SCRIMS RULES
These basic scrim rules are based on the Cyber Evolution (CEVO) league rules.
(http://www.cevo.com/)
1. A scrim match is a 5 v 5 player contest.
2. A scrim consists of two 15 round halves on the same map, for a total of 30 possible rounds.
3. Each round is 1 min 20 seconds long, usually with a 15 second buy time before each round starts.
4. At the end of the first half, the teams switch sides and begin the second half.
4. The first team to win 16 rounds is declared the winner and the scrim is over.
5. If a scrim ends with a tie score of 15-15, an overtime period begins. Overtime consists of two 5 round halves. The first team to win 6 rounds in overtime wins.
6. Spectators are not allowed.
7. Vent and Teamspeak use is encouraged.

Those are the basic rules. What each individual team may play by may differ, only because CAL (Cyberathlete Professional League http://thecpl.com/) is no more, and those rules were the golden standard for years. But these are accepted as the most standard.

As far as advice is concerned:
1. Do not talk to the other team until the scrim is over. No trash talking, no accusations of hacking, no gloating. Just be quiet until the end.
2. Take a demo of your performance during the scrim. It is always good to have, simply to review later to improve your play next time.
3. Take screenshots of the scoreboard at the end of each half. Nice to have in case the actual score of each team needs to be checked.
4. Do not rush your tactics. 80 seconds may not sound like very much for a round, but it gives you enough time to play some advanced strategy.

Few weeks ago I was invited to a team who are now competing in ECO League.
Season 1 was just finished last night as Season 2 begins tonight. I am in ECO-Main league with so far 1 win – 1 loss standing in rank 15.

Wayfinding or Re-designing OCAD Website
-Most students, even faculties have difficulty getting through OCAD, to find one small information would take forever.
-Lot of complaints even within the Helpdesk.
-Overflowing useless links, unorganized ladders.
-I would like the redesign with the same infos, possible narrow-down-ation, to make it easier for everyone to use.

Type Design for Special Visioned People.
-I thought about for specific people,
a. Cross eyed people – Creating a typeface just like the brails.
b. Elders – New wayfinding guides / how to guides for elders with simplist graphic for them to understand.
c. Blinds – Already been used and too common.

Wayfinding for how to organize files on computer (Mac and/or PC)
-Lot of students, who uses computer every single day, even a graphic students, cannot organize they’re computers.
-Always losing data, corruption, difficulty printing, not able to safely remove usb and the data becoming damanged, causing printing problem and affecting their due dates.
-I would like to propose on how to organize and keep files backed up for students.
-As a monitor who works at Laptop helpdesk, I experiance many students coming for help to save their files, or even how to back up their data. Tons of students coming to re image their computer because of computer failure, either caused by unorganized files (downloaded corrupted files) or just techinical difficulty. In this case, if the student constantly backs up his/her file, it can be avoided.

How gaming can help a student to survive in school life (Topic needs to be refined)
-Such thing as gaming causes students to become more competitive, meaning students becoming more competitive in reality too, thus challenging him/herself to be the top of the class.
-To understand multiple new tasks as quick as possible. Software wise, lot of students are ‘afraid’ to try new things because they are not used to it. There is a saying that even a 5 year old child can fix a VCR machine better than an adult just because they aren’t afraid of pressing random buttons.
-Gaming can help a person try new things they arent aware of, even to understand software that they just purchased.
-Gamers are talented in understanding something new in very short amount of time.
-these things can have huge impact on design students.

Topic 2 – Grid system
Ever since I was a child, my visions were always attracted to train tracks, power polls and cityscape, something in a specific pattern stretched out beyond and yet organized and neat. On the way back from friend’s birthday party, a friend of mine and I was on a greyhound taking photos of the power polls stretching across the field. I explained to him relating to the grid system of typography and editorial, and that I am obsessed with these patterns. He suggested me why not use this for your thesis and it hit me. I am still on a process of developing topic within this area, possibly visual attraction within grid system.

I have been researching not just for this class but for other classes too and recently discovered numerous designers website from inspiration to how to deal with clients. These researches have been expanding my visions and thoughts. I am still undecided on setting down to a single specific aspect of topic for thesis, for I could always find something more interesting.

http://www.aydesignworks.com/6.html

Zine publication to professional publication informations.

The Open End Studio

http://v1.justinkropp.com/work/social-studies/

Social Studies Conference

Design Notes

http://designnotes.info/?p=1683

Best Note for Designers

Erin Mclaughlin

http://www.erinmclaughlin.com/?page=961%20MCAD%20class%20zine%20spread

Zine Magazines

http://www.lizcollini.com/

http://www.christosic.co.uk/

http://www.mikeperrystudio.com/

http://www.karinapetersen.com/

http://mwmgraphics.com/index.html

http://www.stylekonstruktor.com

http://www.studiospass.com

http://www.benoitlemoine.eu

http://www.artyulia.com

http://www.listeningwithmyeyes.com/

It is a video about a boy who remember’s his past life.
A legitement location that actually exist, the descripsions of the area and even his past life’s name.
This forms a new curiousity in our mind:
What religion is actually Correct?
Is there really a ‘God’?
Does this mean reincarnation really exist?

No one can truely know but only to believe.

http://video.ca.msn.com/watch/video/3-d-lego-box/2jl1lyne

Its a mirror with sensors that is designed to reflect the finished product model.
Simple, amusing, unordinary and interesting.
An idea to keep in mind.

The game has been expanded into a series since its original release, which currently includes Counter-Strike: Condition Zero, Counter-Strike: Source, Counter-Strike: Anthology and Counter-Strike on Xbox.

Counter-Strike pits a team of counter-terrorists against a team of terrorists in a series of rounds.
Each round is won by either completing the mission objective or eliminating the opposing force.
The latest incarnation of the game, Counter-Strike: Source, is based on the Source engine developed for Half-Life 2.

History
The game is currently the most played Half-Life modification in terms of players, according to GameSpy.
On 24 March 1999 Planet Half-Life opened its Counter-Strike section.
Within two weeks, the site had received 10,000 hits. On June 18, 1999, the first public beta of Counter-Strike was released, followed by numerous further “beta” releases.
On April 12, 2000, Valve announced that the Counter-Strike developers and Valve had teamed up.
Counter-Strike 1.0 was released around Christmas 2000.
On January 25, 2003, a world wide competition was held by Valve and hosted by Dell.
Numerous Dell desktops and laptops were awarded in the competition which attracted over 10,000 participants.
The competition was held over a two week period, with the winner being announced on February 15 on Valve’s website.
On 15 September, the current version, 1.6, was released.
In 2004, Counter-Strike: Condition Zero was released.
It contained a single player campaign and bots, as well as other changes.
Counter-Strike was originally played online through the WON gaming service, which was shut down in 2004,forcing players to switch to Steam.
The non-Steam version of Counter-Strike (version 1.5) can still be downloaded from sites such as FilePlanet.
Due to the closure of WON, part of the player community responded by creating their own WON network, dubbed WON2.
In March 2007, Valve implemented mandatory advertisements through Steam in official maps and in the game’s GUI overhead.
Customers have expressed frustration with the ads, including an over 200 page thread on Valve’s official forums, saying that they violate original terms of service and distract from the game. The thread was later deleted by an unknown moderator.
As of February 2008, Couter-Strike Online is only available in South Korea and is now in open beta test.
It is being developed by Nexon Corporation with oversight from license-holder Valve Corporation, and is an attempt to increase market share of Valve’s games in the Korean gaming market.

Legacy
Counter Strike is famous for the culture surrounding it, which includes everything from professional gamers and leagues, to excessive cheating and disruptive behavior.
Certain professional teams (such as SK Gaming, alternate aTTaX, mousesports and fnatic) have come to earn a living out of it, while other clans and community based groups neither lose nor earn money via member donations which are self-sustaining in return for administrator rights in servers involved in the community.

Counter-Strike remains extremely popular to this day.
There are currently professional online leagues supporting Counter-Strike, such as the Cyberathlete Amateur League (CAL), and CyberEvolution, a pay-to-play league.
Various LAN tournaments are held throughout the world, with the largest being the Cyberathlete Professional League (CPL), the Electronic Sports World Cup (ESWC), the World e-Sports Games (WEG), and the World Cyber Games (WCG).
Championship matches in these events are televised with commentary and analysis.
Half-Life and other contemporary games took full advantage of hardware graphics acceleration in the late 1990s, replacing earlier software-rendered games such as Quake.
The continued popularity of Counter-Strike has meant that older video cards such as the 3dfx Voodoo3, ATI Rage 128, and Nvidia RIVA TNT2 remain useful.
There have been a multitude of games claimed by their developers, reviewers and fans to be “Counter-Strike killers,” but none have seriously been able to dent its overall popularity.
Server statistics in 2002 showed that Counter-Strike servers outnumbered their Battlefield, Unreal Tournament 2003 or Quake III first-person shooter counterparts at least 3 to 1.
However, as criticism of Condition Zero showed, the GoldSrc engine has already been surpassed by several generations of newer engines.
Even Counter-Strike: Source has been criticized for not progressing the gameplay enough and failing to take full advantage of the Source engine.
In China’s northern port city Tianjin, some police officers have used Counter-Strike as a tool for tactical training.

———-
ecoFRAG | DanN` nL
CAL – I/M
CEVO – I/P
Toronto’s Winter LAN Turnement 2004
www.fragdominant.com/

**Still more to come**

Future Plans:
-Apply for Teacher’s Assistance even for volunteering.
-Internship and Freelance
-Join a small studio
-Move out of home officially
-Master Degree / Join Official Design Studio / Company
-Open a studio with partners
-3-5 years of experiance, apply for faculty of design.
-2 Jobs, 1 for teaching and 1 for designing.

Bell Judith

Hart considers a literature review important because

without it you will not acquire an understanding of your topic, of what has already been done on it, how it has been researched, and what the key issues are. In your written project you will be expected to show that you understand previous research on your topic. This amounts to showing that you have understood the main theories in the subject area and how they have been applied and developed, as well as the main criticisms that have been made of work on the topic. (Hart 1998: 1)

In Hart’s view, ‘the review is therefore a part of your academic development – of becoming an expert in the field’.

The ‘critical review’ of the literature

The main point to bear in mind is that a review should provide the reader with a picture, though limited in a short project, of the state of knowledge and of major questions in the subject. In principle, that sounds easy enough but in practice it can prove to be anything but easy.

Theory and theoretical (or conceptual) frameworks

‘Theory’ has been explained as being ‘a set of interrelated abstract propositions about human affairs and the social world that explain their regularities and relationships’

———————————–

Theoretical framework is an explanatory device ‘which explains either graphically or in narrative form, the main things to be studied – the key factors, constructs or variables – and the presumed relationships among them’

I find that ‘theory’ and ‘theoretical frameworks’ can on some occasions be used in variable ways, depending on the interpretation and understanding of individual researchers.

The ‘critical review’ in practice

The Clara Nai review

She discussed in some detail her own methodology, the methodology used by other researchers and the problems she faced in synthesizing the very large amount of information obtained about barriers to learning.

The Gilbert Fan review

He decided that a study of students’ perceptions of their Diploma programme in particular and of the nursing profession in general would be useful to him and would contribute to the School’s understanding of the programme from a student perspective.

The Richardson and Woodley review

They continue by analysing their own findings under the headings of: age and academic attainment; gender and academic attainment; subject of study and academic attainment. These are followed by variations and groupings relating to age, gender and subject of study.

Remember

We can all learn a great deal by reading what other researchers have done.

The review of the literature checklist

1. Evidence of reading will always be required in any research. Though in a small study, it may not be necessary to produce a full literature review.

2. Researchers collect many facts but then must select, organize and classify findings into a coherent pattern. The aim is to produce a critical review, not a list of everything you have read.

3. Your framework will not only provide a map of how the research will be conducted and analysed but it will also give you ideas about a structure for your review. It will help you to draw together and summarize facts and findings.

4. Literature reviews should be succinct and, as far as is possible in a small study, should give a picture of the state of knowledge and of major questions in your topic area. If you have been able to classify your reading into groups, categories or under headings, writing your review will be relatively straightforward.

5. Ensure that all references are complete. Note the page numbers of any quotations and paraphrases of good ideas. You cannot use them without acknowledging the source. If you do, you may become involved in a plagiarism challenge. It should be possible for any readers to locate your sources.

6. Watch your language. Perhaps inferences may be drawn, but ‘proof’ is hard to come by when dealing with human beings. Make no claims which cannot be justified from the evidence you have presented. Consider again the wording Richardson and Woodley use in the extract from their article.

7. Examine your sources critically before you decide to use them. Any sign of bias, inappropriate language, or false claims? Are you able to trust the authors’ judgements?

8. Remember that unless you are comparing like with like, you can make no claims for comparability. Researchers often start their research from different bases and make use of different methods of data collecting. You may still wish to use their findings, but be careful about how you discuss them.

9. Do not be tempted to leave out any reports of research merely because they differ from your own findings. It can be helpful to include differing results. Discuss whether they undermine your own case – or not.

10. Start the first draft of your review early in your reading. Many more drafts will be required before you have a coherent and ‘critical’ account but better to start small and then build on your first attempt than to have to make sense of everything you have read at one attempt. As you continue, entries will be deleted and others added, but you will have made a start. Better to be faced with a badly-written, inadequate review than a blank page.