The Blog of Derrick James Freese

Recently I read an gaming article from Kotaku about a team of students and faculty from Rochester Institute of Technology and St. John Fisher College that are developing a game that will utilize biofeedback technology to help students fight against anxiety by developing self-control skills. Students using the game will take a variety of assessments to understand their anxieties and behaviors, while doing that a characters will be made in the game. Players will learn how to fight against the physiological manifestations giving therapists helpful knowledge of the patient. The team hopes to start having clinical trials by the fall.

I see this article as news mostly because it interests me. This article also gives good information that could change some peoples lives. I think t would be a good idea to use games for something important and life changing such as this. More and more people are using video games as teaching aids. I read another article a few months ago that talked about grade school teacher that used Minecraft as a way to teach manners to his young students. This to me is a large step in how people will view video games in the future. Instead of parents complaining that video games make children violent, they will be praising games for helping their children.

Link to Article – http://kotaku.com/5836239/a-biofeedback+driven-video-game-to-battle-anxiety-and-stress

One name nearly any sports fan would know, is Brett Favre.  Favre is a professional football player, currently playing as the starting quarterback for the Minnesota Vikings.  Originally drafted to the Atlanta Falcons in 1991 from the University of Southern Mississipi Favre then went on to the Greenbay Packers in 1992, where he played for the next 16 seasons.  Favre almost literally rewrote the Packers passing record book in his time there, and took the Packers to the Super Bowl twice, winning once. Favre made himself a legend with the Packers and the NFL itself.

In the last few years Brett has been making quite the ruckus, on and off the field. Favre finally retired from the Packers following the ’07 season, leaving his successor Aaron Rodgers to lead the Packers. During the off season Favre decided he did not want to be retired and tried to get his spot with the Packers back. The Packers accepted him, but had already gave the position to Rodgers. The Packers followed by trading Favre to the Jets, where he played for the ’08 season. After being with the Jets for one season Brett was traded to the one team I hate most, the Minnesota Vikings.

With the Vikings Favre had a great start, sweeping the Packers and leading the conference. Of course when Favre got to the postseason he choked, throwing an interception in the game against the Saints, costing the Vikings the game. Starting his second season with the Vikings, Favre had a very slow start. Getting swept by the Packers, and nearly being benched. But with their head coach fired and someone filling in, the Vikings are hoping to pick up the shattered pieces of their current season. But more importantly the Packers are doing just fine without Favre. So life is good.

For those of you who do not know, WoW stands for the World of Warcraft. Many people that know of WoW and think only nerds or geeks play don’t really understand the game.  WoW is much more than people fantasising and playing a fantasy game. If it isn’t your kind of game, then you don’t have to play it. And you don’t need to bully people who do.

Honestly, the WoW community is not much different from the Call of Duty community. Both enjoy playing the game and both have the people who seem to play the game too much and are too good at the game. Both have online multiplayer gameplay where you interact with people from all over the world. But there aren’t people who are bullied for playing Call of Duty. Maybe if those people actually played WoW and knew the lore behind the game, they would like it.

Where do I start…..

I know you can update your status and let everyone know what’s going on in your life, but is it nececcary to inform every one of your friends or followers every 5 minutes of what you are doing or what is going on?  It bugs me a tad when my feed is flooded with pointless status updates.  There are also the people who feel the need to post “FML” as if their life is truely that bad that they have to let Facebook know.  And don’t even get me started on the random games and apps that take up the majority of my news feed.  I dont want to help you save farm animals or give you free gifts for your fish tank, please stop sending me notifications.

Now on a positive note I would like to say that following a sports team or a company releasing a product on Facebook or Twitter would actually be quite useful.  Getting details on what is happening with developments and even a teacher using Facebook or Twitter to inform changes with assignments, cancelled classes, or reminders would prove to be handy. Telling the world something completely randm or “FML”  is not a productive way to use the social networking tools you have. Use a blog if you really want to tell people how you feel.

What can I honestly say about Morninside food.  It’s mostly hit and miss.  It can be great one day, then for the next week it’s all reheated chili and pizza.  If it isn’t that, then it’s hamburgers that get left under the heated lights, making the buns hard and the burger dry.  The only decent place to eat would be the sandwich station, but it gets old after a few meals.  I understand they need to make meals for a large body of people, but is it that hard to make a few better meals? Or maybe have some different options?

The other place to eat at Morningside would be Buck’s.  Buck’s is a pretty decent place to eat overall.  Good food. Good variety.  Only down fall, small availability.  Buck’s isn’t open during the weekends, except for Sunday nights. The weekends are usually when the cafeteria food is the worst with the least amount of options, no sack lunch option, and no Buck’s.  So unless I want to drive off campus and buy my food, the cafeteria is my only option.