whew...I wish I could remember the title of a good Australian book on girls and computers. Basically they found that boys would shove the girls out of the way and naturally the girls wouldn't push back. Also they found that girls prefer to work and solve computer problems in groups rather than like the loner males.
Computers aren't hard. I would love to see a man out there who could put together the fan site I have for Hunter S. Thompson. In terms of class, devotion and style, nothing can compare to mine.
I work as an HTML programmer, but I also do Flash, Director, among other things. Yup, it was natural for me.
OTOH, I used to work in a library where the old biddies were deathly frightened of computers. They could make Dynix (the library software) go, but damn if they could get anywhere on the net;-) I mean, they were nice, but they felt that computers were for men.
OTOH, I work in a place where the geek guys are awesome!
It's not about pc, bs or whatever, it's about letting girls know that they can command a box too.
Maybe I'm not getting this, but 20 or 30 years ago most jobs didn't require a computer or computer skills. Unless you want to grow up to be a garbageman or a farm labourer these days...
I'm 21, we didn't have a remote controlled TV till I was 13, no VCR until I was at least 17, and last year we bought our first CD player. First computer was bought in 1996, tho I'd been using them since I was 8.
My mother, almost fifty, works in a dept store where the new cash registers are all computerized. You can just imagine her fear of them! About ten yrs ago she took a course on Apple Macs. She might never use a computer for much (except card games, since I'm always around to print something out for her). The youngest clerk in that store is 21 as well and she didn't even finish high school! All of the clerks in that store fear the new machines.
If you don't have the knowledge, you are going to lose out!
OTOH, there are plenty of seniors that could have fun with old boxes, and keep their minds occupied!
Yeah, that is true, but fostering a game for hate is such a bad idea! Try Director Web http://www.mcli.dist.maricopa.edu/director/diges t/index.html and search July for Pakistan
No kidding:-) I've tried things in Shockwave that are mildly amusing but would never appeal to a mass audience. OTOH, I'm on a director list and about two months ago this guy posted his game URL to the list and asked for advice on how to make it better. The list was just *stunned* because in the game, India always wins over Pakistan. The programmer (who should have known better) tried to lamely say that if we all lived in India we would understand. I find it sad that someone would use Lingo in this way. I still have my response to the person:
Hi listies,
I don't think this is too OT since you can make games with Director and devising and programming one are certainly considerations. Since I hang around Shockrave a lot, hee hee, I have played a few stinkers.
The post about Vishnal's game got me thinking. I have to say I don't like the game, but I'm sure that someone out there has thought of an American equivalent of it somewhere - who knows - perhaps Hatewatch would know.
I read somewhere once that game programming had to be one of the hardest jobs there is. When I play old 2600 games on my PC, I wonder how I liked any of them in the first place, and I don't mean Custer's Revenge either! But then, it took an incredible amount of imagination to interpret the games - maybe my brother and I are the only ones who thought the thief in Raiders of the Lost Ark was a total pervert with the way he came in his trenchcoat and "robbed" you.
I think Americans are pretty edgy about game violence right now. But you know, I live in a pre-dominantly East Indian neighbourhood. During a provincial election, the PC candidate was Indian, the Liberal candidate was Pakistani. You wouldn't believe how many Liberal signs were defaced! And I find that somewhat sad, that people can't leave their ill feelings behind when they come to a new country. The same thing happened on Heritage Day a few yrs ago when Serbs and Croats started a fight at the festival. Now they place their tents on opposite sides of the grounds.
I myself always thought technology was supposed to be enlightening. But sadly, the technology of war is very frightning. Wars in the middle ages were really great shoving matches, where most of the soldiers were drunk (not to mention accompanied by hordes of people). People talk of the dehumanizing factors of games, but ever since WW2, govts have been trying to find ways of dehumanizing people in order to kill. This, in fact, extends to slaughterhouses, where people become an extension of a vast and impersonal killing process.
I like the idea of people finding other things to use instead of bullets. Like in Water Balloon drop, you throw eggs and tomatoes! And it remains a fun game even though no one is ever killed.
Salon recently had a good article on why even violent games can fail (which should be handy for anyone): http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/1999/06/21/game_ violence/index.html
Vishnal, I harbour no ill will, but one should always consider the audience of the list. I have noticed that there are mostly German, North American, French and New Zealand/Australian people here. While you made a game with Lingo and Director, people cannot be expected to react differently than what they did.
It would be similar if I made a shoot 'em up where beavers picked off eagles out of the sky. This wouldn't exactly make me popular with too many people. Racial intolerance and hatred is not tolerated in most Western countries, and I think that such a game would even be illegal in the US or Canada. When you deal with a global audience, all sensitivities must be taken into account.
I believe there are different arcade versions of the Battle of Midway (or is it 1945?) for American and Japanese markets. And it pleases me that games are also marked with levels of violence, such as Pitfall, where one is required to kill animals.
You wanted to know if the game could be improved. Maybe this was meant as a technical question, but the shock might have been less if we knew what the game was. I'm sure like myself, most thought it was a peace-solving game when they read the post. In North America, at the very least, such a game would be in very poor taste. We may not understand what is going on in India, and it is getting very little press here. While you might not find your game offensive, some people certainly will.
It would be very hard for most people on this list to suggest any other improvement - they're shocked. What advice can they offer about something that goes against their ideals? Maybe this wasn't the right forum to look for advice specific to your cause.
I hope this isn't too long, but I think, from the posts surrounding the game, it just goes to show how hard it is to design for games and to give some thoughts for game designers, programmers and illustrators to think about. I'm not looking for flames or intend this to be flamebait either. With the global nature of the Internet, the subject seemed appropriate.
I always, always make back-ups to. All it takes is one person to overwrite your document (esp if you're not using CVS or something like that) and *poof*. Save! CRTL+S! Is it so hard? I learned the hard way after losing several graphics that I had been working on for a long time - if I remembered to save every 10 mins in that case - wow, what a difference!
My computer at home is a Pentium, bought 1996. I have a scanner and printer. It lags behind a little - but just a little - then my Pentium II at work. It has a 1.6GB HD - space is a prob yes, 16MB RAM - yes, short on that...but it's still a damn good computer, and *reliable*. My brother has a new Celeron and man, it's a classy little box, but my computer has a lot of potential. I'm waiting till after Y2K to upgrade it. According to everything I've read and tested it with, it is Y2K compliant. But...ya won't know till the acid test comes, right?
OTOH, I have a Smith Corona WP (takes floppies) that I bought in 1995 for $200 brand new. When my brother crashed my computer, it was a handy back up for my writing - and any other time I didn't feel like staring at a monitor.
OTOH I also have two manual typewriters I can find ribbons for. My dad bought a Brother EP45 typewriter around 1989 - I think. Damn fine little machine, but he's damned to find cartridges for it!
I don't know. I've pounded out many things on my little blue Royal and my little grey factory-reject. There is a certain rhythm that makes it so enjoyable.
Ah well. If Y2K comes around and my computer crashes, I'll have three machines at home to keep me happy in the meantime:-)
Anything with a clear case can be successfully marketed to the prison industry - they already have such cases for TVs! And don't forget education - just ask the kids at Jonesboro High, where backpacks are only allowed if they're see-thru! Nation of jailers, nation of jailers!
oh lord, how true. When I worked at the library, it was amazing how many people didn't know what the enter key was for. Worse, the library's software always said "press Return". So they look on the keyboard and there's no return! Man, major goof on someone's part.
No matter how much I liked someone, if they signed a contract where they had to pay x, then they should pay! It's hard to actually run server and bandwidth w/o the dineros. That's the way it is these days, I'm sad to say....it's a reality, not necessarily a condition.
I call my bb The Owl Farm Kitchen. For a long time, people mistook it for being some sort of wholesome place to post because it contained the word Kitchen. I would get all sorts of Christian people in "Come see my site" sort of thing. Then they realized that it was a rather depraved place to be! I love it, fooling people like that.
People get lost in Banff all the time. It just boggles the mind. First rule of camping: make sure the park service knows where you are. You can leave your trip course with the wardens *just in case*. TOURISTS are the worst. They figure that the "wilderness" is some sort of Disney movie, that some friendly ranger (or French-Canadian stereotype) will come along and rescue them. I know, it just beats me when you see tourists so lightly dressed in the mountains.
OTOH, like most movies, there wouldn't be any plot/conflict/action if the main characters weren't so dumb;-) f'rinstance, in Trainspotting, if they were all doped out on heroin the baby wouldn't have died.
You would think the guy would have easily racked up $700,000 in legal fees by now. I don't know what fuels Americans penchants for lawsuits - like, what kind of justice is there to be gained?
An important factor is that the US doesn't have "loser pays" laws. In Canada and Britain, if you tried a stunt like that, not only would you be thrown out, you'd have to pay the other guy's legal fees.
OH MY GOD!!!! Can you imagine such a thing! Well, we used to have a metal key for the downstairs ladies, but mgmt finally got rid of it - we were losing one key a month and that was bad enough!
I have a cool little book from 1971 called Perils of the Peaceful Atom. It is the ultimate doomsday book. Y2K was the least worry back then, if they even thought about it. But I mean, there's still 30, 40 year old reactors out there. As if to deal with the waste wasn't bad enough...
I don't know why reactors were still being built after all those accidents. It just defies logic. I don't think any other form of energy relies so heavily on government cash and regulation (tho I could be wrong on the cash part). It just boggles my mind, like the engineers in the 70s were still riding on the dreams of the 30s.
Yeah, I think AIBO is neat too, but the Tamagotchi/Dino Baby comparison is all too real. Hell, when I was a kid, we named our van Debbie and you can imagine the torment *that* caused when someone stole the van and stripped it (note I did not say "her"). I have a pic of my brother and I as kids crying in the impound lot when they finally found our van three months later. Who knows what fate the van met (hopefully it went to a good home???) but by that time we had bought another van - bright orange - and christened it Luigi. We still call it that. We don't say "Get in the van" we say "Let's get into Luigi". RrrrrOFL!
I sincerely doubt the guy's claim that every household will have an entertainment robot in 10 years. Maybe in Japan, but there are people who would certainly spend even $500 on something a little more useful!!
It's cute, but geez, give me a breathing pet any day!
Wouldn't you worry about melting the plastic?:-) ROFL my backwoods uncle could probably make such a thing. Lord knows there's enough old pipes on his farm, not to mention rubber hose, wire, that sort of thing.....personally, I'd never run the risk of losing my eyebrows!
you've got a really good point. Check out Salon's cover story today - teen girls and sex ed online. Penis movies always get press, but do something labial and no one will touch it!
I took AP English and Social Studies back in 1992-1994, no net access totally. I think of how much better I could have looked up authors on Galenet instead of in their out of date print editions. Not to mention obscure authors who maybe had one book critiquing their book back in the 70s. Not to mention when a whole class was studying a book and just try to find something in print about it! Or art! Or current world maps, not to mention current country info. There is just too much good information avail. on the net that would become out of date on book or CD-ROM.
Plus you can email authors...email countries...most of them that I have ever e'd were quite helpful. Imagine a kid reaching out to a wired author? I certainly can't imagine anything greater.
As long as it's treated as a tool and not merely "fun" (OK, it is fun but you know what I mean), it can be a great advantage. I agree with the posters who say teachers and old library ladies don't know how to use the net, or a computer period. I used to work for the public library, and man, I've *been* there (the library's website even totally sux! e me for the URL. I could design something so way better!)
This sort of thing just blows my mind. As others have suggested, there are ways to protect content. Are they going after Movie List because it's a large site? I can think of a million websites I've been to with the most non-descriptive links in the world.
Eventually someone's going to hit a Universal ad on their site, so what's the big deal? Don't they have enuf $ and hits already?
Is this just silliness or plain greed?
>I hope the judge is technically competent enough to see it as such and throws it out.
Indeed! A guy (I should scan in this article) tried to sue the Cdn government claiming he was being discriminated against because he was a martian. The judge threw it out, saying the Constitution only applied to human beings, and if Mr. X believed he was a martian, then it didn't apply to him...god, it was so dumb!
it's funny, you know, how all these things are aimed at young people, yet they aren't allowed to view them. You wonder why then, it's so wrong to actually see it if you are a soulless adman's target. Take Joe Camel as a small instance.
It's true then, North America is a culture that truly eats it's young alive!
Kids are very smart. I used to be a park leader when I was in my late teens. I have to say that the kids made more sense than the adults around - you always got a straight answer. And cripes, most of the time they know what they like:-)
In Canada, the drinking age is 18. I suspect that the US's law of 21 is some sort of relic from puritan times...
Slashdot Mirror
Computers aren't hard. I would love to see a man out there who could put together the fan site I have for Hunter S. Thompson. In terms of class, devotion and style, nothing can compare to mine.
I work as an HTML programmer, but I also do Flash, Director, among other things. Yup, it was natural for me.
OTOH, I used to work in a library where the old biddies were deathly frightened of computers. They could make Dynix (the library software) go, but damn if they could get anywhere on the net
I mean, they were nice, but they felt that computers were for men.
OTOH, I work in a place where the geek guys are awesome!
It's not about pc, bs or whatever, it's about
letting girls know that they can command a box too.
I'm 21, we didn't have a remote controlled TV till I was 13, no VCR until I was at least 17, and last year we bought our first CD player. First computer was bought in 1996, tho I'd been using them since I was 8.
My mother, almost fifty, works in a dept store where the new cash registers are all computerized.
You can just imagine her fear of them! About ten yrs ago she took a course on Apple Macs. She might never use a computer for much (except card games, since I'm always around to print something out for her). The youngest clerk in that store is 21 as well and she didn't even finish high school! All of the clerks in that store fear the new machines.
If you don't have the knowledge, you are going to lose out!
OTOH, there are plenty of seniors that could have fun with old boxes, and keep their minds occupied!
Yeah, that is true, but fostering a game for hate is such a bad idea! Try Director Webs t/index.html
http://www.mcli.dist.maricopa.edu/director/dige
and search July for Pakistan
Hi listies,
I don't think this is too OT since you can make games with Director and devising and programming one are certainly considerations. Since I hang
around Shockrave a lot, hee hee, I have played a few stinkers.
The post about Vishnal's game got me thinking. I have to say I don't like the game, but I'm sure that someone out there has thought of an American equivalent of it somewhere - who knows - perhaps
Hatewatch would know.
I read somewhere once that game programming had to be one of the hardest
jobs there is. When I play old 2600 games on my PC, I wonder how I liked any of them in the first place, and I don't mean Custer's Revenge either! But then, it took an incredible amount of imagination to interpret the games - maybe my brother and I are the only ones who
thought the thief in Raiders of the Lost Ark was a total pervert with the way he came in his trenchcoat and "robbed" you.
I think Americans are pretty edgy about game violence right now. But you know, I live in a pre-dominantly East Indian neighbourhood. During a
provincial election, the PC candidate was Indian, the Liberal candidate was Pakistani. You wouldn't believe how many Liberal signs were defaced!
And I find that somewhat sad, that people can't leave their ill feelings behind when they come to a new country. The same thing happened on
Heritage Day a few yrs ago when Serbs and Croats started a fight at the festival. Now they place their tents on opposite sides of the grounds.
I myself always thought technology was supposed to be enlightening. But sadly, the technology of war is very frightning. Wars in the middle ages
were really great shoving matches, where most of the soldiers were drunk (not to mention accompanied by hordes of people). People talk of the dehumanizing factors of games, but ever since WW2, govts have been trying to find ways of dehumanizing people in order to kill. This, in
fact, extends to slaughterhouses, where people become an extension of a vast and impersonal killing process.
I like the idea of people finding other things to use instead of bullets. Like in Water Balloon drop, you throw eggs and tomatoes! And it
remains a fun game even though no one is ever killed.
Salon recently had a good article on why even violent games can fail (which should be handy for anyone): http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/1999/06/21/game
Vishnal, I harbour no ill will, but one should always consider the audience of the list. I have noticed that there are mostly German, North
American, French and New Zealand/Australian people here. While you made a game with Lingo and Director, people cannot be expected to react
differently than what they did.
It would be similar if I made a shoot 'em up where beavers picked off eagles out of the sky. This wouldn't exactly make me popular with too
many people. Racial intolerance and hatred is not tolerated in most Western countries, and I think that such a game would even be illegal in
the US or Canada. When you deal with a global audience, all sensitivities must be taken into account.
I believe there are different arcade versions of the Battle of Midway (or is it 1945?) for American and Japanese markets. And it pleases me
that games are also marked with levels of violence, such as Pitfall, where one is required to kill animals.
You wanted to know if the game could be improved. Maybe this was meant as a technical question, but the shock might have been less if we knew
what the game was. I'm sure like myself, most thought it was a peace-solving game when they read the post. In North America, at the very least, such a game would be in very poor taste. We may not understand what is going on in India, and it is getting very little press here. While you might not find your game offensive, some people
certainly will.
It would be very hard for most people on this list to suggest any other improvement - they're shocked. What advice can they offer about
something that goes against their ideals? Maybe this wasn't the right forum to look for advice specific to your cause.
I hope this isn't too long, but I think, from the posts surrounding the game, it just goes to show how hard it is to design for games and to
give some thoughts for game designers, programmers and illustrators to think about. I'm not looking for flames or intend this to be flamebait
either. With the global nature of the Internet, the subject seemed appropriate.
I always, always make back-ups to. All it takes is one person to overwrite your document (esp if you're not using CVS or something like that) and *poof*. Save! CRTL+S! Is it so hard? I learned the hard way after losing several graphics that I had been working on for a long time - if I remembered to save every 10 mins in that case - wow, what a difference!
OTOH, I have a Smith Corona WP (takes floppies) that I bought in 1995 for $200 brand new. When my brother crashed my computer, it was a handy back up for my writing - and any other time I didn't feel like staring at a monitor.
OTOH I also have two manual typewriters I can find ribbons for. My dad bought a Brother EP45 typewriter around 1989 - I think. Damn fine little machine, but he's damned to find cartridges for it!
I don't know. I've pounded out many things on my little blue Royal and my little grey factory-reject. There is a certain rhythm that makes it so enjoyable.
Ah well. If Y2K comes around and my computer crashes, I'll have three machines at home to keep me happy in the meantime
Anything with a clear case can be successfully marketed to the prison industry - they already have such cases for TVs! And don't forget education - just ask the kids at Jonesboro High, where backpacks are only allowed if they're see-thru! Nation of jailers, nation of jailers!
Remember Herb Tarlick's dancing ducks and the stage was made out of a hotplate with foil over it? And he turned the heat up so they would "dance"?
Or the time they threw turkeys out of the helicopter cuz they thot they could fly?
It's very easy to tell if a bird is happy or not. I've lived with them for over 14 yrs. An unhappy bird will definitely let you know in many ways!
oh lord, how true. When I worked at the library, it was amazing how many people didn't know what the enter key was for. Worse, the library's software always said "press Return". So they look on the keyboard and there's no return! Man, major goof on someone's part.
They said the same thing about the novel back in the sixties, that it had died out too.
TV is certainly dead. Good TV is dead, then, bad TV is certainly alive.
No matter how much I liked someone, if they signed a contract where they had to pay x, then they should pay! It's hard to actually run server and bandwidth w/o the dineros. That's the way it is these days, I'm sad to say....it's a reality, not necessarily a condition.
Maybe the engine is turning up things like Georgia Cracker, Polly want a cracker? :-)
I call my bb The Owl Farm Kitchen. For a long time, people mistook it for being some sort of wholesome place to post because it contained the word Kitchen. I would get all sorts of Christian people in "Come see my site" sort of thing. Then they realized that it was a rather depraved place to be! I love it, fooling people like that.
OTOH, like most movies, there wouldn't be any plot/conflict/action if the main characters weren't so dumb
An important factor is that the US doesn't have "loser pays" laws. In Canada and Britain, if you tried a stunt like that, not only would you be thrown out, you'd have to pay the other guy's legal fees.
OH MY GOD!!!! Can you imagine such a thing! Well, we used to have a metal key for the downstairs ladies, but mgmt finally got rid of it - we were losing one key a month and that was bad enough!
just try it!
I don't know why reactors were still being built after all those accidents. It just defies logic. I don't think any other form of energy relies so heavily on government cash and regulation (tho I could be wrong on the cash part). It just boggles my mind, like the engineers in the 70s were still riding on the dreams of the 30s.
I sincerely doubt the guy's claim that every household will have an entertainment robot in 10 years. Maybe in Japan, but there are people who would certainly spend even $500 on something a little more useful!!
It's cute, but geez, give me a breathing pet any day!
Wouldn't you worry about melting the plastic? :-)
ROFL my backwoods uncle could probably make such a thing. Lord knows there's enough old pipes on his farm, not to mention rubber hose, wire, that sort of thing.....personally, I'd never run the risk of losing my eyebrows!
you've got a really good point. Check out Salon's cover story today - teen girls and sex ed online.
Penis movies always get press, but do something labial and no one will touch it!
Plus you can email authors...email countries...most of them that I have ever e'd were quite helpful. Imagine a kid reaching out to a wired author? I certainly can't imagine anything greater.
As long as it's treated as a tool and not merely "fun" (OK, it is fun but you know what I mean), it can be a great advantage. I agree with the posters who say teachers and old library ladies don't know how to use the net, or a computer period. I used to work for the public library, and man, I've *been* there (the library's website even totally sux! e me for the URL. I could design something so way better!)
And it's Canadian too!
Are they going after Movie List because it's a large site? I can think of a million websites I've been to with the most non-descriptive links in the world.
Eventually someone's going to hit a Universal ad on their site, so what's the big deal? Don't they have enuf $ and hits already?
Is this just silliness or plain greed?
>I hope the judge is technically competent enough to see it as such and throws it out.
Indeed! A guy (I should scan in this article) tried to sue the Cdn government claiming he was being discriminated against because he was a martian. The judge threw it out, saying the Constitution only applied to human beings, and if Mr. X believed he was a martian, then it didn't apply to him...god, it was so dumb!
It's true then, North America is a culture that truly eats it's young alive!
Kids are very smart. I used to be a park leader when I was in my late teens. I have to say that the kids made more sense than the adults around - you always got a straight answer. And cripes, most of the time they know what they like
In Canada, the drinking age is 18. I suspect that the US's law of 21 is some sort of relic from puritan times...