Today was super productive.
Shockingly so, actually. It started by going over to the old house
and loading stuff into the bed of a pickup truck and bringing it back
to the new house. Then going back to the old house and loading up
the pickup again and taking it to my sister's house. And that was
all before lunch.
After lunch I joined a live video
lesson from one of my professors who was discussing the research
paper we have to write. I haven't even given that paper the
slightest thought so I didn't have any questions to ask but it was
good to hear her explain things because I think I got a better idea
of what will be expected of me than I would have just reading the PDF
instructions. During the brief question and answer portion at the
end the professor unmuted everyone's microphones and this turned out
to be a bit of a mistake. While she was answering one student's
question another student started typing War and Peace
on her laptop and her microphone must have been right on top of her
keyboard because it completely drowned out everything that the
professor was saying. Not only was that annoying but even more
annoying was the fact that I could see exactly who was causing the
ruckus but didn't have the power to mute them, only the professor
did, and she couldn't hear it because she was talking. The problem
was eventually resolved but not before the professor had given a long
response to a question and she didn't spend much time going back over
what she had said. Oh well.
When that was done I came up with
the second part of my group project for this week. Yesterday I wrote
about a directory and today I came up with a handbook. It took me
awhile to figure out because I was getting hung up on trying to think
of a useful almanac or yearbook. They mentioned some good ones in
the textbook but I didn't want to go that route. When I switched my
thinking to handbooks I started to see the light and eventually came
up with graduate school handbooks. I think maybe this idea came to
me fleetingly earlier in the week because it felt familiar but if so,
I didn't remember it until today. All of the colleges I tried had
some form of a graduate school handbook, either in website or PDF
form, and they cover everything from admissions to expectations and
policies to graduation. Perfect for prospective graduate students.
I was on a role after that so I also
did a little work on my other group project. The one where my
partner has been a bit absent. But maybe she is making a lot of
progress behind the scenes. Hopefully. I created a page in our
group and filled out several of the project objectives. I also
started thinking about designing a visual example of what a search
would look like using our metadata schema as well as what the results
would look like. That isn't really part of it but I think it would
look cool so I'm going to see if I can come up with something.
A also posted another response for
the discussion post this week. I'll try and do one more tomorrow. I
also need to give some serious thought to the standards assignment
that is due next Sunday. I still need to pick out a standard and
then make some sort of comic or video or infographic or whatever else
to explain it. I think the artifact is supposed to be geared toward
undergraduate students.
Tonight I streamed. I started with
Blacklight Retribution.
I played a little last night and did alright but apparently good
people don't play on Friday night. After going to bed I remembered
that the game has an x-ray vision type system that I had completely
forgotten about. I had just been trying to listen to footsteps and
I've gotta say, they don't offer very good directional cues in this
game. I could tell when someone was kind of close but I couldn't
tell which direction or if they were even on the same floor as me.
Tonight I remembered the x-ray mechanic but was playing against much
better players and I couldn't get away from them. It felt like
cheating was involved but it could also be a combination of me
sucking, the other players being really good, and the other players
dropping a lot of real money on the game to get really good stuff.
All I know is I couldn't win a gunfight against them to save my life.
Especially against this one player who always tea-bagged after a
kill. It was like trying to fight Neo in The Matrix
with how fast he could move side to side and avoid almost every
single bullet. There was even a time when I spawned behind him while
he was in the little inventory thing. I started unloading in his
back and he managed to turn around and kill me. That's when I had
enough. I tried getting in a few different lobbies but for some
reason always ended up back in that same lobby so I ended up just
quitting. It's not fun getting three kills and fifteen deaths, most
of which from the same dude, who then tea-bags you. When the game is
balanced it is fun, things just weren't working out tonight.
I switched to Minecraft
and started working on building my house. That was fun. It's going
to have an interesting shape to it. I also discovered a deep hole at
the base of the hill my house is on so I made some ladders and went
down looking for coal and iron, both of which I found a bunch of. I
think I'll end up turning it into my mine and hope it eventually
breaks into a larger cave system. Right now it's just a couple of
small hallways.
While I was playing I had some music
playing in the background that was supposed to be VOD friendly. The
VOD is the recorded video you get after a stream. Twitch has started
cracking down on music that isn't royalty free so if you have it
during your stream, that whole section of the VOD will be muted.
Well, I found the record label that has recently created a streaming
music channel on Twitch and they also created a couple playlists on
Spotify. They say that you can use their music as long as you credit
them on your page. Well, I did that, but then a really big chunk of
the VOD ended up getting muted. Not really a big deal because I
wasn't really talking much while I was playing Minecraft
but I didn't think it would get muted. I think it was during the
entire length of the first two artists so maybe there is a glitch. I
also thought that maybe because I was listening to it on Spotify that
maybe the ads triggered the muting. I can't remember any ads because
I was kind of zoned out and not really listening to anything but I
know there were ads because that's what Spotify does. Who knows. I
messaged the record labels Twitch channel so we'll see. Next time I
might try just playing their stream in the background instead of
Spotify and see if that changes anything.
And now it is time for bed because
it is two o'clock in the morning and I'm tired and I have a headache.
I am going to sleep in tomorrow. And if I wake up and I deem it to
be too early, I'm just going to lay there until I fall back to sleep.
I want a sleep-in day. I think I've earned one this week.
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