Jan Brewer, Arizona Governor, was asked if she believes global warming is man-made and her response was:

Everybody has an opinion on it, you know, and, uh, you know, I probably don’t believe that it’s man-made. I believe that, uh, you know, um, weather elements are controlled maybe by, uh, different things.

Fortunately, you don’t need to have an opinion or believe in the weather or global warming. Neither are things of faith and neither cares if you believe in them or not. You don’t need to believe in transistors or electricity to use a cell phone either.

The short answer, for Jan and anyone else that thinks science is a belief system, is the sun and our atmosphere. It doesn’t matter if God made the sun and Earth or if the Big Bang did (or if God made the Big Bang knowing that from it we would exist).

If you go outside on a sunny day, you can feel the sun on your skin – it’s warm and that’s solar radiation (sunlight). We are just the right distance from the sun so that we are not too hot or too cold.

If you go outside, you can breathe – that’s out atmosphere. Our atmosphere exists because gravity (the Earth’s mass) can hold onto the gases that make up the atmosphere.

Some other planets have atmospheres but something unique to us is that water can exist in all three forms (phases) as a solid (ice), liquid (water), and a gas (water vapour – humidity).

The water cycle is very important for the weather and for life on Earth. Water from the oceans can evaporate and condense into clouds. Clouds and water vapour in the air help make a warm blanket around the Earth. That’s why deserts get cold at night – low humidity (but that makes for a good hair day Jan). Water is great at holding in heat and letting it go later (latent heat).

In fact, that’s why we call water vapour a greenhouse gas. It helps the atmosphere act like a greenhouse and keeps our planet warm at night. Carbon dioxide (CO₂) is also a greenhouse gas and is naturally occurring. The ocean’s absorb and release carbon dioxide and that helps regulate how much CO₂ is in the atmosphere.

Photosynthesis produces CO₂ at night and humans exhale some CO₂. Carbon dioxide is natural and very important for life as we know it – to help keep the Earth at the right temperature for us.

So why do we always hear the greenhouse gases are bad if they are natural and important?

More CO₂ means that Earth’s atmosphere acts as a warmer greenhouse and that means it gets hotter outside.

We don’t really know how big an effect we, as humans, have related to CO₂ but we do know that we have been adding lots of CO₂ to the atmosphere since the Industrial Age (combustion releases lots of CO₂). Since we can control how much CO₂ we release, shouldn’t we at least reduce how much we are adding since we know what it does?

We know that adding more CO₂ to the atmosphere is adding more greenhouse gas. We know that greenhouse gases hold in heat, so shouldn’t we at least take responsibility for what we add?

Jan – the weather is mainly the sun and our atmosphere; that’s a nice and concise answer and it doesn’t matter if you believe in it and you don’t have to forsake your God either.

Join us next week when we talk about why the sky is blue (UV light scattering), how clouds reflect sunlight (albedo), and how Earth’s spinning affects weather (Coriolis effect). All without making anyone have to give up on God . . .

I use OpenSim, typically in the form of Sim-on-a-Stick, as one of my graphic design tools for corporate eLearning development. We do videos for branched scenarios. In a nutshell – actors don’t age, haircuts never change, wardrobes don’t fade, and sets are easy to build and archive.

I also use OpenSim as a 3D graphic program to create static images for eLearning. The last post on my neglected blog discussed a hotel video set which is used for both video and static images.

Developers in the corporate eLearning world are often stretched to their limit, both in time and budget, and typically are not experts with 3D tools. Tools like Blender and 3ds Max need regularly use in order to stay proficient with them and most eLearning developers don’t have the task schedules to warrant that. With OpenSim, the building tools are simpler and the skills are easier to maintain.

The downside is the quality of the graphics – there’s no comparison between a Blender and OpenSim. And that can be seen as a good thing!

The trade off is having an easy and fast tool to make 3D graphics or not making them at all. The use of OpenSim generated graphics can be embraced and exploited as long as you don’t strive for photo-realistic results, in my opinion anyway. Keeping your work simple and focused on getting the point across allows OpenSim to shine. Just like good line art can teach complex tasks (such as an automotive engine manual).

Ener Hax just created a carbide lamp with its key components in probably less time than it would take me to find an image in a commercial photo library and saved $50 in the process. I used one of Ener’s images to illustrate how nicely an OpenSim model works (below).

Nicely done on the lamp Ener and on your condemned city build too!

reposted from iliveisl.com

After seeing a post on New World Notes that represented how I use OpenSim but left out the most compelling reasons as to why use OpenSim, I decided to reiterate what I’ve mentioned in the past.

One of the hats I wear is corporate eLearning developer for an international company (in 150 countries with 70,000 annual eLearning users). As such, I architect many aspects of our eLearning including just completing 14 courses (about 40 hours of seat time) as HTML5 content that is viewable by 99.2% of devices connected to the web.

In creating a large amount of eLearning, I am always looking for low cost solutions that are also fast for our team to use. Back in 2006, Second Life caught my attention, but not as a social place. I spoke at several conferences, such as the eLearning Guild’s DevLearn Conference and the Texas Distance Learners Association Annual Conference, on the use of Second Life as a 3D authoring tool – much like Blender.

The output is not photorealistic and has a distinct look (I’d say low-poly before using the term cartoonish) but the plus side of lower detailed graphics is that it doesn’t need rendering time. What you see on your monitor is fully rendered. This makes creating video footage for branched scenarios rapid, virtually free, and easy (and also fun!).

Your cast of characters never age or get new hairstyles, their warddrobes are alway constant, and the sets can cost little to nothing to build and store, and can be built without needing expert 3D modelling skills.

Rapid development and basically no cost. Hard to beat that combination!

In the last two years, I have not used Second Life and have an easier and completely free way to create this content – OpenSim. Specifically, OpenSim running from a USB drive.

One significant OpenSim/Second Life issue that many corporate eLearning developers run into are firewalls in the workplace. Using OpenSim in a portable manner, from Sim-on-a-Stick, eliminates those firewall issues.

Buiding a studio set, such as the hotel room and lobby below, is much easier than working with meshes in a traditional 3D application. OpenSim and Second Life use a small number of primitives (“prims”) used as building blocks. This is what gives the “simplistic” look but what also allows for real-time rendering at frame rates that exceed the 30 frames per second needed to create smooth video.

Details on creating video can be seen in my older posts and even from conference materials I have online.

OpenSim, specifically as “Sim-on-a-Stick”, is a great tool to add to your multimedia toolkit – plus it’s easy and I love the creative outlet it provides.

full image set hosted by iliveisl

Science is typically thought of as compartmentalized and discrete pieces of information and taught in a vacuum. In reality, science is part of day-to-day life and not separate at all. When I see news of science being rejected or painted as a this or that argument in the American educational system, particularly K-12, I become frustrated. Those individuals denouncing science as some form of dogma don’t seem to have an issue driving automobiles, flying across the country, or using mobile phones and computers – all impossible with technology (applied science).

Science is a tool in our toolbox of life that can help us understand the world around us. It allows us to create sunglasses, live and work in greater comfort, and even carry a library of 10,000 songs in our pocket. As such, science is intertwined in our lives and is not simply a set of discrete and separate concepts.

In writing a virtual science field trip workbook, I have science activities and exercises. An example of an activity is a nuclear power plant and within that activity there are supplementary exercises.

Real field trips are like this also and, unlike a text book, field trips can offer an opportunity to explore more than the topic at hand. This virtual nuclear power plant has more learning opportunities than only nuclear fission and those are incorporated into its learning objectives because learning science can be more than studying discrete concepts.

A holistic approach to science education isn’t the current norm is school where we have schedules, curriculum, standards, and the real task of reaching 20-30 (or more) in a very short time period. However, for self-paced education done at home, these constraints are reduced and a student can take additional time to learn more. The exercises I include are part of the virtual 3D location that the student can enter and explore first hand.

In Enclave Harbour, a virtual municipality, there is a nuclear power plant where a nuclear reactor is being constructed and, as part of that, a tower crane is in use. A tower crane is a fantastic way to illustrate simple machines because it is minimalistic in design and utilitarian in function. The concepts of levers and pulleys is easily demonstrated and explored, and this presents a wonderful opportunity to “weave” in some additional science into this field trip activity.

One of the tasks in this “extra” exercise is to calculate the mass of the crane’s counterweights. Other tasks include calculating lift capacities at various distances along the crane’s jib and the mechanical advantage of block and tackle systems. These exercises are intended to bring about an awareness of how science is always around us and that it is not a dogma.

The student is provided with the dimensions of the counterweight, the density of its material, and the formulas needed. In this case, steel counterweights with a density of 8,000 kilograms per cubic meter and overall dimensions of  2 meters long, half a meter wide, and 1 meter tall. Volume (V) is determined by multiplying length (l) times width (w) times height (h). The mass (m) of the counterweight is its volume times the material’s density (ρ, the Greek letter rho).

1. V = l · w · h
2. m = V · ρ

In this example, we first find the volume of one weight which is 2 m · 0.5 m · 1 m = 1 m³ (one cubic meter) and then calculate its mass with 1 m³ · 8,000 kg/m³ = 8,000 kg.

There are three counterweights on this crane for a total of 24,000 kg or 24 metric tons. This exercise continues with calculating that the crane can lift 12,000 kg at its farthest end and calculating maximum lift at other points along the jib. Also covered is the mechanical advantage through its block and tackle, which is six, meaning that 2,000 kg of force is required along with 6 meters of cable for every meter that the 12,000 kg is lifted.

This physics exercise on simple machines supplements others in Enclave Harbour such as an overhead crane and screw jacks at the desalination plant and pulleys in a vertical-lift bridge.

Science does not exist in a vacuum in the real world and supplemental science programs such as Enclave Harbour allow ambitious students to see how intertwined it is. Understanding this helps us make better and more informed decisions in life.

Ener Hax asked me to write an article on how I have used Sim-on-a-Stick for commercial projects and to illustrate that a USB-based, standalone grid is applicable for usage previously only possible via a solution such as Second Life. In 2008 and 2009 I spoke at conferences and webinars about the use of Second Life for corporate eLearning as an easy-to-use 3D animation application. “Easy” is a relative term to true 3D animation applications such as Blender and 3ds Max (formerly 3D Studio Max). The typical corporate eLearning department often does not have the budget for true 3D animators nor the hardware for video rendering (such as a render farm).

Creating video in this manner using Sim-on-a-Stick is not ideal because some eLearning videos need a cast of characters for branched scenarios. However, it is a viable way to build sets for use in eLearning videos and “sets” are the example I’ll illustrate here.

Last year, I had a chance to use Sim-on-a-Stick for a project ideally suited for a portable OpenSim deployment. A marketing company was looking for a way to have their sales team create 3D images of product placement in cinema lobbies. In responding to their client’s proposals, they would have an advantage by providing images from multiple angles and perhaps even videos of their client’s products. Product placement includes anything from a self-service kiosk to exhibit-style booths showcasing a new product or service with reverse spotlights showing product logos on the walls or floors.

They needed to be able to respond to proposals (RFPs) as quickly as possible because the first response typically wins the business. OpenSim was not my first thought for this; Google SketchUp was my initial choice because of the ability to use a ray tracer such as Kerkythea to create photo-realistic renders. Part of the project requirements included training them on the tool and this tipped the scale toward OpenSim. I have done Sim-on-a-Stick workshops and was confident that I could train them in a day on how to set up product displays, import appropriate textures, snap quality photographs, and even do videos of the space.

The deliverables were ten cinema lobbies from each of ten U.S. metropolitan areas to be accurate in dimension and appearance (laser surveyed and CAD-based with photos of each venue’s textures), 30 standard display items (booths, tables, chairs, banners, etc), and training. Training included how to set up premade display items, import and apply textures to the display components, lighting and snapshot settings, using a Space Navigator with Fraps and Windows Movie Maker to create video, and saving OARs.

Sim-on-a-Stick allows for each lobby to be stored as an OAR file with each proposal response to also be archived for reference or future use (for example, an iPad 2 roll out in Manhattan theatres could be re-purposed for an iPad 3 event).

The following images were proposal images and are not depicting a real cinema lobby. The images do show a hypothetical HP display in which the two reverse spotlights on the floor and one spotlight on the ceiling were animated, a feature not possible had this solution been done in Google SketchUp. The lower polygon count of OpenSim was an acceptable quality compromise for the ability to script movement and to “fly” a camera real-time through the space (no need for overnight rendering which means faster RFP response time).

this post also appears on iliveisl.com

This post by my virtual world guru, Ener Hax, was too timely not to repost here:

i have written about FERPA a few times in the past, but always in relation to Second Life

FERPA is an American privacy act specific to K-12 and universities – the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act. many countries have similar laws and some teachers and professors use Second Life despite violating FERPA, which the Second Life privacy policy allows. Linden Lab collects user account information (of course, or how could it have a log in service) and also “may collect and retain any other information relating to your account data or in-world activities including chat or IM logs, . . .”. that last bit is where FERPA can be violated

i know that's right! =p

it is against American law to disclose a student’s grade on an assignment or course through any means without the student’s written permission (or to disclose any personal information). FERPA is so tight that even a school within a university can not share student information with another school in that same university without the student’s written consent!

to go further, K-12 teachers and university professors can not share grades via email unless it is 100% secure. a teacher at My High School can never send an email regarding grades or personal student information to a student’s Gmail account

that’s what brings me to write this post – Google’s new privacy policy. Google offers their convenient enterprise solutions to educational institutions to use and include email, docs, video, blogs, and almost every Google offering (many schools do use these services)

under FERPA, a school can outsource email but only if the service provider is subject to the same terms that the school is. Google is not subject to FERPA and the burden is on the school and not on Google to be compliant with FERPA

this same compliance applies to virtual worlds. that’s why the safest way to implement OpenSim is on your own institution’s firewalled servers or possibly via sim-on-a-stick (which is ideal since it is a closed individual system – dang, i need to start selling sim-on-a-stick and buy that south pacific island!) =)

this doesn’t mean that educators and students can’t use Kitely, In-Worldz, or 3rd Rock; it just means they need to not talk about grades while in-world

I keenly read Ener’s posts and I am almost as passionate about virtual worlds but from a slightly differing perspective. They can be a wonderfully immersive media that can increase user engagement particularly in training and education.

In education circles we like to discuss learning styles such as visual, auditory, and kinesthetic (tactile). There are other models as well and today we recognize that learners often use a combination and that the styles for a learner may change day to day.

The more styles we can intertwine into educational materials and techniques, the greater the chances are that our learners will learn what we are teaching them.

Reading text and looking at illustrations access certain parts of our brain. Writing information relative to what we are learning accesses other parts of the brain (thus the value of written activities). Reading aloud accesses yet different areas as does teaching our newly learned information to others (such as a mentoring program).

With virtual worlds, I believe we engage additional areas of the brain as well as parts of the brain accessed via “standard” learning styles. Virtual worlds allow us to engage with the learner’s imagination and trigger thoughts of touch, smell, sound, the visual, and the kinesthetic (such as a scripted object reacting to the avatar) – the same senses we access in a real life situations. This increases the learner’s engagement, the immersion provided by the imagination, when their avatar is placed into a virtual world.

I contend that we may even engage more deeply with the user because of the simple look that OpenSim presents as contrasted with more sophisticated graphics such as Blender imported into Unity. This simpler look, sometimes referred to as cartoon class in comments to Ener’s blog, forces the user to fill in details and use their imagination to a greater degree.

Playing ‘Call of Duty: Black Ops’ is something done by millions but I don’t believe it engages the imagination as much as OpenSim can. Think about how Legos engage the imagination, how the unseen movie monster is typically scarier than the one revealed, or playing army or having a tea party when you are little. The imagination lets us fill in what we think the situation calls for.

Happy Halloween and think about how scary the dark can be when our minds are left to wander and wonder.

One of the tenets of Enclave Harbor is to help raise environmental awareness while teaching middle school kids a little “real life” science via virtual field trips.  It is fitting to look at the environmental costs of computer usage since we are using OpenSim on a dedicated server that is on 24/7.

Today a perfect opportunity arose to explore this on a personal level.

I use Defraggler regularly on my work and home computers. Today I updated to the latest version of Defraggler and it has a new “Health” tab (see below). I was intrigued at the total number of hours that my work machine has been powered on.

My work PC has been on for a total of 14,924 hours over the last five years. I am the second “owner” of this box and the only time I leave it on overnight is for Blender renders (time consuming 3D graphics and animations).

If this power supply runs at 500 watts that means the PC has used 7,462 kilowatt-hours of electricity during that time.

In the US, the average cost per kilowatt is 13.4 cents (June ’11 national average – double that for Hawai’i). It has cost my company $999.91 in electricity to power this computer over the last 5 years. That’s only to power the box and does not include the dual monitors or any servers I access for work files.

Let’s compare my machine’s ~$200 a year cost with two hypothetical scenarios – one in which the machine is on eight hours a day, five days a week for 50 weeks a year and one left on 24/7.

• 8 hours X 5 days X 50 weeks = 2,000 hours or $134.00 a year in electricity
• 24 hours X 7 days X 52 weeks = 8,736 hours or $585.31 a year

That is a difference of $451.31 in one year! Or 4.37 times more electricity!

If we extend these scenarios to a company with 300 employees then we would have a difference of $135,393.00 in one year!

The numbers speak for themselves.

also posted on iliveisl.com

A few years ago I spoke at a number of eLearning conferences about using Second Life for creating fast video footage. Now I use OpenSim, mainly on a USB stick, and the ideology is the same: easy-to-build 3D models combined with fast, real-time rendering makes OpenSim a “rapid development” tool for eLearning. The alternative is to use Blender or Autodesk 3ds Max which mean much longer development time for building sets and characters as well as long render times. With OpenSim you create video footage in real-time but trade that for quality and lighting only possible in a tool like Blender. There is also an added benefit to using OpenSim, if it is done on a server, and that is the chance to have fun with fellow workers when you need to film several people interacting.

Adobe Media Encoder

When I was talking about Second Life I was using Adobe’s CS3 suite and bringing my Fraps generated AVI files into Flash. Once in Flash, I could add ActionScripting, buttons, and even quiz objects to the Second Life video footage. Last year I upgraded to CS5 and along with it came a new way of importing AVI files. Adobe’s Media Encoder comes bundled with several CS5 packages and is worth its weight in gold. You have far greater control over the quality of your AVI clips and the compression yields nice results. I filmed some footage last week in Enclave Harbour and have been pleased with how well it can be compressed and still hold up quite well.

If you are an eLearning multimedia developer and think that 3D animation is out of reach, either from budget or skills, try OpenSim out – the Ener’s sim-on-a-stick version is a great way to try it. I was able to teach two hour workshop participants how to build in about an hour, so I maintain that the learning curve is very short (contrary to many eLearning Guild members), and how to film in a second hour.

Build something, film it with the free trial of Fraps, and import it into a Flash file using the Media Encoder and you may be surprised at how reasonable the resulting file size is and how the possibilities become far greater for your eLearning (and it looks good on your LinkedIn profile!).

originally posted at iliveisl