claydgaf's blog

I think people were so fascinated by Eliza when it first came out because it was like a modern-day "Magic 8 Ball", able to tell you what you want to hear and could give you answers, but at a whole new level. Eliza was programmed to ask questions about Key words that it's "patient" talked about. For instance, in one case Eliza asks the girl to tell it about her family. The girl says that her family is very Motherly. Eliza replies with, "Who else in your family is Motherly?" It makes the girl think and she gets smart with ELIZA and asks it if it needs a mother. ELIZA says, " We're discussing you, not me."
Not really seen as a psycotherapist, but as an unbiased third party who patients can disect their life with. The text says that it is still used today. I think by talking to this digital therapist people find out how to free think and really look at what is going on in their lives. In another case, sophisticated users who knew that they were only talking to a computer, soon forgot and were getting upset by it, even though they knew it was not real, I think they wanted it to be.

Since the creation of first video gaming system, violent games have always played a crucial role in the gaming industry. Even games like "Asteroid", "Space Invaders, and later "Super Mario" and "Sonic" demonstrate some violent qualities for entertainment. Each game involves guns, shooting, killing, surviving, smashing or stomping other characters or players. This could be described as the satisfaction of virtual vengeance against societal and cultural rules that have been set in place to keep order and peace. Video games create another dimension where shooting, killing and defeating others is rewarded and praised. Initially, the violence was directed towards extra terrestrial threats. This directly relates to the time era in which the first games were developed. It was the beginning of the “space race” between the U.S. and Russia and there was much concern about aliens and other space threats. Later, the cold was influenced the nature of video games by shifting from space conquering to all out war games. Modern games reflect more modern issues such as gang violence as featured in all “grand theft auto” games.  read more »

In researching various font types, Helvetica stands out as one of the most recognized fonts in the world. This is primarily due to it's use in large corporate ad campaigns. Developed in Switzerland in 1957, helvetica was introduced to rival older sans-serif typefaces. Helveticas popularity is due in part to the wave of large typeface ads which boomed in the late 50's and 60's. In addition to advertisments, street signs, transportation systems and fine art prints were also printed in in helvetica. This intruduction has led to the mass production of this typeface and thus created a typeface which can be clearly recognized and easily read. Helvetica is described as a neutral text in that the text has no meaning itself, it takes no position other than conveying messages. This is unlike many of the fancy, decorative, or older sanscript fonts which cause readers to make assumptions of content based on the type face used.

Chapter three in "Story and Discourse" discusses a theory on naming characters. A characters name is one of the most important elements of the story because often times, the characters name provides a clue to certain "traits" left unspoken by the author. This behavior is typical in early drama where a name would directly relate to a persons intrinsic qualities or personality triats. In this respect, The name "Victim" assigned to the stick figure in Animator vs. Animation implies crucual information about the "plot" behind the game. This name causes the audience to believe that the animation is subject to abuse by the animator. The setting is used by both characters but it shows that the animator has more control with the cursor than the stick figure does with other functions on the page. This finalizes the the relationship of "vitcim" vs. Predator.