Playing Mind Games In Video Games Media Essay

Playing Mind Games In Video Games Media Essay and Video games and : a bright title in nowadays world of pop culture, yet a very controversial area of it. Simply known as electronic games that interact with the user using video feedback technique, video games are growing ever popular. Ranging from core, casual, serious, to adventurous genres, video games succeed in captivating their users in a total different world of theirs. Are games that good for the coming generations? Is another virtual world necessary besides that they are living in? Well, obviously, as fun as video games are as tricky they actually are. According to researches, video games are growing to be more confusing, addictive, and time demanding. These later problem must and can be solved by many ways such as monitoring, filtering, and timing video games. One of the most common criticisms of video games is that they expose users to immoral themes and provoke violence. The contemporary video game involves a fully realized imaginary world Malcom Gladwell * points out, but is this world safe? New console games are so developed that they are able to simulate the real world we live in, and most players-which are youngsters- can easily fall into the trick. Never forget that as Postman and Powers declares:moving pictures are a kind of language themselves*, we should stand then at what kind of language is this! Many popular games handle serious themes like: war, wrestling, killingà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦ and with the complex graphics they provide the game becomes captivating and even influencing. I once saw my cousin making up a street fight after few rounds playing the famous:counter strike, grand theft auto, call of dutyà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦. Actually, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City came under similar criticism, also for implying allegedly racist hate crimes : The game, taking place in and Vice Cityand , involves a gang war between Haitians and Cuban refugees, and the player often plays for either to fight against one another. Haitian and Cuban anti-defamation groups strongly criticized the game for these actions, including using insulting language such as and kill the Haitian [emailprotected] . Does anyone like his children growing ignorantly into such race-based decisive beings? And thats not far away from taking place when games are overused (which happens frequently in the real world). And thats not it, gamers spend hours detecting related ideas like new weapon releases, or learning some dangerous moves that can really be harmful! They tend to be more aggressive and irritated as many studies revealed, when they should be more interested in peace and a more civilized world. Another is that spending time playing video games causes addiction accompanied with serious attention problems. Gladwell states:players have to explore and sort through hypothesis in order to make sense of the games environment, which is why a modern video game takes at least forty hours to complete *. Logically, so much attention and time to waste for fun (whatever sort of games it was)! So we can define video game addiction as the excessive use of console games that interrupt daily life. Cases have been reported in which users play continuously, isolating themselves from social contact and concentrating almost entirely on winning some rounds rather than more important life events. The pleasure and fun that such games provide loosens the users control on the playing time interval and attracts him more and more, so he/she may end up playing, for example, 20 rounds straight without even noticing. During gaming the special sensational treats in the game provide satisfaction that is mor e demanded by the users unawareness, like the sense of being amused or even the rush provided by a race or a battle! Moreover, all the effects contained in these video graphical products are mesmerizing. Malcom Gladwell continues *:players are required to manage a dizzying array of information and options, which keeps all their senses busy and expires their attention span. The more teen sits around playing video games, the more at risk they will be for learning problems and attention problems. Or else how do we expect that a gamer caught with supreme dazzling dimensions to be interested in simple everyday tasks!? How many times do parents have to call their children when playing console games until they first say an empty yes? It usually requires more than calling their name to catch their attention and receive a real meaningful response for their demands! And if observed more carefully, gamers of all ages tend to get bored easily. Children get bored at school when nothing is enough to derive their energy back for class activities and suffer learning problems. Adult players get grumpy frequently at work too; they just do their job with no minimal enthusiasm. Why? Well, who cares for the real world when he has his own virtual but exciting, superb, and wonderful world! In addition, video games include advergaming that victimizes players and urges them to fulfill certain objectives. To make this more clear consider Pepsi man a video game released by PepsiCo. , this game is recorded to make people thrive for Pepsi whenever playing it (at least thats what happened to me)! Advergaming is the practice of using video games to advertise a product, organization or idea. Games for advertising are mostly categorized as a type of serious game, these games are found to have a strong promotional or implied purpose other than pure entertainment. Smart programmers hired by companies put the producers interests in selling their products into video games under the title of entertainment. The product placement in online multiplayer games is done by including the wanted products, services and brands into the game. This entire trick and treat pattern leaves the person exposed to such conspiracy hypnotized. Hypnotized to play more, to consume more, and to be taken adva ntage of more! Dont forget the amount of subliminal messages included in such console games that overcome the right of free choice a human being should enjoy. A hidden message is information that is not immediately recognized, and that must be discovered and analyzed before it can be known, not the case in vigorously played console games. In the computer game Doom II, a message can be played in reverse to hear and you must killand . Does it make sense when children supposedly gaming for innocent entertainment hear stuff not suitable for their age and perform implied tasks not favorable to be handled? Are video games safe then? Such methods silently make products and ideas appealing to our deceived minds. That is definitely improper. Such controversial problems must be solved for the sake of the coming generations and this can be done in different ways. After all theres nothing to stop companies from producing such games (a video game isnt illegal), neither there is a way to take one way to bring joy to the children from them. Yet human beings are still able to control their daily intake of perceived matter, they can supervise the quantity and quality of it as a mean of protective technique. A way to minimize such negative sides of console games is a proper monitoring of the quality of the games introduced to a certain country, area, and house. At the country level, the official departments for social and educational affairs should be assigned the task of trying, analyzing, and authenticating the games and its contents. Thus, the government will limit the entrance of harmful video games according to objective measures. After all, selection then serves as a kind of sieve or screen through which our knowledge passes before it becomes our knowledge* says Newman and Genevieve, and in this case we are selecting video games so that their harmful content willnt become a part of our knowledge. The violent games will therefore stay away of the childrens reach and the virtual fighting madness will decrease from the innocent-hood. Also, the players will be protected, so that no greedy business men will get advantage of ignorant citizens. And no more hidden messages will control the minds of fun-seeking users. But this isnt enough to solve the whole issue. Even if the harmful content is removed, the visual and audible effects are still there in the game, the attractive elements are still present, and those are at the essence of games and cant be removed. So another aid is needed, and this is the parental supervision, or any superior authority attention. The playing time is to be monitored so that the child/gamer is having enough fun, but not enough to know his attention off. Another task is a second inspection of the games content to decide its convenience to the age, mental and growth stage, and tolerance of the player. Moreover, campaigns can be held across the country to educate parents and older players about the disadvantages of video gaming. And explain for they why exactly are they to deal carefully with such entertainment method, urges them to inform other players if not present, suggest more useful games to try. Or even talk about more fruitful entertaining methods like hanging over with friends and family or reading books What proceeded reveals the problems caused by video games. So its about time to understand that video games are not always human beings friends. People were not put on the wide planet Earth to waste 40 hours weekly inside their rooms, mesmerized infront of the pc or TV, playing video games. We were made to move around, to go outside and play, to work, to exchange thoughts, talks, and feelings with others, to think. It is time to re-evaluate how every individual, parents, and children live their lives. Dont let more people waste their lives in virtual worlds full of illusions. Resources/reference: * Malcom, Gladwell, Brain Candy: Is Pop Culture Dumbing Us Down Or Smarting Us Up?, paragraph 6, line 9 / paragraph 7, line 8 / paragraph 8, line 1 * Neil, Postman and Steve, powers, Television News: The Language of Pictures paragraph 2 line 8 *Newman, P.Birk and Gneviene, B.Birk, Selection, Slanting, and Charged Language, paragraph 4 line 1

Quiz 2 Art Appreciation

1. An example of three-dimensional art is _________________________. A) drawingB) paintingC) all of theseD) sculpture Points Earned: | 1. 0/1. 0 | | Correct Answer(s): | D | 2. The first work of art purchased through the Art in Public Places program was ________________________. A) a sculpture by MichelangeloB) a painting by Marcel DuchampC) a sculpture by Alexander CalderD) a painting by Vincent van Gogh Points Earned: | 1. 0/1. 0 | | Correct Answer(s): | C | 3.Contour lines ______________________. A) cause an emotional response in the viewerB) are a function of line of sightC) define the edges of an objectD) all of these Points Earned: | 1. 0/1. 0 | | Correct Answer(s): | C | 4. Cruci-Fiction Project by Guillermo Gomez-Pena and Roberto Sifuentes waas ________________. A) a work of political artB) all of theseC) a work of performance artD) a work of public art Points Earned: | 0. 0/1. 0 | | Correct Answer(s): | B | 5.A modern artist who chose to intentionally violate the rules of pe rspective to draw attention to elements of his composition was _____________________. A) Leonardo da VinciB) Vincent van GoghC) Henri MatisseD) Claude Monet Points Earned: | 1. 0/1. 0 | | Correct Answer(s): | C | 6. Paintings, drawings, and photographs are _______________________. A) two-dimensional works of artB) made with oil paintC) three-dimensional works of artD) the only kinds of art discussed in your textbook Points Earned: | 1. 0/1. 0 | |Correct Answer(s): | A | 7. Vanishing points and converging lines are related to ______________________. A) linear perspectiveB) three-dimensional artC) contour drawingsD) foreshortening Points Earned: | 0. 0/1. 0 | | Correct Answer(s): | A | 8. Marcel Duchamp's controversial painting, Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2, was influenced by ______________________. A) water in motionB) shingles on a roofC) a posed female nudeD) stop-motion photography Points Earned: | 1. 0/1. 0 | | Correct Answer(s): | D | . One of the tricks artists use to mak e a flat work of art look like it is not flat is ________________________. A) foreshorteningB) all of theseC) linear perspectiveD) overlapping Points Earned: | 0. 0/1. 0 | | Correct Answer(s): | B | 10. Vincent van Gogh's painting, The Starry Night _______________________________. A) sets a parallel between the church and natureB) expresses the infinity of natureC) uses expressive lineD) all of these Points Earned: | 1. 0/1. 0 | | Correct Answer(s): | D |

Education and Richard Wright

During last week, I read 2 excerpts from Richard Wright and Malcolm X’ autobiographical writing. The interesting part is the authors both got self- educated by reading books while they were in tough situations because of racism. Although the way they accessed to education was different, they had a strong feeling that word could lift them up, and fight for their people after reading books. Ralph Ellison once said â€Å"If the word has the potency to revive and make us free, it has also the power to blind, imprison, and destroy. The similar quote is also right from Bel Kaufman, he said â€Å"Education is not a product: mark, diploma, job, money in that order; it is a process, a never ending one. † Words are the symbol human beings use to express what they want to say. It can be used in speaking and writing. Using words are the only thing people can do in order to communicate. Therefore when it comes to those who don’t have chance to learn in school, words will open the new whole world to them. That makes people escape from their ignorance, and enter to the world of education. Moreover, if people can use words fluently, it will be effective. Words do not have any physical power to kill, but mental power which can last in a long period of time. The quote of Ralph Elision is right, and it can apply in Richard Wright and Malcolm X’ situation. The criticism of people to Mencken makes Richard Wright curious, and brings him to books. The desire in writing letters, and the competition with his inmates bring Malcolm X to prison’s library to get dictionary and book. They both are brought to the new world, and find out their true feelings in reading books. With Richard, he thinks words can use as weapon to fight against unequal events in the world, reveal the truth of history, especially racism. On the other hand, Malcolm X tries to learn as many words as he can in order to fully understand the book, and gain more knowledge, which can help him gain respect of people around him. In the other quote, human come to education is not only for making money, it also helps people get the ideas how things work. Knowledge itself is the most important thing to make people realize the value of things, not just for making profit. Furthermore, knowledge is like the endless ocean, once people get into it, a lot of new things open to them. Thus, with Richard Wright and Malcolm X, whom dropped out of school, education is not a process to make money; it is the one that helps them understand what they lack of. As a writer, Richard Wright would think a lot about what needs to write. His mind would never end thinking to make more ideas, and give all he had into his books. Malcolm X was the same, he spent almost 15 hours per day to read, even though he was pretty successful at the time. Those two quotes are great philosophies. I learn a lot more from the quotes and through Richard Wright and Malcolm X’ self- educations. That’s good for me when I read them, and my mind opens wider.

Was Leonardo Da Vinci a Vegetarian

Increasingly, one sees Leonardo da Vincis name trotted out during vegetarian vs. omnivore debates. Da Vinci has even been claimed by vegans as one of their own. But why? Why do we suppose we know the dietary habits of an inventor and painter  who lived five centuries ago? The Quote Most Often Used Truly man is the king of beasts, for his brutality exceeds them. We live by the death of others. We are burial places! I have since an early age abjured the use of meat, and the time will come when men will look upon the murder of animals as they look upon the murder of man. This, or some variation of it, is frequently used as proof that Da Vinci was a vegetarian. The problem is that Leonardo Da Vinci never said these words. An author named Dmitry Sergeyevich Merezhkovsky (Russian, 1865-1941) wrote them for a work of historical fiction titled The Romance of Leonardo da Vinci. In point of fact, Merezhkovsky didnt even write the words for Leonardo, he put them in the fictitious diary of the real apprentice Giovanni Antonio Boltraffio (ca. 1466-1516) as a quote from Da Vinci. The only thing this quote proves is that Merezhkovsky had heard of vegetarianism. It is not a valid argument for Da Vinci having been meat-free. The Quote From a Primary Source Next up, we have one written reference to Da Vincis diet. For a bit of background, the writer was Italian explorer Andrea Corsali (1487-?), the gent who identified New Guinea, hypothesized on the existence of Australia, and was the first European to sketch the Southern Cross. Corsali worked for the Florentine Giuliano di Lorenzo de Medici, one of three sons born to Lorenzo the Magnificent. The Medici dynasty hadnt become fabulously wealthy by ignoring new trade routes, so Giuliano financed Corsalis voyage on a Portuguese ship. In a long letter to his patron (almost wholly filled with more important information), Corsali made an off-hand reference to Leonardo while describing followers of Hinduism: Alcuni gentili chiamati Guzzarati non si cibano dicosa alcuna che tenga sangue, ne fra essi loro consentono che si noccia adalcuna cosa animata, come it nostro Leonardo da Vinci. In English: Certain infidels called Guzzarati are so gentle that they do not feed on anything which has blood, nor will they allow anyone to hurt any living thing, like our Leonardo da Vinci. Did Corsali mean that Leonardo didnt eat meat, didnt allow harm to living creatures, or both? We dont know conclusively, because the artist, the explorer, and the banker werent companions. Giuliano deMedici (1479-1516) was Leonardos patron for three years, from 1513 to the formers early death. It is unclear how well he and Leonardo knew each other. Not only did Giuliano view the artist as an employee (unlike Leonardos former patron, Ludovico Sforza, Duke of Milan), the two men were of different generations. As for Corsali, he appears to have known Leonardo through mutual Florentine connections. Though they were contemporaries, between the artists time outside of Florence and the explorers time outside of Italy, they did not have the opportunity to become close friends. Corsali may have been referencing Leonardos habits through hearsay. Not that we will ever know. No one can say when or where Corsali died and Giuliano made no comment on the letter, seeing that he himself was dead by the time it was delivered. What Have Leonardos Biographers Said? Close to 70 separate authors have written biographies about Leonardo da Vinci. Of these, only two have mentioned his alleged vegetarianism. Serge Bramly (b. 1949) wrote Leonardo loved animals so much, it seems, that he turned vegetarian in Leonardo: Discovering the Life of Leonardo da Vinci, and Alessandro Vezzosi (b. 1950) referred to the artist as a vegetarian in Leonardo da Vinci. Three other biographers cite the Corsali letter: Eugà ¨ne Mà ¼ntz (1845-1902) in Leonardo da Vinci: Artist, Thinker, and Man of Science, Edward McCurdy in The Mind of Leonardo da Vinci, and Jean Paul Richter in The Literary Works of Leonardo da Vinci. If we use a deliberately low estimate of 60 biographies, then 8.33 percent of the authors spoke of Leonardo and vegetarianism. Take away the three writers who cited the Corsali letter, and we have a total of  3.34 percent (two biographers) who speak for themselves in saying that Leonardo was a vegetarian. What Did Leonardo Say? Lets start with what Leonardo didnt say. At no point did he write, and no source has ever quoted him saying, I do not eat meat. Unfortunately, Leonardo da Vinci — a man overflowing with talk of ideas and observations — hardly said anything personal about himself. On the matter of his diet, we can only glean a few inferences from his notebooks. There are a number of sentences and paragraphs in the Codex Atlanticus in which Leonardo seems to decry the evils of eating meat, drinking milk, or even harvesting honey from a comb. Here are a few examples: Leonardo da Vinci on bees And many others will be deprived of their store and their food, and will be cruelly submerged and drowned by folks devoid of reason. Oh Justice of God! Why dost thou not wake and behold thy creatures thus ill-used? Da Vinci on sheep, cows, goats, etc. Endless multitudes of these will have their little children taken from them ripped open and flayed and most barbarously quartered. That sounds terrible, doesnt it? Now consider the following: Many offspring shall be snatched by cruel thrashing from the very arms of their mothers, and flung on the ground, and crushed. Seemingly, we just jumped from terrible to horrific — until we are informed that the last quote was about nuts and olives. You see, Leonardos Prophecies werent prophecies in the sense of Nostradamus or the Prophet Isaiah. They were the equivalent of an intellectual parlor game, in which two men matched wits. The object of the game was to describe the most ordinary, everyday events in such a way that they sounded like an impending Apocalypse. Does that mean Leonardo was for or against eating meat? It depends on ones opinion. These passages seem inconclusive, but you may feel differently. Da Vinci invalidated the life is sacred argument by designing machines of war and siege weapons. One may extrapolate that these were projections of life is sacred, since they were meant to preserve the lives of those who used them. Some  have claimed that Da Vinci deliberately left out crucial steps in his designs so that men with evil intent could not successfully build them. However, one certainty emerges. If Group A uses technology designed to destroy enemy fortifications, disrupt water supplies, sabotage vessels, and rain all manner of hellfire from the sky on Group B, people are going to be killed whether life is sacred or not. Da Vinci was genuinely kind to all living creatures, but he gave human life top billing if its possessor wasnt coarse. How he reconciled his personal beliefs with instruments of destruction makes things even more puzzling (if possible), and we are left with that which Winston Churchill described as a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma. Da Vinci had a habit of occasionally jotting down expenses. In his writings, there are lists of wine, cheese, meat, and so on, totaling x-amount on  such-and-such date. The fact that meat is on the list proves nothing. He had a household to feed; the meat could have been for his apprentices, handyman, cook, random alley cats, or all of the above. On Leonardo Being a Vegan This is in no way an indictment of veganism. However, it is impossible to claim that Leonardo da Vinci was a vegan. Setting aside the fact that the term wasnt even coined until 1944, Da Vinci ate cheese, eggs, and honey, and he drank wine. More than that, all of the grains, fruits, and vegetables he ingested were grown using animal inputs (meaning  manure) for soil fertility. Synthetic fertilizers would not be invented until far into the future, and would not be widely used until the second half of the 20th century. Additionally, we have to consider what he wore and what he used to create art. Leonardo did not have access to polyurethane footwear, for one thing. His brushes were animal products, made from sable or hog hairs attached to quills. He drew on vellum, which is the specially-tanned skin of calves, kids, and lambs. Sepia, a deep reddish-brown pigment, comes from the ink sac of the cuttlefish. Even the simple paint tempera is made with eggs. For all of these reasons, calling Leonardo a vegan or a proto-vegan is untrue. In conclusion Da Vinci may have eaten an ovo-lacto vegetarian diet, although this has been pieced together from circumstantial evidence by a minority of experts. We lack conclusive proof and are unlikely to discover any after 500 years. If you wish to say he was a vegetarian, you are plausibly (although not definitively) correct, depending on your point of view. On the other hand, the speculation that Da Vinci was a vegan is indisputably false. It is a deliberate deception for one to claim otherwise. Sources Bramly, Serge. Leonardo: Discovering the Life of Leonardo da Vinci. Sian Reynolds (Translator), Hardcover, First Edition edition, Harpercollins, November 1, 1991. Clark, Kenneth. Leonardo da Vinci. Martin Kemp, Revised Edition, Paperback, Penguin, August 1, 1989. Corsali, Andrea. Copy of Lettera di Andrea Corsali allo illustrissimo Principe Duca Juliano de Medici, venuta Dellindia del mese di Octobre nel XDXVI. National Library of Australia, 1517. Da Vinci, Leonardo. The Literary Works of Leonardo da Vinci. 2 Volumes, Jean Paul Richter, Hardcover, 3rd Edition, Phaidon, 1970. Martin, Gary. The meaning and origin of the expression: A riddle wrapped up in an enigma. The Phrase Finder, 2019. McCurdy, Edward. The Mind of Leonardo Da Vinci. Dover Fine Art, History of Art, Paperback, Dover Ed edition, Dover Publications, 2005. Merezhkovsky, Dimitri. The Romance of Leonardo da Vinci. Paperback, CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, February 9, 2015. Mà ¼ntz, Eugà ¨ne. Leonardo da Vinci, artist, thinker, and man of science. Volume 2, Paperback, University of Michigan Library, January 1, 1898. Vezzosi, Alessandro. Leonardo da Vinci: The Complete Paintings in Detail. Hardcover, Prestel, April 30, 2019.