatedly by friends and colleagues that I should post personal information on these sites, tweet on Twitter, and use some of the many other social-networking tools available. However, as a computer-security professional, I have purposely avoided joining Facebook and tweeting on Twitter.

It's against my sense of personal security to use Web sites asking for personal information unless I have a pretty good idea that they are secure. I like to use Netcraft's Web phishing toolbar to avoid connecting to dubious sites. Unfortunately, from what I have researched about Facebook, MySpace and Twitter, I do not feel that they warrant my trust.

Vast attack surface

Businesses have taken to using social-networking sites to promote their services and to connect with prospective clients. While the trend may be progressive, it is also progressively risky. Facebook was designed by Harvard University student Mark Zuckerberg in 2004 as a project to keep students connected. It appears that Mr. Zuckerberg was not familiar with techniques for developing secure Web-facing sites. The result was a non-secure application: a hacker's paradise, but an end-user's nightmare.

According to two Internet security researchers who presented at the Black Hat Briefings in 2008, sites like Facebook and MySpace are eminently hackable for several reasons. Shawn Moyer, founder of consultancy Agura Digital Security [and responsible for one of the funnier LinkedIn profiles that MK has ever seen], and Nathan Hamiel, founder of the Hexagon Security Group, presented evidence that social networks use "wide open" APIs; this means that the applications used to run sites like Facebook and Myspace allow unrestricted application data interchanges. The attack surface is vast. The programming flaws "permit attackers to tap into user applications and exploit site code that's wide open to cross-site scripting and other attacks." It seems tantamount to hanging out signs on Facebook and Myspace that say, "Hack Me."

Noura Al Zaben: second Life

Your Second Life Avatar May Impact How You Act In Real Life

from the you-mean-second-life-may-have-a-purpose? dept

Slashdot points us to a clip from NPR's All Things Considered discussing some research out of Stanford about how the appearance of your virtual avatar may impact your actions in real life. In the story, two examples are given. The first is showing a thinner version of you, and letting you see the avatar exercising and getting thinner. Apparently, being able to see that (very fast) "cause-and-effect" really does drive people to exercise more. The second is that if someone has a "more attractive" avatar within a virtual world, once they leave that virtual world, they're more likely to have higher self-esteem and believe that they're better looking in real life as well. In the study given, right after leaving the virtual world, the subjects are told to create online dating profiles and pick people that they thought were their equals. Those who had more attractive avatars picked more attractive real life people as "attainable." The researchers (of course) have their own website with more info. 

While this sounds like interesting research, it seems rather early to draw many conclusions from it. In fact, I'm a little surprised that the Slashdot post about it didn't mention the obvious parallels to questions about research on how people act after playing violent video games. That research has generally shown that it makes kids emotional, but just for a short period of time -- which would make me wonder how long-term the impacts of seeing these avatars is as well. However, if the goal is to just give you a little burst of motivation to get over some self-doubt or inertia (say, to exercise), then that might not be a bad thing. Either way, the research itself is interesting -- but it's still early. It'll be worth watching what comes out of the research down the road.

people pick their avatars based on what they wish their physical self was like. some portion of these people actually work on improving themselves, completely independent of the game, and as a result look more like their avatars.

Back when I played WoW, I played an undead. a FEMALE undead. I played female because the males looked like they poopie in their pants when they walked. Not ONCE in real life did I ever desire to summon a demon, cut off my knees, gouge out my eyes, grow a rack. Hell, I never even wanted to trance dance.

Why? because my avatar was NOT a representation of why I wanted myself to be. It was a representation fo the character I was playing in a game. No more. (ok, it was also nice eye candy... yes, even rotting festering corpses are made to look like hotties in WoW)

Talar Kazanji- Real, but not so Real

My avatar is a mermaid in Vintage clothing. Her name is Nayiri. Her tail is made of a bunch of pearls, and changes colors according to her mood. She has hair like Marilyn Monroe, but in red, wears black-framed glasses, has long eyelashes, rosy cheeks, and wears red lipstick. She has green eyes and wears a pearl headband. She is an Algebra, Biology, and Chemistry nerd. She only eats pasta and pizza and never gains weight. She lives in the Caspian Sea, in a beautiful underwater penthouse made of pearls. She specializes in fashion designing, kung fu, dancing, composing music, and presenting in Caspian’s number one underwater channel called, Casmania. She also has her own line of Vintage clothes, and face products. She plays the violin and drums. Her best friends are Snow white, Esmeralda, and Jasmine. Her means of transportation is a pig covered with pearls. She has two abilities. The first one is her ability to snap her fingers and change into any clothes she wants. The second ability is her power to change into a Galah parrot, a parrot with 3 colors, pink, grey, and white. This is how she gets to live in the sea, and the sky. She travels all around the world, and sits on the highest mountains in the world, watching people while eating cotton candy.

As good as my avatar sounds to me and as much as I would like to live this fantasy world, I can’t seem to find Second Life important to me as it is to everyone else. It is a good way of escaping the real world and getting engaged in an easier life for a couple of hours, but at the end of the day, it is all just an imagination, an illusion. Second Life is a world given to people to create their own life in a better way and maybe improving it somehow, but to me, it is just another virtual game, which is entertaining and fun. I can shape my life the way I want it to be, without the help of a game. I could have my red Monroe hair and learn how to play various instruments. In case of “never gaining weight” or “turning into a parrot”, these are nothing but imaginations that can never become true. I believe it is always better to start and improve your life in reality, and make true money in tangible life, than become a successful businessman in Second Life and earn money through that method. So, what is the point of believing in Second Life for such unrealistic things that many people want?

One of the videos we watched in class shows how interaction is in Second Life. It is very robotic and 100% computerized. Not only are we fake creatures in Second Life, but also have limited functions. In real life, we are absolutely free to do what so ever. Our body is functioned to do any movement or any facial expression. In Second Life, we are all somewhat the same, as if we are clones of some sort. It is limited, and it has boundaries. In reality, we are God’s creations and are given the best lifelike gifts, our 5 senses, and I don’t think Virtual life can compete with that at any point.