"Love the Programmer (ASCII Art) Animation." YouTube. YouTube, 27 Jan. 2012. Web. 31 Jan. 2014. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3wYz3zVnkIA>.

This is a youtube video for my main source of inspiration and ideas. Mr. Miles and I found many ideas on how to make a video of the same thing shown in the video. I can either record someone dancing or moving and turn it into ASCII art, or I can find a video of real dancers on youtube and write a code to make an ASCII animation. This is useful, because it shows me what I need to do before my deadlines and the ideas it gives me.

"Examples. Short, Prototypical Programs Exploring the Basics of Programming with Processing." Examples Processing.org. N.p., n.d. Web. 31 Jan. 2014. <http://processing.org/examples/>.

This website shows examples from the program Processing. It is very useful because I found two codes that helped me with my capstone. It has examples of an ASCII art video capture, where it captures anything from the webcam and turns it into text. It also has an example where I can take the video that I am using and break it into frames. I did a trial test and my video was approximately 7500 frames/single images. This can be my backup to screenshot every frame, but that is not my plan because it would take too long. This will be one of the most useful sources I have.

"Adobe Community: FAQ: A Glossary of Video Terms." Premiere Pro Discussions. N.p., n.d. Web. 31 Jan. 2014. <http://forums.adobe.com/message/2276578#2276578>.

I am testing around with Adobe premiere to extract my video frame by frame. This website is a FAQ glossary of what I need to know in Adobe premiere. There are tutorials on how to cut up a video, edit, or add anything I want to the video. This will prove useful when I am finalizing my edits and video for my code. I am trying to get another video editing software that might be easier for me to use than Adobe Premiere. This is useful if I were to continue using Adobe premiere to edit my future videos or cut out anything else.

"Chris.com - ASCII ART." Chris.com - ASCII ART. N.p., n.d. Web. 31 Jan. 2014. <http://www.chris.com/ascii/>.

This website introduces me to the characters of ASCII art. There are some text and letters that I can’t use to create my ascii art. There are also some types of fonts that do not adjust together so they won’t fit. This source allows me to research what kind of fonts or texts I can use for my project. There are also designs and ASCII art examples that might come in handy if I wanted to add an image of an object to my code. This is pretty much everything I want to know about ASCII art.

"Reference. The Processing Language Was Designed to Facilitate the Creation of Sophisticated Visual Structures." Language Reference (API) Processing 2+. N.p., n.d. Web. 30 Jan. 2014. <http://processing.org/reference/>.

This is a website I use in Senior Computer Science every class, because it references me to every code I need to use for my class assignments. It is also very useful, because I am using Processing to do my ASCII art program code. It gives me examples of what I can do and also tutorials on what I need to do. This will be my main source of information for my capstone.

"How to Extract Image Frames from a Video File." Digital Inspiration. N.p., n.d. Web. 31 Jan. 2014. <http://www.labnol.org/software/extract-image-frames-from-video/18137/>.

This website gave me useful sources on how to extract an image frame by frame. It also gave me directions on how to extract an image frame from the video. It gave me links to sources/programs that I can use to get around 7000 images from a video if I needed too. This is a very useful how-to website that gives me step-by-step instructions or other sources to extract images.

"Color Palette and the 56 Excel ColorIndex Colors." Color Palette and the 56 Excel ColorIndex Colors. N.p., n.d. Web. 31 Jan. 2014. <http://dmcritchie.mvps.org/excel/colors.htm>.

This website shows all of the color codes that I can use for my code. It is pretty much an overall color reference for almost all types of coding. I remember using this website for HTML colors. I can now use it for my code in processing for the color codes. This will be useful for color codings in my code to display colorful text instead of just black, white, or gray.

"Color Palette and the 56 Excel ColorIndex Colors." Color Palette and the 56 Excel ColorIndex Colors. N.p., n.d. Web. 31 Jan. 2014. <http://dmcritchie.mvps.org/excel/colors.htm>.

This website is open processing, which is the program I use, but other users upload it to this website to share with other. This is an image to ascii art generator like thing. I can hopefully use this as a base code for my ascii art generator. So far, I did use it but it's not as detailed as I want mines to be. If I were to use this, I would make it more detailed than it currently is. This might prove to be useful later as a backup to my code or even a start-up for my future code.

N.p., n.d. Web. <https://scienceleadership.instructure.com/courses/558>.

This source is from canvas on SLA for my computer science engineering course. It documents what I learned from class from the beginning of the year because class lectures were uploaded to canvas. It gives me information on method, loops, etc. It is pretty much class lectures that provide me with detailed information with Processing, which I am using for my capstone.

N.p., n.d. Web. <https://scienceleadership.instructure.com/courses/558>.

This website is useful in helping me edit the video for my capstone. There are moments and scenes where I want to speed it up and make the dancers flow. This will be useful in a lot of the editing for the video that I am making. Making a scene speed up or slow will help me create a good video.

How does writing help me connect?

Writing helps me connect my thoughts in ways I can't express verbally. It helps me share ideas with others that can be interpreted in thoughtful ways. Writing helps me connect with other readers and writers that I have never thought that I would connect with. 

It is important that we learn about our greatest American heroes and villains. Role models are a big thing in today's life. Everyone wants to be a better person everyday. Everyone has goals whether it be personal or academic goals. Abraham Lincoln had good goals that he had to accomplish, but John Wilkes Booth put an end to the pursuit of those goals. Stories like this inspire people to do good things, and it inspires people to stop the harm that is being done by bad people. 

When I first opened Killing Lincoln by Bill O'Reilly and Martin Dugard, I expected to skim through the pages and see what the book is like. I wanted to find out why would they sell a book about Abraham Lincoln when most people already know what happened. I thought people probably bought it, because it's written by Bill O'Reilly. Bill O' Reilly is a political commentator, and he also has his own show on Fox, The O'Reilly Factor. It is common knowledge that people know what happened to Abraham Lincoln. If they do not know what happened to Lincoln, they can find out what happened by searching up Abraham Lincoln on the web. I skimmed through the book, and read the first page that got me hooked. 

In the beginning of the book, Abraham Lincoln is the President of the Union in the time of the Civil war. It recalls the final days of the war with Abraham Lincoln watching over the war. The story of Robert E. Lee battling against Ulysses S. Grant was very engaging. After the war, the book soon moves into a sequence of events where Lincoln is working to end the war, while John Wilkes Booth's plan goes into work to end Lincoln's life.

Killing Lincoln is a nonfiction book, but as I read it, it felt more of a fiction novel. Killing Lincoln is written as a thriller, and the book just keeps drawing you in and making you want to read more to find out what's going to happen next. Everyone knows how Lincoln's life ended, but the book creates anxiety for the reader making you ask questions like "What if?". There were so many moments where Lincoln could've been saved that I never even knew about. There were so many different things Lincoln could've done differently to protect himself. It makes you keep hoping that Lincoln will realize the dangers in his life, as the plot to end his life continues on. 

Killing Lincoln is a very readable book about history. It's not boring and dull like history textbooks or articles you often see in history class. The authors Bill O'Reilly and Martin Dugard do a really good job with presenting the details of the past without overwhelming you with too much information. I highly recommend people to pick up this book.

What surprised you most about this information?

The information that surprised me the most was how the U.S were welcoming immigrants from other countries, but the U.S ended up having fights and wars with other countries too. The Chinese immigration surprised me too, because I didn't learn much about Asian countries coming to the United States. 

What seemed quite obvious about explaining this data set?

The obvious factors were the United States problems. It is clear that immigration declined in the United States worse times, and immigration rose when the U.S were going through good times. 

Looking at the overall trend and incorporating what you know about the U.S presently, predict and defend the immigration trend for the next two decades.

The U.S will bring in more immigrants, because immigrants want to have a better life. Immigrants come to the United States to be free and have a better life. They want to have an education and have job. They want to start a family, and have their children getting an education and having a good job. The U.S is for them to start over on a good note.

Describe on how you made a decision to visually represent the information.

We chose to do a timeline, because it was visually appealing and easy to read. We thought it was easy for the viewers to understand the information.

What parts of the group were challenging?

The challenging part is Dipity not working fast enough. It didn't respond well, it was very slow. It held us back, because we had our work done awhile ago, but dipity won't respond and it kept changing our dates to 1969. 

What would you do differently if you had this project to do over?

I would make sure Dipity or any other program I use for the project is stabled and working properly.

For our 10^th grade year in Mr. Block’s classes, Mr. Block has introduced us to many world issues with the work we were doing. Most of the issues, I didn’t know of. It was like watching World News in my classes. We would research what happened and write about it. In English and History classes, we would read a book and relate the issues from the book to the world. It’s the end of the school year, and now we have to create a final portfolio to reflect on what we had learned throughout the school year.

One of the greatest general understandings I learned in class is Creativity. Creativity is the ability to express your work in many different ways. One of my favorite quotes from class is, “One of the many ways a sculptor of ancient Egypt was described was as “one who keeps things alive.” (My response) People who write about the “mythic element of the story” keep the “art” alive in Haiti. The “art” keeps the moral of the story alive. People, who know about the “mythic element”, write about it as “art”. People will then discover the art, and inspiration will come. (Edwidge Danticat Chapter 1: Create Dangerously) I learned that the quality and understanding of the topic itself would help you create your piece of writing. One of my projects that I did with a partner was the “Passing Final Project”, where we read the book Passing and made an interview between the characters in the story. We made sure that the viewers were getting our message with the people we were using in our video. I wanted to make people see the element of the story of our interview. My creativity was very bland when I first came into Mr. Block’s class. As the year went by and is coming to an end, I can say that I feel my creativity has grown so much with the work I did in class.

Second to Creativity is Understanding and Hard Work itself. With all the work we did in class, there had to be a deep understanding of the topic. Understanding helped me with everything in class. It increased my creativity, because it helped me see things in different point of views. A quote I found from my Burden: Response Poem “They go and try to get rid of that burden/Working under any conditions/But all they can do is relief the burden”. When I wrote this, I tried to look at all the world issues brought up in class in different perspectives. At first, I thought that you could completely get rid of the world issues with that one solution. As I began to understand more about the world issues, I looked at the solutions to be insignificant to get rid of the issues. I found out that the solutions would only relief the problems the world is having. As much as it sounds bad, I see it in a new way. Instead of a solution, it’s actually just a relief to the burden. I feel that they find the biggest relief possible for the world’s issues. To relief the problems, it requires hard work. In my letter assignment I wrote “Self-control makes me work hard in school, working hard in school gains me trust from my parents, trust from my parents leads to my freedom.” I use to think that I only did work to do the things that I wanted. I now realize that that is not true. I learned that I did work to learn and discover new things. I work hard to give myself a good image that I am a hard worker and that I want to learn.

To sum it all up is my general understanding of Experience. In my descriptive essay, I wrote, “When we grow up, we leave our family and work everyday like adults. We don’t get to see much of our family after that. I try to cherish all the time I can spend with my family”. Back when I wrote the descriptive essay, I was thinking of the past summer with my whole family being together. Now it’s the end of the year and I’m thinking about what I learned and how a great experience it was learning in these classes. In May 2012, we had the Leah Stein Dance Company come teach us what “Art in The Open” was. “My first impression of the project wasn’t very good. I was very lost when I first met the Leah Stein Dance Company. I thought it was very weird to do dancing that involved your environment. It was something new that I was introduced too.” (Art In The Open: Final Response) It was a great experience doing Art In The Open. I found it to be very different from the usual dancing, but I need to understand what it was to express what I needed to do which was to dance. I can say this year was a good experience, an experience where I learned a lot that I will not forget.

Creativity, Understanding, Hard Work, and Experience is what I learned most throughout the year. Experiences are what this year created. All these general understandings link up together to create the experience I had learning. 

Language can give so many first impressions of a person. If a person speaks broken English, you automatically assume they don’t know much. If a person speaks with accents, you assume that they are not from the area. The tone of their language and how they use also affects the assumptions people put on the way you speak your language. The way I see it from my family experiences, “broken English” is basically a “simple” version of English.

            The way I showed my language in descriptive scenes was a large part of my autobiography. The dialogue really gave the reader what happened in the moment. The dialogue shows the embarrassment that happens when broken English is spoken in public. I really had a hard time figuring out what the broken English in my family meant, but as I started writing out my scenes I figured out that broken English is a simpler version. Overall, I learned that the broken English used in my family is basically a “simple” version of Standard English that your family and you use to understand each other.

“Cháo”
“Hi”
“Cái nay lam sao?” How do you work this? My cousin said in Vietnamese.
“You turn on the...” As I said those words, I remembered that my cousin couldn’t understand or speak English. I tried to think of Vietnamese words that will translate from what I wanted to say in English.
“You mo cai len” I said nervously.
“Huh?”

My cousin’s confused facial expression made me give up on trying to speak Vietnamese to him. I decided to show him through my actions. I took the remote and showed him where the power button was. I took his hand and pushed his finger down on the power button. The TV turned on, and then he realize how my TV and remote works. Vietnamese was my first language, and I would use it talking to my parents, aunts, uncles, and grandparents. After he left my house, I realized that my Vietnamese is not as good as it used to be.

I noticed that you start losing your language overtime, because you use it less and less everyday. Overtime I knew that speaking Vietnamese was going to be horrible, because of everyday English use. It’s like an exchange student from Puerto Rico coming to America. The student has no choice but to speak English in school. Once I went to school, that’s when my family started to use English to help me in school. My dad started speaking English regularly to me in the house, so everyday I speak less and less Vietnamese. I grew up with Vietnamese and English. Vietnamese was my main language, but as I was exposed to English. I started losing my Vietnamese tongue.

There are many versions of one language. Everyone grows up learning what language they speak by the peers around them. People get used to speaking their family’s native tongue, but when they are in public, the tone of the language, choice, and pronunciation of the words are different. People would speak the way their language is used in their home, but in public they speak Standard English.

Translating was very difficult for me when I was younger, and it still is. I’m not very good at speaking Vietnamese. Whenever you speak Vietnamese or any other language besides English, some letters are pronounced in a different way. For example, in English the letter “a” is pronounced “aye or ah”. In Vietnamese “a” is pronounced “ow”. Whenever I speak Vietnamese, I pronounce the words like they are in English, some of my family can understand, while others have no clue what I am saying. I was always better at understanding Vietnamese than speaking it. My grandpa would always ask how am I doing whenever I go to his house. I would always try to say “I’m good” in Vietnamese. My grandpa would say back to me “No understand”.

My family speaks a lot of broken English, therefore I grew up speaking broken English to my family. I get frustrated whenever my family can’t get their point across speaking broken English. I get annoyed when people ignore and act like they know what my family is saying. They just say “Okay” and nod their heads, but I can tell from their confused expressions that they have no idea what my family is saying. In my mind, I feel that people are judging my family, because they can’t speak proper English. It doesn’t mean that my family is ignorant; they just can’t find the right words to express their thoughts. The embarrassment is not really a big issue for me, but I feel sympathy towards my family. I feel the need to step in and say what my family can’t say.

On my way home from school, my dad decided to get some fast food for me. He stopped by McDonalds, and we both went in to see what they had on the menu. “Hello, what can I get you?” asked the cashier.

“Can I have numba won laaarge, with Coke?” my dad said.
“Can I get number two medium, with Coke?” I said.
“Okay, here’s your receipt. Your order will be with you in a sec.”
As we got our order, my dad wanted some barbeque sauce. He went back to the cashier and asked her for some sauce. “Can I have baabeque saut?”
“Excuse me?” The cashier looked at my dad like he was crazy.
“Can I have baabeque saut?”
“He said he wanted some barbecue sauce” I said strongly and annoyed.
“Dad, come on. Let’s go.”
“Okay Kenny. Why you rush?”

I felt embarrassed for my dad. The look that strangers give my dad because of the way he speaks makes me angry. I became frustrated at my dad, but I hid the frustration. I feel this way, because I don’t want anyone thinking my dad is stupid. People are always making assumptions about how bad people are speaking their second language. I know my dad speaks in broken English, and he tries his best to pronounce the words right. When he speaks in the public and can’t get his point across, I get frustrated and annoyed. I get embarrassed about the way he talks English to strangers. I try not to show him that I’m annoyed, because he can’t help but to talk broken English. At home it doesn’t really matter how my dad speaks because I don’t pay any attention at how he speaks. I understand his broken English, but others do not.

“The English I spoke with my mother, which for a lack of a better term might be described as “simple”; the English she used with me, which for a lack of a better term might be described as “broken”. - Amy Tan

The way I use English to speak with my dad could be called “simple”. To me, I realized it’s more of a “short-cut” than “simple”. I would shorten the usage words in my sentences. The English my dad uses to speak with me is “broken”. My dad asks me “I go to store. What you want from store?” Instead of saying “Can you go to the store and buy me milk?” I would just say, “Buy milk from store”. The English I use to speak with my dad could really be called “simple”, because it’s not how I talk in public. It’s just how I talk in my family, so that they can understand me.

Our World

Hey, my name is Steve Dibs. Thank you all for coming and listening to what I have to say. I am an environmentalist and representing the Tar Sands Action. I have been affected from the pollution of factories and environmental problems. I was forced to move out of my area from where I lived for five years to somewhere new where there is less pollution. I am here to talk about the proposed Keystone Pipeline and Tar Sands gas. This pipe will start from Canada and extend to the center of the United States. This method of acquiring fuel is extremely dirty. It will release large amounts of carbon dioxide.

Start getting mad, aggressive

“Business groups say yes, arguing that environmental protection is simply too expensive for a battered economy” – NY Times. All businesses want is money, so they decide to remove areas where we can live for them to get cheap fuel. Let’s say a leak happened to happen and it destroys the capability of living in that area. It would make the government spend even more money on trying to fix the environmental problem. Businesses say it is expensive to protect the environment. We are protecting the environment, where the pipeline will be place, by doing nothing to it, so how are we spending large amounts of money for environmental protection?  

Slams hand on desk. Really mad!

“You have to destroy the world to get these fuels. You have to pollute the water. You have to pollute the air.” – Environmentalist: Tar Sands Action. Again, you have to destroy the areas where people are living just to make this pipeline for fuel. It is worse than other fuels. Tar Sands produce much carbon dioxide and is one of the dirtiest ways to get gas. “If we don’t change the way we see the world, if we don’t stop thinking of ourselves as superior, we’re not going to survive.” People have been affected by the pollution. People caught on diseases and have trouble breathing. People are going to die and it’s our fault if we don’t stop destroying the world.

Positives of the Keystone Pipeline

Hello, I am Ricky James. Thank you all for coming. I am the Vice President for operations of TransCanada. These Tar Sands oil are the most efficient oil we can achieve in the United States at this moment. It is cheap and right above our country. We are friends with Canada and buying oil from them would not only help us, but also help them. The pipeline would start from Canada and go to the United States. This will increase in a consistent amount of fuel for our country. There are many positive effects that the Keystone Pipeline could achieve.

“We are buying from an ally, we do not want to buy from foreign countries.” –Tar Sands Action Debate. We want to buy from an ally because we know them. If we buy from foreign countries, we won’t know what they will use the money for. War can happen, and we have been supplying them with firearms and equipment. We are well known with Canada and it is right above our country.

Points finger to audience

 “Cheap, reliable source for the United States.” – Tar Sands Action Debate. We need this to fuel our country. It will bring gas prices down and it will be affordable to most people. It is right from Canada and low cost for transportation makes it reliable. It is an abundant source of oil that will last us for good amount of years. We do not need to spend extra money on shipping oil back and fourth from country to another. We can get it directly through the pipelines.

It will supply thousands of people with jobs. With the state of the economy, many people are unemployed and are looking for a job. The Keystone pipeline will supply them with jobs, so that they can support themselves and their families. We are only helping our country.

Affected by the Pollution

Hey, I’m Johnny Young. I thank you guys for all coming and listening to my opinions about the proposed Keystone pipeline. I currently live in Nebraska. My family and I have been growing up in Nevada since we were young. Our family started there. We would always go fishing, picnics, and even camp out in the woods. It was amazing. Now I realize that TransCanada is going to put up a new pipeline to get fuels. Tar sands fuel. It is called the proposed Keystone XL pipeline.

Voice gets weaker. You start getting sad

I do not support this pipeline. The environment is too beautiful to be destroyed. My family use to swim around the lakes near our homes, but now pollution has increased by such a large number; we can’t even swim in the water anymore. The government says we need the cheap oil? How about the people? We can’t even swim in the lakes anymore and you’re telling us that we need cheap oil? People are getting diseases from pollution. The respiratory systems of many people have been affected. Tar sand oil is one of the dirtiest oils. Imagine a beautiful forest be turned into a black wasteland with no life form in the area. How is that a good thing? It is not only an environmental issue for me, but also a personal issue.

Starts getting teary

I grew up in Nebraska. It was wonderful. I want my kids to experience the joy of swimming freely in lakes. I want them to have the same fun experience I did as a kid. I have to tell my kids no, whenever they ask to go swimming. They sit in the house all day and do nothing. Exercise is important for the youth; it keeps them stress-free and healthy. This is very serious for my family and even the people living near us. Think about the effects that the pipeline will cause. Families will be affected; the world will be affected.

My old one had two pictures in the slide, but my new one I put the pictures together to make it better. I made the background lighter so we can see the picture more clearly.