A number of posters have asked why not just make a rule and have school personnel enforce it. Schools can impose various punishments. The answer is that punishment doesn't work as a behavior mod. That is to say that it's self defeating. The effect of punishment over time is that the student will just learn to live with whatever the consequence is for texting, because they get the reward first. Texting during class has some kind of fantastic appeal that I won't ever understand. More than texting any other time, it's imperative that it be done during the 45 minutes that I'm teaching math. Sending pictures, whatever it is. The best way to change the behavior is not punishment, but extinction. That is, make it so that nothing happens when they engage in the behavior. So, if the school could find a way to just make texting not work, that would be the ideal. Remove the reward. There are flaws to the technical solution of rendering phones inoperable, again as others have noted.
Theoretically, if the student population at (say) a high school were not turning over every 4 years, the school might be able to get away with blocking for a while, then removing the blocking and just telling people that phones don't work in school. It's like pretending to tie your horse up and it thinks it's restrained but it really isn't.
The other argument against yet another school rule and enforcement is that teachers and administrators don't have time for that. There are better things we could be doing with instructional time than confiscating cell phones.
This doesn't work. At least, it hasn't for us. Our district has policy that requires a warning for first offense, and suspensions starting on offense #2. Even with that, the problem persists and there are incidences of this throughout the year. If I remember right, these violations accounted for about 15% of our discipline referrals. That's been about even over the years since we started counting.
I'm a teacher, so I really have no concept what an administrator does all day. At least part of it is school rule enforcement, but there are all kinds of worthwhile school improvement endeavors that they ought to be pursuing. Any savings of teacher and administrator time is a good thing.
A number of people have pointed out that a few refunds for XP is not a sign that anything is changing. I believe these refunds only show that Amazon has not formed any kind of official policy for this situation. They are simply erring on the side of not pissing people off, because technical people are going to buy more computer products, either from Amazon or someone else who treats them better. I'm sure they are aware of the press.
Sometime soon, I think we will see a more permanent resolution to this customer service issue. I can't say whether it will be progress or not.
The only way right now to reasonably sell people the same, say, movie is to release it in a different format (dvd, now bluray) or to include some extras or a shiny box or whatever. Something different, no matter how small.
Mr. Metalitz's view allows online store operators to simply go out of business, start a new store under a different name and maybe even with different names on the corporate charter, and go on about selling the same exact things over again.
I want to go further than your (b.) and say that everyone present at a meeting should be there because their contribution is needed. If a meeting is scheduled purely to distribute information, there are more time-efficient ways to do that.
I teach high school, and my workplace runs kind of the opposite of this. Teachers' days are the ones broken up into hour-long segments, and administrators don't have that. Or, at least, they aren't tied to the bell schedule in the way that teachers are. Still, we have meetings where one supervisor or another passes out papers and reads from an agenda.
I didn't see anything in the summary about this being particular to IT, which is where most of the replies seem to be.
This bit gave me the worst gut reaction from the article:
Bitmob: At this point, can you recommend Windows 7 as a gaming platform?
JC: I'd almost insist on it. Windows XP is old enough that running it is sort of a security risk
... a security risk? That really sounds to me like the "Fear" in FUD. Or is there something about security I'm overlooking due to anti-MS bias, of which I am sometimes guilty?
It's been a while since I watched a commercial, but don't they put a notice at the bottom saying that the people are actors or something? Kind of like "professional driver on closed course"?
Contrast this with ads that say they're going to present real testimonials from actual customers. If they say that, then they have to do it.
It sounds like wire fraud to me. Even though wikipedia is no place to get legal advice, the definition of wire fraud is included in the article. I followed their link to the appropriate US Code section:
Whoever, having devised or intending to devise any scheme or artifice to defraud, or for obtaining money or property by means of false or fraudulent pretenses, representations, or promises, transmits or causes to be transmitted by means of wire, radio, or television communication in interstate or foreign commerce, any writings, signs, signals, pictures, or sounds for the purpose of executing such scheme or artifice, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both.
The emphasis is mine, and I think that's where this activity on the part of Lifestyle Lifts employees is illegal.
This is true and even Mass Effect itself was developed by Demiurge, not Bioware. If you're interested in KOTOR 2 completion, there are a few mods you can get that add in some of the removed areas. There's a mod that takes one of the prerendered cutscenes and puts back the in-engine cutscene that used to be there. There is also a putatively massive The Sith Lords Restoration Project going on at team-gizka.org, but their reports of progress have slowed to a trickle, if that. It's too bad really.
What you say about Obsidian is true and has always been a huge disappointment to me. Obsidian is made up of the old Black Isle folks, who made Infinity Engine games such as Icewind Dale and the greatest computer RPG of all time Planescape: Torment. To see that they can't turn out a finished product anymore is very disheartening.
It seems that I really wasn't looking hard enough since a number of people have been able to suggest games. These are also free to play so it's easy to try them out:)
Thanks for pointing this one out to me. After watching the video, I am reminded that a lot of games containing martial arts turn into a series of juggles, basically stunlock but over and over again. I think the success or failure of the combat systems in the video depends on how much control you really have over abilities. I didn't see any user interface in the video so it's hard to say whether you can interrupt all the long strings of face owning. Even Jade Empire was easily cheesed by using Storm Dragon + whatever other style. Introduce latency of any kind, whether it's control latency or network latency or even just computer performance, and it will only be fun for a small number of players.
It does have a great look and cool animations, though. And I never thought I'd say this about a computer game but I hope they tone some of those breasts down. Geesh.
I've wondered for a long time why none of these MMO games from Asia (Lineage, Lineage II, Aion, Granado Espada, etc) have an art direction from mythology and fantasy of the region. It's all a baroque looking western fantasy setting. Finely decorated plate armors, massive double bladed swords and axes etc. Personally, I think samurai look great, katanas, japanese armor, martial arts inspired magic ala Avatar (I know, it's not magic, it's bending). I know that the east Asia has more cultural diversity than I'm describing.
The only games I can remember that tried an art direction like that were Jade Empire, Throne of Darkness and, oddly, Summoner. I think Jade Empire did pretty well, but no word on a sequel from the company that gave us Neverwinter Nights 2, KOTOR 2, and is giving us Mass Effect 2.
TOD and Summoner are both relatively old games, and even though Throne of Darkness was made by a lot of Blizzard vets, it didn't do that well at the store I don't think. Certainly not well enough for Click Entertainment to make more games or even exist anymore. Summoner got a sequel, but I don't know if they kept the art direction. I guess Red Alert 3 has some anime influence in one faction.
If we expand into console games while we're on the subject of Summoner, there was Shenmue and I guess any fighting game.
This is all just from memory so I'm happy to be shown as wrong and learn about some good games I might have missed or forgotten.
The lack of comedy in games isn't confined to games. Most mass media that's intended to be funny really isn't. I can count on one hand the number of funny sitcoms on TV (in the US, I don't watch much foreign language TV.) You could do something similar with comedy movies, or the light moments in otherwise serious movies. It's a general failure to which games are also susceptible. I agree with some of the assessments from others in the thread, too, especially about timing being key.
However, I would like to add that things aren't that funny when you've seen them before. Bones3D said in an earlier post that comedy occurs when something happens that the audience didn't expect. The more games we've played, the harder it is to surprise us with game events or plot twists. So we're left with comic dialogue which is not so easy to write or deliver.
By the way, those of you who mentioned TF2 and Portal should read some Old Man Murray, as one of the two guys (Chet Faliszek) from that site is responsible for much of the comedy in Valve's games.
Finally, I haven't seen these two games recommended as funny, so:
Giants: Citizen Kabuto is a 3rd person action game that's very funny
Anachronox is an American made JRPG that's hilarious
I've been immersed in a book before, not to mention an interactive fiction game. I don't mean that I completely forgot that I was holding a book or typing "take no tea." I just mean that if an experience is compelling enough, it draws you in whether by great description and powerful language or high realism. Once you abandon a verbal description, you kind of have to rely on the graphics, but a great deal can still be achieved by words, sounds, tones of voice, etc.
Take Diablo II as an example. Half the fun of that game is the sound. This post is getting a bit directionless so I'm going to stop now:|
The drugs produced from those crops in Afghanistan don't make it to the west. Drugs (even the heroin from poppies) in the west come from South American countries.
This is from Gretchen Peters, author of Seeds of Terror. I saw her doing questions and answers on BookTV so you might be able to catch that, if not read the entire book. Her research is very interesting.
Slashdot Mirror
A number of posters have asked why not just make a rule and have school personnel enforce it. Schools can impose various punishments. The answer is that punishment doesn't work as a behavior mod. That is to say that it's self defeating. The effect of punishment over time is that the student will just learn to live with whatever the consequence is for texting, because they get the reward first. Texting during class has some kind of fantastic appeal that I won't ever understand. More than texting any other time, it's imperative that it be done during the 45 minutes that I'm teaching math. Sending pictures, whatever it is. The best way to change the behavior is not punishment, but extinction. That is, make it so that nothing happens when they engage in the behavior. So, if the school could find a way to just make texting not work, that would be the ideal. Remove the reward. There are flaws to the technical solution of rendering phones inoperable, again as others have noted.
Theoretically, if the student population at (say) a high school were not turning over every 4 years, the school might be able to get away with blocking for a while, then removing the blocking and just telling people that phones don't work in school. It's like pretending to tie your horse up and it thinks it's restrained but it really isn't.
The other argument against yet another school rule and enforcement is that teachers and administrators don't have time for that. There are better things we could be doing with instructional time than confiscating cell phones.
This doesn't work. At least, it hasn't for us. Our district has policy that requires a warning for first offense, and suspensions starting on offense #2. Even with that, the problem persists and there are incidences of this throughout the year. If I remember right, these violations accounted for about 15% of our discipline referrals. That's been about even over the years since we started counting.
I'm a teacher, so I really have no concept what an administrator does all day. At least part of it is school rule enforcement, but there are all kinds of worthwhile school improvement endeavors that they ought to be pursuing. Any savings of teacher and administrator time is a good thing.
I don't care how "interesting" things are especially if some girl is texting naked pictures of herself to her boyfriend.
I would have a grudging respect for any teen who made nude ASCII pictures of themselves and then texted them, even if it was during my class. :)
A number of people have pointed out that a few refunds for XP is not a sign that anything is changing. I believe these refunds only show that Amazon has not formed any kind of official policy for this situation. They are simply erring on the side of not pissing people off, because technical people are going to buy more computer products, either from Amazon or someone else who treats them better. I'm sure they are aware of the press.
Sometime soon, I think we will see a more permanent resolution to this customer service issue. I can't say whether it will be progress or not.
There is a difference between perishable and non-perishable goods. I don't think it's an especially obscure difference.
However, I do share your hope that the market will reject this business model.
The only way right now to reasonably sell people the same, say, movie is to release it in a different format (dvd, now bluray) or to include some extras or a shiny box or whatever. Something different, no matter how small.
Mr. Metalitz's view allows online store operators to simply go out of business, start a new store under a different name and maybe even with different names on the corporate charter, and go on about selling the same exact things over again.
I want to go further than your (b.) and say that everyone present at a meeting should be there because their contribution is needed. If a meeting is scheduled purely to distribute information, there are more time-efficient ways to do that.
I teach high school, and my workplace runs kind of the opposite of this. Teachers' days are the ones broken up into hour-long segments, and administrators don't have that. Or, at least, they aren't tied to the bell schedule in the way that teachers are. Still, we have meetings where one supervisor or another passes out papers and reads from an agenda.
I didn't see anything in the summary about this being particular to IT, which is where most of the replies seem to be.
That's the "taking advantage" part. If the policy made no intuitive sense to anyone, you'd see it in fewer places, I think.
That's certainly true. Thanks for the analysis.
This bit gave me the worst gut reaction from the article:
Bitmob: At this point, can you recommend Windows 7 as a gaming platform?
JC: I'd almost insist on it. Windows XP is old enough that running it is sort of a security risk
... a security risk? That really sounds to me like the "Fear" in FUD. Or is there something about security I'm overlooking due to anti-MS bias, of which I am sometimes guilty?
With all these sequels and continuations, I'd much rather grab 4 used games from last year from my shelf at home and play them again.
"It's pitch black when it hits ice"
This is a relief we can just let the grue take care of it.
Unless this is the grue.
It's been a while since I watched a commercial, but don't they put a notice at the bottom saying that the people are actors or something? Kind of like "professional driver on closed course"?
Contrast this with ads that say they're going to present real testimonials from actual customers. If they say that, then they have to do it.
It sounds like wire fraud to me. Even though wikipedia is no place to get legal advice, the definition of wire fraud is included in the article. I followed their link to the appropriate US Code section:
Whoever, having devised or intending to devise any scheme or artifice to defraud, or for obtaining money or property by means of false or fraudulent pretenses, representations, or promises, transmits or causes to be transmitted by means of wire, radio, or television communication in interstate or foreign commerce, any writings, signs, signals, pictures, or sounds for the purpose of executing such scheme or artifice, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both.
The emphasis is mine, and I think that's where this activity on the part of Lifestyle Lifts employees is illegal.
This is true and even Mass Effect itself was developed by Demiurge, not Bioware. If you're interested in KOTOR 2 completion, there are a few mods you can get that add in some of the removed areas. There's a mod that takes one of the prerendered cutscenes and puts back the in-engine cutscene that used to be there. There is also a putatively massive The Sith Lords Restoration Project going on at team-gizka.org, but their reports of progress have slowed to a trickle, if that. It's too bad really.
What you say about Obsidian is true and has always been a huge disappointment to me. Obsidian is made up of the old Black Isle folks, who made Infinity Engine games such as Icewind Dale and the greatest computer RPG of all time Planescape: Torment. To see that they can't turn out a finished product anymore is very disheartening.
It seems that I really wasn't looking hard enough since a number of people have been able to suggest games. These are also free to play so it's easy to try them out :)
Is there an article or study you can point me to? I'm not trying to be snarky I'm just interested in these kinds of things.
Thanks for pointing this one out to me. After watching the video, I am reminded that a lot of games containing martial arts turn into a series of juggles, basically stunlock but over and over again. I think the success or failure of the combat systems in the video depends on how much control you really have over abilities. I didn't see any user interface in the video so it's hard to say whether you can interrupt all the long strings of face owning. Even Jade Empire was easily cheesed by using Storm Dragon + whatever other style. Introduce latency of any kind, whether it's control latency or network latency or even just computer performance, and it will only be fun for a small number of players.
It does have a great look and cool animations, though. And I never thought I'd say this about a computer game but I hope they tone some of those breasts down. Geesh.
I've wondered for a long time why none of these MMO games from Asia (Lineage, Lineage II, Aion, Granado Espada, etc) have an art direction from mythology and fantasy of the region. It's all a baroque looking western fantasy setting. Finely decorated plate armors, massive double bladed swords and axes etc. Personally, I think samurai look great, katanas, japanese armor, martial arts inspired magic ala Avatar (I know, it's not magic, it's bending). I know that the east Asia has more cultural diversity than I'm describing.
The only games I can remember that tried an art direction like that were Jade Empire, Throne of Darkness and, oddly, Summoner. I think Jade Empire did pretty well, but no word on a sequel from the company that gave us Neverwinter Nights 2, KOTOR 2, and is giving us Mass Effect 2.
TOD and Summoner are both relatively old games, and even though Throne of Darkness was made by a lot of Blizzard vets, it didn't do that well at the store I don't think. Certainly not well enough for Click Entertainment to make more games or even exist anymore. Summoner got a sequel, but I don't know if they kept the art direction. I guess Red Alert 3 has some anime influence in one faction.
If we expand into console games while we're on the subject of Summoner, there was Shenmue and I guess any fighting game.
This is all just from memory so I'm happy to be shown as wrong and learn about some good games I might have missed or forgotten.
This isn't exactly on topic but Wired has a page up with the "top 10 science music videos." Screen them first, obviously.
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/07/sciencemusic/
I think my first sentence doesn't make sense as written sorry about that.
The lack of comedy in games isn't confined to games. Most mass media that's intended to be funny really isn't. I can count on one hand the number of funny sitcoms on TV (in the US, I don't watch much foreign language TV.) You could do something similar with comedy movies, or the light moments in otherwise serious movies. It's a general failure to which games are also susceptible. I agree with some of the assessments from others in the thread, too, especially about timing being key.
However, I would like to add that things aren't that funny when you've seen them before. Bones3D said in an earlier post that comedy occurs when something happens that the audience didn't expect. The more games we've played, the harder it is to surprise us with game events or plot twists. So we're left with comic dialogue which is not so easy to write or deliver.
By the way, those of you who mentioned TF2 and Portal should read some Old Man Murray, as one of the two guys (Chet Faliszek) from that site is responsible for much of the comedy in Valve's games.
Finally, I haven't seen these two games recommended as funny, so:
I've been immersed in a book before, not to mention an interactive fiction game. I don't mean that I completely forgot that I was holding a book or typing "take no tea." I just mean that if an experience is compelling enough, it draws you in whether by great description and powerful language or high realism. Once you abandon a verbal description, you kind of have to rely on the graphics, but a great deal can still be achieved by words, sounds, tones of voice, etc.
Take Diablo II as an example. Half the fun of that game is the sound. This post is getting a bit directionless so I'm going to stop now :|
The drugs produced from those crops in Afghanistan don't make it to the west. Drugs (even the heroin from poppies) in the west come from South American countries.
This is from Gretchen Peters, author of Seeds of Terror . I saw her doing questions and answers on BookTV so you might be able to catch that, if not read the entire book. Her research is very interesting.
outstanding