Have you ever had that creepy feeling when you go to the gym and you catch someone glancing at you in the mirror? Have you ever noticed how professional poker players were sunglasses? Have you ever secretly given a cue to someone with your eyes? What about when people roll their eyes or look away in shame? Our eyes make over about two to four movements a second and over 100,000 movements per day. We rely on our eyes so much but are often unaware of its activity. It is often said that the eyes are the windows to the souls. At the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT), eye tracking research is providing windows into how people think about tasks and goals.

Two professors at RIT have been conducting research on eye tracking. Dr. Roxanne Canosa is an assistant professor of the RIT Computer Science Department who recently earned her PhD at the Carlson Center for Imaging Science at RIT in September of 2003. She completed her dissertation under the direction of Dr. Jeff Pelz, an associate professor of the College of Imaging Science who received his PhD from the University of Rochester in Brain and Cognitive Sciences. Although both professors have done research in eye tracking, their ultimate goals are very different. Dr. Pelz’s research with eye tracking is to understand how the human brain and its cognitive processes – how we gather visual information and use it to plan and guide our actions. On the contrary, Dr. Canosa’s research involves the same goal but modeling it on an artificial system.

A lot of information is contained in a picture. As the saying goes “a picture is worth a thousand words.” However, not all words are important. For example, go up to some flyer posted somewhere and focus on it. Now try reading another flyer close by without moving your eyes. Your eyes focus on what is right in the center of your vision, but you can barely read what the other flyer says. Your brain interprets the surrounding information as non-essential to your task much like the sensation of your clothes against your skin. It just simply ignores it. Even though this process seems passive, our eyes are very active and tightly tied to the planned behavior and action.

Canosa’s purpose to extend this human process to an artificial brain requires the same strategy. The computer need not digest all the information it is receiving. Creating this artificial brain requires data that heavily relies on how our eyes move and what they see. To emulate the brain and its visual process requires creating a model that can interpret an environment. Some models are able to distinguish colors, brightness, and edges of objects. However, these attempts do not accurately portray how an eye moves and what it sees. Combining that model with eye tracking can provide a more intelligent module that can be applied to a wide variety of fields.

The purpose of Canosa’s experiments is to gain insight to the interaction between vision and action. Rather than conducting research in the confines of a lab, Canosa decided to capture data in natural environments. One main problem was that the giant eye tracker in the lab could not be carried outside (much less worn by the subject) to perform tasks. This led Canosa to build a portable eye tracking system from scratch. The subject carries the equipment in a backpack and dons the headgear to wander around campus and proceed with experiments almost like some blatantly obvious secret agent.

The eye tracking headgear contains a module that tracks the eye. A near-infrared light source is used to illuminate the eye. After it hits the eye, the light is reflected back into a mirror and into a sensor that records where the center of pupil is. There is also a camera on the front of the headgear that records a video of the scene where the subject is. The control unit then takes the information from the sensor and computes a line of gaze. The line of gaze is displayed as a cursor or crosshair as an overlay on the video scene to indicate what the subject is looking at.

Canosa’s subjects proceeded to carry out tasks such as having a conversation with someone, sorting or counting items, and reading posters and forms. The data gathered reveals a general trend for each of the different tasks. Visual activity ranged from low to high depending on the task. Tasks that are very clear, such as reading and counting, require lots of visual attention. Tasks like these cause the mind being “restricted” to that task because the goal is so defined. In contrast, tasks like walking down a hall or having a conversation on the phone do not necessarily require a lot of visual attention. This allows the mind to wander and spend its time looking at other things. Sorting cards or following Lego instructions lies somewhere in between. Both visual engagement and contemplative thought is required at the same time. These tasks require more of a strategy to complete which gives more freedom in the ways to complete them.

What all the results boil down to is how much our eyes fixate on certain objects during certain tasks. Our eyes tend to fixate on objects that are task-relevant for longer times. There are also instances when our eyes tend to fixate on other objects in the environment that are not necessary in attaining the goal. In Canosa’s experiment, subjects’ eyes fixated on the floor while trying to find a restroom even though the floor is not relevant or particularly conspicuous. The fixation on objects depends heavily on the task and how much they stand out in an environment.

Research in eye tracking and movements can lead to developments in all sorts of applications. We can potentially learn how the brain works on a pre-conscious level. We can understand how deaf students divide their attention between the instructor and the interpreter and what impediments they encounter. If we can understand how some people use visual skills, it is possible to teach those skills to others. Using a computer model, applications could include those in the military such as helping soldiers locate objects in the environment. There are even some people who think that eye tracking will be a future user interface for computers, similar to the hand-tracking computer in the movie Minority Report. There are so many things that eye tracking can be used for; it is only limited to whatever the imagination can conceive.

Imagine if we could create robots the size of ants. Imagine if we could create robots so small that we could not see them. Imagine if these tiny robots took over the world. What if they could interface with humans? This seems to be the theme of nanotechnology but only in popular culture. In reality, nanotechnology actually refers to technological developments on a very, very small scale. Nanotechnology is one of the newest and youngest fields compared to other sciences. There is such a gigantic potential for nanotechnology that we have not even touched upon yet. Unfortunately, nanotechnology is very often confused between reality and fantasy. Its use in popular culture is so misused that the difference between fact and fiction is not crystal clear.

Richard Feynman first alluded to nanotechnology at a talk at the California Institute of Technology in 1959. Though he did not use or coin the term at all, he mentions the potential for the technology – creating things on a very small scale ranging from books to electronics. This may very well be the first proposal of nanotechnology. In his talk Feynman says, “In the year 2000, when they look back at this age, they will wonder why it was not until the year 1960 that anybody begin seriously to move in this direction.” Nanotechnology is one of the more relatively new sciences compared to others. Feynman’s ideas and propositions were only the beginning of nanotechnology era.

The biggest exploration in nanotechnology then came in the 1980s. NASA published a report on an investigation in advanced automation for space missions. Chapter 5, “Replicating Systems Concepts: Self-Replicating Lunar Factory and Demonstration,” of this paper details a proposal to develop a self-replicating manufacturing facility. A seed would be used to land on the terrain and would then build itself out of material mined from the terrain. This process is easily comparable to protein synthesis within bacteria. Bacteria can create all the chemicals necessary to live and survive using raw materials. As bacteria create chemicals from the material they live on, the self-replicating system similarly mimics on a larger proportion. On a small scale, both the bacteria and the self-manufacturing system rely on the ideas of molecular manufacturing.

Molecular manufacturing can be traced to one man who started it all. K. Eric Drexler is one of the most important researchers in nanotechnology. Drexler is the one who first coined the term “nanotechnology” to describe Feynman’s original ideas. At the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Drexler received a PhD in molecular nanotechnology, the first degree of its kind. He has, no doubt, made quite an impact on the subject of nanotechnology. One of his books, Nanosystems, delves into the fundamentals of molecular engineering and how to achieve it. The book draws upon all sorts of scientific fields and goes into prospects such as security, impacts on environment, economic implications, and political response. Not only is the science used in popular culture but the impacts as well.

While molecular engineering and self-manufacturing make up the science, it is the impacts and consequences that carry into popular culture. No one really knows what the future holds for nanotechnology because it is so new and unknown. Therefore its future (and ultimately its definition) can be manifested in any way the imagination can conceive. One of the earliest manifestations was in a Star Trek: The Next Generation episode titled “Q Who” which first aired in 1989. This episode was the first to introduce the Borg, a deadly group designed to assimilate entire species by injecting victims with “nanoparticles.” These “nanoparticles” would then convert their victim into an organic robotic being connected to a hive mind. The focus of nanotechnology here is robots oriented on destruction. Star Trek is only one incarnation of nanotechnology. Other popular culture references to nanotechnology tend to follow this trend.

The idea of super tiny robotics also appears in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. In one episode aliens come to Earth and bring nanobots that build and manipulate materials within mere seconds in order to rule the world. The newer animated version of the Turtles also features an episode (titled “Nano”) featuring robotic particles that break out of a laboratory and wreak havoc all over New York. The tiny robots in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are very similar to the Borg – robotic particles seeking to self-replicate and conquer. Even though it may technologically be possible to create such robots some day, neither the alien Borg species nor four walking, talking turtles gives much credibility to the science. However, one example that strays from such fictional extremes is Michael Crichton and his book Prey.

The story in Michael Crichton’s Prey revolves around a man who must find a way to stop an intelligent, reproducing, swarm of nanobots from taking over the world. Crichton has certainly done his research on nanotechnology. He lists many references and publications at the end of the book. Yet one must take that “leap of faith” in order to feel the story is believable and achievable. Prey is more realistic than both the Borg and the Turtles, but all three follow the same guideline: nanotechnology translates to super small robots with a superbly adaptive artificial intelligence whose goal is to ultimately destroy. Not all examples involve destruction; television shows such as Jake 2.0 and Max Steel involve robotic particles fusing with the human body for the good of mankind. Still, all these examples are prime indicators of how the actual science is different than popular culture.

In reality, nanotechnology is nowhere close to making deadly microscopic robots. The representation of nanotechnology has evolved from the scientific manufacturing of really small materials to media depictions of tiny robots taking over the world. Because nanotechnology is so new, therein lies the chance for the meaning to be abused and take a different form. What we can do and what we can possibly do are two distinct areas but have so much overlap. The overlap is what causes the line between reality and fiction is heavily blurred, almost as if it combines the two. Even though nanotechnology may be still in its early stages, the advanced stages in popular culture may not be so farfetched after all. The reality that gave birth to fantasy may someday become reality itself.

An all-time greatest hit of Geva Theater, Five Guys Named Moe is back on stage for its 10^th anniversary. Pamela Hunt directs the Clarke Peters musical with choreography from Mercedes Ellington. The basic plot revolves around Nomax, a guy whose woman left him for broke. Out of his radio pop five guys named Moe who then proceed to console Nomax on the topic of love. The moment we see Nomax and all the various incarnations of Moe, we instantly develop a love for their charming personalities and the life they bring to the stage through Louis Jordan’s music, song, and dance.

Darius Nichols plays Nomax who we first see sitting alone at a table and drinking. He is broke and his girlfriend left him. Nichols first leads us with a song about having the blues. He uses much facial expression to express the anguish and pain of his situation while also moving all across the stage to engage the audience. Once all five Moes take the stage, Nichols is thrown into the same position as the audience is – a state of confusion and wondering who these guys are – and remains consistent to the character throughout the first act. Nichols throws occasional glances and dazed looks to the audience and establishes a connection so that we can sympathize with what Nomax is feeling.

Big Moe is the biggest physical performer on stage. Played by Michael-Leon Wooley, his stature creates an instant intimidation yet he shows his soul during his various numbers. Big Moe is the best dressed of the ensemble. He sports a black pinstripe tuxedo with a silver vest that contrasts everyone else’s brightly colored suits. Wooley portrays Big Moe as the most cool, suave man out of everyone, an aura that we can sense from his dress. When Big Moe takes the stage, he commands it with respect and authority as we listen to his resounding tenor voice such as in his first number, “Beware, Brother, Beware.” From his first appearance down to the end of the revue, Wooley faithfully carries the air of Big Moe all throughout the production making him one of the most popular characters.

Randy Donaldson plays Little Moe, a complement to Big Moe. Donaldson is the shortest of all actors on stage that gives justice to the name Little Moe. What Little Moe lacks in height, he makes up for it in personality. Contrast to Big Moe’s slow and peaceful movements, Donaldson plays Little Moe with a high-energy spirit and lots of exaggerated movements. His high-pitched voice and quick stage movements create the sensation that he is ready to bounce all over the theater. His energy and excitement on stage flows over into the audience when he appears in a fruit hat and encourages people to join the conga line during the sing-along conga line song, “Push Ka Pi Shi Pie,” before segueing into intermission.

Four-Eyed Moe can easily be called the most popular of all characters. What does a nerdy, skinny Poindexter know about love and women? Apparently a lot. Four-Eyed Moe has so much charisma, and J. Cameron Barnett really takes advantage of it. Barnett shows off his character’s intellect on stage by flaunting it not just in Nomax’s face but also the audience as well. He speaks with a somewhat fast pace and a little verbosity that seems as though he could continue to talk forever. Barnett really shines through when Four-Eyed Moe interacts with the audience. He does not give up at all on the audience as he forces people to get up and dance at the end of the first act or sing to three ladies in the second act.

Jim Weaver, who plays Eat Moe, almost never garners a stage presence at all. We learn that he likes to eat, but that is nearly all to his character. Other than one solo song, Weaver almost never gives his character anything more than his apparent trait. No Moe, played by Darryl Reuben Hall, is a neutral and level-headed character. He never dominates anyone nor does he have any outstanding characteristics like everyone else. However, Hall marks his presence on the stage by being a voice of reason when he has the chance whereas Weaver does not. In the end, it appears that Weaver is only playing a secondary No Moe to Hall.

Costumes help set each character’s nature when we first see them. The raggedy blue t-shirt with cut-off sleeves and worn-out blue jeans complement Nomax’s mood throughout the first act. He is depressed and brooding and the atmosphere of the stage is lit by a blue hue. Little Moe’s oversize clothes add more to illusion that he appears smaller than he actually is and makes his personality even more giant than it already is. All Moes sport colorful, loose-fit suits, with the exception of Big Moe and his dark tuxedo, that unite to create a jocular, collaborative group.

Once the second act commences, Nomax is dressed more stylishly in a nice shirt, jacket, and pants. He is more upbeat after his education, and the five Moes change into tuxedo garb with a flashy purple jacket. The atmosphere becomes more high-spirited as the stage practically turns into a jazz nightclub. The jazz musicians in the rear, who are largely ignored during the first act, take life on stage as an essential set piece while all five Moes act as lounge singers.

There is more to Five Guys Named Moe than just the plot or the characters. Music is a vital part to the whole production. The shuffle and boogie rhythms will have your toes tapping and hands clapping to the beat. You will be singing along and dancing in the aisles. There is both humor and story in the songs, and even the somber tunes carry a little beat in them. Regardless of whether you pick up entirely on the plot or not, high spirits will be teeming all throughout the musical. The most important part is to enjoy it and have fun.

These are the words spoken by Peter Parker during the introduction to Spider-Man 2. They capture the nature that is both Peter Parker and Spider-Man. At first glance, Peter does not seem like a superhero at all. He is like the rest of us – a regular citizen trying to live a life of balance. Spider-Man differs in that he swings around the city and saves people. His life is definitively like any other superhero’s life. The problem with these two identities is that neither one lives independently of the other. Peter Parker often finds it difficult to fit Spider-Man into his normal life. Whereas most other superheroes lead separate lives from their alter egos, Peter Parker cannot find a way to balance his two identities. This conflict, however, creates one of the most human individuals in the superhero realm.

Spider-Man may be a superhero, but underneath the mask he is still human. Peter Parker brings a large sense of humanity into Spider-Man giving him more credibility than any other superhero. The X-Men, Green Lantern, Blade, Silver Surfer, Superman, and others – their origins and adventures scream of wild fantasies and playful imagination. Spider-Man is much more grounded to his New York City background. He is the typical college student juggling a life of academia, a steady job, and living on his own in the big city. He has to deal with issues such as homework, illness, rent, taking care of his Aunt May, his love for Mary Jane, and washing his spider suit. When compared to other superheroes, his life does not seem as fantastical. One may make the same case for Batman; however, Batman’s world is a dark one of isolation and solitude. Millionaire Bruce Wayne is not someone most people can sympathize with easily. Spider-Man is the superhero everyone can understand; it is the character under the mask that makes him more human.

What is also cleverly unique about Spider-Man is that he is very young. Unlike most superheroes, Spider-Man’s life begins during the awkward years that everyone remembers – the teenage years. This is especially a big advantage for people to find a hero in Spider-Man than other heroes. Peter Parker is a young adult who is really just discovering what kind of person he will become later in life (both in and out of the suit). It is the teenage years when he learns about the consequences of his actions, when the immortal words of his Uncle Ben resound through his mind, “With great power comes great responsibility.” Peter has suddenly been given a great power at a very young age, and he has the ability to make an impact on society. His power represents what all young people want: a voice and a chance to make a difference.

What also makes Peter Parker an attractive superhero is that he is a science geek. Stereotypically, nerds are not the most social people or the most outgoing. Peter Parker fits this description flawlessly. How unlikely that of all people he would become a superhero. He gains tremendous power yet still remains the humble geek underneath. He is honest, hardworking, and cares enough to make a difference. Though he holds abilities no one else has, he continues to shroud himself in secrecy and only wants acceptance. He wants people to accept who he is when not in the suit but is afraid to show the world what kind of person he is. Spider-Man is still human and just as weak as the rest of us.

Peter’s life is especially vulnerable because his life is so jumbled with being Spider-Man. Unlike other superheroes who do not necessarily need to cover their identities, Peter Parker must hide his. His life would become even more complicated if anyone learned of his true identity. He contends with making excuses for himself and putting others behind his role as Spider-Man. Peter’s life entangles more with Spider-Man when The Green Goblin learns of Spider-Man’s identity and attacks the greatest weakness of all – the heart. Everyone he cares about is suddenly put into danger. Being Spider-Man and not being able to tell anyone is an ongoing struggle for Peter Parker. He must make sacrifices to keep everything in control. Most times he feels helpless and alone but this is the path he has chooses again and again.

Unmasking the hero was a huge theme of the second movie. Director Sam Raimi wanted to get the mask off the hero as much as possible to show the human side of Spider-Man. As Aunt May said in the first movie, “You do too much – college, a job, all this time with me… You’re not Superman, you know.” Peter Parker has to deal with everything that comes with the superhero business and regular life. Being Spider-Man is so overwhelming that he actually quits at one point. Even though quitting allows Peter to focus on a normal life, he still cannot escape his destiny. At the end of the second movie, Mary Jane (after learning his true identity) says to Peter, “I know there’ll be risks but I want to face them with you…Isn’t it about time somebody saved your life?” Being a superhero rests so much on Peter’s shoulders that it makes him feel even more isolated. It just goes to show that everyone needs a hero sometimes, even the greatest ones.

Peter ultimately makes the choice that he must accept Spider-Man as part of who he is. Being Spider-Man is his gift and his curse. With his destiny comes sacrifice. His memorable lines from the movie sum up his life and choice: “No matter what I do, no matter how hard I try, the ones I love will always be the ones who pay.” Peter Parker must struggle with all the positive and negative aspects of being Spider-Man. His character is unique and stands out amongst the most extreme and exaggerated of superheroes. Beneath the mask, he is the young, nervous, unguided youth experiencing life with whom everyone can connect. Peter’s power not only comes from being Spider-Man but from being himself and being human.

Often one of the best ways to educate is to use analogies. This is especially helpful if the subject is very abstract. Using analogies is a good way to bring sophisticated topics into a simplified state. One good example of this is describing multiple dimensions. We can interpret three dimensions pretty easily. Trying to jump into higher order dimensions is much more difficult. Popular Science magazine (March 2004) has an excellent article that attempts to explain multiple dimensions without the messy and mind-boggling math. Here is a sample from the article:

• You live on a brane.
• A brane is like a membrane.
• Imagine the skin that forms on your soup when it gets cold. A brane is like that.
• A brane is some sort of lower-dimensional thing (the 2-D skin) sitting in a higher-dimensional space (your 3-D space).
• Brane theory says our 3-D world is really just a brane.
• Our brane sits in a 4-D space called the bulk.
• Like so much congealed fat, we are prevented from escaping the brane and going into the higher-dimensional soup.
• Only gravity is allowed to do that.

Visualizing the skin on a cold soup is definitely and infinitely easier than imagining what an actual brane looks like. The use of the analogy simplifies the overall topic making it easier to understand.

Simplicity is key to writing good articles. This is heavily dependent on the audience as well. If your audience is the general public, chances are that a large majority is not an expert in a field of science. The public will not understand, much less read, a publication where they would need a dictionary to look up every other word. As Paul Reiser once said in a Mad About You episode, “Do me a favor. Talk to me like I’m four.” While science writing does not have to be geared towards kindergarteners, it would not hurt to make use of simple vocabulary, short sentences, and catering to a standard reading level so everyone can understand. Simplicity in explanation of science makes for good communication to society.

Communication without passion will die in the interest of readers. If science writing is not made exciting, no one will read or care about it. Passion is what drives life. It is what makes people do what they do. To do this in science writing, people must care. Their interest must be stirred somehow. One way to do this is to jump right to the point. If the point is put out there right away, it is likely that the public will read it otherwise interest will be lost quickly. However, starting right away with the heart of the subject comes with a caveat. The article should follow up with exciting, fresh, new information to maintain interest rather than drone on and on.

What makes communication even better and stronger are pictures. They are easy to understand and they go right with the words. Pictures and diagrams help to explain abstractions and provide an easier digestion of the science. Sometimes it is easier to see things rather than read about them. One very recent and ongoing example is research on Mars. Pictures are being taken and sent back to Earth. Almost any recent article on Mars is bound to have pictures. Pictures add dimension to any article. It helps make something abstract more concrete. By including pictures in an article, people can make connections between what they see and read.

One of the best methods of science writing is making a connection to our everyday lives. If there is a relation between science and people’s lives, there is no doubt that they will find interest in the subject matter. In a New York Times article titled “Research Panel Warns Mexico of Threat From Modified Corn”, a concern is raised on how genetically modified American corn will impact Mexican corn crops. Corn is an enormous staple in Mexico and is a part of people’s lives. This is one example of a connection between genetic engineering and people’s lives. This raises questions about the pros and cons of genetic engineering and what effect it will have on our lives. Making connections with people is a sure way to generate people’s interests. Science writing would have no meaning otherwise.

Science affects our lives everyday. If we did not have science writing, our society would be uninformed and ignorant. The decisions we make with regard to certain sciences would not be the same. It is the reason behind all the controversy that we create. It is behind the fear that we believe. It is the technology that we embrace. As stated earlier, the purpose of science writing is to inform people about science. Without science writing, there would be no support for science at all. No support means no scientific contributions. Science writing is a necessary part of our lives. We need science writing because science needs us.

I’m a nerd. I’ve always been one since I was a kid. I never grasped the rules of sports that other kids just seemed to innately understand. I lacked coordination, strength, and speed which resulted in me being picked almost always last for any kind of team sport. That was a regular experience for me since early elementary school all throughout the end of high school.

Despite my lack of physicality, my mom signed me up for various activities to keep me moving and not sitting at home doing nothing. I took tennis lessons when I was six, but it never stuck with me. Swimming lessons were a routine part of my childhood years though I never developed proper skill in the sport. Most of the time I struggled to do a proper stroke, and I ended up with a fear of the deep end of the pool. I no longer have that fear, and at least I know how to swim. Swimming was marginally enjoyable at best.

In college, I became a bandwagon weightlifter because I perceived that’s what everyone did when they “went to the gym.” I also tried running because, again, that is what I thought everyone else did. These were two activities I could perform on my own due to my lack of social skills, uneasiness in large social groups, and a dwindling number of friends (who were graduating and moving away) that were interested in fitness. I made little progress in terms of how much I could lift and how far I could run. I had no knowledge of technique or form, but I figured it was better than nothing.

I felt an imperative to stay active after leaving college and starting my career as a software developer. The thought of sitting in front of a desk for 8 hours for the rest of my life (that was my impression four years ago) was not a life I wanted. I pondered over the type of things I liked and that I could realistically commit to over time. The only two physical activities I truly enjoyed were dodgeball and martial arts.

Dodgeball appealed to me greatly, because I could actually perform it with relative ease. It came natural to me solely for the reason of my ability to dodge balls in all sorts of means — jumping, ducking, crouching, and in general just running away. I was often one of the last survivors in dodgeball games in which I became a strategic player in keeping my team alive. There were some adult dodgeball leagues near where I lived, but scheduling and location made the effort to join somewhat prohibitive for me.

Martial arts was my other option, and it is one that I have always been interested in since I was little. I may have not understood the nuances of martial arts, but I was able to break down movements into discreet parts from simple, visual observation so that I could crudely repeat them on my own. This satisfied my nerd mind, since I found so many other sports to be chaotic and confusing. There was structure and discipline in martial arts, which I never found in gym classes. Gym teachers essentially resorted to the idea of, “Here’s a ball. Go run around, and do something that isn’t sitting.”

The appeal of martial arts was also a culture one. I grew up watching Hong Kong martial arts action films. The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were also a big influence on me in my early childhood years. There would always be big festivals in Chinatown for the major holidays where I was exposed to martial arts even more. I always found martial arts to have some “heroic” aspect to it, a sense of justice so to speak, which spoke to my inner self about the person I wanted to be. There was a philosophical aspect, and a long history, that I had not seen in other activities.

Regular sports were “just another game” to me, but martial arts provided me the avenue for which I began to understand myself. I chose martial arts because of what it represented and the meaning that it had for me. It was a fitness niche that engaged both my mind and my body. When I started, my goal was simply to become “healthier.” The physical benefits were enormous; I improved my posture, developed my muscles, gained coordination, and lost some fat. Mentally, I developed some wisdom, depth, and understanding of the practice and culture (and still am). Martial arts was something that I could call my own, something that I could claim to be part of me, which no one could take away.

Even though I was looking for something physical, the intellectual satisfaction was the real reward when I found something I liked and wanted badly. My journey in finding an activity is one that personally took a long time for me to settle. What I realized is that staying fit and being healthy is something that should be a personal physical and mental endeavor. It means finding a place you can call home, doing what speaks to you, and not leaving your health at the mercy of others. The rewards will be much better in the end.

Hitman: Blood Money is the fourth video game in the Hitman series where the player is tasked to carry out assassinations without being caught. The player assumes the identity of Agent 47 (simply referred to 47), a genetically engineered male clone designed to be the perfect soldier. 47 was created in a secret laboratory and possesses the DNA of several dangerous criminals along with an extra 47^th chromosome (as opposed to the normal count of 46 chromosomes that people have). While an extra chromosome usually leads to defects in real life, 47 is granted extra speed, stamina, strength, and intelligence in the game’s fictional world. 47 was trained to be the perfect assassin from an early age, and no other clone or project has come close to the success of that is him. He eventually escaped the facility that he was created in and soon became a hired assassin.

The gameplay of the Hitman series has generally remained the same throughout its entire series. The key focus of the game is stealth. While the emphasis is largely on stealth gameplay, the player can choose to be more open about acts of violence in the game. However, subtle approaches yield better rewards. While guns can be used to assassinate targets, other items can become improvised weapons such as nail guns or meat hooks. Levels also are designed to let the player create “accidents” to kill their targets. Accidents are probably the best method in assassination, and there is usually a way for the player to cause one in each level. Using guns or other methods can affect the player negatively especially if evidence is left lying around. The most recent incarnation of the Hitman series utilizes evidence to calculate a notoriety score for the player. The more explicit a player is, the higher the notoriety, and the greater the chance that in-game characters will recognize 47 (adding more challenge to the game).

The Hitman series also features an alert system. An alert is triggered whenever something suspicious is seen or heard. Dead bodies and gunshots are some examples of alerts. If 47 is seen sneaking around or moving through areas where he is not supposed to be, an alert will be triggered as well. The player can don disguises found in each level of the game to help deter alerts. However, most disguises usually come from people that the player must knock out or kill first. If an unconscious, naked person is discovered, people will become suspicious of the player in the stolen disguise. Obviously, running amok with guns a-blazing will not help in avoiding alerts. The alert system is not a discrete, binary component though of the game. Often times, little things that player does can add up over time depending on the severity of the situation. Sometimes a partial alert may be triggered but can subside after an appropriate amount of time has passed.

The artificial intelligence of Hitman: Blood Money tends to be more passive than active. This is largely because it is dependent on what the player does. It does not make sense for the game to actively seek out the player when the player is on a mission that no one else knows (besides his employer). The AI structure of the game is most likely a rule-based or scripting system. My reasoning for this is because of the number of stimuli and various responses that can occur in the game. The only resource I could find about this game’s AI is an interview with Jonas Lind, an AI programmer for the Hitman games, on HitmanForum.com about the AI in Hitman: Contracts, the predecessor to Hitman: Blood Money. Much of what Lind says about Hitman: Contracts is also applicable to Hitman: Blood Money. Considering the success of the series and the similar nature of each game, it would be safe to guess that Blood Money has some of the same foundation as Contracts.

What Lind says about the characters in Contracts is that each one has base scripts that they follow and special scripts that are specific to the level or situation. The biggest part in getting caught is how alert other characters are around the player. Each character can see or hear events in some range. This range can change depending on environmental conditions. Dark areas or rain might obscure a character’s vision; certain sounds may travel through walls or not depending on the sound. Events like these also tie back into the alert system. The type of character also affects what alert action is decided. Typically, characters fall into either the category of civilian or guard. Civilians will panic, run, or alert nearby authorities.

Guards will become suspicious and start investigating or return to patrol. Anything that 47 does has the potential to set off an alarm – dragging bodies, sneaking, carrying guns, leaving guns behind, manipulating the environment (such as cutting power), assault, lock picking, shooting, switching clothes, being in the wrong place in the wrong disguise, or wearing uncoordinated disguises (like a waiter with a gun as opposed to a police officer with a gun).

Scripting the AI to follow a set of rules gives the game the illusion that characters behave individually (at least from each other). Guards may be patrolling an area, or they may be guarding doors. Civilians may just be wandering around enjoying their time while others may have preset activities (such as chefs, carpenters, or actors). Most of these activities are largely scripted depending on the level so the AI is not completely autonomous and free-form. Characters do not behave too individually though. There is some consistency in how they act to show off some crowd behavior. When guards are confronting 47, they will gang up on him and run back and forth to avoid being hit. Large crowds of civilians will flee if they see or hear 47 shooting a gun.

Hitman: Contracts employed an arbiter which coordinated information sharing among characters. Hitman: Blood Money also uses something similar if not the same. Once a character sees something suspicious, information is shared by word-of-mouth. It is possible for the player to stop this character before the information spreads. If the character does reach another person, that information becomes propagated locally which will then govern other characters in the vicinity. If an event were to occur outside, indoor characters would be unaffected.

Though the AI gives some individuality to characters, it is sometimes not very smart. The behaviors that emerge are remarkably simple and repetitive. Oddly enough, carrying a gun in plain view around citizens is okay whereas guards will immediately retaliate when they see you.

Shooting a gun off in a crowd will cause everyone to scatter. However, once people have moved out of a certain range, then they resume their normal behavior. The Mardi Gras level exemplifies this effect best. What happens is that a large circle of emptiness will form around 47 as in the following picture:

On the other hand, guards will come swarming at 47 shooting at him but always maintaining a distance like in the following situation for example:

No flanking occurs and the AI is simple enough to avoid and regain the upper hand. The adverse effect that also occurs is that guards will pay no heed to civilians in the way. The body count can quickly pile up in a crowd when guards are shooting at 47.

The other problem with the AI is that good guys and bad guys who are both targeting 47 will make no distinction against each other. In the Mardi Gras level, 47 is assigned to assassinate member of a gang (who are wearing chicken suits). 47 can enter the gang’s hideout and provoke the gang to start shooting at him. Soon thereafter, cops will also run through the door and also begin shooting at 47 without acknowledging that other people have guns and are shooting them at 47 too.

One strange phenomenon about this situation is that the player can make 47 wear a chicken suit, enter the boss’s office (the assassination target), and trigger no alarm even when another guard chicken gang member comes chasing 47 into the office. The guard boss enters a cautious, guard mode but does not draw his own gun until provoked by 47.  However, this may be a special exception considering that the boss is one of the targets in the level and has his own set of scripts to follow.

Though Hitman: Blood Money offers four level of difficulty – Rookie, Normal, Expert, and Pro – there almost seems to be no distinction among the AI level. The difficulty levels describe the AI as accommodating, full, increased, and advanced respectively. These descriptions probably refer to the amount of cheating that the AI is allowed to do such as how far the AI can see or hear or how easily it can see through disguises. Despite whatever differences may exist among the difficulty levels, all the characters’ behaviors are the same. Some characters may also fall into the same movements and appear coordinated due to their scripted behavior.

The one detail to note about the AI in this game is that observing it can be limiting. Trying to analyze it in depth in the game will result in the player dying very quickly. Enabling cheats allows for more observation of the AI in the game and also revealed how limited the AI really is. For the purpose of this game, where stealth is favored over action, the AI is suited well enough for it. Enabling cheats can also only be done on the 1.0 or 1.1 versions of the game and is more geared towards debugging than aiding in gameplay. Not all cheats work and may also cause stability issues or crashes. There were several occasions where the game would crash on me. Ultimately, my video card died but I think a combination of factors besides enabling cheats ultimately led to the death of my graphics card.

The stealthy nature of the game is what appeals to me as well as the open-ended nature in which the player is allowed to kill a target. Playing an assassination scenario over and over showed the various disguises one could use to trick others and the multitude of paths to reach a destination or goal. Areas almost always had some environmental factor to them. Lights could be turned off or tossing coins could distract guards. Targets could be killed in a variety of ways including accidents, poison, sniper rifle, or garrote. The notoriety system was also a new feature in Blood Money. Depending on the performance of the player, a dynamic newspaper front page would be generated detailing what the death of the targets and any evidence from the scene. Notoriety can be brought down but at the cost of spending the hard-earned money from completing missions. Overall, the game has a more puzzle-like nature (which is my personal preference of games) and steers away from using a brute force run-and-gun method.

The artificial intelligence in Hitman: Blood Money still needs some work but largely accomplishes the basic stimulus-response nature of people in the game. To improve the AI, it would be better if characters had long-term memory. This is not always apparent, but there are occasions where characters would stop, look at you, resume an activity, stop again, and so on. Combat AI could also be improved as well even though the nature of the game is not focused on it. Above all, the game could probably use more diversity in how characters act. Creating more instances of input (though complexity might skyrocket) can contribute to more behaviors. The result could be a more dynamic “life-like” world instead of instead of the normal, zombie-driven, localized behavior. Any more interactivity with the player is a bonus and could yield some interesting and new challenges for future games.

The teacher’s tone carried a tone of frustration through the air. She almost said it as if she was angry at them.

A bunch of New England second grade kids sat silently in a classroom. Most of them probably had never even seen a palm tree before. Their minds were confined to the likenesses of great oaks, sweet maples, and tall pines. Even better, these kids were inner-city Boston kids. Not many choices for trees when you don’t have that many to look at.

Their drawings decorated the room. Their trees were all the basic brown tree stump and cloudy green mass for leaves. Add a blue sky and green ground and that’s all there is. Almost no one drew any seasonal trees. No fall colors, no dead winters. They were all variations on spring.

However, one boy took his teacher’s words seriously. He secretly began drawing a palm tree planted on a sandy, hilly island. He drew a tan line and then colored the round shape in. He took up his brown crayon and began drawing the outline for the tree, coloring it in as he finished. He began to draw pointy leaves for the palm tree growing out in various directions and colored those in when he was done. He even drew some coconuts to add to the scene. However, he was disappointed. He felt empty on the inside, almost shameful that he made it just because his teacher complained about the lack of variety. He didn’t feel proud of it and didn’t want to show it to anyone.

With a green crayon in hand, the same color as the leaves, he began to color over the sand. He scribbled furiously over the ground, growing grass over the arid landscape, reshaping the land, adding vegetation where there was none. He took his brown crayon and thickened the tree stump, making it straighter than the curvy palm he once made, and also enveloping the coconuts he had drawn. With a darker green, the color of forests, he drew an enormous cloudy figure around the original palm trees and just covered everything up.

He still did not feel proud of what he had done, but he thought it looked better than the palm tree. And it was still hung on the wall in the forest of all the other kids’ drawings. The teacher never said anything else about the trees. Either she gave up on them or just let them be. Maybe both. Maybe neither. No one else ever saw that boy’s original drawing that day, but that didn’t matter. All he cared about was whether he made the right choice or not.

When 9th grade rolled around, I tried my hand at “writing” poems. I had no formal or informal training on how to write anything except for five-paragraph essays for my English classes. Nevertheless, I gave it a try. After playing with words, stumbling with structures and breaks, figuring where to put what lines where to convey what I wanted, after pages and pages of writing and scribbling and arrows, I wrote something that was five lines long. It was crap (not that I really thought so at the time). The feel of the “poem” was probably more overgeneralized than cryptic, and it didn’t really have that much meaning underneath the words. My “poem” was published on its own page with a fading greyscale picture underneath it. I was happy that it was published so I kept trying to write more things and seeing what came out.

I abandoned my little bound notebook that I used to brainstorm and piece things together out of phrases and words. Anything that poured out of my mind would be written down and revised and revised. I submitted a whole bunch of things (a lot of them really bad too). Most were rejected, but there were always a few that managed to get in. I also noticed that as I got older, the worse the writing in The Register seemed to get. My writing was never good to begin with, but all the pieces in The Register revolved around some teen angst issue. You read one of them, and you’ve read them all. I wanted to change things, so in my junior year I joined the editorial staff.

Joining the editorial staff, as it turned out, proved to be a lackluster effort. I was among the small group of people that had to read over 200 submissions and rate each one on a scale of 1-5. There were very few submissions that I liked. Nearly everything I read was just the same thing over and over. There were only a few that were “different” that broke up the monotony of reading each piece. I was on the staff for only two or three publications. The whole process was just very tiring and tedious. The worst part of it was that every single submission was crap. Everything was awful. The “best” ones were published, and the magazine was still crap.

There was one particular one I recall very well that was (very well) written by a friend. It was the top-rated one, and it definitely deserved to be. The only reason why it wasn’t published was because it contained a school stabbing, and that didn’t go over so well with the faculty advisor. One of my other friends reads and writes a lot; he knows what makes good writing and what doesn’t. He knows techniques, words, structure. He’s submitted crappy things that have made it to publication that were intended as jokes or mockeries of the literary magazine. He wrote a poem for an English assignment five minutes before class and ended up submitting it. It was published along with corresponding artwork to help convey the meaning (which also really bothers me too when the editors do that). I even submitted a stupid rhyming poem (cryptically about video games and their evolution and future), and it made to publication. That was for the last issue when I was in high school, at which point I was glad I had quit the staff.

I understood what kind of “standards” these people were looking for and the stuff that everyone was submitting. I didn’t want any part of it. Things were originally creative when I was in the seventh grade. They were imaginative. They were worlds that people had created and shared with the rest of the world. Eventually, subject matter evolved into smaller worlds. The nature of these pieces became more personal, more introverted, more mundane, less creative, and a lot less imaginative. These people needed to learn how to write. It was as if they were basing their writing on what was previously published in The Register (which was deemed to be good). Rather taking courses or finding resources on how to write, everyone would just imitate what was written before. It became like a pandemic disease because everyone was doing it. The only writing class that is offered at Boston Latin School is the Advanced Placement English Language and Composition. Other than that, these kids are on their own, and they won’t get far if all they’re looking at are recently published Register editions.

My sister has even made submissions to The Register as a joke. She wrote about a thing about an egg and her physics project in about five minutes and submitted it at the last minute. Lo and behold, it was published. She also tells me that it’s only getting worse and worse. People are either very teen angst in their pieces, or they just write about their grandma and her cooking. It’s all extremely overdone and tired. The editorial staff might as well just start taking things off of people’s LiveJournals. The school newspaper has been just the same. The writing was good writing my first year, but totally plunged down the toilet drain when I graduated.

The point is that people need to learn how to write, and write well. That isn’t to say that they shouldn’t give up writing altogether. Improvement doesn’t come like a pack of instant Ramen noodles. It takes time, learning, critiquing, mentoring, and patience before someone develops skill, style, and understanding.

Back in the year 2000, before blogging ever took off, I kept my personal thoughts and writings at Open Diary. As a way of mocking Internet diaries (especially the ones on Open Diary), I had started out keeping a fictional diary for my made-up, semi-superhero character, Pop Tart Kid. After my stint, I lay dormant for a while but still read up on friends’ diaries. In the beginning of 2002, I decided to start another diary and really open myself up to the world (and really to my friends). I kept this one for a while from the latter half of my senior year in high school until close to the end of my first year in college. I decided to switch to Xanga. It had a nicer interface and just a better feel since Open Diary seemed to be hurting from lack of funds (they split off into free and pay versions) and server (bandwidth) issues. I decided to not use LiveJournal since Xanga had a better community vibe to it.

Eventually, I ended up creating my own WordPress blog on a friend’s site. I imported most of my old Xanga entries. Blogging on my own site was fine for a while. Then the interval between posts became longer and longer, and the creative well dried up altogether. Then came this blog shortly after I stopped blogging at my old site. I wanted to start fresh and anew, wipe the slate clean, and create my own personalized look-and-feel to my blog.

And this leads me back to the reason for blogging: I want to say something profound (in some way whether big or small). I wanted to shed the teen angst and grow up. This comes from years of chronicling the trivial events in my life even going all the way back to the 8th grade when I started keeping a notebook of near-daily logs of life. Reading through a lot of my old entries shows how insignificant some things were and how they don’t matter anymore. I was different back then — young and stupid. I want to show maturation in my posts; perhaps this is why I “recycle” my persona in my evolution of blogging.

So then this brings me back to the same question: What do I blog about? I don’t want to blog about the silly, insignificant things that won’t matter later on. My life isn’t currently exciting enough to blog about. I could blog about work though I’ve heard you can get fired for that so I’d rather not do that. And I don’t have much of an audience to cater my blog to. This blog isn’t for them; it’s for me. So now I’m stuck at the intermittent posts and deciding what criteria an event should meet in order for it to be blogged.

I guess I feel the need to future-proof myself and not look like an idiot (to myself). Maybe I should blog the little things in life, things in the moment, and look back on them in the future in a continuous timeline rather than discrete instances. It’s amazing to see how much I’ve changed but have fundamentally remained the same all this time. I probably shouldn’t feel ashamed of myself for what I was because I wouldn’t be who I am now without looking back and reflecting on my evolution.