My Blog, for any occasion deemed appropriate.

City of Glass

2008-11-26T14:42:00.002-05:00

What the heck just happened? That was my reaction after reading City of Glass.

To be honest, I found it interesting and neat but I don't quite think it's my cup of tea. That doesn't mean I can't respect it as being a really good piece, I just didn't enjoy it as much as some of the other things we've read this semester. Why exactly is that? I'm not too sure myself, I just don't think it's my favorite style.

Now it's definitely nifty and a cool type of story. It just didn't latch onto me as much as some of the others. In any case, I think the art is really really good and some of the ways things are portrayed is very unique, and a fair few of those are creepy as well :P

All in all, I think it's a great comic and if you have any interest in that type of story then I'd recommend it to you. As for me, it's worth reading for sure, but it won't go on my list of favorites.

Dead Space Comics

2008-11-25T01:28:00.004-05:00

So here I am playing around with Xbox Live and checking out the marketplace when I come across animated comics for Dead Space? I remembered hearing about the comics tie-in so that was no surprise. The real surprise was that they were GOOD. Not just regular plain old good, but GOOD.

The story is enthralling, the art is fantastic, the voice acting is great - it's certainly not every day you get something of this caliber for free. I will tell them, as promotional material, this worked amazingly. I'm not big on horror games but the story is just so good that I'm definitely going to give the demo a try when that comes out tomorrow.

Here's the links, you could certainly do much worse with your time:

Dead Space Animated Comic #1: Standard Definition
Dead Space Animated Comic #2: SD, High Definition
Dead Space Animated Comic #3: SD, HD
Dead Space Animated Comic #4: SD, HD
Dead Space Animated Comic #5: SD, HD
Dead Space Animated Comic #6: SD, HD

Still here? I'm hoping that means you've at least given them a shot :P

It's a Bird

2008-11-05T02:57:00.004-05:00

It's a Bird is definitely a great comic, no doubt about that. But like many of the others we've read, it's not a kids comic. It's got real themes with real story, if it had to be rated I'd rate it "Mature" for it's themes are pretty heavy and deep. (As a side note, I find it interesting that Comics do not have need for such a ratings system that movies and games have)

The art style is definite neat, unique and appealing which works seamlessly with Seagle's story. The story is deeply embedded with realism and themes that can resonate with many people. For me the geneticly passed disease that fills his families history and future relates to a syndrome that my family has that has come about. I continue to get tested every year/two in order to make sure that no issues have cropped up, so I was able to relate on that note among with many of the others. I just really felt like I understood where he was coming from, even though I felt like he was still being an idiot at times but that happens :P

The transitions from him talking to people and then suddenly getting an idea that his mind needed to pursue and the reader was brought into, and then being brought back to the real world where near no time had passed at all was well done and just seemed to work, I wasn't confused at all and knew exactly what was going on which was pretty neat. In any case, I kept flipping through the pages because I wanted to keep finding out what was going to happen and how he was going to deal with all these issues. The issues that are brought up are very real as I have stated and that he is able to bring them out to the public through the comic is very neat. It's very much like how his friend airs out such private issues through his play. And for some reason, such private things like this are just easy for people to latch onto and find pieces of themselves in and makes it all the more special because of it.

In response to Cynthia's questions:
It's a Bird is clearly a reference to the saying from Superman "It's a Bird1 It's a Plane! It's Superman!"

The cover art has a reference to a bird in the sky that you're unable to clearly make out (although it does appear to be a bird) many of the individuals on the screen have the Superman logo etched on them in some fashion, and this relates to the conclusion that Seagle seems to make towards the end of the comic is that everyone is a Superman in their own right (at least I think that's what I Seagle was getting at at one point in the end, at least something like that anyway)

Persepolis

2008-10-29T14:45:00.004-04:00

I saw the movie a couple of weeks ago and have just gotten around to reading the comic book version. It's pretty easy to talk about it. The movie is probably the best medium to medium transfer of anything that I've seen. It kept the feel of the comic book so well it surprised me. I didn't feel like I missed out on anything by seeing the movie. Although I did not make the connection for some reason that this was the authors story and the comic just reinforced everything I heard in the movie. There was very little cut out of the movie so like I said the transition from the movie to comic was incredibly easy. But I still enjoyed reading the comic. I'd say that you're not missing anything if you just see the movie, and that's tough to say for any piece of material that has a written format and a movie format.

Overall, the piece is great, it really tells a story that everyone should read and know about. And the way it tells the story is fantastic, the style and simply everything keep you reading for more. All in all, a great read if you want to read the comic or a great movie if you want to see the film.

Oh and for those of you interested, Persepolis is the capital city of the Persian Empire, and Iran was called Persia up until the 1930s.

Death Note #1/#2 (Live Action Movie)

2008-10-18T20:47:00.007-04:00

After having read the first episode of Death Note and my adviser saying she would lend me the DVD for episode 1, I was eager to watch it. It was definitely pretty neat and I'd say a good movie - although not the best.

So in general, I thought the movie was neat and all but something just didn't push me over the edge to give it 5 stars. Maybe it's cause I read the manga before seeing it, I'm not sure exactly - could have been cause I saw it by myself. Now, I'm not saying it wasn't good. I enjoyed watching it and it was well done and neat, just not my favorite movie by any means. I'd say 3 1/2 stars?

So a few weeks later with the opportunity to see the screening for the second episode I decided to do so. This time I was able to see it with one of my fellow class-mates. This time I'd say 4 stars. I hadn't read the manga so I can't complain about it on that front, so I didn't know what to expect (even with the first movie, so much of it is new content when compared to the manga so I don't think that was my issue with it). It was good, humorous at times and well done - my one complaint is that there were too many twists and turns. The last one is really cool and I never saw it coming but still, up to that point it was getting a bit crazy.

Overall, like I said I did enjoy it and think it was well done but it does have its flaws.

OH and let me say that while watching the DVD I had to turn off the English dubbing and turn on the subtitles - it just looks and sounds so awkward! So when we watched episode #2 in the theater with English voices I was disappointed. In many points its just laughable and can change the scene drastically.

Astro City: Life in the Big City

2008-10-18T20:24:00.003-04:00

As is the trend with most of my posts, I read Astro City: Life in the Big City by Kurt Busiek for my Scripting for Comics class. It's definitely unique and a great read and I'm glad that I bought it because I'll look forward to loaning it to some people so they can read it.

The story is definitely not your comic for children as I think it brings about a whole bunch of themes that kids wouldn't understand or even interest them. The whole way that Busiek tells the story of the rest of the superhero world. It's all just as interesting as the pieces about the battles between the superheros and their villains. I keep thinking that it would have been REALLY interesting to have had City of Heroes based in this universe, with such a well thought out history and universe I think it could have really benefited the game greatly and added as well to the story of Astro City. Overall, it's a pretty quick read but with depth that will astound you and worth checking out. Oh and I commented on it in class, but the art is very well done and the colors are amazing.

In class we were asked what our favorite "scene" was and I wasn't able to answer because I hadn't finished it yet but I'd go with Safeguards. I'm not particularly sure why but something just resonated with me in that story. I also really liked the Reconnaissance story.

I also noticed that Astro City is published by the WildStorm branch of DC Comics which is the group that has been doing all the video game related comics.

New York Anime Festival

2008-10-01T14:08:00.004-04:00

With the availability of free tickets from my advisor, I decided I wanted to go to the Anime Festival. Besides, it's anime, and it's free and there are sure to be nifty people there - right?
Nifty is one word for it :P

My anime history is as such, I grew up on Dragon Ball Z and Gundam Wing and that's really how I grew into role playing games on the internet and that is one of the major reasons why I'm so internet/tech-savy. I've been playing games/making websites/games with random people I've met on the internet since I was 11. I still have some of the friends from when I started today!

So in any case, I love DBZ (Dragon Ball Z), Gundam Wing and from there I went on to view Full Metal Alchemist, Naruto, Bleach. I've also seen Cowboy Bebop, Outlaw Star, Ghost in a Shell, Spirited Away. So I've seen a fair few, but none of it recently, mostly while I was growing up.

So I was looking forward to the Anime Festival and while I was at work Friday a co-worker mentioned that she wanted to attend and was looking for someone else to go. That was awesome because I didn't really want to attend the festival by myself. Things worked out really well in that regard.

I attended the festival with my friend, we ended up arriving around 3pm and shopped around the different vendors for a while. There was some good art there, some interesting clothing, some neat accessories and of course some anime to buy. The best thing about the festival was the people dressed up. People were dressed up from all the popular anime, lots of people dressed up from Bleach and Naruto. It was a lot of fun to see them walking around.

We tried to go to a few of the events but they were either full or not interesting to me or my friend. We did end up going to the main event Saturday night which was the Anime Masquerade event. Pretty much it was anyone who wanted to dress up and perform a skit.

There were some really bad skits, only maybe 4 or 5 of them were actually decent/good which made the event interesting to say the least. The beginning was hilarious because it was opened by 3 songs from this well known voice over actress. The guy in front of my friend would go nuts whenever she sang or whenever he recognized a song. He got her to say "thank you" when she was leaving as he professed his love for her and he did an anime melt to the floor. I don't think an artist could have drawn it any better. Besides that and the few actually funny skits the event was a bit of a let down.

Overall, the anime festival was neat, but I would definitely not pay $50 for it. If it was like $10? Maybe. But they expect you to pay extra for the cool merchandise that you could pretty much find anywhere else and the events were intriguing but I would have had to come specifically for ones that I wanted to see in order to it to have been worth money. Perhaps then it would have been, but I have trouble thinking it would be worth $50 even then.

Death Note

2008-09-25T00:37:00.002-04:00

I've heard about Death Note before and heard really good things - now I know why.
(I had the pleasure of reading it for my Scripting 4 Comics class, at least the first volume of it)

It's incredibly well thought out! Just as a general note - the entire concept seems so novel and simple. For those of you not in the know, the concept is that a bored death god drops what one would consider his tool to cause death (A note book) into the human realm - a very intelligent high school picks it up and once finds out that if you write a person's name in it, it will cause that person to die - decides to use it for the world's good and rid the world of evil.

It was quite the page turner and I breezed through it after my class this afternoon. It does take a bit getting used to, reading from right to left - that much is very true.

Overall though, it's simply a well crafted manga, that is thrilling, intriguing, genuinely interesting with just the right amount of humor.

Significant Pursuit

2008-09-24T02:14:00.003-04:00

For my intro to game production class we had to create a tutorial to a board game (I picked Trivial Pursuit). So I decided I wanted to do it through a comic (I'm not particularly fond of powerpoint and I thought it'd be fun to leverage some software I've come across before (I ended up using Comic Life Magiq, an updated version of the Comic Life that used to come pre-installed on Macs))

In any case, the project that I came up with was my first attempt at using the program and kind of thrown together - but I still enjoy it and think it's pretty interesting and worth showing.

You can find the comic here

Making Comics

2008-09-24T01:23:00.006-04:00

As per the usual lately (with my lack of time for writing for any other reason) this post is about something I had to read for my Scripting for Comics class. I read the first 80 pages of Making Comics by Scott McCloud which was quite enlightening.

As a side note to this, I stumbled upon Scott McCloud's LiveJournal blog which is interesting, I wasn't expecting it to be well updated, but it is. The most recent entry is great as well because it gave me a look at the real Scott McCloud. It's neat to get a look at the person who's creating these comics and has been putting himself in almost every frame for these past two books. In any case, I thought it was nifty.

Having been impressed by Understanding Comics I was looking forward to taking a look at Making Comics and happily it seems to be being just as thought provoking, easy to read through and even easy to learn from as McCloud's earlier book.

The first point to notice is that this book is made much more recent than Understanding Comics was (this was printed in 2006, while UC was in 1993) so it is much more recent and is fully inclusive of a whole new genre of comics (web comics).

Also interesting to note is (because it gives validity to what we just studied, not that we particularly needed it) the mention of Will Eisner's death in the small text at the end of the acknowledgments section. Perhaps to help me with my own image of Will Eisner, Scott talks about his examination of the art of comics as his legacy and not his own comics that he created. That helps me with the fact that I didn't really find The Spirit all that amazing :P

The introduction focuses on two separate issues, the ways to transition from frame to frame and the different choices made in the development process that effect the clarity of the comic (clarity meaning that the reader will comprehend your comic).

The ways to transition from frame to frame are outlined as :

Moment to Moment
Action to Action
Subject to Subject
Scene to Scene
Aspect to Aspect
Non Sequitur

Clarity is changed through 5 different conscious or unconscious choices made :

Choice of Moment
Choice of Frame
Choice of Image
Choice of Word
Choice of Flow

The notes section that followed the intro chapter is really great and full of interesting exercises that seem like a great deal of fun and I can easily see them being very inspiring.

The Character design section I also found fascinating. I've had trouble thinking of where to start and what to do with comics if I ever wanted to make one, and just going through this book so far has given me a bit more confidence that I can find a decent plot and come up with something if I'm given a spark from somewhere.

Will Eisner Documentary

2008-09-17T00:10:00.002-04:00

We watched a soon-to-be-released documentary about Will Eisner in my Scripting for Comics class. It was definitely neat to get a good feel for the comics industry and I made some interesting connections as well.

Will Eisner is truly a pioneer in the realm of comics. The first thing that I realized is that it is incredibly easy to make connections to his life and to that of Joe Papp (I've been reading a documentary on him for my Public Theater and the Village class). They both were a part of the military which had a great deal to do with allowing them to become the people they were to become. They were both the sons of immigrants and lived in the boroughs of New York as well as both being Jewish. They were even born in the same era. In any case, I just thought that was interesting that these two great minds that had great effects on two entirely different areas had a fair number of things in common between them.

It was interesting to get a view of the entire history of comics, as Will Eisner has been a part of it all. I also thought it was really neat about how he worked on comics for the military to break things down to be more interesting and easier to learn by turning instruction manuals into comics. (When I was in Shanghai they did this, there was a comic used to show some very basic things that westerners could not do / should not do while in Shanghai)

I don't know what else to say really, he led a full life that had great contributions to society and to the comics industry.

The Spirit / Will Eisner

2008-09-10T14:22:00.004-04:00

For my Scripting for Comics class I read Will Eisner's The Spirit (#26).

For class I'm supposed to write a short bit about it so click the link below for the rest.

I didn't feel that the comic was all that impressive in any real way. It just seemed okay to me all around. Probably 3.5 stars, maybe it's because I don't have much invested in the series and we're starting at #26 or what have you but I wouldn't go out of my way to spend more time on the series from this one episode. I think it was neat and enjoyable but there are probably better series to spend my time on but maybe I'm expecting to much? I'll admit I did enjoy the humor that is embedded into the comic, it's definitely a light and fun read as compared with something like Watchmen.

Because I've already blogged on Understanding Comics and don't want to repeat myself I thought I'd talk about how I thought it was really neat that Google released Chrome to the public through a comic, and the artist for that comic? Scott McCloud.

Also, I have come across terms like "splash" before through my time on the web through art and web design. (The splash page is the first image/page that a person see's that is supposed to draw them into the product/website/game)

Contemporary Art Interviews

2008-06-06T12:05:00.002-04:00

For my contemporary Chinese art class a while back, a few of my classmates and I interviewed some people and put together a video on their thoughts on contemporary/modern art. I uploaded it to Google Video in its entirety (a bit over 12 minutes).

Unfortunately, my teacher can't access Google Video so I've also uploaded it to YouTube but to do that I had to split it in two parts (you can't upload a video to YouTube that is longer than 10 minutes).

You can see the video at Google Video here, part 1 on YouTube here and part 2 here

Enjoy!

Welcome!

2008-06-02T08:00:00.000-04:00

Hi there! so you're new to my blog - that's cool (those who aren't can just skip on ahead)

If you're interested in reading what I have been saying about my experiences spending the semester in Shanghai click here.

If you want to check out my photo collection check out this link.

Only have time for one photo at the moment? Here's one to make sure you come back!

If you don't want to be limited to only my thoughts on China, feel free to continue on your own around my blog!

Hong Kong / Macau

2008-06-02T06:16:00.004-04:00

Ah well, I had an amazing weekend because I had the pleasure of spending it in Hong Kong :)

Overall, the place is the most modern city I've ever been to - it actually feels like 2008. The city's vibe and everything were just great, I had a fantastic time and would definitely recommend it as a required stop if you're in the region.

As far as Macau goes, well without the Hong Kong experience definitely not worth going to on its own - but if you're into Casinos and happen to be visiting Hong Kong already, then it would probably be worth the boat ride over.

If you want to read a detailed run through of my experiences then you can continue on and read the full post or if you just want to check out my pictures then go ahead and do that over here.

Getting There
So it was a friend that I talked to on the trip to Huangshan that brought up the idea of wanting to go to Hong Kong. Since then we've made the arrangements and I got my new multi-entry visa so I could re-enter China after leaving to go to Hong Kong. Hong Kong and Macau are officially part of China but they are Special Administrative Regions (SARs) meaning that since they were given back to China in the late 1990's, they will have relative autonomy until until the middle of the 21st century - which means as far as immigrations goes (and everything else in my opinion) they are just like going to a different country.

We decided it would be easier to go to Shenzhen airport which is only an hour bus ride away from Hong Kong but still inside China so that we could use the Hongqiao airport here in Shanghai because it is so close to our dorm (it only does domestic flights). The plane ride there was fine and it was a meager two hours or so and they served us food because it was around dinner time (wasn't all that bad either) and there were no delays. We arrived at Shenzhen, went to the reception desk for the bus company, bought our tickets to Hong Kong retreived our free water, sat down for a photo with our new stickers and water in Shenzhen and then were set off for Hong Kong. Customs was relatively easy and we were then in Hong Kong!

The First Night
After being dazzled by the mall we entered in (okay, it was gorgeous, even had its own freaking ice rink) we set out to find some where to exchange our money to Hong Kong dollars which took a bit of a walk and walking around for a bit because it was so late already. Then we made our way to an area that was recommended to us by a friend and found a cheap hostel to stay in which agreed to 150 Hong Kong dollars a night for the two of us (about $20 total). After getting all settled we went out and walked around Kowloon. Now's a good time for a brief picture of what Hong Kong is, it's a bunch of islands with the main Hong Kong island but it also encompasses some land on actual mainland China as wel - Kowloon is one such area and is on the peninsula closest to HK island.

Day One
So got up relatively early, checked out the Avenue of the Stars which is on the coast of Kowloon looking over at HK island which was nifty. Oh and I'll point out that it was raining for the whole day and we walked around in puddles in our shoes for the whole day - needless to say our feet were ugly as all heck at the end of the day! We then took the subway over to the Admiralty district. I also have to say the subway is amazing, it's a touch screen and you just select the location that you want to travel to and it tells you how much it is. Besides that everything is clean, you're not even allowed to eat or drink on the subway. Then we headed out to Stanley via a 45 min bus ride. Stanley is along the southern coast of HK island and it was interesting enough to take the bus ride there and visit the area. It's a pretty small place with a market and a museum and a few temples. The bus ride is where I really realized how mountainous HK is and how tiny the roads were running around the place.

After that we went and checked out the central area of HK island which was really cool. We went through Hollywood road, the Soho area as well as Times Square (those all sound familiar don't they?). Definitely the hub of life, looked like a ton of fun as well :) Then we went to go take the Tram up to the peak and we found out it was the 120th anniversary of the tram operations so it was free to go up. It was about an hour wait to get up there and back down and I might have even got put on local TV for all I know :P It was neat up there but we couldn't spend much time because of the wait, it's like a big shopping area with restaurants and a viewing area. I was surprised to see an "EA Experience", where you could buy EA stuff/games and kick around and play games - it was pretty sweet and I'd love to see that kind of stuff in the states in a mall or something. I wonder if HK is a great market for them? Don't know but now I'm interested. We ended up making our way back down and took the ferry back to Kowloon and took our pictures of the coast.

Day Two
The next day we decided to go to Lantau island for a few things so we headed off to HK island and took a ferry from there to Lantau island. Then we took another 30 - 45 min bus ride out to the largest seated Buddha in the world (known as Tian Tan Buddha, or Big Buddha) as well as the local Buddhist monastery. From there, we saw another bus route that seemed to be popular which ended up taking us to Tung Chung. We walked around this little area which was small but neat with two big shopping centers, a cinema, a bunch of apartment buildings and a couple of office buildings. The HK airport happened to be across the water on it's own island and we had heard that it was worth seeing so we stopped over to check it out. And it does look amazing, the arrival / departures are on different floors and it appears to be mostly in this huge hangar. The ceiling is huge and the whole atmosphere is really neat since it's not so closed in like a normal airport - it's also tremendously clean as well. From there, we took the Airport Express back into Central so we'd have time to hit up Macau before the day was out.

We then took the TurboJet from Sheung Wan which took about an hour. After having to go through customs again we took the free shuttle from the airport to the MGM Grand (of course it's free, they're going to take our money anyway, might as well be nice about it :P). My friend played a few slot machines and I checked out the Caribbean style poker which was entirely lame and not worth my time or money but I had to check out a casino - just one of those experiences you gotta do. We then walked around the city a bit and went to the city center which was kind of cool, it reminded us of what we know of Mardi Gras in New Orleans. I almost forgot to mention, Hong Kong doesn't really speak Mandarin (official Chinese language) at all so that was pretty much useless there, they speak Cantonese (different Chinese dialect) which is entirely different. For example, to say thank you, in Chinese you say xiè xie but in Cantonese you say m'goi. Also, Macau was a Portuguese colony, unlike HK which was a British colony so alongside Cantonese, Portuguese is really popular. So that made things interesting :P Besides that, there are no traffic lights in Macau - people just kind of go whenever, and as the person that sat next to me described it, there really aren't any rules and that's part of the reason why the casino's are so popular there. We walked around for a long while trying to get back to the pier but finally gave in and took a taxi for the last stretch. Then we headed back to our room for the night.

Day Three / Final Day
We debated getting up early to do something before we went back, but it would have been really tight to fit anything in (our flight was at 3:15 and we had to take the bus back and go through customs and what not) so we just decided to sleep in and head back. Everything went pretty well and we timed everything well, except for a 30-45 min hour delay on the runway (where they actually fed us some rolls and bread within like 10 minutes of notifying us that there would be a delay, so that was pretty nice). Overall - a great trip and I really liked Hong Kong - wonderful experience and definitely worth seeing.

Shanghai Art Museum: Power-Thonik's Design

2008-05-28T13:02:00.000-04:00

I was pleasantly surprised with the exhibition at the Shanghai Art Museum. It had work that was well done and displayed well and there was definitely thought put behind it. I can't say that it entirely felt coherent throughout the whole piece and that I came away with a message after it, but I was definitely impressed by what I saw and individually the works were well done - they all did share the common theme of appearing modern though.

I did like the short video about the advertisement that had been created against a health care issue in the Netherlands and how that effectively reversed the policy. I also liked the portraits that were created using the other faces of individuals, I tried to notice a pattern there and it seemed that most of the faces used to create a portrait were from the photo directly to the left or right of the one it was creating but that only held true for most of the faces, not all of them on the picture (I hope that makes sense :P)

The carpets were neat, and like I said I was generally impressed by the works - but I didn't seem to get a overarching theme or really a lot of the purpose behind creating the works themselves - but then again maybe that's my own fault for not thinking about them long enough.

For this little area there was an iPod Touch look-a-like that would play a short video that composed mostly of sounds that were universal so it was easy to understand. But I didn't really get the point, maybe that's the running theme =P (Maybe I'm getting too used to looking for one certain type of influence in a work).

More pictures can be found at: http://picasaweb.google.com/mnolin/NYUInShanghaiShanghaiArtMuseum

Song sells 5x more on 360 Rock Band than on iTunes/Amazon

2008-05-27T12:21:00.005-04:00

This is pretty amazing, and an awesome measure to show what gaming can do but stats have been released showing that Motley Crue's new single, Saints of Los Angeles, has sold 10,000 copies via iTunes and Amazon. The real kicker is that it sold 47,000 copies on the Xbox 360 version of Rock Band. That's just shocking really - I doubt the PlayStation 3 numbers are quite as high - but who knows, counting both consoles, sales could add up to 8-10x as much as were made via iTunes and Amazon.

This is a bit similar to what happens here in China actually - people download songs for free because it's impossible to make money trying to sell them for a fee - but where artists make money is that people buy the tracks for their cell phones. Now, by no means is a cell phone equal to a console but they are both, for the most part proprietary devices that are much easier to secure. Maybe the future for music in the US is via online, but perhaps not where people think.

New(well, somewhat)-Media Installation in NYC & London

2008-05-23T10:29:00.005-04:00

Well what's so special about being able to see someone from across the Pacific Ocean and interact with them instantly these days?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7415911.stm

You might say nothing - but Paul St George (artist/inventor) and I would disagree.

From near the Brooklyn Bridge on the banks of New York's East River one can come across a whiteboard, a marker pen and a strange telescope/tunnel looking thing. If one looks inside they can see whomever is at the other end of the tunnel on the edge of the Thames river in London alongside the Tower Bridge.

Maybe it's the simplicity, or that it reminds us, in a real world atmosphere the amazingness of such a feat as this but either way it sounds like a really cool experience (and a great new-media installation), besides the fact that I've been to both locations :)

Bund Galleries

2008-05-21T21:04:00.001-04:00

So I decided to go along and check out the shows at 3 on the Bund (Shanghai Gallery of Art) and the Bund18. I hadn't been to these places yet so I figured it might be neat. The places themselves are pretty cool buildings and I think that they have some cool possibilities.

But the first show I saw at the Bund18 Creative Center appeared to me to be more or less a design show, with the products become mass produced soon after the show. (I mean the stuff was neat but it just seemed like a design show to me - whether that fits under what should be shown in a gallery or not? I'm not sure)

The other one at 3 on the Bund was definitely different - with the big ball that would inflate and deflate over time and this big supposedly figure 8 structure composed of LCD screens with people crawling from screen to screen. If you clapped they would go backwards. I failed to see the amazingness or see any big messages click with me as I went to either show.

(More pictures are available at http://picasaweb.google.com/mnolin/NYUInShanghaiBundArtGalleries)

Ender's Game

2008-05-12T02:43:00.002-04:00

So I'm glad I brought Ender's Game with me on my trip to HuangShan. I ended up reading through the first half of the book late at night on the train and then some more the next morning, on the bus and by the time night rolled around I finished it.

Definitely a solid read, and it was neat to see how at least 6 people were like "OH! That book is awesome!", as one person put it, the character development is amazing. The book is a great read and I'm really interested in seeing how the movie and video game pans out. I enjoyed it, it made me think and I think I also learned from reading it - what else can I ask for in a book?

Huangshan

2008-05-12T02:23:00.005-04:00

Alright so because our big spring break trips were canceled (well, two out of the three big trips) , NYU had some extra money. Meaning we were able to be given a free trip to Huangshan this past weekend. Well worth the price of free.

I had a great time, the train ride there is about 12 hours, which is a while but you get used to it, and with sleeper cars it's easy enough to stay on schedule (must better than a plane anyway). The first day there we were able to take the cable car a ways up and then whomever wanted could climb up to the Celestial Peak which is one of the three highest points. It was a pretty steep climb and tough, mainly because some of us didn't take a break and just kept climbing (my calves are a bit sore from this, and I'm in pretty good shape, so I'd hate to be everyone else). It was a nice experience except the first day you couldn't see anything, the fog or whatever you want to call it was everywhere. Oh and at the top of the Celestial Peak I thought it was cool, couples would put a lock on the rope surrounding the peak and throw the key down to show how they would stay together forever. We did climb all the way down too (no cable car this time), so that may have something to do with the sore legs :P

As far as the second day goes, it was beautiful! There were two options, one was more hiking on the mountain and the other was a cultural visit to the village and lake nearby. Because everyone was tired from the first day the majority took the cultural visit, but the hiking was amazing. We didn't do all that much so I kind of feel bad for the other people. But the views were amazing, here's one photo to show you how great it was.

I'm really glad that I did the hiking section and was able to see the amazing mountains, Huangshan is well worth visiting if you have the chance. My train on the way back was delayed a few hours so you can say that Amtrak isn't the only train company that delays :P I didn't mind so much though I had great company!

Oh and if you want to check out my Huangshan pictures you can do so here.

Ultimate History of Video Games: Chapters 1-8

2008-05-04T00:20:00.003-04:00

Alright so, The Ultimate History of Video Games by Steven L. Kent is a huge book, it runs just about 600 pages. So I'm just going to try to jot down my notes as to what important events are and some interesting pieces. I may not cover every chapter or what have you but I'm just trying to give myself a reference point for the important pieces and also the interesting parts of the history of video games (I will bold the important parts throughout).

Time covered: 1961 - 1977

Steve Russell completed the first video game, in regards to the fact that it was a game that people could play on computers. This was done in 1961-1962 on a huge (well smaller than most for that day, only the size of a car) PDP-1 (Programmable Data Processor-1), at MIT, which cost $120,000. He called it Spacewar.

Some people say that Willy Higinbotham, a scientist at Brookhaven National Laboratory invented the first game in 1958. He programmed an oscilloscope to play an interactive tennis game. (However, this more or less did not lead to anything else and was not really noticed much at the time)

Spacewar was played on too expensive a computer for the majority of people to use and for that reason video games stayed quiet for a while. In 1966 Ralph Baer, a division manager for Sanders Assosciates (a defense contractor), came up with the idea for games on a TV for $19.95. Because he was in charge of so many people he could throw a few people on the project and nobody would know, so he did so. He ended up pitching the idea to Magnavox after they saw a prototype but Magnavox did a poor job mass manufacturing it and they tried to sell it for $100. Thus it went rather unnoticed due to a poor marketing job as well as its price tag.

The next chapter in video games begins with a guy named Nolan Bushnell, he was a student at the University of Utah when he came across Spacewar, which became one of his favorite games. Bushnell got a job working for Ampex Corporation which allowed workers to take parts for hobbies, he worked on a coin-operated version of Spacewar which he dubbed Computer Space.

He made a working prototype, found a manufacturer in Nutting Assosciates and was able to put the game out. For a number of reasons it did not fare great (although not a complete failure), the game had a huge instruction manual, and Bushnell maintains that Nutting did not market it well. In 1972, Bushnell went on to start his own company with Ted Dabney, called Atari.

Atari started out by getting a steady income by starting a small pinball route in the local area. The first full-time employee was Cynthia Villanueva, a 17-year-old who Bushnell had be the secretary and act as though the company was a larger one, and wait a while before having Bushnell answer the phone. The second employee was Al Alcorn an employee from Ampex. Bushnell gave Alcorn an exercise to create a simple ping-pong game because they had signed a contract with General Electric (Bushnell made it all up to inspire Alcorn). Alcorn worked on it and eventually created what we now know to be Pong. So they put this game that they didn't even expect to turn out so well in a local bar called Andy Capp's Tavern in late 1972. After two weeks Alcorn was called by the bartender saying that the game had broken and he should fix it because the game had gotten pretty popular with people. Alcorn went to fix it and the game was stuffed full of quarters and that was the reason it was broken.

With this success, Bushnell decided he should manufactured it himself instead of having others do it. At the same time Magnavox realized the success of Pong and sued them over patent infringement which they won but Atari signed a great deal where they had a full-paid license for a relatively small sum of money ($700,000). This was negotiated in the June of 1976.

Atari started to grow and do very well. Atari hired anyone and everyone, the place often smelled of pot and one could easily find used-syringes in the bathrooms. Because of the success and the amount of money they were pulling in from the games, the person who collected the money from the arcade brought his wife who carried a hatchet for protection (they would collect hundreds of dollars in quarters at a time), as that was not against the law but carrying a gun was. At this time Magnavox also released its own Odyssey (the first home entertainment system which Ralph Baer had designed, had 12 seperate games installed on it) which sold 100,000 units in its first year.

The corporate culture at Atari was to work smart and fun, not work hard. They often drank heavily and experimented with drugs and such things. What started to happen though, was because of a number of reasons - Atari didn't patent its concepts well and by the middle of 1974, what Bushnell calls "the Jackals" appeared. Atari's games were simply copied and it became very difficult for Atari to keep its profitibility up. Midway was one such company that came to capitalize on the market and build its own arcade games. Their first hit video game was called Gunfight.

Atari ended up creating its own competitor with Kee Games, they had some of their own staff (Joe Keenan, Gil Williams and Steve Bristow) and Bushnell was on the board, this was to allow Atari to better expand within the tough market. Kee Games created Tank which became a runaway hit. The companies later merged as Kee Games was moving ahead better than Atari was and Atari needed Kee Games to stay a float. It's around this time that Steve Jobs came to Atari, described as a "20-year-old Ho Chi Minh". He was a scruffy kid who smelled bad and had weird hippy habits and also generally wasn't the most liked kid on the block. Although he was incredibly talented and very intelligent. Jobs wanted to go to India to meet his guru, so Al Alcorn gave him a one way ticket to Germany to fix some machines on the way, which Jobs did with amazing ingenuity.

When Jobs returned to Atari, he worked on the soon to be run a way hit Breakout. In order to cut costs, Bushnell had a competition that said if you could reduce the chips to be required on the circuit-board, you'd get $100 for every chip removed and a $1,000 for every chip below 50. At the time Jobs was working on the Apple II, he turned to his partner Steve Wozniak to help him in optimizing Breakout's circuitry. Wozniak was able to remove over 50 chips from the game, but the design was so good that nobody could replicate it. Jobs still received a $5,000 bonus but he only told Wozniak he received $750 and gave him 50% of that which was $375. Wozniak later found out that Steve had lied to him.

Atari tried to break into the Japanese market but was unable to and ended up selling its distribution to Masaya Nakamura who founded Namco. Breakout could have done very well there but Atari was too slow in sending shipments, after pleading to try to get more shipments and being unable to, Nakamura took things into his own hands and manufactured the game himself. (Atari ended up suing Namco later on and winning in the late 1970s)

Atari went on to design Home Pong a consumer version of Pong, however it only played one game - but it was much cheaper to produce than the Magnavox Odyssey. Al Alcorn pitched the concept to Sears Roebuck and they took it, except Bushnell promised 150,000 systems by Christmas - which Atari would never be able to do at its current capacity - time to expand. Bushnell went to venture capitalist, Don Valentine, founder of Sequoia Capital. He ended his relationship two years later, and went on to work with Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak to start Apple Computers, and helped to start Cisco Systems among many others as well.

This is the first time where Bushnell's laid back corporate attitude got him into a bit of trouble. When Sears Roebuck came to visit, they all came in suits and ties and all of Atari was in jeans and t-shirts. Bushnell was even fooling around on the conveyer belt.

The first time "violent" video games would be called into question was with a game called Death Race. Players would run over little stick figures, which were supposed to be gremlins but most of the world thought they were people. It caused quite a big scandal but mostly just boosted their sales. Death Race was created by Pete Kauffman and released by his company called Exidy Games.

Fairchild Camera and Instrument released a new video game console called the Channel F in August 1976 to compete in this new growing market. This was the first cartridge-based video game system that would go on to change the market even though it was not particularly well received. Magnavox, RCA and Atari all immediately said they were planning a similar style system.

By 1976, the video game arcade industry was starting to falter (beside Pin-ball games). Around this time Steve Jobs left Atari to go create Apple Computer and Bushnell decided the only way to keep Atari around and to get more capital was to sell. They worked out a deal with Warner Communications. Again there was a bit of a rift between the two cultures of all play and all business. Atari was able to get funding and was able to put out the Video Computer System (VCS) in October 1977. RCA also put out the Studio II, Odyssey 2 came out soon after, Channel F was also out on the market and Allied Leisure and Bally also announced a new system (the market was over crowded). After Christmas of 1977 the video-game market crashed. Atari was still surviving but not doing really well, in February 1978 Warner hired Ray Kassar to help workout the problems. Ray Kassar had nothing in common with the video game industry and even less with Bushnell's style. Bushnell was eventually "put on the bench" (still receiving benefits and what not) and Ray Kassar was set as CEO.

Understanding Comics

2008-05-03T05:19:00.003-04:00

Alright so I finished up Understanding Comics and its definitely a good read. My main points are that it gives me good hopes for the possibility for what video games can do for education purposes which has been a huge trend as of late with Serious Games becoming a popular subject (although trying to find the right balance is what is tough but Serious Games are another topic!). I also think there's quite a bit of content in there for someone who has not really read comics (ie me). I know about Asterix and the Bayeux Tapestry and all the popular super hero comics that he references but I've never really read comics beside Watchmen last week. It's an interesting thing to come in at this angle so early into the medium. There is a ton to take away from Understanding Comics which is why I felt a bit overwhelmed (not much, there was just a lot to take away!), but that could also be that I'm just not familiar enough with the medium - I still definitely enjoyed the read though and it was amazing to get a great view of the the mediums history.

Overall - I think the piece has a lot to say in general and can be taken to other mediums easily. There are two overall points that I think are key elements and they are the pictorial vocabulary that McCloud displays as a triangle with "The Picture Plane" at the top which is where lines, pictures and other objects can be themselves without meaning behind them, "Reality" on the bottom left, which his well relatively explanatory (as close to reality as the visual art can get) and on the bottom right of the triangle is "Language" which is where art becomes very simple, and becomes more iconic.

The other is six step creation process that he describes as affecting work in any medium.

Idea/Purpose (Impulses or emotions, the works "content")
Form (the form it will take, comic book, video game, a chair, a song?)
Idiom (the genre, subject matter, "school of art", vocabulary of styles)
Structure (what to include, what to leave out, how to compose the art)
Craft (getting the actual job done, applying skills, practical knowledge)
Surface (most apparent on the surface of the art, finishing aspects, ect)

Overall it was interesting but I would like to re-look over it in the fall when I have a bit more of a background of the medium.

8-bit Street Art by NYU Student

2008-05-01T07:52:00.004-04:00

So this is a sweet piece of street art that almost makes me wish I was there to see it for myself. Seems the bloggers and internet have been up in a storm about it, which is awesome - congrats to the artist (NYU senior Kelly Goeller).

What you want more? I got nuthin. This was just too cool to pass up posting.

WTHHIBUT?

2008-05-01T06:25:00.007-04:00

Nice title there, but since its an acronym I made up you probably don't know that WTHHIBUT stands for "What the hell have I been up to?" - fancy no?

Besides doing reading, staying up to date on school work and what not, I've been a bit political (trying to stay involved with these important things, even though I'm across the world), asking my local congressman Michael McNulty for his opinions on Internet Freedom Preservation Act of 2008 (HR 5353) and my local assemblyman Ron Canestrari for thoughts on this NYTimes article. (If you are reading this and have issues that you would like to see supported, make sure your elected representative knows your opinion!) By way of just going to his web site so I could link it here, I've noticed that Ron has put up an article linking to the widget created by the ESRB to let parents easily look up the ratings for games. It makes me extremely happy as a constituent of his with action such as this, there is nothing inherently wrong with games like Grand Theft Auto IV - but parents need to be aware of what they their kids, or they themselves are buying and what is in them, this is definitely a right step in that direction.

Besides politics and what not, I've been continuing my erhu classes. We're currently learning edelweiss which is fairly tough, but should be exciting when we're done :)

Oh and I entirely forgot today was a holiday, it's Labour Day - the real one I guess. It's celebrated by many international countries on May 1st instead of the the first Monday in September as it does in the United States. We still had one of our classes, but I didn't have my regular Chinese class which was nice. Although I stepped out the back gate and realized there were a TON of people and remembered why :P It's a pretty big holiday and everyone has today and tomorrow off.

Besides that though, I haven't been up to all too much - I've been working on some club stuff, getting ready for the fall with Gallatin Student Council and Gallatin Theatre Troupe. Updated the WordPress version to the latest for GallatinStudent.com which takes a freaking LONG time here with the download/upload speeds as they are. I also setup both Google Webmaster and Google Analytics to work for my blog and GallatinStudent.com to give me a better idea of the stats for both. I've also been working on helping a new group called Swipe and Share (they have people at the end of the week so you can use extra meals on your meal plan and donate the food) to set up a web site down the line when they get funding. If you have facebook, you can check out their group here.