I did watch the entire season, I think Jodie Whitaker is a fantastic Doctor but wish the show had better/more consistent writers supporting her. I didn't care for the historical events episodes at all, too much Quantum Leap and not enough science fiction. BUT there were a few really great, what I consider true Doctor Who episodes like The Ghost Monmument, The Tsuranga Conundrum, Kerblam! and It Takes You Away.
They also make money from businesses that use G Suite. And consumers that pay for extra online storage on Google drive (I do). And Google Fi, their wireless cell service (I use this, too, sooo much better and cheaper than verizon). And Google Fiber, their internet service (I don't use this but would if it was offered in my area). I also use Google domains and pay for registration through them and Virus Total which Alphabet owns and is an invaluable free service.
So yeah, they sell ads, but they are not wholly dependent on clickbait revenue the way Facebook is.
...a reputable auditor verifies the source of data and process, reviewing evidence directly from the systems involved. This is standard for anything, it's why we have CPAs to ensure companies aren't cheating investors. If it's really true, then a third-party should be able to verify the results.
But it doesn't matter because Facebook obviously isn't interested in stopping any clickbait like fake news since they depend on the revenue it provides. If they were, they would simply create a whitelist of all reputable news sources which all share the same traits regardless of bias accusations: they have qualified editors and journalists (no, random bloggers who copy/paste/scrape news from the AP wire are not editors or journalists), do fact-checking and verify sources per journalism best practices, publish retractions/corrections as needed, and mark opinion pieces clearly as such. They can come up with whatever criteria they want to make the bar high enough to filter out the clickbait crap. It's really not that hard.
On a side note, I don't know why anyone believes anything that has more likes or followers (aka whenever something "goes viral") has more value since it's highly likely it's all being manipulated by paid spambots.
But how many of those users are just spam or fake bot accounts? Seems like once Facebook buys a company they essentially become yet another spam machine of whatever nonsense generates CTR (that's at best, at worst they help distribute malicious payloads).
"Dovetale said that, on average, 16.4 percent of the followers on Instagram’s top 20 accounts were fraudulent.
Sylo, which requires influencers to share access to their public and private post statistics, said it had rejected 77 percent of influencers who have tried to register on its platform after their accounts showed issues like abnormal spikes in engagement on posts or a large number of generic, emoji-laden comments that bots are known for."
"A security vulnerability in HPE Integrated Lights-Out 4, 5 (iLO 4 prior to v2.60, and iLO 5 prior to v1.30) could be remotely or locally exploited by an Administrative user to allow remote or local code execution."
Clearly, you don't know what it's like to have someone spam/harass you online with insults and threats because you had the audacity to determine you didn't want to be in a relationship with them anymore. I witnessed it happen firsthand to a close friend of mine, They had to block their ex online, change their cell phone number and file a restraining order.
Sounds right. I recently applied for a programming job at a bank. After the interview and showing me the place, they offered me the job. I politely declined. Then I quickly closed my accounts and moved to a more modern bank. Why? That bank literally uses MSAccess tables to store ALL of the customer data. And VB5 "processes" to interact with the feds. Un-believable.
I call BS. As someone who does work in IT in the financial services industry, no programmer is interviewed, given a tour and then offered a job.
Regulations require a background check which takes several days so no offer is made until that clears.
And they certainly aren't going to show a non-employee the database in which they store customer data, that's restricted data.
I'm always perplexed why the quality of the number of users is never challenged.
How do you know a ton weren't generated as apart of some marketing strategy?
Or rather, how can you NOT suspect that a significant portion of them aren't fake?
Has the issue of verifying online registration as belonging to an actual, unique person been solved with absolute certainty while I wasn't paying attention?
Receive only free email that automatically gets deleted every 7 days unless you make a donation, then you get to password protect and own the email address (as I do).
Politicians aside, I see the problem as being entrenched within government. As someone who works in IT in the state government, I have been baffled by the decisions of IT management. Many of my colleagues are highly competent and motivated IT professionals, (note I said many, not all), but the structure of government impedes our ability to implement better IT solutions and policy. When we try to discuss it with management, they just ignore us and only listen to the consultants they've hired. My colleagues and I are then forced to implement whatever the consultants have recommended which often flies in the face of common sense, nevermind the best interests of the taxpaying public.
Of course, if management actually really understood IT, which I used to believe was the case but am now convinced is not, a real discussion regarding policy could take place but they are truly clueless so of course they rely on the consultants who convince them otherwise. Their decisions are also driven by a pass-the-buck and avoid responsibility at all costs mentality meaning when in doubt, they blame the consultants who are happy to take the blame as long as they can keeping billing for it. On top of that, government's inherent hierachical structure and nonsensical budget process fully insulates management from ever being responsible for the consequences of their poor decisions.
But what really drives me crazy is that the consultants who are pushing bad solutions and poor policy are considered more competent than I am by my own managers because they're in the private sector and I'm not. Wtf?
And yes, in case you're wondering, I have been looking for a new job but there is a strong stigma against government experience in the private sector that I can't seem to get out from under. This is in spite of having worked on 5+ projects compared to most of my colleagues who work on just 1 project and having a graduate degree. So I advise anyone out there considering working in the public sector, only do so if you don't think you'll ever want to return to the private sector. My job is great for someone who wants perpetual job security, a stable 40-hour work week, great benefits, steady raises until their salary reaches the limit for its classification, no pay for performance, no opportunity for growth or promotion and being paid to not think.
- tokengeekgrrl (not a typical lazy, government worker)
I respectfully disagree. MySpace supplies a framework in which users supply content. They do not and never will completely control the content and no one, especially parents, should assume otherwise. Parents educating themselves and getting more involved in their kid's online activity, now that I agree with.
I'm not a parent but I have a brother who has 5 kids, including a 13-year old girl, and his answer is simply to set really strict rules on computer usage. First, he has a squid proxy server in place (that I helped him install and configure) that records all of the kids' web surfing and they know it. The kids have to use the computer in the family room in front of their parents and can only use it for specific and limited times each day. The kids can use IM but cannot add anyone to their IM buddy list that their parents have not approved of and they are not allowed to have MySpace or Friendster or any other social networking account, period. If they try to sign up for anything they're not supposed, the proxy server will email my brother and he'll just take away all computer access.
I realize it sounds extreme but hey, it works. My 13-year old niece isn't getting strange propositions from creepy older men online and the kids know that using the computer is a privilege, not a right, that can, and will, be taken away if they don't follow the rules.
I was living in Seattle and voted against having public taxpayer money used to build a new baseball stadium with a retractable roof for the Seattle Mariners so that for less than 1/4 of their games they could have sunshine.
While most other Seattle residents agreed with me in voting it down, in the end it didn't matter. We ended up paying for it anyway as a backdoor deal was made against the voters wishes and yes, I/we did vote the jerks out for that but by then it didn't matter, the contract was signed.
The public money generated through tax revenues by sports franchises or stadiums does not provide an equal or larger economic benefit to their public cost and that's exactly how sports and stadium owners like it.
...if Google controls the online payment process, the seller's feedback would be irrelevant as Google's payment system would automatically know if they had been paid in full or not.
The only manual feedback would come from buyer's verifying whether the product they bought was as advertised and satisfactory.
I was a contractor at Microsoft from 1995-1997, working on MSN.com when it first came out, before Internet Explorer existed. As a result, I was apart of the permatemp class action lawsuit.
My Microsoft experience was both good and bad.
I got to work with some really talented and highly skilled people and learned a ton. The original lead engineer on Slate.com was a great guy and mentored me on his own, even though I wasn't a "blue badge" and not entitled to such perks. He had been recruited out of college back in the late 80s so he was a millionaire. He retired a few years later after his second marriage/wedding since he had already lost his first marriage to Microsoft and didn't wish to repeat the experience. He also told me that only people hired on at or promoted to a certain level got really lucrative stock options. From what I saw, he was right.
I shared an office at one point with an amazing programmer, super smart and super nice guy. I remember him telling me that he had to learn to not care so much about his work because the business and marketing departments always rule in the end. He had a product he had worked on that he was really proud of, the users were really happy and he was excited about working on more features. He never got to because the product was outsourced and no more versions were going to be released, it was just to be supported as is and it didn't matter if the support was mediocre, just that it was cheaper. He said he found that a hard pill to swallow because he really believed in producing great products but he learned to accept it and was "watching the clock" meaning waiting his 5 years for his stock to vest. I met several fulltimers watching the clock and they seemed to me to be the some of the most talented people there.
I met many people who worked very hard and others who were coasting, some arrogant and rude with no social skills whatsoever and some genuine, amicable and highly skilled, both fulltimers and contractors.
I worked with great managers and incompetent ones. One manager was so bad that when the first round of contractor layoffs happened at one point, he cut a really skilled programmer who was vital to many projects in favor of keeping around the pretty, no experience or technical ability, woman that he was boinking, much to the dismay of the rest of us who had to workaround the incompetence of both of them. He was arrogant and had a mullet, a paradox beyond comprehension.
I did not envy the people who became fulltimers during this time. Compared to contractor pay which included overtime, their pay was cut in half and their hours stayed the same or increased. One friend had to move somewhere cheaper due to the pay cut and carried 3 pagers at all times resulting in her moving closer to work as well. Her first year of employment was what was then called the "probation year" meaning she would not receive any stock options until after that first year. She and other people who went fulltime soon realized that the stock options were not going to make them millionaires but simply restore the compensation that had been cut when they took the salaried fulltime job. I knew several talented people who left before their options vested as a result.
Some contractors-to-fulltimers I knew did ok with stock options meaning they were able to gain an extra 200-250k and after taxes bought themselves a nice house and/or car. But no one retired early.
I knew several fulltimers who once they hit their 5 year mark, cashed out their stock and left the Microsoft with propriertary information on which they based a new company, hoping to get bought out by Microsoft and make more money. Some were sued, some weren't sued but didn't get bought out as they hoped, some did.
Overall, it was an interesting place to be during the time I was there. That said, I'm inclined to think that the author's experience is not the norm given the high status at which he entered the company. If he had come in as an entry level contractor or programmer, his experience would be much different.
The short version: Post-25 age women like playing games more than men? Duh.
Long version: My love for gaming started with Loderunner and QBert on DOS in the early 1980s when my Dad first brought home a computer.
At my grade school there was one computer with an adventure-text game called something like "Go West" that everyone got to play once a week with a partner. I traded away parts of my lunch to bribe people to give me their slot so I could play more than once a week.
My family was too poor for Atari so I becames friends with girls whose families did have Atari expanding my repetoire to Missle Command, Pitfall, Centipede, Haunted House (anyone remember that one?), Space Invaders among many others.
The putt-putt (miniature) golf in town had an arcade I was not allowed to go very often but when I did I would watch the guys play Dragon Slayer (I think that's what it was called, they had competitions around playing it), play Donkey Kong and then found my true love, Tetris.
I had the high score on that Tetris arcade for months. If when I came someone had beaten it, I wouldn't leave until I had restored myself in the number 1 slot. Once school started I didn't have much time so this was only during the summer.
When the first gameboy came out I was in college. I saved my money and bought one with a Tetris gamecard. Tetris whenever I wanted! Pure bliss! My longterm, college boyfriend installed Super Tetris on his computer so that I would spend more time at his apartment (we both lived off campus at the time).
I didn't get into the console games when they came out because they were too expensive. I was working and going to school full-time while in college and didn't have much disposable income. But I could play games on the computers at the computer lab and the guy who ran the computer lab really liked me and I was one of the few females taking intro to computer programming so I always got a computer when I came in. Hello Zork and EverQuest.
When I actually had my own computer, a Mac, I downloaded and played free games and bought Myst. Eventually, I bought a gaming PC I had custom ordered online and bought BladeRunner (RPG) and Doom. I worked at a well-known gaming publishing and media company for a year and got to play all sorts of games at work, networked Quake was a blast, (4-dimensional Tetris on the Nintendo blew my mind).
Throughout the years, I've always also played chess. At one point I was very focused on it, playing it constantly on the computer and studying strategies, I still hope to get back to it.
Right now, definitely post-25, I love playing DOA and Burnout Revenge on the XBOX and this groovy little marble madness game my boyfriend downloaded for me because he thought I'd like it and he was so right. I also adore Kareoke Revolution on the PS2 in spite of my limited singing abilities, especially with a group of friends after a few cocktails. I also play a totally lame, text-only, web-based game called Legend of the Green Dragon which is only possible due to the kick-ass, gameplay automating, greasemonkey script my boyfriend wrote since I'm too lazy to do it myself.
Tetris is still my favorite and while it may be simple, it's far more complex then you can imagine once you get up to the levels where the pieces are flying at you faster then you can effectively pattern match. I just love that.
I think the real key is that once I hit my late 20s, I really didn't care what people thought of me, so playing games became more about having fun then proving to someone else that I'm better at it then they are.
Unless it's Tetris.;)
Sorry for the long and rambling post. I kind of got carried away.
Wow, sounds like someone has had too much coffee and is a tad bit on edge.
It's pretty obvious to me that we were having a discussion, that's all, one that is actually related to the topic at hand as opposed to your post which doesn't add anything to the discussion whatsoever.
And for the record, my boyfriend can attest to my not being interested in misandry just as I can attest that he is not interested in misogyny.
Exactly the points I was trying to make but you said them so much better, thanks!
To expand on your thoughts regarding women and competition, women can and often are competitive in specific areas in which they choose to be. I'm sure there are some women who are competitive in gaming and would love to compete professionally. I know plenty of guys who are competitive about gaming and others who see it as entertainment and are not competitive about it. All women and men who play games share just that fact, they all play games, but what each enjoys from and how each views it is unique to that individual.
In my experience, competitive gaming just doesn't happen to be a popular area for women because the benefits of doing so are limited. If the benefits of competitive gaming were more appealling, maybe the economics would change in that regard.
But if there never is a professional women gaming contingent, so what?
Slashdot Mirror
I did watch the entire season, I think Jodie Whitaker is a fantastic Doctor but wish the show had better/more consistent writers supporting her. I didn't care for the historical events episodes at all, too much Quantum Leap and not enough science fiction. BUT there were a few really great, what I consider true Doctor Who episodes like The Ghost Monmument, The Tsuranga Conundrum, Kerblam! and It Takes You Away.
They also make money from businesses that use G Suite.
And consumers that pay for extra online storage on Google drive (I do).
And Google Fi, their wireless cell service (I use this, too, sooo much better and cheaper than verizon).
And Google Fiber, their internet service (I don't use this but would if it was offered in my area).
I also use Google domains and pay for registration through them and Virus Total which Alphabet owns and is an invaluable free service.
So yeah, they sell ads, but they are not wholly dependent on clickbait revenue the way Facebook is.
...a reputable auditor verifies the source of data and process, reviewing evidence directly from the systems involved. This is standard for anything, it's why we have CPAs to ensure companies aren't cheating investors. If it's really true, then a third-party should be able to verify the results.
But it doesn't matter because Facebook obviously isn't interested in stopping any clickbait like fake news since they depend on the revenue it provides. If they were, they would simply create a whitelist of all reputable news sources which all share the same traits regardless of bias accusations: they have qualified editors and journalists (no, random bloggers who copy/paste/scrape news from the AP wire are not editors or journalists), do fact-checking and verify sources per journalism best practices, publish retractions/corrections as needed, and mark opinion pieces clearly as such. They can come up with whatever criteria they want to make the bar high enough to filter out the clickbait crap. It's really not that hard.
On a side note, I don't know why anyone believes anything that has more likes or followers (aka whenever something "goes viral") has more value since it's highly likely it's all being manipulated by paid spambots.
But how many of those users are just spam or fake bot accounts? Seems like once Facebook buys a company they essentially become yet another spam machine of whatever nonsense generates CTR (that's at best, at worst they help distribute malicious payloads).
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/0...
"Dovetale said that, on average, 16.4 percent of the followers on Instagram’s top 20 accounts were fraudulent.
Sylo, which requires influencers to share access to their public and private post statistics, said it had rejected 77 percent of influencers who have tried to register on its platform after their accounts showed issues like abnormal spikes in engagement on posts or a large number of generic, emoji-laden comments that bots are known for."
...someone to say in order to protect its existence. ;)
For more information, see this movie: https://www.rottentomatoes.com...
Once I saw that the latest version is iLO 5, I figured it had to be vulnerable to the same exploit as iLO 4 and sure enough:
https://support.hpe.com/hpsc/d...
"A security vulnerability in HPE Integrated Lights-Out 4, 5 (iLO 4 prior to v2.60, and iLO 5 prior to v1.30) could be remotely or locally exploited by an Administrative user to allow remote or local code execution."
Clearly, you don't know what it's like to have someone spam/harass you online with insults and threats because you had the audacity to determine you didn't want to be in a relationship with them anymore. I witnessed it happen firsthand to a close friend of mine, They had to block their ex online, change their cell phone number and file a restraining order.
If you haven't read it please consider doing so, it contains solid insights:
https://blog.ycombinator.com/a...
Many of the engineers agree with certain aspects of the original memo while respectfully debunking the logical fallacies it presented.
Enjoy.
And here I thought posting as an Anonymous Coward was the definition of trolling. :p
I think kids need to feel comfortable experimenting with computers, that means being ok with messing it up.
So if schools were to teach how to set up and roll their computer system back to a restore point (I don't care which OS), that would be a good start.
Then again, I use a Chromebook, I do system restores periodically just for fun.
Sounds right. I recently applied for a programming job at a bank. After the interview and showing me the place, they offered me the job. I politely declined. Then I quickly closed my accounts and moved to a more modern bank. Why? That bank literally uses MSAccess tables to store ALL of the customer data. And VB5 "processes" to interact with the feds. Un-believable.
I call BS. As someone who does work in IT in the financial services industry, no programmer is interviewed, given a tour and then offered a job.
Regulations require a background check which takes several days so no offer is made until that clears.
And they certainly aren't going to show a non-employee the database in which they store customer data, that's restricted data.
I'm always perplexed why the quality of the number of users is never challenged.
How do you know a ton weren't generated as apart of some marketing strategy?
Or rather, how can you NOT suspect that a significant portion of them aren't fake?
Has the issue of verifying online registration as belonging to an actual, unique person been solved with absolute certainty while I wasn't paying attention?
- tgg
Receive only free email that automatically gets deleted every 7 days unless you make a donation, then you get to password protect and own the email address (as I do).
http://dodgeit.com/faq.html
- tokengeekgrrl
Sure. How do you want to proceed?
Northern California.
Politicians aside, I see the problem as being entrenched within government. As someone who works in IT in the state government, I have been baffled by the decisions of IT management. Many of my colleagues are highly competent and motivated IT professionals, (note I said many, not all), but the structure of government impedes our ability to implement better IT solutions and policy. When we try to discuss it with management, they just ignore us and only listen to the consultants they've hired. My colleagues and I are then forced to implement whatever the consultants have recommended which often flies in the face of common sense, nevermind the best interests of the taxpaying public.
Of course, if management actually really understood IT, which I used to believe was the case but am now convinced is not, a real discussion regarding policy could take place but they are truly clueless so of course they rely on the consultants who convince them otherwise. Their decisions are also driven by a pass-the-buck and avoid responsibility at all costs mentality meaning when in doubt, they blame the consultants who are happy to take the blame as long as they can keeping billing for it. On top of that, government's inherent hierachical structure and nonsensical budget process fully insulates management from ever being responsible for the consequences of their poor decisions.
But what really drives me crazy is that the consultants who are pushing bad solutions and poor policy are considered more competent than I am by my own managers because they're in the private sector and I'm not. Wtf?
And yes, in case you're wondering, I have been looking for a new job but there is a strong stigma against government experience in the private sector that I can't seem to get out from under. This is in spite of having worked on 5+ projects compared to most of my colleagues who work on just 1 project and having a graduate degree. So I advise anyone out there considering working in the public sector, only do so if you don't think you'll ever want to return to the private sector. My job is great for someone who wants perpetual job security, a stable 40-hour work week, great benefits, steady raises until their salary reaches the limit for its classification, no pay for performance, no opportunity for growth or promotion and being paid to not think.
- tokengeekgrrl
(not a typical lazy, government worker)
I respectfully disagree. MySpace supplies a framework in which users supply content. They do not and never will completely control the content and no one, especially parents, should assume otherwise. Parents educating themselves and getting more involved in their kid's online activity, now that I agree with.
I'm not a parent but I have a brother who has 5 kids, including a 13-year old girl, and his answer is simply to set really strict rules on computer usage. First, he has a squid proxy server in place (that I helped him install and configure) that records all of the kids' web surfing and they know it. The kids have to use the computer in the family room in front of their parents and can only use it for specific and limited times each day. The kids can use IM but cannot add anyone to their IM buddy list that their parents have not approved of and they are not allowed to have MySpace or Friendster or any other social networking account, period. If they try to sign up for anything they're not supposed, the proxy server will email my brother and he'll just take away all computer access.
I realize it sounds extreme but hey, it works. My 13-year old niece isn't getting strange propositions from creepy older men online and the kids know that using the computer is a privilege, not a right, that can, and will, be taken away if they don't follow the rules.
Actually, China's firewalls are censoring everybody in China, regardless of whether they use Google or not.
I was living in Seattle and voted against having public taxpayer money used to build a new baseball stadium with a retractable roof for the Seattle Mariners so that for less than 1/4 of their games they could have sunshine.
While most other Seattle residents agreed with me in voting it down, in the end it didn't matter. We ended up paying for it anyway as a backdoor deal was made against the voters wishes and yes, I/we did vote the jerks out for that but by then it didn't matter, the contract was signed.
The public money generated through tax revenues by sports franchises or stadiums does not provide an equal or larger economic benefit to their public cost and that's exactly how sports and stadium owners like it.
- tokengeekgrrl
...if Google controls the online payment process, the seller's feedback would be irrelevant as Google's payment system would automatically know if they had been paid in full or not.
The only manual feedback would come from buyer's verifying whether the product they bought was as advertised and satisfactory.
- tokengeekgrrl
I was a contractor at Microsoft from 1995-1997, working on MSN.com when it first came out, before Internet Explorer existed. As a result, I was apart of the permatemp class action lawsuit.
My Microsoft experience was both good and bad.
I got to work with some really talented and highly skilled people and learned a ton. The original lead engineer on Slate.com was a great guy and mentored me on his own, even though I wasn't a "blue badge" and not entitled to such perks. He had been recruited out of college back in the late 80s so he was a millionaire. He retired a few years later after his second marriage/wedding since he had already lost his first marriage to Microsoft and didn't wish to repeat the experience. He also told me that only people hired on at or promoted to a certain level got really lucrative stock options. From what I saw, he was right.
I shared an office at one point with an amazing programmer, super smart and super nice guy. I remember him telling me that he had to learn to not care so much about his work because the business and marketing departments always rule in the end. He had a product he had worked on that he was really proud of, the users were really happy and he was excited about working on more features. He never got to because the product was outsourced and no more versions were going to be released, it was just to be supported as is and it didn't matter if the support was mediocre, just that it was cheaper. He said he found that a hard pill to swallow because he really believed in producing great products but he learned to accept it and was "watching the clock" meaning waiting his 5 years for his stock to vest. I met several fulltimers watching the clock and they seemed to me to be the some of the most talented people there.
I met many people who worked very hard and others who were coasting, some arrogant and rude with no social skills whatsoever and some genuine, amicable and highly skilled, both fulltimers and contractors.
I worked with great managers and incompetent ones. One manager was so bad that when the first round of contractor layoffs happened at one point, he cut a really skilled programmer who was vital to many projects in favor of keeping around the pretty, no experience or technical ability, woman that he was boinking, much to the dismay of the rest of us who had to workaround the incompetence of both of them. He was arrogant and had a mullet, a paradox beyond comprehension.
I did not envy the people who became fulltimers during this time. Compared to contractor pay which included overtime, their pay was cut in half and their hours stayed the same or increased. One friend had to move somewhere cheaper due to the pay cut and carried 3 pagers at all times resulting in her moving closer to work as well. Her first year of employment was what was then called the "probation year" meaning she would not receive any stock options until after that first year. She and other people who went fulltime soon realized that the stock options were not going to make them millionaires but simply restore the compensation that had been cut when they took the salaried fulltime job. I knew several talented people who left before their options vested as a result.
Some contractors-to-fulltimers I knew did ok with stock options meaning they were able to gain an extra 200-250k and after taxes bought themselves a nice house and/or car. But no one retired early.
I knew several fulltimers who once they hit their 5 year mark, cashed out their stock and left the Microsoft with propriertary information on which they based a new company, hoping to get bought out by Microsoft and make more money. Some were sued, some weren't sued but didn't get bought out as they hoped, some did.
Overall, it was an interesting place to be during the time I was there. That said, I'm inclined to think that the author's experience is not the norm given the high status at which he entered the company. If he had come in as an entry level contractor or programmer, his experience would be much different.
- tokengeekgrrl
The short version: Post-25 age women like playing games more than men? Duh.
;)
Long version:
My love for gaming started with Loderunner and QBert on DOS in the early 1980s when my Dad first brought home a computer.
At my grade school there was one computer with an adventure-text game called something like "Go West" that everyone got to play once a week with a partner. I traded away parts of my lunch to bribe people to give me their slot so I could play more than once a week.
My family was too poor for Atari so I becames friends with girls whose families did have Atari expanding my repetoire to Missle Command, Pitfall, Centipede, Haunted House (anyone remember that one?), Space Invaders among many others.
The putt-putt (miniature) golf in town had an arcade I was not allowed to go very often but when I did I would watch the guys play Dragon Slayer (I think that's what it was called, they had competitions around playing it), play Donkey Kong and then found my true love, Tetris.
I had the high score on that Tetris arcade for months. If when I came someone had beaten it, I wouldn't leave until I had restored myself in the number 1 slot. Once school started I didn't have much time so this was only during the summer.
When the first gameboy came out I was in college. I saved my money and bought one with a Tetris gamecard. Tetris whenever I wanted! Pure bliss! My longterm, college boyfriend installed Super Tetris on his computer so that I would spend more time at his apartment (we both lived off campus at the time).
I didn't get into the console games when they came out because they were too expensive. I was working and going to school full-time while in college and didn't have much disposable income. But I could play games on the computers at the computer lab and the guy who ran the computer lab really liked me and I was one of the few females taking intro to computer programming so I always got a computer when I came in. Hello Zork and EverQuest.
When I actually had my own computer, a Mac, I downloaded and played free games and bought Myst.
Eventually, I bought a gaming PC I had custom ordered online and bought BladeRunner (RPG) and Doom.
I worked at a well-known gaming publishing and media company for a year and got to play all sorts of games at work, networked Quake was a blast, (4-dimensional Tetris on the Nintendo blew my mind).
Throughout the years, I've always also played chess. At one point I was very focused on it, playing it constantly on the computer and studying strategies, I still hope to get back to it.
Right now, definitely post-25, I love playing DOA and Burnout Revenge on the XBOX and this groovy little marble madness game my boyfriend downloaded for me because he thought I'd like it and he was so right. I also adore Kareoke Revolution on the PS2 in spite of my limited singing abilities, especially with a group of friends after a few cocktails. I also play a totally lame, text-only, web-based game called Legend of the Green Dragon which is only possible due to the kick-ass, gameplay automating, greasemonkey script my boyfriend wrote since I'm too lazy to do it myself.
Tetris is still my favorite and while it may be simple, it's far more complex then you can imagine once you get up to the levels where the pieces are flying at you faster then you can effectively pattern match. I just love that.
I think the real key is that once I hit my late 20s, I really didn't care what people thought of me, so playing games became more about having fun then proving to someone else that I'm better at it then they are.
Unless it's Tetris.
Sorry for the long and rambling post. I kind of got carried away.
- tokengeekgrrl
subject: I want to have a baby...
...in Second Life.
body:
[link to article]
Are you awake now?
[eom]
That must have gaven him a momentary heart attack.
hee hee hee
- tokengeekgrrl
Wow, sounds like someone has had too much coffee and is a tad bit on edge.
It's pretty obvious to me that we were having a discussion, that's all, one that is actually related to the topic at hand as opposed to your post which doesn't add anything to the discussion whatsoever.
And for the record, my boyfriend can attest to my not being interested in misandry just as I can attest that he is not interested in misogyny.
- tokengeekgrrl
Exactly the points I was trying to make but you said them so much better, thanks!
To expand on your thoughts regarding women and competition, women can and often are competitive in specific areas in which they choose to be. I'm sure there are some women who are competitive in gaming and would love to compete professionally. I know plenty of guys who are competitive about gaming and others who see it as entertainment and are not competitive about it. All women and men who play games share just that fact, they all play games, but what each enjoys from and how each views it is unique to that individual.
In my experience, competitive gaming just doesn't happen to be a popular area for women because the benefits of doing so are limited. If the benefits of competitive gaming were more appealling, maybe the economics would change in that regard.
But if there never is a professional women gaming contingent, so what?
- tokengeekgrrl