The best example of multilingualism is India, because it has 22 official languages. Those languages are divided into two groups: official classical and regional. Official classical language means that the history of that language goes beyond a long time, and regional language is being used by a group of people who share common things in a place such as traditions and politics. Because of India’s uniqueness in multilingualism, both Hayakawa and King gave place to India in their articles. Instead of King’s positive definition “big and almost mystical” about India’s situation, it is obvious that India is having a lot of problems with multilingualism. Moreover, “mystical” is not a good word for describing reality. According to Hayakawa most Indians would call the situation as “a chaotic mess” because of many problems the government is facing. International relations of India get harder while trying to keep a lot of languages together. Even some states which their populations are less than half million have their own official language. For example, the population of the people who speak Dogri in the states Jammu and Kashmir is 0.1 million.

In Turkey, Kurdish population is much more than the smallest minority in India. It is approximately 15 million people who speak Kurdish, but Turkish is the only official language. The efforts of Kurdish people to make Kurdish official language in Turkey are increasing day by day. In one of Diyarbakır Municipality’s consultations (a lot of Kurdish people are located in Diyarbakır) members of the municipality made a claim to speak Kurdish in the Turkish Parliament by its members. The responses to that request from Turkish senators were mainly negative. For example, one of Kırıkkale’s senators used Spanish example in America and said that “Why should people use Kurdish for politics? What happened to Turkish? Do Spanish people use the language Spanish in America’s politics? Those ideas of using Kurdish would not gain any benefit for Kurdish people.” Unofficially, almost every person in Diyarbakır speaks Kurdish like King’s example of Spanish people in Miami. Hayakawa expands the Miami example by quoting some explanations from the former mayor of Miami that “English is not Miami’s official language – [and] one day residents will have to learn Spanish or leave.” The mayor of Diyarbakır has also close attitude to this explanation in Turkey. He thinks that there will be no one speaking Turkish in Diyarbakır, soon. He is quite right, because most of the Kurdish children living there cannot speak Turkish at all.

The perspective of some Kurdish people who want their language to be official leads to the connection between language and nationalism. Under the title “language and nationality” King gives a lot of examples from history such as the French Revolution and George I of Great Britain. In French revolution, “half of the population of the south of France, which spoke Provencal, did not understand French” and George I did not speak English because he was away from home to “use the power of his kingship to shore up his German possessions.” Those examples show that nationalism was not the subject in the Middle Ages because there was sole “loyalty to a lord, a prince, a ruler, a family, a tribe, a church, a piece of land.” In accordance with King’s article, language was involved in the definition of nationality after 1800s. Because a language means a nation according to that movement, Kurdish people also want their nation’s language to be official in Turkey.

The efforts of Kurdish people for their language is meaningless until the government gives Kurdish people the right of using Kurdish. Kurdish prisoners are even not able to talk Kurdish at phone calls, and it is partly forbidden to use Kurdish in TV channels. To expand those right and more, Turkey has announced new plans for Kurdish people to boost chances to join the European Union. The aim of this reform is mainly to disband the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) because of their perfidious terror attacks over Turkey. While the government tries to promulgate this reform, some people from the opposition party think that it would split and destroy Turkey. Opposite to that idea, King thinks that there would be no threat for a country by giving minorities rights to talk their own languages. He suggests to “relax and luxuriate in the linguistic richness.” In addition to his suggestions, he says that the immigration may frighten the government, but the language would not harm America at all. On the other hand, Hayakawa approaches that subject from a different point that giving a minority right to speak their language as official would cause other minorities ask for the same right, and this may cause another “Tower of Babel” affair. His suggestion is to be more careful and think about the consequences before giving the rights. One of the consequences may be an insurgency if the government does not behave equal to every minority in the US. Therefore, Hayakawa may be right about his statement.

Like Hayakawa’s “Tower of Babel” approach in America, if Kurdish people has the official language right, other minorities would ask for the same right, because Turkey also has Armenian and Greek minorities beside Kurds. One response to that idea from some Kurdish people is that Kurdish people has a great number of population in Turkey while other minorities are only around thousands. At this point, those Kurdish people may be right, but the thing which connects people each other in a country is only the language because people may have different ideas, cultures, and histories. Hayakawa’s example about this subject occurs between Japanese and Chinese people: Those immigrants living in America came along the issues by using English, because “common tongue encourages trust, while reducing racial hostility and bigotry.”

People who share the same land need something to unite them. Everybody is, of course, free to live their own traditions, and must be free to talk their own language too. The language cannot be a threat for a country, but not having a common language is a danger for losing understandable communication between different people in a country, and if people do not have anything in common to understand each other, they lose the bindings holding them together for years.

References:
“Bilingualism in America: English Should Be the Official Language” by Samuel Ichiye Hayakawa
“Should English Be the Law?” by Robert D. King
Kurdish in Wikipedia
“The Kurdish Language and Literature” by Joyce Blau
“Opened with a flourish, Turkey’s Kurdish-language schools fold” by Yigal Schleifer
“Kürtçe Bildirgeye Milletvekillerinden Tepki” by Önder Yılmaz
“Education in Kurdish language seems unlikely in Turkey” by Ercan Yavuz

This article is written by Emin Buğra Saral for a homework given at Koç University by Anna McMurray.

In Cross’ article, there are several types of propaganda which try to shoot people with their own guns. First one of those types is called “name-calling”. This device of propaganda aims to call something or someone a bad name. The propagandist hopes that people would not think about what he said and react immediately to the attached names such as “two-faced liar” or maybe simply “stupid”. The best defense which the author offers is to question the idea apart from the bad name attached to it. On the other hand, the propagandist may use the opposite of name-calling, “glittering generalities”. This way of propaganda is the usage of good words instead of bad words to make people accept without questioning anything. While this propaganda style sounds innocent, there may be hidden purposes to let people forget about the real issues and believe that everything is just fine.

One other subtopic of propaganda in Cross’ article is called “plain-folks appeal”. Some propagandists use plain folks appeal to pretend they are one of the family members or one member of a group. Cross thinks that with that strategy, they try to seem like they are standing for their people’s rights or goodness, and they hope to get attention and respect for being one of them. For example, while a businessman goes to dinner with his workers, he tries to show that he shares the same condition with his workers. Against that propaganda, Cross’ advise is to ask what the propagandist’s place in their lives, really.

The propagandists also use people’s natural habits with “bandwagon” tactic, Cross says. Bandwagon appeal encourages people to support a group or idea because others do. Nobody wants to be alone, so this is the understanding of belonging to a herd.

“Argumentum ad populum” is another subtopic of Cross’ article that means “stroking”. Stroking is a way of flattering people with fancy words. On the other hand, Cross briefs the main purpose of this tactic that is to make people believe that they are the best so that propagandists can move on the next level for their own benefits.

The tactics bandwagon and stroking of propaganda were very popular during World War II (1939-1945). Some governments used those tactics to encourage people to join the army, some to convince their soldiers to fight, and some to get people’s support for their war in any way. One of those governments was USA. They sometimes used tactics of propaganda to encourage women to help their government by working in male jobs, mostly heavy ones while men were away from home for the war.

In 1942, American women first met “Rosie the Riveter” with a song written by Redd Evans and John Jacob Loeb. The song became very popular with a lot of artists but the most popular one was Kay Kyser who was the leader of a big band. The song’s main character Rosie was a woman who is a tireless assembly line worker and the lyrics is “All the day long, whether rain or shine, she’s part of the assembly line. She’s making history, working for victory, Rosie the Riveter”. Rosie’s representative in real life was mostly Rose Will Monroe who was born in Kentucky, in 1920. She worked at Aircraft factory to help building bombers for the U.S. Army Air Forces. With this fitting image of Rosie the Riveter, Monroe was asked to be a film star to encourage women to work for their country’s war effort. Her posters and films were everywhere in 1940s of USA. During 1931 and 1941, the original Rosie was actually Shirley Karp Dick but she was not popular as she was in the end of World War II.

In the song’s lyrics, it is obvious to recognize flattering sayings such as “making history” and “working for victory”. Those sayings are good examples of stroking because propagandists wanted women to believe that their country cannot defeat their enemies without women’s help. The aim of that propaganda was to encourage women for heavy “male jobs” but most of women preferred to work in different sectors of economy.

With the help of that propaganda, the number of working women rapidly increased to 20 million between 1940 and 1944. The increase was more than half of women who were working already. African American women was a big part of those women who most affected by the need of women workers. Maybe this propaganda did not aim its other consequences but the diversity between whites and blacks strongly recognized during that time and the process of equality in social life started because everybody were together for their country.

Bandwagon was another aim of that propaganda. By using the posters of Rosie the Riveter, many women were quickly convinced that they had a duty to enter those works. In that patriotic movement all over the country, women mostly wanted to be the part of that movement because they would not want to be called as a “traitor” or something indirect. Although women were in harder conditions than men, they did not quit. For example, the weekly payments of women were less than men’s. While men were paid $54.65, women were paid about $50.

After the war, USA continued using that propaganda because it was very successful. There was a documentary film named “The Life and Times of Rosie the Riveter” in 1981 to keep the memory of “Rosie” fresh. Many computer games, films and companies referred to this American icon to keep people’s interest. For instance, Hollywood actress Jane Withers were playing in a commercial TV series called “Comet” as “Josephine the Plumber”. The commercial started in the 1960s and end in 1970s. It was popular because the character was representing “Rosie”.

Propaganda was very popular in the history, and it is still very popular. From media to politics, it is not avoidable to run into some tactics of propaganda in every economic business and political party. Every one or group has their own basics of propaganda. The way of protecting yourself from the bad results of propaganda is asking questions and not believing whatever said. People may have different ideas and the acts of war are good example of that difference, sadly. While being respectful to other people’s ideas, you must be able to create your own perspective and believe it. You do not have to always have different or opposite ideas because your ideas can be also same as propagandists’. The fact that if you have no idea about what is going on, it becomes easier to be puppets of propagandists.

Sources:
Propaganda: How Not to Be Bamboozled by Donna Woolfolk Cross
Rosie the Riveter

This article is written by Emin Buğra Saral for a homework given at Koç University.

Those people who deny having homosexual genes in their blood do not know their history well. In Turkish history, there were a lot of proof pointing out homosexuality, especially in the palace of the Ottoman Empire. While there was harem in the palace, the sultans were taking handsome and physically perfect boys as slaves into the palace (Murray 175). Those men’s mission was palace service. Before getting into the palace service, they were highly educated to serve their Prince in the best way. Sometimes Sultan Suleiman was spending his time with only men and no women (Murray 177). This is what was written in history but there are also some drawings with homosexual compositions. One such visual proof is in Topkapi Palace Museum, named ‘Turkish Bath”: the men are half naked and serving each other (Murray 27). With those obvious examples in Turkish history, the people who deny homosexuality in their blood may think twice.
The history is in the past, so what is the status of homosexuality in Turkey now? There are some studies made to see what the general behaviors of Turkish families are. The result of those studies shows that gender discrimination is very wide in Turkey. For example, Turkish parents encourage their daughters to be dependent and obedient whereas they raise their sons with less restriction and independence (Oksal 515). The media has a huge effect on those Turkish parents’ negative attitudes. In traditional Turkish families, parents prefer to use the media as evidence of wrongness than talking about homosexuality with their children. They may give examples of what was happening to homosexuals in Islamic countries or they may use some TV series as a evidence of homosexuality’s immorality. Therefore the children feel some anxiety that expressing their homosexuality would upset their parents in the authority (Oksal 515). Those confusion because of their families, the first step of hiding sexual identity comes into homosexual people’s lives. Beside family troubles, homosexuals can not express themselves even in public areas such as schools because they may not know or measure the reactions after coming out about their true identity. People who met homosexual people before in their lives are calmer and more positive (Çırakoğlu 296). It means that getting people familiar to homosexuality make them respective to sexual preferences and make homosexuals feel better when they think about expressing their sexuality.

The other reason why homosexual people need to hide their sexual preference is sexual harassment and discrimination. When they do not hide their homosexuality, people may call them ‘top’ which is an insulting word or people may ask them how much money they want to have sex with them. Homosexuals may even get physically attacked in public areas where people are intolerant about homosexuals. After those attacks, homosexuals go to the police and ask for help but the answer they get is only a few words like “be more careful” or “do not go out after dark” (Grungras 49). Those advice given by the police actually do not help. Attacks mainly aim refugees or asylum seekers who live in Turkey and they are mostly from Iran, where the reaction to being homosexual may be death penalty. Although they have equal rights under Turkish law, there is little protection for those people who are facing discrimination or sexual harassment. For example, one asylum seeker gay in Isparta worked in a restaurant for four months but after the boss realized that he is gay, he fired him. Now because of that he has to work as a sex worker to survive (Grungras 50). Asylum seekers can rarely have work permits, so they look for illegal job sources and many of them who are visibly homosexuals are taunted or humiliated during the application process. Not only employers but also their neighbors humiliate them. Even small children going to school call them ‘top’ (Grungras 49). This issue shows that the effect of parents and the media on the children is very negative. The children spend more time with and learn a lot from media by watching TV series or hearing some news when their parents watches television such as homicide of homosexuals. While those children treat homosexuals very badly, it would be hopeless case to expect the opposite behavior from their parents. Therefore a lot of homosexuals are having trouble to rent a house. Because of this discrimination, homosexuals try to hide their sexual preference to rent homes. If homosexuals rent a house, they ask for help from some rich homosexuals or look for a house in the areas where is crowed with homosexual people. If some homosexual people were lucky to rent a house with their sexual apparence, then they have to face another problem, looking for a job, but the result of job applications usually ends up with rejection. Because of that issue, homosexuals try to hide their sexual identities to get into a job. The discrimination between non-homosexual and homosexual people makes homosexuals more ambitious to work and they work harder to earn more money or to be promoted (Elliot 32).

While homosexual people are having a lot of problems to survive, the government seems to be offering support but it is not actually the case. One law of Turkish fundamental law is against the discrimination between men and women but it does not include homosexuality. In the first draft of this law before getting into the fundamental law, there was a topic including the discrimination by sexual preferences offered by AKP’s member of parliament (Yavuz). The parliament did not accept this offered topic. This is the only support homosexuals have when they go to the court after unfair rejections of their job applications. On the other hand, homosexuals have a few advantages they can use in the fundamental law such as changing the sex in their identities. If homosexuals get a surgery to change their physical appearance they have a chance to apply for this change in their identities.

Beside the support of Turkish government, homosexual people are trying to support each other with some organizations. The most active organization in Turkey is Kaos-GL that organizes a lot of activities, panels and more. Those activities include universities to inform young people by saying there is nothing bad about being homosexual. One of the regular activities, which was held in March 2010 was against homophobia and it is an international activity named ‘anti-homophobia’. In this activity, people argue about problems homosexuals have and unfair sexual discrimination homosexuals face. To Kaos-GL and its members, the underlying reason of discrimination between heterosexual and homosexual people is homophobia. This organization is not the only one which helps homosexuals. Pembe Hayat (Pink Life), LambdaIstanbul, GLADT, ILGA, MEEM, MorEl, ODTÜ LGBT and BGST are some of others. Those organizations’ common purpose is to defend human rights of homosexuals with social, cultural and academic activities.

While average homosexuals in Turkey face with the discrimination and humiliation, a lot of homosexual celebrities have high respect in society, such as Zeki Müren, Bülent Ersoy and Fatih Ürek. Müren is deceased but his music is still popular and Turkish people still talk about him with pride because he was the one of best singers in Turkey. This double standard in society shows that people have sympathy to homosexuals in their hidden feelings. Not only celebrities but also other gay musicians are being liked by society. The most important reason why the are liked is their freedom on stage. They can act however they like and say whatever they desire. They can even contact with ladies so close that they dance and sing with ladies in front of their husbands. Although gay men are often very handsome, husbands do not feel any jealousy for them and the comfort of the families raises the performance of gay musicians (Shidfar 225). Those musicians are very sympathetic because of their behaviors on stage. The most attracting behavior is their rude speech. The rudeness of their language makes their performances more informal and very sympathetic to society; therefore gay musicians and television programmes gain more popularity and become more successful. This common behavior of gay people can be observed in any time in any place (Shidfar 225). While the lives of those gay musicians sound fun, their childhoods are not actually that funny. Those gay musicians were generally children of religious families and they were not able to behave like who they were as they behave today. They had to conceal their homosexuality and pretend to be heterosexual (Oksal 514). When they meet with music to express those hidden feelings for many years, they release their initial desires in aesthetic ways of music (Shidfar 225). After releasing those feelings, homosexual singers often become successful. For example, there are a few television programmes produced by gay musicians and they are getting attention by Turkish people, especially by Eastern people of Turkey. Eastern Turkey is known by religious behaviors and strict rules about men such as they have to be masculine. The women who are wives of those masculine men are being satisfied when they see a man on television with non-masculine apparence because living with masculine men becomes boring in time (Shidfar 226). As a result, when homosexuals are free to express their feelings, they are trying to be best at their jobs and the music is the field they fit in easily because there is not a lot of harassment they have to face with.

With the support of LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transexual) organizations such as KAOS-GL and Pembe Hayat (Pink Life), homosexual people feel more in secure because they can ask for help. For example, there is a LGBT hotline founded by Lambda Istanbul organization since 2004 and the number is +902122445762. It helps homosexuals with giving information, advice and consulting service. After families see that negative reactions coming from families can cause homosexuals suicide or abandon their families, they treat their children better when they commit themselves. It is hard to remove a huge stereotype that Turkish men must be masculine and can not tolerate homosexuality from people’s minds but with a good education in schools and with the positive attitude of Turkish media, it is possible to move forward. Turkish history also shows that there were homosexuality, even in the palace, and it was quite welcomed. On the other hand, the answer to what the media should do about homosexuality is to treat homosexuals better in TV series, because in some TV series, some masculine man roles may have negative attitudes toward homosexuality and it is the most important example while children watch the television. If today’s children do not learn to be respective to homosexuality, they would do the same for their employees and fire them because of their sexual choices. Firing employees would not be the only result. When
they go for a higher education such as university or college, they would have also homosexual friends and if they do not know how to treat them, open-minded teenagers would be missing for the future of Turkey.

WORKS CITED
Çırakoğlu, Okan Cem. “Perception of Homosexuality Among Turkish University Students: The Roles of Labels, Gender, and Prior Contact.” Journal of Social Psychology 146.3 (2006): 293-305. Ebscohost. Web. 31 Mar. 2010.

Elliot, John E. Homosexual Issues In The Workplace. Ed. Louis Diamant. Washington: Taylor & Francis, 1993. Print.

Grungras, Neil, Rachel Levitan, and Amy Slotek. “Unsafe Haven: Security Challenges Facing LGBT Asylum Seekers and Refugees in Turkey.” The Fletcher Journal of Human Security 24 (2009): 41-61. Praxis The Fletcher School. Web. 11 May. 2010.

Murray, Stephen O., and Will Roscoe. Islamic Homosexualities. New York: New York University, 1997. Print.

Oksal, Aynur. “Turkish Family Members’ Attitudes Toward Lesbians and Gay Men.” Sex Roles 58 (2008): 514-525. Springer Netherlands. Web. 19 Apr. 2010.

Shidfar, Farhad. “Gay musicians in Turkey.” International Forum of Psychoanalysis 14 (2005): 224-226. Ebscohost. Web. 19 Apr. 2010.

Yavuz, Ercan. “Türban Krizine ‘Çiçek’ Formülü.” aksam.com.tr Akşam, 6 July 2004. Web. 11 May. 2010.

This article is written by Emin Buğra Saral for a homework given at Koç University.

Counter Strike Source is still not available in Steam for Mac, but I’m looking forward to play it soon. So, Portal is the first game appeared in my Download list and I’ll be able to test it after 4 hours. The reason of excitement is that I’ll be able to play Counter Strike Source. I’m not a game fan, or I don’t spend my time on gaming but this game has a special place in my life. In my childhood, it was the only game I liked, and right now it gives the same pleasure while killing fellas in the game. I left using Windows a while ago, because the only reason of having it was to play games. In Mac platform, it’s hard to see a lot of games. To try a game in Mac, I bought Call Of Duty IV a few months ago but I couldn’t get the same pleasure I had in Counter Strike Source.

Anyway, thanks to Steam guys a lot, and can’t wait to see Counter Strike Source in my Mac. I think it’ll be like a bomb in Mac world.

Creating Sierpinski Triangle in steps:
1. Take randomly 3 points in space.
2. Pick one of those points as a reference and create a point exactly half distance from your reference to one of other 2 points.
3. The created point will be your new reference point each time.
4. Now, create a new point half distance from your reference to the corner point randomly picked.
5. Repeat from step 3.

Note: There are a lot of different algorithms you can use. I’ll be using what I wrote above.

What will be written in this article:
First, we will write a function named my_sierpinski that takes two arguments N and P: N is the size of matrix and P is 3×2 matrix which will hold random coordinates of corner points. Another function named my_sierpinski_video that takes 3 arguments N, F, filename: N is the size of matrix will be passed into my_sierpinski function, F is the frame number of video, filename is the name of the video in avi format. And this function will move 3 corner points randomly from up to down or left to right. If one of the point reaches the boundary, it will bounce back (to opposite direction). Every movement will be one frame of the video.

Let’s begin!

my_sierpinski function:

% Author: Emin Bugra Saral
% Date: April 30, 2010
% Description: Written for www.rahmetli.info
 
% M indicates Matrix, N and P are arguments:
% N is the matrix size, P is 3x2 matrix which hold point coordinates
function M = my_sierpinski(N,P)
 
% let's create zero matrix N x N
M = zeros(N); 
 
% Mark each point in matrix M: Change 0 to 1
M(P(1,1), P(1,2)) = 1;
M(P(2,1), P(2,2)) = 1;
M(P(3,1), P(3,2)) = 1;
 
% c is current point: reference point
c = P(floor(rand*3)+1 ,:);
 
% the limitation of i is up to you,
% I thought multiplying max of coordinates by 1000
% would create enough points for the Sierpinski triangle.
% You can reduce it if you like.
for i=1:max(max(P))*1000
 
    % for each iteration, create random number between 3 and 1
    % r will help to chose randomly one of the corner points
    r = floor(rand*3)+1; 
 
    % update reference point:
    % Calculate the half distance between randomly chosen corner point
    % and the current point, then new reference point will be this created one.
    c = [floor((c(1) + P(r,1)) / 2), floor((c(2) + P(r,2)) / 2)];
 
    % mark new created point, reference. 0 to 1.
    M(c(1), c(2)) = 1;
end

my_sierpinski_video function:

% Author: Emin Bugra Saral
% Date: April 30, 2010
% Description: Written for www.rahmetli.info
 
% movie indicates the output movie. N, F and filename are the arguments:
% N is the matrix's size, F is the frame number, filename is the name of
% file
function movie = my_sierpinski_video(N, F, filename)
 
% Let's create an avi object file named by filename (avifile function)
% And if you like you can add the parameter fps to 25, it's optional.
movie = avifile(filename, 'fps', 25);
 
% First, we create random 3 points for argument P
% Initial random coordinates of 3 points and their opponents (x and y)
% floor(rand*N + 1) would create a random point between 1 and N (the boundary)
p1.x = floor((rand*N+1));
p1.y = floor((rand*N+1));
p2.x = floor((rand*N+1));
p2.y = floor((rand*N+1));
p3.x = floor((rand*N+1));
p3.y = floor((rand*N+1));
 
% D means direction, I used String array but you can use number array too.
D = {'up' 'down' 'left' 'right'};
 
% Now we will create initial direction values of points so that
% they will follow this direction
p1D = D(floor(rand*4)+1);
p2D = D(floor(rand*4)+1);
p3D = D(floor(rand*4)+1);
 
% i will be from 1 to F, because F is frame's number of video we'll create.
for i=1:F
 
    % BEGIN SWITCH STATEMENT
    % Right now, we could create a function to use the below switch
    % statement but that'd increase the number of function files. So you
    % can create it if you like.
    % Switch statement will ask for the direction of each points.
    % The structure of switch statement is same for all points. You can
    % copy and paste, just change the point's name.
    % If the direction is up, it'll reduce Y-coordinate by 1.
    % Same logic for other directions, you can have a look:
 
    switch char(p1D) % we must change String to character, don't forget
    case 'up'
        if p1.y == 1
            p1D = 'down';
            p1.y = p1.y;
        else
            p1.y = p1.y - 1;
        end
    case 'down'
        if p1.y == N
            p1D = 'up';
            p1.y=p1.y;
        else
            p1.y = p1.y + 1;
        end
    case 'left'
        if p1.x == 1
            p1D = 'right';
            p1.x=p1.x;
        else
            p1.x = p1.x - 1;
        end
    case 'right'
        if p1.x == N - 1
            p1D = 'left';
            p1.x=p1.x;
        else
            p1.x = p1.x + 1;
        end
    end
 
    switch char(p2D)
    case 'up'
        if p2.y == 1
            p2D = 'down';
            p2.y = p2.y;
        else
            p2.y = p2.y - 1;
        end
    case 'down'
        if p2.y == N
            p2D = 'up';
            p2.y=p2.y;
        else
            p2.y = p2.y + 1;
        end
    case 'left'
        if p2.x == 1
            p2D = 'right';
            p2.x=p2.x;
        else
            p2.x = p2.x - 1;
        end
    case 'right'
        if p2.x == N - 1
            p2D = 'left';
            p2.x=p2.x;
        else
            p2.x = p2.x + 1;
        end
    end
 
    switch char(p3D)
    case 'up'
        if p3.y == 1
            p3D = 'down';
            p3.y = p3.y;
        else
            p3.y = p3.y - 1;
        end
    case 'down'
        if p3.y == N
            p3D = 'up';
            p3.y=p3.y;
        else
            p3.y = p3.y + 1;
        end
    case 'left'
        if p3.x == 1
            p3D = 'right';
            p3.x=p3.x;
        else
            p3.x = p3.x - 1;
        end
    case 'right'
        if p3.x == N - 1
            p3D = 'left';
            p3.x=p3.x;
        else
            p3.x = p3.x + 1;
        end
    end
    % END SWITCH STATEMENT
 
    % BEGIN ADDING EACH FRAME TO MOVIE
    % Creating a P argument with 3 points and giving it to sierpinski function
    % imshow would create an image in black and white format, you can use
    % another functions such as imagesc.
    imshow(my_sierpinski(N, [p1.y p1.x; p2.y p2.x; p3.y p3.x]));
 
    % Add each frame to movie. getframe is a function get's the current
    % image's snapshot and saves it. frame will hold that snapshot.
    % and by using addframe function, we'll add this snapshot to our movie.
    frame = getframe;
    movie = addframe(movie, frame);
    % END ADDING EACH FRAME TO MOVIE
 
end
 
% THE END:
% Close function will say that I'm done, let's finish the movie.
movie = close(movie);
 
% Don't forget the message. lol.
fprintf('I''M DONE BABE, WHAT ABOUT YOU? :)\n');

That’s all, it’s so easy.

Example usage of the function:

% 300 is the size of matrix, 100 is the frame size, sample is the name of movie
my_sierpinski_video(300, 100, 'sample');

You can watch 4-second sample movie created by those functions:

Official Download from MATLAB Central:
http://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/fileexchange/27449

If you have questions about those functions that I can help it out, feel free to contact.

For this article, I used Canon D50 to make a short animation. I took more than 100 photos for that 10-second animation.

The example animation:

So, step-by-step, what you can do to create this kind of animations:

Step 1 - importing photos: First, you pick a theme and take photos of the action with your camera, like I took 100~ photos of the movement. Then connect your camera to your Mac, import all of the photos you took.
I used iPhoto to do that. (After opening iPhoto your camera would appear in the list.)
The last thing I did is creating an album named “hodja”, then copying all photos into that folder to use later in iMovie.
Don’t forget that the order of photos is important.
iPhoto would import your photos in name order as default.

Step 2 – using iMovie:
Now, in iMovie, create a new project in Project Library.

And click right to the project, select Project Properties. On the window popped out, go to Timing section and make the changes shown in the photo. We do that because as a default, iMovie would use Ken Burns effect for your photos in your project and the duration of each photo would be 4 seconds. Of couse 1 second duration per photo would not be fast as we desire, so we will see how to change it in the following paragraph.

Now, enter the empty project you created. On the right side of iMovie, click on Photos button and select the album you created in iPhoto. After that, select all photos in this album (you can shortly use cmd + a keys) and drag them into your project. It would take a few minutes depends on the quality of your photos.

After the dragging progress is done, double click on one of your photos. Inspector will come out. (You can click on Inspector button too). Change the duration value to 0.1s, less, or whatever you wish. You can also pick a video effect for your photos but of couse it’s optional.

After that, you can delete some photos if you want to take further steps of your action. You can do that frame jump with your camere if it has that property. I think I deleted nearly 80 photos in my stop-motion animation, because I wanted to show the jump between frames clearly.

Step 3 – export the animation: Now, you are done. Just go to Project Library, and click right on your project and Export your movie however you like. That’s all.

Step 4 – adding music to stop-motion animation (optional): Same as you added your photos, now click on the music section in the right section of iMovie and drag the music file you want to add. Easy.

Versions of programs while this article was written:
iMovie ’09 – 8.0.6
iPhoto ’09 – 8.1.2

PS: You don’t have to use iMovie to create stop-motion animations. You can do that by using any movie maker programs in Mac world such as iStopMotion or any one.

Name
Alternatif Kariyer Günleri – 2

Purpose
The International Relationships club of Koc University organized the second meeting of alternative career days.

Completion Date
April 2010

Underwork
The poster was designed in Adobe Photoshop.

First day, we introduced the web to people who are not familiar to its deeper technology. Of course everybody knew how to open or log in a website, so one hour was enough to spread the logic to the audience. Nearly 30 people could not wait to learn PHP, but most of them did not know even how to use HTML codes. Therefore, the first day was faster and more complex than they expected. But we are sure that those information we shared will help them to improve or plan their web projects. Hope they will be also supporters of Open Source, because Mr. Efendioğlu were encouraging them in every 2 minutes :)

The other day, we had a little decrease in participation but the rest of the people were interested in learning PHP, so it made us happy. We coded a website in PHP named www.sosyallist.com for only this workshop, and Mr. Efendioglu tried to show how it can be coded with PHP. Again, time was not enough, so he was only able to show PHP’s some important functions, their usage, etc. During the second day of PHP workshop, we thought that it would be better if we showed HTML and CSS basics. After that, we showed usage of PHP classes in short.

Thanks to DesignFabrika for their support, and the people who were with us for 2 days. There is a short reference list for HTML and PHP we created, you may want to check it: http://www.emreefendioglu.com/php/referans.php (in Turkish)

There is a debate in Turkey about turban that some religious people want women to be free to wear turban at universities and other people stand up to them with their opposite idea. That controversy over turban is also being used as a political object by government (Justice and Development Party) and its opposing parties such as Republican People’s Party. On the other hand, there are some civilian organizations such as Local Management Research Help and Education Association that engaged in a disagreement with religious organizations. For example, there were a crowded protest in Ankara on February 2008 against today’s government because of its support on turban and it was not the only protest occurred in that time (Çağlav). Popularity of turban issue in Turkey points out a question: “Should turban be banned from universities or not?” because the universities are the quality and the future of Turkey. To live in a secular and independent county, turban should be banned from universities.

Prior to turban issue in Turkey, the revolution in clothing started in the Ottoman era. Because of having potentially advantageous relations with Western countries, the Ottoman had two different policies. One of them was secularism and the other one was Sharia. While using the secularism for the state affair to look familiar to Western people, the Ottoman used Sharia for civil society. After the Ottoman Empire, Atatürk ended this inequality and during the initial time of the Turkish Republic, in which a lot of reforms were created, the revolution of the costume started with the hat. Atatürk, the founder of modern Turkey, announced the dress code in 1934 but the women were not the primary concern; Atatürk wanted Turkish women to dress as European women (Toprak and Uslu 45-46).

There was no widespread argument about women’s clothing in Turkey until 1960s. In 1967, the first incident occurred when a student in the Divinity Faculty of the Ankara University began to wear a headscarf in the university. The instructor did not welcome her attendance in the class and some students protested the instructor’s reaction. After that, some of these students were dismissed from the university by the decision of the discipline court. This case spread over the media and the media triggered the debate by using the headlines: “squeezed head” and “tightly covered” (Çarkoğlu 451).

The 1980s of Turkey was a little different from today. President Kenan Evren was persuaded to allow turban in universities by some people from high authorities such as the chancellor of Istanbul University, the head of the Council of Higher Education and the State Minister. The idea was that the turban should be used in universities in different types and colors of cloth. That ideas was also supported by the army generals because they were made to believe that turban was the part of fashion in some countries such as Italy. Nevertheless, while the most of universities accepted that idea, some other universities prohibited the turban. After the late 1990s, Turkey were having radical effects on the turban issue in universities. On 28 February 1997, the government faced military interference by the National Security Council (MGK) whose members include military and government officials. Therefore, with respect to MGK’s decision, the prohibition of the turban in universities was expanding over the country. The prohibition even enclosed high schools which were providing religious education. Because of that prohibition, thousands of female students left schools. The sole option for those girls was to go to foreign countries which allowed them to wear turban while continuing their education (Toprak and Uslu 47).

The reason why turban is a prohibitive effect on education is related to religious social networks and families who do not know or care how their attitudes are important for the education of their daughters. In addition, when mothers wear traditional turbans, their daughters mostly would be affected by this behavior, even their sons too (Çarkoğlu 458) because the children spend a lot of time with their parents and lastly follow their habits. The rate of university graduates of women who wear turban decreased from 8.0% to 7.3% between the years 1999 and 2006 while the rate of uncovered women increased from 78.7% to 80% (Çarkoğlu 459). As a result, people who are secular women are more likely to be educated than turban coverers.

In secular and feminist minds of Turkey, Islamic codes in life push people to be backward and create inequality in society. The most important code is turban. Women who wear turban are not being treated well by feminists because men own the place or the class, when women with turban are around. It means that men are more free to walk around and do whatever they want like shouting louder or playing games with eachother (Toprak and Uslu 52). Therefore an unequal separation between men and women occurs. Regarding to that, the image of a class in a university does not fit the aim of high education. People are going to universities not only because of education but also to socialize with other people. Sitting in two groups in a class or trying to be far away from opposite gender influences social relations. For example, if a woman who has pressure to cover her head from her family or social surroundings, some of people in university would behave differently towards her because of her outlook. This issue shows that turban is a obstructive for equality and improvement of relations.

Being secular in a university is important for improvement of a county. By following a religion strictly, people can not be open minded and the information needed to be used in universtiy can not see the sun light, so stays in the library’s shelves. Instead of staying in one place with strict minds, secular universities of Turkey helped people to move to the next level in education. Having a secular mind does not mean being far away the traditions and self-habits (Landa 163). Religious education becomes biased and includes only the subjects which are appropriate for that religion. On the other hand, secular universities include every type of art, culture and subject. Women who wear turban, which means being far away from secular education, can not feel free in those secular areas and can not see the behind of lines.

Today, the argument of wearing turban in universities continues and becomes a part of politics. Those people who respect to Islam or traditions are wanted to believe by those politics that it is an inequality instead of what secular people says. People who follows Atatürk’s ideas, especially following the Western improvement, are able to see the difference and accept being without turban in universities. The real meaning of turban is imprisonment. In a secular country such as Turkey, people are free, but not free to lock themselves up. This is what secularism means in general. The needed equality in universities can be achieved by banning turban from universities because men and women need to breathe same air in same place to make life better with educated minds.

Sources (MLA Citation):
Çağlav, Göksel. “Ankara’da türban karşıtı miting.” sabah.com.tr. Sabah, 10 Feb 2008. Web. 18 Mar. 2010.
Çarkoğlu, Ali. “Women’s Choices of Head Cover in Turkey: An Empirical Assessment” Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa, and the Middle East 2009: 450-467. Project Muse. Web. 18 Mar. 2010.
Landau, Jacob M.. “Culture, religion, and language in Middle Eastern Universities” Judaism 1996: 163. Ebscohost. Web. 18 Mar. 2010.
Toprak, Metin, and Nasuh Uslu. “The Headscarf Controversy in Turkey.” Journal of Economic & Social Research 2009: 43-67. Ebscohost. Web. 18 Mar. 2010.

PS: This is the original copy of the essay written for COMM102 homework.

After that busy schedule, the group didn’t want to rest and announced a new activity: PHP workshop. More information about that activity is here. If you like to attend, don’t forget to fill the form here, it’s important because we will be following the feedback’s requests.

That’s not all. The largest second activity was announced by Orhan Can Ceylan (the head of group) at the dinner which I was not invited. The name of the activity is Innovation ’10 (İnovasyon ’10). In the past years, the owner of the activity was KUEMT. The purpose of that activity is to help people understand the meaning of innovation in daily life with participation of many different companies and projects which we will bring them together. As a ‘honorary‘ member of the group, I’d like to see all of curious people in Koç University Sevgi Gönül Auditorium at 24th of April, 2010.

By the way, for whom want to read an article about IT Group, visit Koç Post. Thanks to Burcu Çokgezen for a good interview.

Love.

After all, in Java lectures I got the logic of OOP, and thanks to those lectures now I’m able to use PHP classes easily in my new project. The project I mention about is not the website (whatisyourcomment), this one is a panel like others which enables easy communication with people in a team, or club. It includes self gallery, forum, private messaging system and more. Because of having school and homework, I may not be able to finish that project in a short time, it will take a few weeks I guess.

After publishing that project officially, I will let people or my friends use it free to get feedbacks.

Have a good weekend ladies and gentlemen…

The nice thing about that language is being so funny that you cannot wait to explore what you will hear on the next page. Some sayings in the ‘pirate‘ language may not be easy to understand because of the culture difference, but it still makes you laugh mostly. For example, having ‘bottle‘ instead of ‘inbox‘, ‘mateys‘ for ‘friends‘, ‘what be troublin ye’?’ for ‘what do you think? ‘* are creative replacements. The ‘pirate‘ language is being updated by Facebook crew day after day, so more things are on the way I suppose.

I want to announce here that I wish we had the same thing for our own language, Turkish. Or another types of languages spoken in Turkey; for example Laz (Lazca), or another accents of Turkish. Why is that? Because it could be funny and more enjoyable in Facebook. Beside that formal languages, why can not we create our original language for Facebook? I mean, in an interesting way, there could be some ‘settings‘ section for the language and we could be able to change the name of Facebook menus to whatever we like. Because, most of the people spend their time in Facebook, so it’s getting bored to see same stuff on the screen. Playing with the language could be better.

Anyway, there is a wiki post of ‘pirate‘ language, if you would like to check it out:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Talk_Like_a_Pirate_Day

* depends on Facebook’s version

Being led by Serdar Taşıran, we started Java courses in school. Knowing the basics is not enough to write complex codes as you know, so I will spend much more time on Java coding. To be better, to learn more… I cannot use “javac” command at Mac Os X’s Terminal and still couldn’t solve that problem but with Eclipse, the first trial works well.

By the way, Mr. Taşıran’s lectures are really funny and I enjoy his style. No doubt on his knowledge of course, I think he will carry us to next step at coding.

Surprise: I got PHYS102 back instead COMM101. Got excited!

After clishés, I let them listen to Beduk‘s new album “Go”. Yeah, it smells a little advertising. By the way, you can listen Beduk and watch his clips at his official myspace: http://www.myspace.com/beduk

Beside that, wish we could watch Trabzonspor‘s match with Bursaspor but there was lag. So sad, I couldn’t be a witness of the drawn result, 1-1…

PS: Thanks to my dad for being sponsor in technical ways. löl…

What about love? It seems like I have no talent in relationships. I saw that my life needs to slow down and breathe for a bit. Because of being in hurry, most of the people around my love (!) square get hurt. Despite of I believe in love, it always disappoints me…

On the other hand, there are some projects such as Leo’s member database and random chat, I have to continue and finish them on the computer but I lost my passion to code. And, I don’t know how to solve that issue. Even in the beginning of my major, and we started learning Java in the lecture Comp. 131. God help us…

Name
Koc Bilisim

Purpose
The official website of Koc Informatics Group which is active in Koc University.

Launch Date
February 2010

Underwork
The design belongs to Orhan Can Ceylan, underlying CSS/HTML/PHP code was made by me.

Site URL
http://www.kocbilisim.org

Name
MissPen

Purpose
The photography of MissPen.

Launch Date
2009

Underwork
Used HTML / CSS / PHP. The website needs to be upgraded actually because it was one of my earlier works..

Site URL
http://www.misspen.com

I saw that rahmetli.info has international followers so that the website needed to be published in English. The design is simple as before, even more. The colors and font size don’t hurt eyes and articles can be read easily.

While I’ll be updating English blog, Turkish blog will be still online. You can read old Turkish articles / posts, but I’ll rarely update my Turkish side. Probably when I need to use Turkish to reveal my feelings. löl.

Of course, all of these are just my opinions. You’re welcome for feedbacks. Enjoy!

Name
bbPress Auto-Turkish

Purpose
This script automatically changes the language of bbPress 1.0.2 from English to Turkish. And it also checks for updates if the language file needs it.

Creation Date
September 2009

Underwork
It creates necessary files on the server and downloads the language file from rahmetli.info. After that, it changes the index file of bbPress to add Turkish to language line. Used PHP.

Script URL
http://www.rahmetli.info/ototurkce/ototurkce.zip

Forum URL
http://rahmetli.info/forum/topic/bbpress-oto-turkce-otomatik-turkcelestirme