Forget teaching programming entirely. If they are asking for game design and you teach programming, you have done them a disservice. Programming isn't game design. It's what you do after the game designer tells you what the design does.
Go look at Ian Schreiber's work at http://teachingdesign.blogspot.com/ and http://gamedesignconcepts.wordpress.com/. Especially the second one - its actually a free online course he taught last summer on game design. That should cover all the bases you need, and doesn't require any programming skills at all.
Choosing the iphone/pad/pod leading to limiting future choices is the issue here.
Advocates for choice generally aren't big on having choice at point A eliminate the possibility to make choices at points B-G. That's what Apple has done.
The majority of the computing world doesn't work like this. You have a choice of hardware. A choice of OS. A choice of different softwares for internet browsing, word processing, music playing. The iplatform has a proven track record of limiting the software that competes with its own developed applications.
The App(le) store as the only legal avenue to buy software for the platform is a step away from consumer choice, and consequently a step back in computing.
The government would include all the informaton that they know already and then you would fill in the rest =- the way this is set up, they don't put your taxes to pay in there. You are responsible to add in what else you earned, just like today.
"In the economic sense" the idea of a 'real price' at the junction of supply and demand is a farce. Read Dan Ariely's Preditably Irrational
Whether its collusion among publishers, affection of a reader, or the limit of time to shop, too many non-economic factors effect the personal decision to buy a book.
Publishers are trying ot take advantage of the predictable irrationalities of purchasers. For example, I have noted that paper backs are now showing u pin two sizes - the same story, but one book is 6 inches tall and the other is 9 inches tall. Font size makes up the difference inside. The taller book is ~$3-5 more expensive. This is a great example of too expensive. And that discounts the regular upward price pressure of inflation that economists suggest is necessary for business to work at all.
In short, economic arguments are cute theory and all, but have little place in discussing the real life action of humans.
There are very few if any full time artists/writers/musicians on this website, and they are not well represented here.
Do they need to be? It's not like writers/artists/musicians are traditionally known for understanding the business of publishing music/art/literature. They just know how the system screws them.
Let's see - the artists feel screwed. The purchaser feels screwed. Hmm... maybe the distributes are screwing both of them in order to squeeze money out of both ends?
This entire side conversation proves the merit of books - no one is arguing over the mechanics of figuring out how to turn pages on a 75 year old book. The format is lasting.
The real issue is that the book is still a great design and that ebooks are trying to sell electronic delivery devices, not information.
It's clear that most of the people posting so far are code monkeys or some other key-whackers/
Call me a Luddite, but learning to write without a computer is as important as learning to add without a computer - that is, essential.
Also, I recall a conversation about touch interfaces where/.ers were saying it was a useless fad because the keyboard and mouse were the height of usability. Teach cursive, give kids touch enabled computers, and the physical keyboard will fade into oblivion.
In fact, in economic theory, I would argue, it is IMPOSSIBLE to NOT behave rationally.
Which is why economics is fundamentally flawed. It takes apriori a model of humanity that is inaccurate and bases the entire discipline on it.
Go read Arielly or Kahnemena and Tversky and understand that human decision making is flawed by consistent, predictable behaviors that counter the economic definition of rational.
You know what makes a game interesting? Good Design.
Sure, many kids educational games suck, but would you not ask a large group of architects how to build a house because so many suburban houses are crap?
We hold ourselves to these standards because everyone else is wearing masks and while we can tell ourselves that 'they are just like us', it's hard to grasp that cognitively without actual proof.
If there were no privacy, no one could wear a mask. If no one were wearing a mask, we would realize that the standards we hold ourselves to are unrealistic. If we realize the standards we hold ourselves to are unrealisitic, we are freed from shame. If we are freed from shame, we no longer find privacy necessary.
Your three points there are dramatically off.
We want privacy because we want to be left alone, we want to only be known by those who know us, we wan to be a partner, not an object.
Other people hold us to these standards, and prosecute us both socially and (increasingly) legally.
If there were no privacy...there will always be privacy. Its just a matter of the equity of privacy. The government has a set up that hides themselves from scrutiny, for both legitimate and illegitimate reasons. They won't change behavior in this hypothetical 'privacy free world' of yours.
Being mad at the Times for inaccurate, biased or fear mongering articles is like being mad a dog when he nips you. He's a DOG! That's what he does! Being mad at the NYT is just as silly. Trust them like you would Entertainment Tonight.
But you can train a dog not to nip you...How do you train the NYT? Roll them up and hit them on the nose with themselves?
Your logic only works if you consider a class "a performance". Teaching class may be entertaining, may be a public display, but I don't know of any legal precedent for teaching to be considered a performance in the definition of copyright law.
Moreover, if this logic is brought forward, it would destroy the education system. It is a sad example of how economics creep into realms they don't belong (university is a civic, not commercial, organization) and the economic arguments will corrupt the structure to the point that it ruins it.
Wow. You just explained why free marketeers don't get real life. In real life, not an economic model, we can run out of copper. You can. I can. A country can. Those of us who do run out of copper will suffer from our copper loss. but this is okay in "economic free market land" because someone can still afford it, or will find a way to replace it more efficiently. Meanwhile, those who have no copper don't have a chance to rejoin the copper economy.
Free markets forget that real people need real goods and when teh market disrupts - a minor thing in the free market model - people have tragedies. Outlandish? Replace copper in the past section with water. Natural resource, scarce, of public concern. Not a free market issue. A policy issue. And policy is best handled by government, not by corporations.
I think your assertion on books is off base. But not completely. Books can be tracked unit by unit, and although you an copy them, it is non-trivial to copy a 600 page text. so selling a lot of boos is still good business - it was good business in 1980, and the digital revolution has not destroyed that analog medium. Just how we acquire them.
More than that, books serve a civil purpose. Books are the most reliable medium for transmitting our culture and history across generations. Books won't go away for a long time. One of the things that gets lost in the free markets argument is that there are other lenses to look at society and commerce. The civil lens focuses on relationships between people rather than transactions between people. It's one of the reason that the free market doesn't cure all ills - the free market isn't the right lens for some.
The challenge I see is that no Millenial thinks they are below the 90th percentile - so all of them think they are in the first category, when a good number must be in the third category.
After just working my way into a position of earning the respect I thought I deserved, I have littel patience for the kids demanding more than they deserve.
Stephenson's book is more engaging, more complicated and a less cleanly resolved than Ender's Game. Very interesting stuff in there, with fun nanotech goodness!
Umm...It is either sold for a profit at 10$US or it is not. If the lower price is subsidized by the higher price in other countries (say it costs 15$US) than it is not being sold for a profit at 10$US. It is sold for a loss, but they deem the loss acceptable. more likely, they have made the cost of production and are now just selling it for whatever they can get from everywhere. It's not subsidized - that is a model from selling physical goods, not software. Video games sales works like movies sales - once costs are covered, all it is is profit.
Hey Dufus - the point is that allofmp3.com is legal.
The RIAA is using the WTO to strong-arm the Russian government into closing down - there has been nothing that says it was breaking any law. It just happened to be that through the wonderful series of tubes that is the internet, we can purchase something in Russia for use in the US (or elsewhere). This doesn't go over well with the greedy folks at the RIAA because they can't enforce price controls on it.
Interestingly, I haven't heard of any artists saying 'don't use that Russian site' - I expect it is ignorance of the issue (which would mean they are not feeling it in the paycheck) or that they don't care (which means the RIAA works for themselves, not for the artsts)
Slashdot Mirror
Forget teaching programming entirely. If they are asking for game design and you teach programming, you have done them a disservice. Programming isn't game design. It's what you do after the game designer tells you what the design does.
Go look at Ian Schreiber's work at http://teachingdesign.blogspot.com/ and http://gamedesignconcepts.wordpress.com/. Especially the second one - its actually a free online course he taught last summer on game design. That should cover all the bases you need, and doesn't require any programming skills at all.
Advocates for choice generally aren't big on having choice at point A eliminate the possibility to make choices at points B-G. That's what Apple has done.
The majority of the computing world doesn't work like this. You have a choice of hardware. A choice of OS. A choice of different softwares for internet browsing, word processing, music playing. The iplatform has a proven track record of limiting the software that competes with its own developed applications.
The App(le) store as the only legal avenue to buy software for the platform is a step away from consumer choice, and consequently a step back in computing.
The government would include all the informaton that they know already and then you would fill in the rest =- the way this is set up, they don't put your taxes to pay in there. You are responsible to add in what else you earned, just like today.
Whether its collusion among publishers, affection of a reader, or the limit of time to shop, too many non-economic factors effect the personal decision to buy a book.
Publishers are trying ot take advantage of the predictable irrationalities of purchasers. For example, I have noted that paper backs are now showing u pin two sizes - the same story, but one book is 6 inches tall and the other is 9 inches tall. Font size makes up the difference inside. The taller book is ~$3-5 more expensive. This is a great example of too expensive. And that discounts the regular upward price pressure of inflation that economists suggest is necessary for business to work at all.
In short, economic arguments are cute theory and all, but have little place in discussing the real life action of humans.
There are very few if any full time artists/writers/musicians on this website, and they are not well represented here.
Do they need to be? It's not like writers/artists/musicians are traditionally known for understanding the business of publishing music/art/literature. They just know how the system screws them.
Let's see - the artists feel screwed. The purchaser feels screwed. Hmm... maybe the distributes are screwing both of them in order to squeeze money out of both ends?
This entire side conversation proves the merit of books - no one is arguing over the mechanics of figuring out how to turn pages on a 75 year old book. The format is lasting.
The real issue is that the book is still a great design and that ebooks are trying to sell electronic delivery devices, not information.
It's clear that most of the people posting so far are code monkeys or some other key-whackers/
/.ers were saying it was a useless fad because the keyboard and mouse were the height of usability. Teach cursive, give kids touch enabled computers, and the physical keyboard will fade into oblivion.
Call me a Luddite, but learning to write without a computer is as important as learning to add without a computer - that is, essential.
Also, I recall a conversation about touch interfaces where
In fact, in economic theory, I would argue, it is IMPOSSIBLE to NOT behave rationally.
Which is why economics is fundamentally flawed. It takes apriori a model of humanity that is inaccurate and bases the entire discipline on it.
Go read Arielly or Kahnemena and Tversky and understand that human decision making is flawed by consistent, predictable behaviors that counter the economic definition of rational.
You know what makes a game interesting? Good Design.
Sure, many kids educational games suck, but would you not ask a large group of architects how to build a house because so many suburban houses are crap?
Ask this question on twitter #gamedesign
A group of people with deeper expereince than here will have some thoughts on it.
Parent said wouldn't get annoying. You are just agreeing with him, with examples.
(blame firefox for not having a star-wars enabled spell checker). BBH
I prefer to Blame Lucas for inventing the word.
We want privacy primarly due to shame.
We hold ourselves to these standards because everyone else is wearing masks and while we can tell ourselves that 'they are just like us', it's hard to grasp that cognitively without actual proof.
If there were no privacy, no one could wear a mask. If no one were wearing a mask, we would realize that the standards we hold ourselves to are unrealistic. If we realize the standards we hold ourselves to are unrealisitic, we are freed from shame. If we are freed from shame, we no longer find privacy necessary.
Your three points there are dramatically off.
We want privacy because we want to be left alone, we want to only be known by those who know us, we wan to be a partner, not an object.
Other people hold us to these standards, and prosecute us both socially and (increasingly) legally.
If there were no privacy...there will always be privacy. Its just a matter of the equity of privacy. The government has a set up that hides themselves from scrutiny, for both legitimate and illegitimate reasons. They won't change behavior in this hypothetical 'privacy free world' of yours.
Being mad at the Times for inaccurate, biased or fear mongering articles is like being mad a dog when he nips you. He's a DOG! That's what he does! Being mad at the NYT is just as silly. Trust them like you would Entertainment Tonight.
But you can train a dog not to nip you...How do you train the NYT? Roll them up and hit them on the nose with themselves?
His posting name is "I don't believe in imaginary property... how much support do you think he would give to DRM?
Here's the professors email, for any interested in sharing thoughts with him:
mpm@gnv.ifas.ufl.edu
Your logic only works if you consider a class "a performance". Teaching class may be entertaining, may be a public display, but I don't know of any legal precedent for teaching to be considered a performance in the definition of copyright law.
Moreover, if this logic is brought forward, it would destroy the education system. It is a sad example of how economics creep into realms they don't belong (university is a civic, not commercial, organization) and the economic arguments will corrupt the structure to the point that it ruins it.
Except, of course, that when experts are not scientists, they often do not use the scientific method.
Some examples: policy experts, design experts, business experts. Most fields don't have a sound system like the scientific method to rely on.
Wow. You just explained why free marketeers don't get real life. In real life, not an economic model, we can run out of copper. You can. I can. A country can. Those of us who do run out of copper will suffer from our copper loss. but this is okay in "economic free market land" because someone can still afford it, or will find a way to replace it more efficiently. Meanwhile, those who have no copper don't have a chance to rejoin the copper economy.
Free markets forget that real people need real goods and when teh market disrupts - a minor thing in the free market model - people have tragedies. Outlandish? Replace copper in the past section with water. Natural resource, scarce, of public concern. Not a free market issue. A policy issue. And policy is best handled by government, not by corporations.
I think your assertion on books is off base. But not completely. Books can be tracked unit by unit, and although you an copy them, it is non-trivial to copy a 600 page text. so selling a lot of boos is still good business - it was good business in 1980, and the digital revolution has not destroyed that analog medium. Just how we acquire them.
More than that, books serve a civil purpose. Books are the most reliable medium for transmitting our culture and history across generations. Books won't go away for a long time.
One of the things that gets lost in the free markets argument is that there are other lenses to look at society and commerce. The civil lens focuses on relationships between people rather than transactions between people. It's one of the reason that the free market doesn't cure all ills - the free market isn't the right lens for some.
The challenge I see is that no Millenial thinks they are below the 90th percentile - so all of them think they are in the first category, when a good number must be in the third category.
After just working my way into a position of earning the respect I thought I deserved, I have littel patience for the kids demanding more than they deserve.
Stephenson's book is more engaging, more complicated and a less cleanly resolved than Ender's Game. Very interesting stuff in there, with fun nanotech goodness!
Umm...It is either sold for a profit at 10$US or it is not. If the lower price is subsidized by the higher price in other countries (say it costs 15$US) than it is not being sold for a profit at 10$US. It is sold for a loss, but they deem the loss acceptable. more likely, they have made the cost of production and are now just selling it for whatever they can get from everywhere. It's not subsidized - that is a model from selling physical goods, not software. Video games sales works like movies sales - once costs are covered, all it is is profit.
Hey Dufus - the point is that allofmp3.com is legal.
The RIAA is using the WTO to strong-arm the Russian government into closing down - there has been nothing that says it was breaking any law. It just happened to be that through the wonderful series of tubes that is the internet, we can purchase something in Russia for use in the US (or elsewhere). This doesn't go over well with the greedy folks at the RIAA because they can't enforce price controls on it.
Interestingly, I haven't heard of any artists saying 'don't use that Russian site' - I expect it is ignorance of the issue (which would mean they are not feeling it in the paycheck) or that they don't care (which means the RIAA works for themselves, not for the artsts)
Then Blade Runner is trivia.
Nothing more came from that. (not directly)
If you want innovations, here are some off the top of my head:
space shot in handcam style - everything in BSG's external shots is Firefly derivative.
The wild-west space - a genre-crossing adventure with the idea that not everyone will have golly-gee technology
Inara was wicked hot. (sorry, not a valid point, but still true)