Ah, but if we filter all of the marshmallows out and EAT them....THEN who would have the upper hand?
Taking this analogy further...rather than filter email Spam out and dispose of it, we should filter it into a giant bowl, fill the bowl with milk, and feed it to our computers! In the same way that eating a bowl of Lucky Charms marshmallows gives the eater super-powers, feeding such loads of Spam to our computers will undoubtedly increase their proccessing loads ten-fold!
We've been blind all this time! Blind fools! Only be embracing Spam for our own purposes can we truly rule the Meta-Verse!
-Trillian (who is very tired at the moment, and appologizes for the above post..)
Your email isn't public so I'm using Slashdot to join with a couple other posters in wishing you and your wife all of the possible health and happiness in the world. I never felt 'good' at prayer, but you have my thoughts and hopes (for whatever they're worth) for a full and speedy recovery.
-Trillian
Re:The Cassandra effect and Public discourse (long
on
A New Ice Age?
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· Score: 1
Damnit. Are you sure about Christmas in Chicago in 2304? I was planning on going swimming that day, but now you're ruined everything...
I know you're aiming for flamebait, and not very skillful flamebait at that, but the first 'gay' videogames character I know of would be
Birdo from the US version of Super Mario Bros 2 for the NES. Specifically a transgendered character, according to the manual Birdo 'thinks he is a girl and he spits eggs from his mouth. He'd rather be called 'Birdetta.' Apparently Birdo was just misguided, and really wanted to be friends with Mario and Co.
A search for "birdo 'super mario'" on google or whatnot will pull up other references for Birdo.
And now you know.
-Trillian
I think it's not that simple. I do totaly agree (it's hard not to, although some people try and argue) that online gaming for the current generation of game systems isn't that big. Likewise, playing DVDs isn't that important.
But people THINK that it is.
Best Buy/EB Games/Gamespot/etc have done a great job convincing people that being able to watch DVDs and play games online (even though 95% of the system owners don't use those features too often, if ever) is really important and "where it's at." I don't think Nintendo made a poor TECHNOLOGICAL decision leaving online games pretty much off the GC, because almost no one would take advantage of it. But consumers have a mental impression that they 'need' online gaming, a DVD player, a harddrive, a coffee maker, and the kitchen sink in their videogame system.
So while I will still probably buy Nintendo's next system, just like I've bought all their past systems - whether or not it has online gaming or not - I think having online gaming is a 'state of mind' that a lot of consumers find really important.
Oh yes it did. You should be glad if you never played it. Slashdot is a great place to bitch about the Starship Troopers movie/book controversy, but the game wasn't even 'offensive' to the book, it was just bad. It was actually rather pretty to look at, but was a poor attempt at a 3D squad-based RTS. The controls were hard to use, squads were hard to command, it was difficult to give a shit about the objectives....
That said, I do agree that a MMORPG (maybe too hard, as there was really only one 'side' that would be interesting to play: the humans) or a FPS would be pretty kickass. A Tribes-styled FPS set in the Starship Trooper universe, with the absolutely kick-ass power suits and squad-structured gameplay could be tons of fun...
I totaly agree, but my fear is that a direct (or even indirect) adaptation would be harmfull because the books rely so much on plot and character, which are things videogames (while getting better) are still not GREAT at. There are some exceptions (KOTOR stands out as one in my mind, and the first Max Payne) but I don't think videogames have perfected the art of storytelling. Getting there, but not quite.
That said, I think the WORLD of the Discworld Books could make an amazing game. If someone set out to create a game, ideally with the help of Pratchet, that worked with the same sense of humor and outlandish situations (and hopefully threw in some of Pratchet's many loved characters), but wasn't tied to the plot of an actual book, it could be fantastic. I think the best movie-to-videogames (Goldeneye and, again, KOTOR stand out in my mind) allowed the medium to work with its strenghts, while acknowledging that sticking perfectly to the plot of a movie is impossible and even undesirable for a game.
I think Discworld is rich enough that it would make a fantastic setting for almost any genre - adventure (which I believe has been done in the past), action, RPG, MMORPG, etc.
I've met Card and had the chance to talk with him. (I worked at a sci-fi/fantasy bookstore where he held a signing - unfortunately the bookstore eventually collapsed under the weight of Borders' and Barnes and Noble's competition, but that's another story...) You are definitely right, in that Card is a very religious socially conservative man. He is, for religious reasons (he's a practicing Mormon), firmly against the very idea of homosexuality. His non-fiction writing (such as the essay linked to on this thread) as well as some of his fiction writing (the Homecoming series, Folk of the Fringe) show his feelings. And let me preface the rest of this post by saying I firmly disagree with his anti-homosexual and (in my opinion) women-as-second-class-citizens attitudes.
I don't think his idelogies negate the fiction he has written. Ender's Game and - to a lesser extent - the rest of the Ender-related books he has written are excellent science fiction. They are not the height of literature in the 20th Century, but are extremely enjoyable books that I have read again and again.
Even though I disagree with some of Card's social ideas in the very core of my being.
When I worked in the sci-fi/fantasy bookstore we (fellow employees and the owner) had a long discussion before Card came about his politics. Everyone at the store was liberal and had trouble reconciling Card's fiction with his ideology. If you can get your hands on it, read "Magic Mirror" by Card (do an Amazon or Google search for "Magic Mirror" and "orsonn scott card"). It's a fairy tale, but with very blunt social commentary. The family it concerns has fallen into dispair as the 'King' (dad) works too much, the 'Queen' (mom) isn't with the children enough, the 'Princess' (daughter) is out partying and the 'Prince' (son) is playing videogames. In the end the 'Queen' is in the kitchen (where she 'should be') the 'Prince' has left videogames for more 'appropriate' activities, the 'Princess' had left her goth ways to become a prim-and-propper teen blond (the most controversial change, as two of the women working at the bookstore were quite goth), and (in the only change we all agreed with) the 'King' cut back on work and spent more time with the family. While other books Card has written show some facets of his politics, this seemed to sum them all up in one little package, complete with disgustingly bright illustrations.
So what do to about Card's ideologies? While none of us were perfectly happy with it, we all were able to hold a dual view of Card: pleased with (most of) his writing, and disagreeing with (most of) his political and social views. It's not a very satisfying sollution, but I do think Card is an amazing author (some of his older short story collections are a real treat if all you've read is Ender's Game and Co.) and it would be a shame to miss out on his writings because you disagree with his philosophies.
In a more extreme case (that I hope won't allienate those of you who stuck with me thus far...) I'm able to enjoy "Battlefield Earth" as trashy sci-fi even though L. Ron Hubbard had his head shoved so far up his ass that it came back out his mouth.
The writings of Card that I have enjoyed the most (mainly Ender's Game and Co. and his short story collections) were not religious or social commentaries. While I could enjoy them as fiction (mainly because I got used copies dirt cheap while at the bookstore) I did not care as much for his more commentating endeavors.
I realize this post has been kind of rambling and offtopic, so I'll bring it back home: I think it is entirely possible to enjoy Card's writing and not feel guilty supporting the man, even though I think his views on (among other things) homosexuality are entirely and completely wrong.
While I (to some extent) agree that Card's stance on homosexuality probably (and in my opinion definitely) does not affect his writing, I think your attitude of "What have they done for ME lately" is amazingly shortsighted. I'm sorry, but I first have to pull out the well-expressed and ever-true poem of Martin Niemoller, concerning the Holocaust and Nazi Germany:
They came for the Communists, and I didn't object - For I wasn't a Communist; They came for the Socialists, and I didn't object - For I wasn't a Socialist; They came for the labor leaders, and I didn't object - For I wasn't a labor leader; They came for the Jews, and I didn't object - For I wasn't a Jew; Then they came for me - And there was no one left to object.
The attitude that people should only help each other out when it is directly benificial is, in my opinion, selfish. But - in a broader sense - it can be argued that no matter who you help, you'll help yourself in the end. Whether you want to view it as in a cosmic, karmic sense or in the practical sense that you never know who you might want to turn to for help, being selfless is often the better choice in the end.
I'm at college and, for the first time in my life, really enjoying being car-free. I'm biking to class, to activities, to eat, and taking public transportation (fortunately Chicago has a very solid public trans system) to things that are too far to walk/bike.
And know what? I've lost weight and feel healthier. (In addition to having aquired superpowers, slicing and dicing, growing 4 inches, solving world peace, etc, etc)
Unfortunately, being car-less relies in large part on where you live. Before I came to college it would have been unrealistic to bike to school, and public transportation would have added (with walking/biking to the bus stop and actually catching the bus) anywhere from 30 to 60 minutes to my otherwise 10 minute car ride. Likewise, it would have been near impossible to see friends in the winter without a car, unless one of THEM drove (which is really only shifting responsibilities).
I'm hoping to, once I go home for the summer, plan my job(s) in such a way that will let me bike. It's really been a freeing experience to not have a car. Unfortunately, YMMV...(slight pun intended...)
I agree that there haven't been any successful moral or social commentary games (that I know of) I'm just saying I don't think it's impossible. Maybe the only commentary would be that the situation WAS morally ambiguous (with the Holocaust as an example: is it more moral to save the life of a child who will be sent to the camps, or to ignore the child knowing if you DO try to help, YOUR family will all get killed. 1 death vs 3 or 4: which is "better"?)
Books are enjoyable even without freedom - other than chosing what book to read, you don't get offered choices on what the character will do. But because videogames DO offer such choices, I think it's possible (and I admit I could be wrong) to have a game that has both the moral/emotional/social power of a book, and at least some of the freedom of choice offered in traditional videogames.
I want to compliment you on your post. I too think videogames have the opportunity to be expresive in a way that is emotional and/or a social commentary and I look forward to the experimentations in that direction. I think videogames have the potential for, in specific areas, being more effective as emotional or commentative mediums because the player - by virtue of controlling the protagonist - is inherently more conected to the plot.
I don't know how it would be possible without being cheezy or seeming insesitive, but I think videogames have amazing posibilities. On the other hand, the replayable nature of videogames - with spawning and extra lives - makes the emotional impact difficult to convey. In an action setting, where death IS a posibility (say, the Holocaust or Vietnam) if the main character dies and they're not supposed to, what do you do? In a book or film it is obviously not possible for the audience to accidentaly stumble into a room of Nazis and get killed. But in a videogame this can and will happen. How do you build an emotional attachment to a character who can be respawned and loaded at will? I don't know the answer.
I think a posibility, and a way of taking a step in the direction of more action-genre type games, is an adventure-style game (possibily even a text-based game) where the game itself can take control of the players action through cutscenes or narrative so that action seens can be conveyed but the main character can't accidentaly die.
I'm currently in college, and double majoring in Performance Studies (a hippy offshoot of a Theatre Major) and Computer Science. One of the things I'm excited about is the posibilities for communication and human expression through computers - not AIM or computer graphics or the like (although they're intruiging venues) but in the ability to convey performance-type expresive content in a computer environment. I don't know if it's possible, but your post (and the grandparent) have given me some cool ideas (which I rambled about in this post) about communicating an emotional or commentative story in a videogame setting.
I would agree that Pong or Tetris or Mario is masturbation in the same way a cheezy romance novel or action movie is masturbation. But just as movies and books _can_ be enjoyable AND thought-provoking or emtional or social commentaries, I think videogames can too. No one is going to force you to play a game that is set as a social commentary on Vietnam or the Holocaust or September 11th, just as no one is going to force you to read a book commenting on those topics or watch a movie about them.
"The Diary of Anne Frank" has its place in the world, just as "Hop on Pop" and pornography do. What I think the parent/grandparent posters are suggesting is that game designers experiment with emotional content in videogames. It may not work. But - in my opinion - videogames have room for even MORE emotional intensity than books or film because the player is controlling the action. I don't think anyone was saying ALL videogames have emotional or social commentaries, just that videogames, as a medium of artistic expresion, might work very well to communicate said commentaries in some situations. No one is going to take away Unreal 2004 and Halo and Super Smash Bros. But there may be room for emotional charged games as well, just as there is room on bookstores or Blockbuster for more than one genre of book or film.
I honestly can't remember if this was something I read in a preview somewhere, or in a "Some game should include this" rant somewhere. (I feel like it might have been the latter, and on Penny Arcade.)
A nifty sollution to the problem of not being able to play with higher level friends would be the ability to do temporary apprenticship with higher lever characters. Say a level 10 hooks up with their friend, who has been playing longer and is a leve 30. The level 10 would get some sort of temporary stats and skills bumps, putting them to the equivilant of level (say) 20 or 25. Combined with a game written to allow characters within 5 or 10 level of each other to work effectively together, this would allow lower level characters to still play with higher level characters, and gain experience from it - suitably modified so they get a reasonable amount for a level 10 character and not a level 20 or 25 character.
Thinking out lout now, the system could even be built so the level 10 character doesn't imediatly jump to a temporary level 25 upon apprenticing with their friend, but does it over the course of 5 or 10 minutes, and it can only be done (for example) 6 hours out of every 24. This allows friends to still play together for (what I think) is a very reasonable amount of time, but not abuse it by having tons of level 1s running around with level 99s.
Just some thoughts. Sorry I don't know remember where the origonal idea came from, cuz it's not mine.
How is this offtopic? In the time it took my to origonally write this response, and now while I'm proofing it, Miyako's post went from "+4: Informative" to "1: Offtopic." Miyako is stating the definitions of (depending on your school of thought) medical and/or psychological conditions that the parent poster obviously either did not know or did not give a shit about.
As someone who _is_ transgendered, being lumped with your "big gay boss" (which says to me you're likely a big bad bigot) is offensive to me and I'd be willing to bet your boss would not want to be lumped in as transexual. Furthermore, I doubt very much that your boss actually crossdressed at work and it doesn't sound like the type of work relationships where you all went out to karaoke every night and had a rockin' party...
You may very well have had a dumbfuck boss (you even may have had a crossdressing boss! who knows!) who could not decide upon a page layout, hired fools, and was very overweight. But I'm not going to go say, "Fuck! My boss was such an idiot! Couldn't decide on a design and hired people who didn't know what the hell they were doing! And did I mention he was a nigger? A day couldn't go by without him saying 'If y'all don't get this shit right I'm gonna force-feed y'all watermelons!'" (Appologies for not being able to come up with a better racist remark....) You'd know I was bullshitting you.
Likewise, I call bullshit on your story.
So don't embelish your stories with lies to make them sound more entertaining. And if you have to, at least try to pick lies that don't create a giant "BIGOT" sign over your head.
In all honesty, I agree with you. I have some friends in my dorm who are planning to engage in a friendly prank war tomorrow and we've layed out specific guidelines to make sure no one DOES just go off and do something stupid, something dangerous, or something that will get someone hurt.
A well thought-out prank is absolutely priceless. For example, I think the one someone posted elsewhere on this Ask Slashdot - about posting fake notices that the showers in a dorm will, in the future, be Pay-Per-Use - is extremely funny. It doesn't really hurt anyone, it's rediculous but believable, and it's easy to 'fix' ("April Fools! Gotcha!")
I want to thank you for this briliant idea. I'm definitely doing this in my dorm (along with the other things I have planned).
-Trillian
PS I'm now typing random stuff because Slashdot says I need to wait 20 seconds between hitting "Reply" and submitting the message. So...randomness......fa la la la la...
I read your entire post and, in _my_ post I said "You go and contradict yourself, saying that those who work in universities "actually know what your talking about," implying maybe they can "do," but I still dislike your use of the (dead wrong) cliche." You start off with the cliche and then attempt to nullify it by offering some points in favor of higher education. But the very first point your post offers is the cliche. While I do appologize if I missunderstood your post I did see that you were, overall, in favor of working in higher education. However, your initial use of the cliche seemed to indicate you thought it was, at least partially, true - which is what offended me. Again, I am sorry if I painted your quote in an inaccurate light, but why use the cliche to begin with, if you don't agree with it?
Having two parents who teach, I'm gonna have to take offense at that. The cliche is, occasionally, true but is more often used to make people feel better about bad profs or to feel good about not being a teacher. Good teachers (and quite honestly I've had more good than bad) are "doing" and anyone who says otherwise obviously has never taught, or had someone close to them who is a teacher.
In addition, college and university teaching gives profs amazing opportunities to teach AND "do." My father is both a law professor and one of the highest rated defense lawyers in the City of Chicago, having been integrally involved in former Gov. Ryan's choice to put a moratorium on the death penalty. He would not have had the resources (grad students, freedom given by his university to persue his own goals, etc) to persue such lofty goals as aboloshing the death penalty and guaranteeing the rights of the accused (I'll play the Slashdot 'Civil Liberties Card' and say he's probably doing more to protect them that _you_ are) were he not at a university.
Likewise, my mother works with special ed. kids and makes each and every one of their lives better. She may not be changing the world in dramatic or historically significant ways, but I know each child and their family values her and she values them.
You go and contradict yourself, saying that those who work in universities "actually know what your talking about," implying maybe they can "do," but I still dislike your use of the (dead wrong) cliche.
To the origonal poster who is asking the question: I'm a student at an "institution of higher learning", and have no experience working in education. However, having spoken to both my parents I know they both love working in education. Specifically my dad, who works at a university teaching and also is able to practice law through the university loves being able to work with students and shape their futures, as well as actually get down and dirty and do "real" work. As many other posters have indicated, I do know he complains about the political aspects and dislikes the occasional stupidity. Specifically, he says their are profs who haven't actually practiced law in years and instead are satisfied with 'intellectually' persuing law by reading and writing about it. My understanding is there are such people in every branch of education, who find the study of their subject of choice to be more important than the actual practice. This may be where the cliche "Those who can do, those who can't teach" came from, so it may have a grain of truth in it.
But if you're interested in working in at a university, and what other posters have said sounds enjoyable (and from my limited understand, what other posters have said about lower pay but more flexible hours and nice benifits is true) then I'd say go for it. It won't be the rest of your life, and it may be something you enjoy beyond measure.
I actually pretty much agree that we haven't totaly reached the uncanny valley yet, I just think we're getting there. I can see a point in the near future when a game will come out that is unsettling because the main character walks and talks in a way that is amazingly lifelike, but off in some key way. It's very easy (comparatively) to make a Mario-styled 2D game that needs to be only the merest reflection of reality. It's much harder to make a game like Splinter Cell or Doom where the goal is tons of realism. And I think we're reaching a cliff, where it'll be exponentially harder to reach the next graphical goal of photorealistic, true-to-life realtime graphics (or even pregenerated ones).
I'd agree we haven't quite gotten to the cliff yet, as games are still too unrealistic to be quite in the uncanny valley, but I think we're getting there.
I think we're also reaching what's called the "Uncanny Valley" (good explanation: http://www.arclight.net/~pdb/glimpses/valley.html ). "Stated simply, the idea is that if one were to plot emotional response against similarity to human appearance and movement, the curve is not a sure, steady upward trend. Instead, there is a peak shortly before one reaches a completely human "look" . . . but then a deep chasm plunges below neutrality into a strongly negative response before rebounding to a second peak where resemblance to humanity is complete."
The website explains it very well, with helpful graphs. Basically, people are willing to accept unrealistic portrayal of a 'live' thing (teddy bears or straight animation). As you approach actual photo-realism people continue to accept the visual as looking 'good'. Take Toy Story or Finding Nemo for examples. But then there is a sudden dropoff where the object looks real enough to be creepy, but not real enough to be convincing. Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within arguably suffered from this.
Relating it to videogames, Mario was only the vaguest representation of 'reality' and everyone was fine accepting this jumping 2D. figure. No one was saying the graphics in Mario were disturbing or whatever. Leap forward to Mario 64, and it's still cartoon-ish enough that it doesn't look weird. But games are beginning to reach the Uncanny Valley where they are real enough to be disturbingly lifelike, but where the movement animation and graphics aren't actually realistic enough to jump out of the Uncanny Valley.
This isn't directly related to what the article is talking about, as this is more about movement animation than the environment of the game world, but it's on the same topic. Games are becoming real enough that we're beginning to have problems with the discrepancies between game and reality. No one complained Mario 64 or Sonic or Final Fantasy VII looked 'unrealistic' because they were clearly only attempts to model and emulate specific parts of reality, to give an idea of the world rather than model every single blade of grass. But as graphics attempt to move towards modeling every single blade of grass they suffer the danger of hitting this Uncanny Vally wall.
Slashdot Mirror
Ah, but if we filter all of the marshmallows out and EAT them....THEN who would have the upper hand?
Taking this analogy further...rather than filter email Spam out and dispose of it, we should filter it into a giant bowl, fill the bowl with milk, and feed it to our computers! In the same way that eating a bowl of Lucky Charms marshmallows gives the eater super-powers, feeding such loads of Spam to our computers will undoubtedly increase their proccessing loads ten-fold!
We've been blind all this time! Blind fools! Only be embracing Spam for our own purposes can we truly rule the Meta-Verse!
-Trillian (who is very tired at the moment, and appologizes for the above post..)
You must be new here...
-Trillian
(Sorry. Couldn't help it.)
Because heaven help us if the Sun-Times is being presented as a good source of information on ANYTHING....
-Trillian
Your email isn't public so I'm using Slashdot to join with a couple other posters in wishing you and your wife all of the possible health and happiness in the world. I never felt 'good' at prayer, but you have my thoughts and hopes (for whatever they're worth) for a full and speedy recovery.
-Trillian
Damnit. Are you sure about Christmas in Chicago in 2304? I was planning on going swimming that day, but now you're ruined everything...
-Trillian
Yes.
-Trillian
I know you're aiming for flamebait, and not very skillful flamebait at that, but the first 'gay' videogames character I know of would be Birdo from the US version of Super Mario Bros 2 for the NES. Specifically a transgendered character, according to the manual Birdo 'thinks he is a girl and he spits eggs from his mouth. He'd rather be called 'Birdetta.' Apparently Birdo was just misguided, and really wanted to be friends with Mario and Co. A search for "birdo 'super mario'" on google or whatnot will pull up other references for Birdo. And now you know. -Trillian
I think it's not that simple. I do totaly agree (it's hard not to, although some people try and argue) that online gaming for the current generation of game systems isn't that big. Likewise, playing DVDs isn't that important.
But people THINK that it is.
Best Buy/EB Games/Gamespot/etc have done a great job convincing people that being able to watch DVDs and play games online (even though 95% of the system owners don't use those features too often, if ever) is really important and "where it's at." I don't think Nintendo made a poor TECHNOLOGICAL decision leaving online games pretty much off the GC, because almost no one would take advantage of it. But consumers have a mental impression that they 'need' online gaming, a DVD player, a harddrive, a coffee maker, and the kitchen sink in their videogame system.
So while I will still probably buy Nintendo's next system, just like I've bought all their past systems - whether or not it has online gaming or not - I think having online gaming is a 'state of mind' that a lot of consumers find really important.
Just my 2 cents
-Trillian
Oh yes it did. You should be glad if you never played it. Slashdot is a great place to bitch about the Starship Troopers movie/book controversy, but the game wasn't even 'offensive' to the book, it was just bad. It was actually rather pretty to look at, but was a poor attempt at a 3D squad-based RTS. The controls were hard to use, squads were hard to command, it was difficult to give a shit about the objectives....
That said, I do agree that a MMORPG (maybe too hard, as there was really only one 'side' that would be interesting to play: the humans) or a FPS would be pretty kickass. A Tribes-styled FPS set in the Starship Trooper universe, with the absolutely kick-ass power suits and squad-structured gameplay could be tons of fun...
-Trillian
I totaly agree, but my fear is that a direct (or even indirect) adaptation would be harmfull because the books rely so much on plot and character, which are things videogames (while getting better) are still not GREAT at. There are some exceptions (KOTOR stands out as one in my mind, and the first Max Payne) but I don't think videogames have perfected the art of storytelling. Getting there, but not quite.
That said, I think the WORLD of the Discworld Books could make an amazing game. If someone set out to create a game, ideally with the help of Pratchet, that worked with the same sense of humor and outlandish situations (and hopefully threw in some of Pratchet's many loved characters), but wasn't tied to the plot of an actual book, it could be fantastic. I think the best movie-to-videogames (Goldeneye and, again, KOTOR stand out in my mind) allowed the medium to work with its strenghts, while acknowledging that sticking perfectly to the plot of a movie is impossible and even undesirable for a game.
I think Discworld is rich enough that it would make a fantastic setting for almost any genre - adventure (which I believe has been done in the past), action, RPG, MMORPG, etc.
-Trillian
I've met Card and had the chance to talk with him. (I worked at a sci-fi/fantasy bookstore where he held a signing - unfortunately the bookstore eventually collapsed under the weight of Borders' and Barnes and Noble's competition, but that's another story...) You are definitely right, in that Card is a very religious socially conservative man. He is, for religious reasons (he's a practicing Mormon), firmly against the very idea of homosexuality. His non-fiction writing (such as the essay linked to on this thread) as well as some of his fiction writing (the Homecoming series, Folk of the Fringe) show his feelings. And let me preface the rest of this post by saying I firmly disagree with his anti-homosexual and (in my opinion) women-as-second-class-citizens attitudes.
I don't think his idelogies negate the fiction he has written. Ender's Game and - to a lesser extent - the rest of the Ender-related books he has written are excellent science fiction. They are not the height of literature in the 20th Century, but are extremely enjoyable books that I have read again and again.
Even though I disagree with some of Card's social ideas in the very core of my being.
When I worked in the sci-fi/fantasy bookstore we (fellow employees and the owner) had a long discussion before Card came about his politics. Everyone at the store was liberal and had trouble reconciling Card's fiction with his ideology. If you can get your hands on it, read "Magic Mirror" by Card (do an Amazon or Google search for "Magic Mirror" and "orsonn scott card"). It's a fairy tale, but with very blunt social commentary. The family it concerns has fallen into dispair as the 'King' (dad) works too much, the 'Queen' (mom) isn't with the children enough, the 'Princess' (daughter) is out partying and the 'Prince' (son) is playing videogames. In the end the 'Queen' is in the kitchen (where she 'should be') the 'Prince' has left videogames for more 'appropriate' activities, the 'Princess' had left her goth ways to become a prim-and-propper teen blond (the most controversial change, as two of the women working at the bookstore were quite goth), and (in the only change we all agreed with) the 'King' cut back on work and spent more time with the family. While other books Card has written show some facets of his politics, this seemed to sum them all up in one little package, complete with disgustingly bright illustrations.
So what do to about Card's ideologies? While none of us were perfectly happy with it, we all were able to hold a dual view of Card: pleased with (most of) his writing, and disagreeing with (most of) his political and social views. It's not a very satisfying sollution, but I do think Card is an amazing author (some of his older short story collections are a real treat if all you've read is Ender's Game and Co.) and it would be a shame to miss out on his writings because you disagree with his philosophies.
In a more extreme case (that I hope won't allienate those of you who stuck with me thus far...) I'm able to enjoy "Battlefield Earth" as trashy sci-fi even though L. Ron Hubbard had his head shoved so far up his ass that it came back out his mouth.
The writings of Card that I have enjoyed the most (mainly Ender's Game and Co. and his short story collections) were not religious or social commentaries. While I could enjoy them as fiction (mainly because I got used copies dirt cheap while at the bookstore) I did not care as much for his more commentating endeavors.
I realize this post has been kind of rambling and offtopic, so I'll bring it back home: I think it is entirely possible to enjoy Card's writing and not feel guilty supporting the man, even though I think his views on (among other things) homosexuality are entirely and completely wrong.
-Trillian
While I (to some extent) agree that Card's stance on homosexuality probably (and in my opinion definitely) does not affect his writing, I think your attitude of "What have they done for ME lately" is amazingly shortsighted. I'm sorry, but I first have to pull out the well-expressed and ever-true poem of Martin Niemoller, concerning the Holocaust and Nazi Germany:
They came for the Communists,
and I didn't object -
For I wasn't a Communist;
They came for the Socialists,
and I didn't object -
For I wasn't a Socialist;
They came for the labor leaders,
and I didn't object -
For I wasn't a labor leader;
They came for the Jews,
and I didn't object -
For I wasn't a Jew;
Then they came for me -
And there was no one left to object.
The attitude that people should only help each other out when it is directly benificial is, in my opinion, selfish. But - in a broader sense - it can be argued that no matter who you help, you'll help yourself in the end. Whether you want to view it as in a cosmic, karmic sense or in the practical sense that you never know who you might want to turn to for help, being selfless is often the better choice in the end.
-Trillian
I'm at college and, for the first time in my life, really enjoying being car-free. I'm biking to class, to activities, to eat, and taking public transportation (fortunately Chicago has a very solid public trans system) to things that are too far to walk/bike.
And know what? I've lost weight and feel healthier. (In addition to having aquired superpowers, slicing and dicing, growing 4 inches, solving world peace, etc, etc)
Unfortunately, being car-less relies in large part on where you live. Before I came to college it would have been unrealistic to bike to school, and public transportation would have added (with walking/biking to the bus stop and actually catching the bus) anywhere from 30 to 60 minutes to my otherwise 10 minute car ride. Likewise, it would have been near impossible to see friends in the winter without a car, unless one of THEM drove (which is really only shifting responsibilities).
I'm hoping to, once I go home for the summer, plan my job(s) in such a way that will let me bike. It's really been a freeing experience to not have a car. Unfortunately, YMMV...(slight pun intended...)
-Trillian
I agree that there haven't been any successful moral or social commentary games (that I know of) I'm just saying I don't think it's impossible. Maybe the only commentary would be that the situation WAS morally ambiguous (with the Holocaust as an example: is it more moral to save the life of a child who will be sent to the camps, or to ignore the child knowing if you DO try to help, YOUR family will all get killed. 1 death vs 3 or 4: which is "better"?)
Books are enjoyable even without freedom - other than chosing what book to read, you don't get offered choices on what the character will do. But because videogames DO offer such choices, I think it's possible (and I admit I could be wrong) to have a game that has both the moral/emotional/social power of a book, and at least some of the freedom of choice offered in traditional videogames.
-Trillian
I want to compliment you on your post. I too think videogames have the opportunity to be expresive in a way that is emotional and/or a social commentary and I look forward to the experimentations in that direction. I think videogames have the potential for, in specific areas, being more effective as emotional or commentative mediums because the player - by virtue of controlling the protagonist - is inherently more conected to the plot.
I don't know how it would be possible without being cheezy or seeming insesitive, but I think videogames have amazing posibilities. On the other hand, the replayable nature of videogames - with spawning and extra lives - makes the emotional impact difficult to convey. In an action setting, where death IS a posibility (say, the Holocaust or Vietnam) if the main character dies and they're not supposed to, what do you do? In a book or film it is obviously not possible for the audience to accidentaly stumble into a room of Nazis and get killed. But in a videogame this can and will happen. How do you build an emotional attachment to a character who can be respawned and loaded at will? I don't know the answer.
I think a posibility, and a way of taking a step in the direction of more action-genre type games, is an adventure-style game (possibily even a text-based game) where the game itself can take control of the players action through cutscenes or narrative so that action seens can be conveyed but the main character can't accidentaly die.
I'm currently in college, and double majoring in Performance Studies (a hippy offshoot of a Theatre Major) and Computer Science. One of the things I'm excited about is the posibilities for communication and human expression through computers - not AIM or computer graphics or the like (although they're intruiging venues) but in the ability to convey performance-type expresive content in a computer environment. I don't know if it's possible, but your post (and the grandparent) have given me some cool ideas (which I rambled about in this post) about communicating an emotional or commentative story in a videogame setting.
Thanks a ton for your insights!
-Trillian
I would agree that Pong or Tetris or Mario is masturbation in the same way a cheezy romance novel or action movie is masturbation. But just as movies and books _can_ be enjoyable AND thought-provoking or emtional or social commentaries, I think videogames can too. No one is going to force you to play a game that is set as a social commentary on Vietnam or the Holocaust or September 11th, just as no one is going to force you to read a book commenting on those topics or watch a movie about them.
"The Diary of Anne Frank" has its place in the world, just as "Hop on Pop" and pornography do. What I think the parent/grandparent posters are suggesting is that game designers experiment with emotional content in videogames. It may not work. But - in my opinion - videogames have room for even MORE emotional intensity than books or film because the player is controlling the action. I don't think anyone was saying ALL videogames have emotional or social commentaries, just that videogames, as a medium of artistic expresion, might work very well to communicate said commentaries in some situations. No one is going to take away Unreal 2004 and Halo and Super Smash Bros. But there may be room for emotional charged games as well, just as there is room on bookstores or Blockbuster for more than one genre of book or film.
-Trillian
I honestly can't remember if this was something I read in a preview somewhere, or in a "Some game should include this" rant somewhere. (I feel like it might have been the latter, and on Penny Arcade.)
A nifty sollution to the problem of not being able to play with higher level friends would be the ability to do temporary apprenticship with higher lever characters. Say a level 10 hooks up with their friend, who has been playing longer and is a leve 30. The level 10 would get some sort of temporary stats and skills bumps, putting them to the equivilant of level (say) 20 or 25. Combined with a game written to allow characters within 5 or 10 level of each other to work effectively together, this would allow lower level characters to still play with higher level characters, and gain experience from it - suitably modified so they get a reasonable amount for a level 10 character and not a level 20 or 25 character.
Thinking out lout now, the system could even be built so the level 10 character doesn't imediatly jump to a temporary level 25 upon apprenticing with their friend, but does it over the course of 5 or 10 minutes, and it can only be done (for example) 6 hours out of every 24. This allows friends to still play together for (what I think) is a very reasonable amount of time, but not abuse it by having tons of level 1s running around with level 99s.
Just some thoughts. Sorry I don't know remember where the origonal idea came from, cuz it's not mine.
-Trillian
How is this offtopic? In the time it took my to origonally write this response, and now while I'm proofing it, Miyako's post went from "+4: Informative" to "1: Offtopic." Miyako is stating the definitions of (depending on your school of thought) medical and/or psychological conditions that the parent poster obviously either did not know or did not give a shit about.
As someone who _is_ transgendered, being lumped with your "big gay boss" (which says to me you're likely a big bad bigot) is offensive to me and I'd be willing to bet your boss would not want to be lumped in as transexual. Furthermore, I doubt very much that your boss actually crossdressed at work and it doesn't sound like the type of work relationships where you all went out to karaoke every night and had a rockin' party...
You may very well have had a dumbfuck boss (you even may have had a crossdressing boss! who knows!) who could not decide upon a page layout, hired fools, and was very overweight. But I'm not going to go say, "Fuck! My boss was such an idiot! Couldn't decide on a design and hired people who didn't know what the hell they were doing! And did I mention he was a nigger? A day couldn't go by without him saying 'If y'all don't get this shit right I'm gonna force-feed y'all watermelons!'" (Appologies for not being able to come up with a better racist remark....) You'd know I was bullshitting you.
Likewise, I call bullshit on your story.
So don't embelish your stories with lies to make them sound more entertaining. And if you have to, at least try to pick lies that don't create a giant "BIGOT" sign over your head.
-Trillian
If only we could find a news site around here....
*ba ba dum*
In all honesty, I agree with you. I have some friends in my dorm who are planning to engage in a friendly prank war tomorrow and we've layed out specific guidelines to make sure no one DOES just go off and do something stupid, something dangerous, or something that will get someone hurt.
A well thought-out prank is absolutely priceless. For example, I think the one someone posted elsewhere on this Ask Slashdot - about posting fake notices that the showers in a dorm will, in the future, be Pay-Per-Use - is extremely funny. It doesn't really hurt anyone, it's rediculous but believable, and it's easy to 'fix' ("April Fools! Gotcha!")
It's the ones that go overboard that are evil...
-Trillian
I want to thank you for this briliant idea. I'm definitely doing this in my dorm (along with the other things I have planned).
-Trillian
PS I'm now typing random stuff because Slashdot says I need to wait 20 seconds between hitting "Reply" and submitting the message. So...randomness......fa la la la la...
I'm not necessarily disagreeing with you, but am curious what treasonous activities you think Bush Jr. has been up to.
-Trillian
I read your entire post and, in _my_ post I said "You go and contradict yourself, saying that those who work in universities "actually know what your talking about," implying maybe they can "do," but I still dislike your use of the (dead wrong) cliche." You start off with the cliche and then attempt to nullify it by offering some points in favor of higher education. But the very first point your post offers is the cliche. While I do appologize if I missunderstood your post I did see that you were, overall, in favor of working in higher education. However, your initial use of the cliche seemed to indicate you thought it was, at least partially, true - which is what offended me. Again, I am sorry if I painted your quote in an inaccurate light, but why use the cliche to begin with, if you don't agree with it?
-Trillian
Having two parents who teach, I'm gonna have to take offense at that. The cliche is, occasionally, true but is more often used to make people feel better about bad profs or to feel good about not being a teacher. Good teachers (and quite honestly I've had more good than bad) are "doing" and anyone who says otherwise obviously has never taught, or had someone close to them who is a teacher.
In addition, college and university teaching gives profs amazing opportunities to teach AND "do." My father is both a law professor and one of the highest rated defense lawyers in the City of Chicago, having been integrally involved in former Gov. Ryan's choice to put a moratorium on the death penalty. He would not have had the resources (grad students, freedom given by his university to persue his own goals, etc) to persue such lofty goals as aboloshing the death penalty and guaranteeing the rights of the accused (I'll play the Slashdot 'Civil Liberties Card' and say he's probably doing more to protect them that _you_ are) were he not at a university.
Likewise, my mother works with special ed. kids and makes each and every one of their lives better. She may not be changing the world in dramatic or historically significant ways, but I know each child and their family values her and she values them.
You go and contradict yourself, saying that those who work in universities "actually know what your talking about," implying maybe they can "do," but I still dislike your use of the (dead wrong) cliche.
To the origonal poster who is asking the question: I'm a student at an "institution of higher learning", and have no experience working in education. However, having spoken to both my parents I know they both love working in education. Specifically my dad, who works at a university teaching and also is able to practice law through the university loves being able to work with students and shape their futures, as well as actually get down and dirty and do "real" work. As many other posters have indicated, I do know he complains about the political aspects and dislikes the occasional stupidity. Specifically, he says their are profs who haven't actually practiced law in years and instead are satisfied with 'intellectually' persuing law by reading and writing about it. My understanding is there are such people in every branch of education, who find the study of their subject of choice to be more important than the actual practice. This may be where the cliche "Those who can do, those who can't teach" came from, so it may have a grain of truth in it.
But if you're interested in working in at a university, and what other posters have said sounds enjoyable (and from my limited understand, what other posters have said about lower pay but more flexible hours and nice benifits is true) then I'd say go for it. It won't be the rest of your life, and it may be something you enjoy beyond measure.
My two cents.
-Trillian
I actually pretty much agree that we haven't totaly reached the uncanny valley yet, I just think we're getting there. I can see a point in the near future when a game will come out that is unsettling because the main character walks and talks in a way that is amazingly lifelike, but off in some key way. It's very easy (comparatively) to make a Mario-styled 2D game that needs to be only the merest reflection of reality. It's much harder to make a game like Splinter Cell or Doom where the goal is tons of realism. And I think we're reaching a cliff, where it'll be exponentially harder to reach the next graphical goal of photorealistic, true-to-life realtime graphics (or even pregenerated ones).
I'd agree we haven't quite gotten to the cliff yet, as games are still too unrealistic to be quite in the uncanny valley, but I think we're getting there.
-Trillian
I think we're also reaching what's called the "Uncanny Valley" (good explanation: http://www.arclight.net/~pdb/glimpses/valley.html ).
"Stated simply, the idea is that if one were to plot emotional response against similarity to human appearance and movement, the curve is not a sure, steady upward trend. Instead, there is a peak shortly before one reaches a completely human "look" . . . but then a deep chasm plunges below neutrality into a strongly negative response before rebounding to a second peak where resemblance to humanity is complete."
The website explains it very well, with helpful graphs. Basically, people are willing to accept unrealistic portrayal of a 'live' thing (teddy bears or straight animation). As you approach actual photo-realism people continue to accept the visual as looking 'good'. Take Toy Story or Finding Nemo for examples. But then there is a sudden dropoff where the object looks real enough to be creepy, but not real enough to be convincing. Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within arguably suffered from this.
Relating it to videogames, Mario was only the vaguest representation of 'reality' and everyone was fine accepting this jumping 2D. figure. No one was saying the graphics in Mario were disturbing or whatever. Leap forward to Mario 64, and it's still cartoon-ish enough that it doesn't look weird. But games are beginning to reach the Uncanny Valley where they are real enough to be disturbingly lifelike, but where the movement animation and graphics aren't actually realistic enough to jump out of the Uncanny Valley.
This isn't directly related to what the article is talking about, as this is more about movement animation than the environment of the game world, but it's on the same topic. Games are becoming real enough that we're beginning to have problems with the discrepancies between game and reality. No one complained Mario 64 or Sonic or Final Fantasy VII looked 'unrealistic' because they were clearly only attempts to model and emulate specific parts of reality, to give an idea of the world rather than model every single blade of grass. But as graphics attempt to move towards modeling every single blade of grass they suffer the danger of hitting this Uncanny Vally wall.
-Trillian