I never owned an Apple computer, but I did own a TI-99/4A, with speech synthesizer. There were a decent number of games that used it. Can't say it had an English accent, though. (*actually reads link* Hmm, I did have Atari computers and a C64, but we never had a SAM.)
Re:I have mixed feelings about this.
on
Iron Man Released
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Don't worry, while they give Tony a wake-up call, for most of the movie he's still a jerk.:) They didn't scrub his character for the big screen.
I think I can argue that I was seeing the intended meaning. Can you actually picture a headline of "Usability Testing Hardy Heron With a Best Friend"? "Usability Testing Hardy Heron With a Boyfriend"?
See, I think it's the fact that they emphasized that she was someone's girlfriend and didn't feel they needed to put any information about level of computer literacy in the headline. That all they felt they needed to say was that she was a "girlfriend".
And, like a lot of things, the problem can probably be put more on societal attitudes, which I freely admit have improved quite a bit even in my lifetime.
I'm not saying certain people should be off limits for such projects. Just that the headline emphasized the assumption that some geek's girlfriend must be computer illiterate, that's it.
I'm sorry, but I'm sick of things like this - his girlfriend HAS to be some untutored user who has no clue about computers, tee-hee. As a female computer programmer, should people assume my husband is computer illiterate? No? Then why assume his girlfriend is?
Isn't it enough to say that the installation was tested with a novice user instead of putting stupid assumptions and implications right in the freaking headline?
And of course, what kind of replies do I expect to my post around here? People marveling that a woman is posting on slashdot that will be modded up as funny. Given the nature of my post, I also expect some responses telling me to calm down or calling me a feminazi. There, I've taken care of those responses, you can stick to ones that actually address what I've said.
Um, GenCon Indy is the thing that keeps the rest of GenCon's failures running. It's been hugely successful in Indy, and from what I understand the locals are much friendlier. I can't attest to friendlier, having never attended elsewhere, but I can definitely say they are friendly. Restaurants tuning tvs usually on sports channels to sci-fi channel and decorating with old hall banners, special pins over at Hard Rock, that kind of thing. I had heard that things were somewhat less amicable in the old location.
It could definitely be the case - whenever they're doing tests that involve some kind of product, like, oh, Vodka or pop, they generally have a plain white Mythbusters wrapper around it.
Depending on the location of M5, I suppose it's also possible that they have difficulties getting a decent provider out there. Okay, maybe that thought is just a little silly.
People of different ethnic and/or religious background, held together by a dictator that fell apart once he wasn't there? I just had a Yugoslavia flashback...
And, in fact, think of all the cons that have been done in the ultimate remote fashion - by email. All of those emails asking you to login to correct some information at your bank, that kind of thing. Fortunately, education is starting to combat that variety of scam, but somehow we (as a society) became very trusting.
I work at Raytheon. There's a great deal I could say about what I work on (even some stuff that's accessible on the internet, since it's a fairly old program), but I try not to tempt fate by talking about it. While unlikely that someone would decide I know enough or whatever to want to pick my brain about what I do know, there's always a chance.
I assume other government contractor coders have similar paranoia.
Thank you. People keep saying "Death of Table-top Gaming! Film at 11!" and I'm wondering what game they're playing themselves. I'm a big Living Arcanis player, and EVERY YEAR they have to recruit more judges for Origins, the convention that campaign focuses on.
Someday, if someone makes an MMORPG in which roleplaying is more than just barely possible (someplace where things can change easily and quickly, like a MUD or MUSH), then perhaps tabletop gaming will become a footnote, but until then, I don't see it happening. MMORPGs are fun, but they do not come close to touching a real RPing experience.
Come play Arcanis. It's got better writing and story than Greyhawk ever had (IMHO), and it's been promised to stay 3.5 through at least the end of this storyarc.
Anyway, I thought WotC already killed the RPGA when they booted Arcanis, Spycraft, etc. I mean - they were worried about competition from companies like Paradigm, which is six guys with other jobs?
My husband owns a laser-engraving business (that's his URL that I have listed - my own website is pretty boring). He has just a little 45 watt one, but it cuts fine through wood, acrylic, plastic... even leather, though the smell of scorched flesh is pretty nasty. He can't cut metal, but there are plenty of ways he can mark it. Including one that bonds a black coating onto it.
And, I might add, these lasers are expensive. Making a smaller version of a higher power laser than he owns means that it's certainly out of the price range of all but the richest households. (Heck, I can't see where it hurts to say it - his 45 watt laser with a 24 by 18 bed weighs in at around fifteen grand. Higher power lasers, like those that can cut metal, are more in the six digit range, IIRC.)
I play in a Living campaign (Arcanis) and in White Wolf's Camarilla, so while it's not thousands of people online, it is a pen and paper game that involves thousands. I, too, have tried to roleplay in MMORPGs, and I think that besides the people, the world is against it, just because nothing changes.
Anyway, over in Puzzle Pirates, they have a filter that converts some phrases. Most, if not all, profanity gets changed to something pirate appropriate (okay, cute puzzling pirate appropriate), while LOL turns into SoAndSo laughs loudly.
We, I am sad to say, owned BOTH EarthWorld and whichever the other one was - FireWorld? Can't remember anymore. As a little kid, I loved the little comics though, and was frustrated that I didn't find out how the story ended!:)
(We also had ET. And Riddle of the Sphinx, which we never finished, either.)
Card got the ansible and it's name from LeGuin, practically acknowledged in the novels themselves. "The official name is Philotic Parallax Instantaneous Communicator," explains Col. Graff in Ender's Game, "but somebody dredged the name ansible out of an old book somewhere"
Single player computer RPGs don't, in my mind, qualify as RPGs either. While some do allow you to make actual choices, most of them feature very little roleplaying.
So: 1) MMORPG - ability to roleplay with other people, but difficult to have stories that change the world 2) CRPG - tough to roleplay, but can tell an actual story well 3) Table top RPG - easy to roleplay, can change the world, can tell stories, but can still deviate from the story as long as you have a GM who is on top of things and will let his players tell their own story.
I play MMORPGs, but tabletop will always own my heart. I have never been able to complete a CRPG because of boredom.
As a female programmer, I agree with you. Granted, I'm not in IT - I write code for a large defense program, but I can't imagine the situation isn't that different.
There's nothing about my workplace to dissuade a woman from working here. I don't really see sexist promotion/raise processes, I don't see inappropriate jokes (okay, much), or anything I can think of along those lines. At the highest echelons of the company, it's almost entirely men, but I suspect there are some other factors at work there that may change.
What did I want out of a job: good pay and benefits, flexible hours (not because I have any children, but because trying to get in at 7:30 every morning is tough), job security... I don't see anything different from what men want.
So, that's why I think you're right. There are fewer women in technical fields because there are fewer women trained for technical fields. I think that the thing that needs to be examined is why women are not as interested in such fields - is it because of actual brain chemistry differences, or because of sexist science teachers at young ages, because of the anti-geek factor combined with greater social awareness than men? Inconclusive, but much more interesting to explore than the article's topic, IMHO.
Interestingly, I work at a government contractor, and the idea of downloading and installing software of even questionable legality was one of the examples of what not to do in one of our Ethics Training sessions. (Basically some weird stuff with software looking free and then having stuff hidden in the EULA showing that it's not. Or something bizarre like that.) And in the case you're talking about, it's not questionable, you KNOW it's unlicensed! Wow!
I would get some of these directions in email, and start moving up the chain.
I almost said the "real world", but decided that was unfair to the government.
Anyway, at work, on my performance review I get a "does not meet", "meets", "exceeds" or "far exceeds" expectations. That's even more simplistic than a letter grade.
I work at a defense contractor. The scores given for performance of a project are similar; very, very simple.
I'm sure that like both of those examples, the departments were given detailed descriptions of what was wrong and was right, probably with each area having a grade that was aggregated to the overall grade.
I'm a Firefly fan. At one point, I looked at my complaints about the movie closely - I was listing them on a message board for someone - and I realized that they all could be solved by having a second season of Firefly instead of a movie.
I'm enjoying reading some dedicated fans attempt to make the closest they can get to that. They've put together a sizable number of scripts that I feel do a good job of capturing the feel of the show, as well as the tone of the characters. It's at StillFlying.net
To be a bit more on topic - I agree that Serenity shouldn't be the top of the list. But I praise the fans who are willing to make it happen. Star Wars has a larger fan base, absolutely, but Firefly has one that is willing to do things like this... or like making the movie happen at all, for that matter.
Slashdot Mirror
I never owned an Apple computer, but I did own a TI-99/4A, with speech synthesizer. There were a decent number of games that used it. Can't say it had an English accent, though. (*actually reads link* Hmm, I did have Atari computers and a C64, but we never had a SAM.)
Don't worry, while they give Tony a wake-up call, for most of the movie he's still a jerk. :) They didn't scrub his character for the big screen.
I think I can argue that I was seeing the intended meaning. Can you actually picture a headline of "Usability Testing Hardy Heron With a Best Friend"? "Usability Testing Hardy Heron With a Boyfriend"?
See, I think it's the fact that they emphasized that she was someone's girlfriend and didn't feel they needed to put any information about level of computer literacy in the headline. That all they felt they needed to say was that she was a "girlfriend".
And, like a lot of things, the problem can probably be put more on societal attitudes, which I freely admit have improved quite a bit even in my lifetime.
I'm not saying certain people should be off limits for such projects. Just that the headline emphasized the assumption that some geek's girlfriend must be computer illiterate, that's it.
I'm sorry, but I'm sick of things like this - his girlfriend HAS to be some untutored user who has no clue about computers, tee-hee. As a female computer programmer, should people assume my husband is computer illiterate? No? Then why assume his girlfriend is?
Isn't it enough to say that the installation was tested with a novice user instead of putting stupid assumptions and implications right in the freaking headline?
And of course, what kind of replies do I expect to my post around here? People marveling that a woman is posting on slashdot that will be modded up as funny. Given the nature of my post, I also expect some responses telling me to calm down or calling me a feminazi. There, I've taken care of those responses, you can stick to ones that actually address what I've said.
I've read the book, and part of point two is taken into account - they made sure only people from their team are at the table.
Um, GenCon Indy is the thing that keeps the rest of GenCon's failures running. It's been hugely successful in Indy, and from what I understand the locals are much friendlier. I can't attest to friendlier, having never attended elsewhere, but I can definitely say they are friendly. Restaurants tuning tvs usually on sports channels to sci-fi channel and decorating with old hall banners, special pins over at Hard Rock, that kind of thing. I had heard that things were somewhat less amicable in the old location.
It could definitely be the case - whenever they're doing tests that involve some kind of product, like, oh, Vodka or pop, they generally have a plain white Mythbusters wrapper around it.
Depending on the location of M5, I suppose it's also possible that they have difficulties getting a decent provider out there. Okay, maybe that thought is just a little silly.
People of different ethnic and/or religious background, held together by a dictator that fell apart once he wasn't there? I just had a Yugoslavia flashback...
And, in fact, think of all the cons that have been done in the ultimate remote fashion - by email. All of those emails asking you to login to correct some information at your bank, that kind of thing. Fortunately, education is starting to combat that variety of scam, but somehow we (as a society) became very trusting.
I work at Raytheon. There's a great deal I could say about what I work on (even some stuff that's accessible on the internet, since it's a fairly old program), but I try not to tempt fate by talking about it. While unlikely that someone would decide I know enough or whatever to want to pick my brain about what I do know, there's always a chance.
I assume other government contractor coders have similar paranoia.
Thank you. People keep saying "Death of Table-top Gaming! Film at 11!" and I'm wondering what game they're playing themselves. I'm a big Living Arcanis player, and EVERY YEAR they have to recruit more judges for Origins, the convention that campaign focuses on.
Someday, if someone makes an MMORPG in which roleplaying is more than just barely possible (someplace where things can change easily and quickly, like a MUD or MUSH), then perhaps tabletop gaming will become a footnote, but until then, I don't see it happening. MMORPGs are fun, but they do not come close to touching a real RPing experience.
Come play Arcanis. It's got better writing and story than Greyhawk ever had (IMHO), and it's been promised to stay 3.5 through at least the end of this storyarc.
Anyway, I thought WotC already killed the RPGA when they booted Arcanis, Spycraft, etc. I mean - they were worried about competition from companies like Paradigm, which is six guys with other jobs?
Alas, you beat me to posting. Glad to see people remembering the Dirk Gently books. I know that I love them.
:)
Anyway, can something fictional really be prior art?
My husband owns a laser-engraving business (that's his URL that I have listed - my own website is pretty boring). He has just a little 45 watt one, but it cuts fine through wood, acrylic, plastic... even leather, though the smell of scorched flesh is pretty nasty. He can't cut metal, but there are plenty of ways he can mark it. Including one that bonds a black coating onto it.
And, I might add, these lasers are expensive. Making a smaller version of a higher power laser than he owns means that it's certainly out of the price range of all but the richest households. (Heck, I can't see where it hurts to say it - his 45 watt laser with a 24 by 18 bed weighs in at around fifteen grand. Higher power lasers, like those that can cut metal, are more in the six digit range, IIRC.)
Is that different from the Tomahawk made by Raytheon?
I play in a Living campaign (Arcanis) and in White Wolf's Camarilla, so while it's not thousands of people online, it is a pen and paper game that involves thousands. I, too, have tried to roleplay in MMORPGs, and I think that besides the people, the world is against it, just because nothing changes.
Anyway, over in Puzzle Pirates, they have a filter that converts some phrases. Most, if not all, profanity gets changed to something pirate appropriate (okay, cute puzzling pirate appropriate), while LOL turns into SoAndSo laughs loudly.
We, I am sad to say, owned BOTH EarthWorld and whichever the other one was - FireWorld? Can't remember anymore. As a little kid, I loved the little comics though, and was frustrated that I didn't find out how the story ended! :)
(We also had ET. And Riddle of the Sphinx, which we never finished, either.)
And an AD&D manual gives ME a headache as I try to find the right one of the 470 charts to consult... :)
Card got the ansible and it's name from LeGuin, practically acknowledged in the novels themselves. "The official name is Philotic Parallax Instantaneous Communicator," explains Col. Graff in Ender's Game, "but somebody dredged the name ansible out of an old book somewhere"
:)
Wiki on Ansible
I know it's a minor point, but I like LeGuin better.
Single player computer RPGs don't, in my mind, qualify as RPGs either. While some do allow you to make actual choices, most of them feature very little roleplaying.
So:
1) MMORPG - ability to roleplay with other people, but difficult to have stories that change the world
2) CRPG - tough to roleplay, but can tell an actual story well
3) Table top RPG - easy to roleplay, can change the world, can tell stories, but can still deviate from the story as long as you have a GM who is on top of things and will let his players tell their own story.
I play MMORPGs, but tabletop will always own my heart. I have never been able to complete a CRPG because of boredom.
As a female programmer, I agree with you. Granted, I'm not in IT - I write code for a large defense program, but I can't imagine the situation isn't that different.
There's nothing about my workplace to dissuade a woman from working here. I don't really see sexist promotion/raise processes, I don't see inappropriate jokes (okay, much), or anything I can think of along those lines. At the highest echelons of the company, it's almost entirely men, but I suspect there are some other factors at work there that may change.
What did I want out of a job: good pay and benefits, flexible hours (not because I have any children, but because trying to get in at 7:30 every morning is tough), job security... I don't see anything different from what men want.
So, that's why I think you're right. There are fewer women in technical fields because there are fewer women trained for technical fields. I think that the thing that needs to be examined is why women are not as interested in such fields - is it because of actual brain chemistry differences, or because of sexist science teachers at young ages, because of the anti-geek factor combined with greater social awareness than men? Inconclusive, but much more interesting to explore than the article's topic, IMHO.
Interestingly, I work at a government contractor, and the idea of downloading and installing software of even questionable legality was one of the examples of what not to do in one of our Ethics Training sessions. (Basically some weird stuff with software looking free and then having stuff hidden in the EULA showing that it's not. Or something bizarre like that.) And in the case you're talking about, it's not questionable, you KNOW it's unlicensed! Wow!
I would get some of these directions in email, and start moving up the chain.
I almost said the "real world", but decided that was unfair to the government.
Anyway, at work, on my performance review I get a "does not meet", "meets", "exceeds" or "far exceeds" expectations. That's even more simplistic than a letter grade.
I work at a defense contractor. The scores given for performance of a project are similar; very, very simple.
I'm sure that like both of those examples, the departments were given detailed descriptions of what was wrong and was right, probably with each area having a grade that was aggregated to the overall grade.
I'm a Firefly fan. At one point, I looked at my complaints about the movie closely - I was listing them on a message board for someone - and I realized that they all could be solved by having a second season of Firefly instead of a movie.
I'm enjoying reading some dedicated fans attempt to make the closest they can get to that. They've put together a sizable number of scripts that I feel do a good job of capturing the feel of the show, as well as the tone of the characters. It's at StillFlying.net
To be a bit more on topic - I agree that Serenity shouldn't be the top of the list. But I praise the fans who are willing to make it happen. Star Wars has a larger fan base, absolutely, but Firefly has one that is willing to do things like this... or like making the movie happen at all, for that matter.