Emoticons

Laura Dominguez #12

Emoticons

Emoticons are a representation of a facial expression, usually used to express a person's feelings and mood. Emoticons have made emailing and texting much easier and faster. For example, instead of writing to your friend a whole sentence or paragraph about how bad was your day and how sad you are, you can just use a sad face and your friend might understand what you mean. It is amazing how much people use them nowadays. I've seen people having entire conversations just with emoticons, no words.

Image source: http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-31148424

Blog 15- Horseshoe Bend

Horseshoe Bend

Photo creds to me

Horseshoe Bend, which was named “horseshoe bend” because its shape was so. Horseshoe Bend is located in Page, Arizona, in the United States. The overlook of bend is 4,200 feet above sea level, and the Colorado River is at 3,200 feet above sea level, making it a 1,000-foot drop.

I went to Horseshoe Bend during Spring Break with my friend Joon Hee. I expected to go to the Horseshoe Bend the most because when I saw the picture, it was so amazing and something I never had seen. A big, circle-shaped meander was colored differently under the sunlight. Some parts of the meander was greenish, and some parts was yellowish, and some parts was blue.

Joon Hee and I were trying to walk along the cliff to see the bend, but it was so steep to go near the cliff. I was almost crawling down to see the cliff. Also, there was a sandstorm with the very strong, coarse wind hitting us. I never had hit by sandstorm, which was really hurt… I’m not joking, but it was worth visiting the Horseshoe Bend.

I recommend all of you to go to the bend, because it will tell you how and why the nature is great and awesome. 

Jin Ha Choi #6 BLOG

    

Fashion

     I get so excited when it comes to Fashion. I was so glad when professor mentioned

Alexander McQueen in class because I did not know much about his life and the brand so it was nice to learn new things related to fashion. I love to see the clothe, jewelry, shoes, and bags and it doesn't matter whether I look at them through internet or visit stores. When I look at those clothing and accessories, I feel really great and it make me automatically think what color and what types of other clothe, shoes, or bags will perfectly match with the thing that I am looking right now? I'm quite sure if I continued to learn art from childhood, I would chose to become artist or designer. Now I'm in STEM, but my private dream did not fade away, so I hope to have some opportunities in future.

JIN HA CHOI #5 BLOG

      Last week's class was very musical and amusable. Derek played a guitar while his brain is connected to brain sensor that made its own sound through computer. The sounds of guitar and brain doesn't completely harmonized, but I think that contradiction of sounds made the people who watch it to perceive the whole scene as more interesting performance. I think it would be better if the sound of brain played by different instrument on the computer such as piano of clarinet.

Blog #14 "Microsoft Hololens"

           The Microsoft Holo-lens are the newest device that combines accessibility with innovation. The device is basically a Windows-10 run PC that is placed onto your head as a pair of glasses. The coolest part is that what it includes makes the experience almost futuristic.

            The device enables the user to see holograms of objects that are usually used on a Windows device. Music can be played by a swipe I the air, the weather and location can become a little box on your coffee table with the New York skyline being the area, and much more. The coolest part of the glasses to me would be the sculpting aspect. You are able to construct anything your imagination thinks of in midair. And when you are done, you can 3D print it, making it more accessible and useful to designers and sculptors.

Blog #13 "VR in Sports"

      For the first time in history Virtual Reality will be a part of the sports fan viewing experience. Yes folks, the Oculus Rift will be used during March Madness’s Final Four that’ll allow fans that have an oculus rift to watch the game in virtual reality. This will enhance the experience of viewing sports and also create a new venue for people to watch sports.

       VR isn’t all that new to sports though. Created by Stanford, They have developed a virtual reality headset that allows teams to attach a camera onto a players helmet, allowing them to go over in practice or in a game that they once did and why they did it. It can become a useful tool when it comes to game preparation. 

Eleventh Blog

            I remember when the iPad first came out – and I was among the masses of people mocking it. It was, after all, just a giant iPod Touch, and it basically just seemed to function as a more powerful version of it. We then learned, however, that such a simple change can be all that is required to induce a colossal paradigm shift in the technological world. Small laptops (netbooks), as we thought, despite Steve Jobs’ words, could function just fine in closing the gap between a smartphone and laptop. (Ironically, it was just as simple an innovation, only off of the latter rather than the former.) A well-functional tablet, however, and to Steve Jobs’ point, can tackle that role in an intuitive way that no other known device can. This innovation then sparked a revolution for the autistic community.

            It really makes sense, coming from an insider’s perspective. I like to say that I improved over the years, and in truth I have, but some things that come naturally to any normal child can still prove demanding chores for me. Maintaining eye contact. Exercising verbal and physical constraint, so as to not be caught talking to myself or making embarrassing gesticulations and motions in public. Socialization, meeting strangers, and speech, although those are also exacerbated by a troubled adolescence. Communication, thus, is difficult for us and we prefer physical activity to it. Writing can help, but that too is a chore for me – my handwriting looks like shit, moving my pencil across the paper is physically laborious and takes me longer than it should, and really, who wants to turn endless pages in a dictionary? (I needed OT for writing until I was nine.)

            Typing, however, is another story – once my mother showed me how to properly use a keyboard in the fourth grade, I took it up as if I were a professional. It was great for writing essays, but it was not until fairly recent years when I began to privately explore my talent for English. Google and Merriam-Webster.com made physical dictionaries and grammar booklets a thing of the past. Most importantly, I transformed from an awkward, seemingly foolish boy into a master of verbal articulation. A tablet, I see, would thus be an even better remedy for the autistic and verbally-challenged as it would close the gap of a keyboard by allowing users to directly manipulate material on the screen.

            There is a dark side to all of this, however. Addiction to the internet and video games is earning more recognition as a serious phenomenon. Advanced electronic activities, such as MMORPGs and social media sites, worsen this by presenting a constant stream of reward. Children with autism are more vulnerable to this than normal children are, and I fear so out of personal experience. When I was nine, I played MMORPGs such as RuneScape all the time – by all the time, I mean that I spent as much of my free time as I could have doing so, avoiding socialization and physical exercise. (If any of you motherf*****s who knew me back then open your mouths about this, I will find you.)

Childhood development occurs over a short span of years, and can be chunked into even shorter phases. A whole year, therefore, is a big deal. By the time I phased out of it, I had been heavily damaged, and thus spent most of the 5^th grade friendless, bullied, and weak. And that wasn’t even the worst that could have happened. I had some similar phases in years preceding and following, but not nearly as severe. There are plenty of cases where people spend multiple years in phases like this, and my words cannot do justice for the resulting damage.

It is saddening to see our best remedies instigate our illnesses. Autism is a disability on communication more than on anything else, and technology provides us means to amplify a silent voice that otherwise expresses itself only in pain. We must be careful though with what technology we use to that end – if we do not apply enough resistance to the current, the circuit could overheat and we could be worse off with than without.