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Digital Engagement #7

For the 24 hours I recorded, I realized just how much I used the internet. I made a more accurate grading, given how late I am turning this assignment.

A lot of my time is spent on the computer. Wednesday morning I got up and checked on my computer. I work in the library so most of my time is spent on it. That and given the sudden WiFi outage, a lot of my time was actually spent trying to help a flood of students figure out how the WiFi works.


Canvas, outlook, and google docs are things I use a lot as a student, checking my emails, my grades, my work constantly to the point it sometimes stresses me out. Then I use my EagleOne to buy my food, or Apple tap to pay from my phone just to not pull out my card. That feels normal to me now, but paying for something with a tap of your phone is something so futuristic and I could not believe how I have never thought about it before. 

I use my air pods which itself is magic to me because I don’t understand how bluetooth headphones work and I just use them like they’re the most simple things as well. I even have an AirTag on something that I commonly use to easier track it and that just makes my life so much easier. 

Overall, I’ve gotten so used to a life of convenience that I don’t really understand jist how amazing the things I use are. Even being able to Google a question such as “what is a weevil and why do they look like that” and getting a genuine answer is amazing.

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Blog

Digital Engagement #6

Wall-E is one of my favorite post apocalyptic films depicting a world in which humanity cared so little for the planet that it made trash bots and decided at the very end to just abandon Earth rather than saving it; leaving behind an entire species of robots, one that even becomes sentient enough to develop its own personality. Just to then play God and abandon it. In most part I highlight the extreme dark nature of Wall-E for a joke, but I’m not wrong. Wall-E depicts a very real future where nothing destroys humanity besides themselves and their own hubris. The lack of care for the very planet that loved and raised them caused a dystopian world. Of course there’s a happy ending at the end of it; the humans come back after living in a paradise for generations as they decide once more to struggle for something they love. It’s a really sweet movie and very beautiful, but also it makes complete sense that people would rather focus on advancing technology than focus on what they have right in front of them. I mean they built first the garbage disposal bots, and then a giant AI ship that would be able to carry people for generations, and then multiple robots such as Eve or the Ship AI that do have distinct personalities and goals that aren’t entirely connected to people. Yet none of that matters in the face of the natural, once they find it after years of being separated. They do use their technology for good in the end, to cultivate Earth back with life and a population. Wall-E is an environmentalist post apocalyptic sort of dystopia and I can appreciate it for that.

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Projects

Digital Audio

This is mostly me rambling about fanfiction with a friend on the phone, since fandom culture is something very important to me. I ramble about it for a while, and then a friend on call (who’s audio is somehow better than mine) rambles with me, it’s great.

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Blog

Digital Engagement #5

Straight up just me rambling about my project, it’s mostly incoherent and bad.

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Arts & Crafts Projects

Art IS a Little Difficult

The Favicon for my website was rather easy for me to construct. I didn’t really put much thought into it rather than just having my initials be the color. For now that is enough for me, since the majority of my time is going to be spent on my header. Speaking of my header, let’s get into it.

This is my header, or at least the extremely rough reference idea I have for it. When I say it is rough it is rough; it’s inspired by the 5th layer of a series I just recently discovered, Made in Abyss, which this layer is just before the 6th layer of the Abyss, a sort of turn back point before you go into the true horrors. I decided that I’d draw out one of the areas from my own personal story, Hellburn. It’s one of the layers of hell where my two protagonists, Oz and Angelo, find themselves on their journey. The blue part in the middle is the many souls they gaze on going up/down into another layer. The red is the lava that’ll also flow up/down, though that may change later depending on how I feel.

I originally drew out my reference on paper and then when I made all the changes I wanted to on paper, used Adobe Fresco to then draw it out. I’ve never been much of an artist before, especially not a digital one, so figuring out how to set even a reference layer was difficult, but I had fun with it. I’m doing this all from my phone as well rather than an Ipad with an apple pen or something along those lines; so that may change things though I’m certain it probably won’t. I feel like what I’ve learned is to not use color on your reference layer, because I had outlines to discern where the lava would flow from and by indicating what the lava was in red I basically got completely rid of those guiding lines. Another thing would be to definitely indicate with writing where you want things to be/the flow of the piece in general because I am certain I am going to forget if I’m not working on this constantly. Overall though I am excited to work on this piece, even though I can tell it’s going to be a challenge to get it to a place I like, I’m very excited.

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Blog

Digital Engagement #4

The question I asked Chat GPT was based off the question “If generative AI claims something is true, how reliable is that claim, and how do we know?”. Chat GPT gave me a string of reasonable lines of thought that seemed like common sense to anyone when questioning any AI. It said to always be skeptical, to double check, basically treat AI like any source from Wikipedia. But for some reason there was a specific phrase in it’s list of reasons after a couple of minutes of going back and forth with questions and explanations that stood out to me. “Remember that AI doesn’t have personal experience or access to real-time data. It generates responses based on patterns, which can sometimes lead to inaccuracies”. AI, an “artificial intelligence” does not have nor experience personal experience or any real time data. It is not alive, therefore it can not learn nor does it experience. It simply draws from pattern, and if these patterns are incorrect then only a human hand correct it. Ignoring the ethical concerns of what if we gave AI the ability to experience like humans do, through living and learning by replicating a consciousness there is another thought; what do we as people then feel if a pattern is incorrect? We are the ones to set such patterns after all, and a failure in that regard is a human error, is then what the AI spouts out our fault as well? Or should we be able to train AI enough to be able to truly learn, but then we circle back to the thought process of teaching or giving something that can not think the ability to. Playing god, in a way, something out of fiction which would never be possible. Still, it is still interesting to think about in some form.

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D&D

Nereus

Nereus was not my first ever character, but she was one of my absolute favorites. A Paladin Triton (who I flavored to be an Axolotl) born in a falling kingdom deep under the sea who was one of many knights chosen by the moon. She was too honorable, too kind, too set in her ways in becoming the one thing she thought she could never become: a hero. She was reckless and a little bit of a himbo, but she had a good heart and often knew that the best decisions were the hardest to make. Her fate by the end of the campaign was that she became much like Guts from Berserk, getting the armor and missing an arm. But I’ll never forget her: how she lost her arm and so she made her enemy lose their head. How she single-handedly caused a god to feel fear. How she burst through the teeth of a dragon just to save her friend. She truly was, despite all her flaws and errors, a hero.