I think there's more: people believe that you deserve everything that you get, or that happens to you. Winning is the proof of being the best, not the result. That means that if you cheat and no one catches you, you're the best and you can point to your win to prove it.
Along the same lines, people are very focused on evidence, and not so much on the truth. It's like people think they're in a court of law all the time, and knowing that they did something wrong means nothing as long as they're the only one who knows it.
Being social is different for different people. You didn't say specifically whether your pupil is introverted or not, but you can learn a lot about introversion by reading The Introvert Advantage (Slashdot review). I've found some really useful things in there as relate to my students (and myself.) This may be irrelevant but it's worth checking out.
Well, what I'm saying is that sometimes consquences reach further than home. And while I don't deny that parents should limit their childrens' access to certain games, what should the rest of us do in the meantime? Nothing?
James Patterson thrillers aren't marketed to children. There's something.
Besides, people have to be able to read on an 8th grade level and have a good imagination to visualize these acts of violence. If books were written in the first person describing graphic violence I'm sure there would be some kind of furor. Actually for all I know, they are. Graphics and sound make that part of the effort unnecessary.
If the wrong kind of games have the impact that some say they do, then it's really not up to parents to deal with the consequences. I'm not sure where I fall on the issue of game violence leading to real violence but I do remember a case where some kids were enacting Grand Theft Auto on a public road.
In cases like that it's society that deals with the consequences, not just individual parents. I think the game violence debate is too centered on assigning responsibility to another party and too little on taking responsibility for problems that belong to all of us. Parents should look to themselves, but so should game developers. It's one thing to create a fantasy setting with orcs and whatnot and put fantasy violence there and something else to create a modern setting and put modern violence in it. Games make it harder and harder for kids to make the distinctions you're talking about.
Don't forget the DVD release of that little 10 minute R2D2 thing. I think they wanted $7 for that? Or am I wrong and there's more stuff on there than just 10 minutes?
I'd much rather see a Scouring of the Shire miniseries on TV. This would solve some of the problems of having to cut the time down, Hobbiton already exists...
I think they're not looking for the relatively small number of hardcore high-spending gamers. They're looking for the much larger (and still growing) number of casual gamers. GTA is one of those games you can play for a short or a long time.
I don't know what they gain by being platform-exclusive though. At least make it for more than one console. Those are fixed hardware configurations. It does seem like they'd lose out.
You all should read The Electronic Sweatshop by Barbara Garson. Basically, in a company decisions are moved up the hierarchy so that people at low levels can be easily trained, paid less, and easily replaced. In that order. Ideally no training would be required, cutting the employee replacement cost even further. You see this obviously at McDonald's but less obviously in fields like social work, and more slowly in education.
The book itself is mostly conversations with people in jobs of this kind, or anecdotal records of those people. There's very little preaching by the author, if any.
When I saw the title I thought Infinium was threatening to launch a gaming news site.
At least it's just pointless legal gestures.
Ravi
Re:Maybe Joss Whedon needs to watch his own shows
on
WB Cancels Angel
·
· Score: 1
Remember, if network executives were any good at recognizing/creating good TV, they'd be writers.
I think that would be a pay cut for them.
But I'm right there with you really. I just think that if people want to make it hard for the network to like them, they can't be surprised by things like this. After all, the network doesn't sell TV shows it sells audiences.
Ravi
Maybe Joss Whedon needs to watch his own shows
on
WB Cancels Angel
·
· Score: 1
Too much of Whedony goodness comes from reaction or commentary on other TV shows and genres. This was fun for a while, but it has become somewhat predictable:
Two characters appear to be conversing, but one is reacting to something behind the other one.
A villian's grandiose speech is interrupted by violence, often their death.
A character makes a pronouncement and then immediately demonstrates that the opposite is true.
The character you thought was weak and vulnerable picks exactly the right time to show their pluck.
I doubt the WB perceived tiredness in Angel the way I did. The fact is that you can't be snide and sly about how familiar and boring TV is if the audience sees those barbs and clever jabs coming. Also, listen to some of the Firefly commentaries by Whedon to see is he's difficult to work with. I don't know anything about the way pilots and series production work, but it didn't sound like he made it easy for Fox.
But there's the problem right there. Indians don't use the same idioms as (say) Americans. A lot of the time, that's the entire communication gap. Phrases like "face time" and "at the end of the day" aren't standard across cultures. It's also true in the other direction. I talk to my relatives about teaching (which isn't especially valued in India; education is, but not teaching) and and they use the word "doubt" where I would say "question." These don't even mean the same thing.
My visits to my relatives in India taught me this and I still have a hard time speaking English with them. That's not to mention my American accent and slurring of words and syllables. The funny thing is that while I realize that I have such an accent, it never occurred to my relatives that they have an accent when they speak English.
That's true I didn't think about illegal playing of something but you're right. I wonder if that's part of the DRM. I don't see a way for the content to be protected from being shown publicly. Is there a way? I do recall, however, that some DVD I had would not play on my computer because the player detected an active TV-Out. Surely that could be worked around. Not to mention that the whole thing can probably be "worked around."
Yeah really, I mean was Fallout 3 even announced? I don't remember hearing anything official about Fallout 3 even being in production. I checked the article but couldn't find anything. I thought vaporware had to be announced and hyped but never appear. Also, "mutant shoot 'em ups"?
The answer I've heard is that once the source code is available, people will start looking for ways to cheat in MP. Valve now needs to examine some things they didn't think would be public knowledge to make it harder for those people to use the old source to cheat with the new binaries. Also, I imagine they're trying to secure their network more.
Game packages are getting smaller, not larger. Recently I got UFO Aftermath (PC) and it came in a DVD case, which is about as small as you can get.
Really I think the answer is in making us feel like developers deserve the money for giving us such great games. The sad fact is that most publishers are using the promise of value (by securing a lot of hype before release) and these crippling measures to get people to buy their games. When was the last time you saw an unfavorable preview of a game? Now compare with unvaforable reviews.
That or they rely on a licensed property to sell a game. I don't think they problem of piracy is amenable to a purely technological fix.
Sometimes we use the calculator to graph things and for number crunching. Other times I use the calculator to point out the limitations of such technology. For example, the calculator does a less-than-perfect job of graphing rational functions. The calculator won't show you a parabola's axis of symmetry unless you already know where it is. You can get the calculator to find the vertex for you, but that means having it compute the min or max value and I wouldn't show them that unless they understood how the calculator was determining it. So, not till calculus:) I think it's important for kids to know that they're still smarter than the calculator and that they can sometimes get better (and faster) results drawing a graph by hand. They also don't really understand Garbage-In-Garbage-Out unless you show them.
Our study of parabolas was done just about completely by hand. Before they knew that the "a" value in "y = ax^2 + bx + c" can tell you whether the parabola opens up or down, we tried a few different ones so they could tell me that it's the sign of "a" that determines this. It's much better if they tell me than if I tell them.
Also, some applications we examine use large numbers or irrationals. In those cases, I can't let students' computation weakness get in the way of the math goals I have. When I taught middle school I was generally opposed to this kind of tradeoff (and I still am for middle school kids) but by the time students are in grades 11 and 12, there's not much I'm going to be able to do for their computation skills in the time we have.
Finally, and this is the worst reason I can think of, our state seems to be creating and renaming tests every year or so. The school district has uniform midterm and end-of-course exams on which students are permitted to use a calculator and for which I must prepare them. I'm not one to show them how to do every single thing in the calculator because then they can't solve novel problems.
In fact one of my kids was saying today that she advised her younger sister to "rely on the calculator" and I told her that unless she thought her sister was incapable of computing without it, she's really hurting her by telling her to rely on the calculator. I hope I got through. Yeesh.
Teaching is a lot of fun. It's very different from what you might think before you begin, so really pay attention to how you feel about student teaching.
For calculators, I'd get the same thing students use, or maybe an 83+ if you can't find on eBay like someone else suggested. There are also emulators, which can be very useful for showing a class which buttons to press in what order. This is often the biggest hurdle I have with calculator use. Kids miss a button and immediately they're so lost. If you can project an image of the emulator, they can see you press the buttons as opposed to just seeing the result on the projector screen.
Also, take a look at the calculators they have at school and see if any have the coordinate axes turned off or the stat plots activated. Maybe the contrast is turned all the way down. Maybe the display window is set to show nothing. These hijinks while hilarious (!) are incovenient at times. It's worthwhile to know how to adjust those settings.
For that reason, it's worthwhile to know the limitations and settings on the specific calculator that students will be using. If you design lessons using the calculator and students trip up on one button it just slows things down. I find more of this effect with my Algebra II's than with other classes.
The second time I was on a jury was for a murder trial. The judge instructed us that "the court makes no distinction between direct and circumstantial evidence." I think the term "circumstantial evidence" has been coopted by courtroom dramas to mean that evidence is not to be taken seriously. I don't think that's what it means. I'm not a lawyer though so I could be wrong.
Slashdot Mirror
I think there's more: people believe that you deserve everything that you get, or that happens to you. Winning is the proof of being the best, not the result. That means that if you cheat and no one catches you, you're the best and you can point to your win to prove it.
Along the same lines, people are very focused on evidence, and not so much on the truth. It's like people think they're in a court of law all the time, and knowing that they did something wrong means nothing as long as they're the only one who knows it.
RaviI think the fact that the recent Matrix game had a CLI as its coolest feature supports this theory.
RaviBeing social is different for different people. You didn't say specifically whether your pupil is introverted or not, but you can learn a lot about introversion by reading The Introvert Advantage (Slashdot review). I've found some really useful things in there as relate to my students (and myself.) This may be irrelevant but it's worth checking out.
Ravi
Well, what I'm saying is that sometimes consquences reach further than home. And while I don't deny that parents should limit their childrens' access to certain games, what should the rest of us do in the meantime? Nothing?
RaviJames Patterson thrillers aren't marketed to children. There's something.
Besides, people have to be able to read on an 8th grade level and have a good imagination to visualize these acts of violence. If books were written in the first person describing graphic violence I'm sure there would be some kind of furor. Actually for all I know, they are. Graphics and sound make that part of the effort unnecessary.
RaviIf the wrong kind of games have the impact that some say they do, then it's really not up to parents to deal with the consequences. I'm not sure where I fall on the issue of game violence leading to real violence but I do remember a case where some kids were enacting Grand Theft Auto on a public road.
In cases like that it's society that deals with the consequences, not just individual parents. I think the game violence debate is too centered on assigning responsibility to another party and too little on taking responsibility for problems that belong to all of us. Parents should look to themselves, but so should game developers. It's one thing to create a fantasy setting with orcs and whatnot and put fantasy violence there and something else to create a modern setting and put modern violence in it. Games make it harder and harder for kids to make the distinctions you're talking about.
RaviGiven Microsoft's creative email retention policies I doubt they'd find much. Someone's probably purging emails right now if they haven't already.
RaviDon't forget the DVD release of that little 10 minute R2D2 thing. I think they wanted $7 for that? Or am I wrong and there's more stuff on there than just 10 minutes?
RaviI'd much rather see a Scouring of the Shire miniseries on TV. This would solve some of the problems of having to cut the time down, Hobbiton already exists...
?
RaviI think they're not looking for the relatively small number of hardcore high-spending gamers. They're looking for the much larger (and still growing) number of casual gamers. GTA is one of those games you can play for a short or a long time.
I don't know what they gain by being platform-exclusive though. At least make it for more than one console. Those are fixed hardware configurations. It does seem like they'd lose out.
Ravi
You all should read The Electronic Sweatshop by Barbara Garson. Basically, in a company decisions are moved up the hierarchy so that people at low levels can be easily trained, paid less, and easily replaced. In that order. Ideally no training would be required, cutting the employee replacement cost even further. You see this obviously at McDonald's but less obviously in fields like social work, and more slowly in education.
The book itself is mostly conversations with people in jobs of this kind, or anecdotal records of those people. There's very little preaching by the author, if any.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/01 40121455/103-0830543-8955814?v=glance
Ravi
When I saw the title I thought Infinium was threatening to launch a gaming news site.
At least it's just pointless legal gestures.
Ravi
I think that would be a pay cut for them.
But I'm right there with you really. I just think that if people want to make it hard for the network to like them, they can't be surprised by things like this. After all, the network doesn't sell TV shows it sells audiences.
Ravi
Too much of Whedony goodness comes from reaction or commentary on other TV shows and genres. This was fun for a while, but it has become somewhat predictable:
I doubt the WB perceived tiredness in Angel the way I did. The fact is that you can't be snide and sly about how familiar and boring TV is if the audience sees those barbs and clever jabs coming. Also, listen to some of the Firefly commentaries by Whedon to see is he's difficult to work with. I don't know anything about the way pilots and series production work, but it didn't sound like he made it easy for Fox.
Ravi
What's the state of broadband penetration these days?
Pathetically, I can't think of anything funny relating that to legal movie downloads or Blockbuster.
Ravi
But there's the problem right there. Indians don't use the same idioms as (say) Americans. A lot of the time, that's the entire communication gap. Phrases like "face time" and "at the end of the day" aren't standard across cultures. It's also true in the other direction. I talk to my relatives about teaching (which isn't especially valued in India; education is, but not teaching) and and they use the word "doubt" where I would say "question." These don't even mean the same thing.
My visits to my relatives in India taught me this and I still have a hard time speaking English with them. That's not to mention my American accent and slurring of words and syllables. The funny thing is that while I realize that I have such an accent, it never occurred to my relatives that they have an accent when they speak English.
Ravi
Ravi
IWTKAL? Come on, now.
I'm What They Kall A Lawyer?
I Want to Kiss All Lawyers?
I'm not trying to be difficult but I've never seen that one before. I even googled it :)
Ravi
Yeah really, I mean was Fallout 3 even announced? I don't remember hearing anything official about Fallout 3 even being in production. I checked the article but couldn't find anything. I thought vaporware had to be announced and hyped but never appear. Also, "mutant shoot 'em ups"?
Ravi
The answer I've heard is that once the source code is available, people will start looking for ways to cheat in MP. Valve now needs to examine some things they didn't think would be public knowledge to make it harder for those people to use the old source to cheat with the new binaries. Also, I imagine they're trying to secure their network more.
Ravi
Not to mention quotable lines. I defy you to find any quotable lines from episodes I or II.
Well, except maybe:
Yoda: How feel you?
Anakin: Cold, sir...
(blah blah blah)
Yoda: I sense much food in you.
Ravi
Game packages are getting smaller, not larger. Recently I got UFO Aftermath (PC) and it came in a DVD case, which is about as small as you can get.
Really I think the answer is in making us feel like developers deserve the money for giving us such great games. The sad fact is that most publishers are using the promise of value (by securing a lot of hype before release) and these crippling measures to get people to buy their games. When was the last time you saw an unfavorable preview of a game? Now compare with unvaforable reviews.
That or they rely on a licensed property to sell a game. I don't think they problem of piracy is amenable to a purely technological fix.
Ravi
Sometimes we use the calculator to graph things and for number crunching. Other times I use the calculator to point out the limitations of such technology. For example, the calculator does a less-than-perfect job of graphing rational functions. The calculator won't show you a parabola's axis of symmetry unless you already know where it is. You can get the calculator to find the vertex for you, but that means having it compute the min or max value and I wouldn't show them that unless they understood how the calculator was determining it. So, not till calculus :) I think it's important for kids to know that they're still smarter than the calculator and that they can sometimes get better (and faster) results drawing a graph by hand. They also don't really understand Garbage-In-Garbage-Out unless you show them.
Our study of parabolas was done just about completely by hand. Before they knew that the "a" value in "y = ax^2 + bx + c" can tell you whether the parabola opens up or down, we tried a few different ones so they could tell me that it's the sign of "a" that determines this. It's much better if they tell me than if I tell them.
Also, some applications we examine use large numbers or irrationals. In those cases, I can't let students' computation weakness get in the way of the math goals I have. When I taught middle school I was generally opposed to this kind of tradeoff (and I still am for middle school kids) but by the time students are in grades 11 and 12, there's not much I'm going to be able to do for their computation skills in the time we have.
Finally, and this is the worst reason I can think of, our state seems to be creating and renaming tests every year or so. The school district has uniform midterm and end-of-course exams on which students are permitted to use a calculator and for which I must prepare them. I'm not one to show them how to do every single thing in the calculator because then they can't solve novel problems.
In fact one of my kids was saying today that she advised her younger sister to "rely on the calculator" and I told her that unless she thought her sister was incapable of computing without it, she's really hurting her by telling her to rely on the calculator. I hope I got through. Yeesh.
Didn't expect this much answer did you? :)
Ravi
Teaching is a lot of fun. It's very different from what you might think before you begin, so really pay attention to how you feel about student teaching.
For calculators, I'd get the same thing students use, or maybe an 83+ if you can't find on eBay like someone else suggested. There are also emulators, which can be very useful for showing a class which buttons to press in what order. This is often the biggest hurdle I have with calculator use. Kids miss a button and immediately they're so lost. If you can project an image of the emulator, they can see you press the buttons as opposed to just seeing the result on the projector screen.
Also, take a look at the calculators they have at school and see if any have the coordinate axes turned off or the stat plots activated. Maybe the contrast is turned all the way down. Maybe the display window is set to show nothing. These hijinks while hilarious (!) are incovenient at times. It's worthwhile to know how to adjust those settings.
For that reason, it's worthwhile to know the limitations and settings on the specific calculator that students will be using. If you design lessons using the calculator and students trip up on one button it just slows things down. I find more of this effect with my Algebra II's than with other classes.
Hope that helps, and good luck!
Ravi
The second time I was on a jury was for a murder trial. The judge instructed us that "the court makes no distinction between direct and circumstantial evidence." I think the term "circumstantial evidence" has been coopted by courtroom dramas to mean that evidence is not to be taken seriously. I don't think that's what it means. I'm not a lawyer though so I could be wrong.
If I'm right though, matters are worse...
Ravi