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Showing posts from April, 2019

Week Eight

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'Happiness is based on a just discrimination of what is necessary, what is neither necessary nor destructive, and what is destructive'  That's a very powerful quote I took from this week's class in which we read Ursula Le Guin's short story, Omelas. Ursula Le Guin is a well known-though previously unknown to me- American anthropologist and writer. Her speciality was science fiction, and she was renowned for breaking new ground with her ontological writing.  Ursula Le Guin This story, Omelas, is really powerful . It depicts the world of the inhabitants of an idyllic seaside town full of happiness and fulfillment. This fulfillment however, is hinged on the shared knowledge of a child who must suffer indefinitely for the town. This child knew happiness, but is now locked away underground, given sparse food and left to rot. Every member of the town must visit the child, and  those who do are horrified, but mostly go on to enjoy their lives and put the child out

Week Seven

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Hi everyone!  Hope you're all well and enjoying Spring wherever you are.  This week we had a really exciting week in class as we had the privilege to meet with group in Second Life called  Virtual Ability.  First off this is some information provided from their website that I found helpful in getting to know them, so you might too: 'We are a cross-disability peer support community of nearly 1,000 members from 6 continents. That means our members who have disabilities may have a physical disability, a mental or emotional or developmental disability, or a sensory disability (deafness or blindness). About ¼ of our members do not (yet!) have disabilities.  Our community has been in Second Life for over 7 years, and we won the first Linden Prize for a project that has “a tangible impact on the real world.” We are supported by an RL nonprofit, Virtual Ability, Inc. Our community assists people with all kinds of disabilities to enter and thrive in virtual worlds like Se