There's an asteroid with a moon (Ida/Dactyl, as I recall), so I don't know why Pluto would have a problem:) A moon is really just a small thing orbiting a big thing, after all, and it doesn't matter whether the big thing is a planet it or not.
I wouldn't mind seeing a Canadian branch -- I'm living in Vancouver right now, and I'm originally from Ottawa.
Is it bad that I hope something like this will be started in Saskatchewan, just so they/we will have an excuse to use "The Last Saskatchewan Pirate" as a themesong?
Well, yes, but I meant as multiple species vs. single species:) In any case, they remain an interesting anomoly when you're trying to decide what is and what isn't a distinct species.
The problem is, nature isn't very good at fitting into the tidy little categories that appear in all our textbooks. This is why scientists keep having to re-evaluate those categories whenever they find something that doesn't fit, and sometimes, yes, definitions change.
I've read about one particular trio of species where species A could breed with species B (producing viable offspring), species B could breed with species C (again, producing viable offspring), but species A could not breed with species C. How would you classify them? By the old textbook definition, A and B are the same species, as are B and C, but A and C are not -- this presents an obvious problem.
You also have to consider that many textbooks, particularly highschool or early university-level books, over-simplify pretty much everything. When learning something new, it's a lot easier to imagine that everything does fit nicely into categories and follow clearly specified patterns, so that's what's taught.
I don't always announce my femininity when I talk to guys online, and I've met plenty who have this idea that women absolutely must be brought into the industry because somehow they will have a positive effect on whatever products are being developed. However, I still haven't quite discovered what this effect will be or how extra boobs in an office will do anything other than improve male morale.
Maybe I've just been talking to the wrong guys, I don't know:)
I occasionally grief in online games, but it's more of a roleplaying thing for me. If I go ganking noobs as my undead rogue, it's because she's a freakin' undead rogue. What do you expect, hugs and kisses from the walking corpse who just happens to be a trained and specialized thief/killer?
However, if I play an evil character, I usually have at least a few extremely kind and benevolent alts. I've played MUDs before where I'd strip someone of gear with my evil character but happily re-equip them with better than what they had before as one of my alts. I just don't want to play good characters all the time because it gets boring.
I don't really understand people who'll spend absolutely all their time griefing, however. To me, that's just as boring as spending all your time helping others as a good character, and while it may be fun to gank a lowbie once, I rarely see the point in corpse camping. There's no challenge in it, and one or two kills are enough to convince the guy that you're evil and dangerous.
Well, you've pretty much summed up the way gender relations actually are in the tech industry;)
Most techie guys that I've talked to are convinced that all women who've ever even thought of getting into the industry are untapped fountains of innovation in a conveniently sexy package.
Most women that I've talked to are convinced that all techie guys are ugly, overweight, unwashed 30-year-old nerds who sit in their parents' basement and look at porn.
Incidentally, I'm an example of a woman who isn't a total tech genius (although I certainly get by just fine), and none of my co-workers fit the male nerd stereotype. Most are actually fit young guys with pretty wives and newborn babies.
Re: your comments about nursing, I've read that the same is true among social workers. If a man wants to become a daycare worker, for example, he will face almost insurmountable discrimination -- in the minds of many, he will be branded as a pedophile. To keep him away from children, he will quickly be shunted into a management position, and from a feminist perspective, he may indeed "come out on top." But what if all he wants to do is work in a daycare and take care of children? That avenue is closed to him. In my opinion, a glass floor is just as bad as a glass ceiling if it keeps people from doing what they love.
They might find three superior candidates, or they might not. If they only get a small number of female applications after this announcement, they may end up doing the best with what they have just to fill a quota.
Think about it this way: if only three women apply at this point, all three are guaranteed to get the positions. Their combined intellect could be the equivalent of a doorknob's, and they'd still get in, but qualified men wouldn't even have a chance.
Besides, if they're confident that they can find three or more "superior" candidates, why not just put out a call for female applicants and let them compete with the men? If the women are superior, they'll win, right?
Incidentally, I'm female myself, but I hate discrimination of any sort. Giving a woman a job or a scholarship purely because she has a vagina is just as bad as giving a man that same position purely because he has a penis. Encourage all genders to apply, and let the best candidates win. Hell, I don't even have a problem with putting out a call for female applicants or even refusing to make a final decision before X women have applied, just as long as gender is ignored in the actual application evaluation process.
I'm female, and I certainly haven't seen anything that was "not well-designed to reach women." I actually considered applying, but then decided against it.
My reason is just that I don't have enough time. I'm on a co-op workterm as a full-time tools programmer at a small game company, so I can't easily devote myself to an open-source project. If I had the time to spare, however, I'd be all over the Summer of Code. It sounds like a lot of fun:)
The concept of a static image of boobs (particularly fake boobs) as a marketing tool is not limited to gaming, so I don't know if it would qualify as a gameplay mechanic. Boob physics, however... that's an interesting one. It took a long time for the game industry to come up with character models that jiggled in the right places, and I'm actually surprised that they didn't do it earlier. It's not quite as surprising how many... uhm... packages it moved when it was finally implemented, though.
I still have my ex-boyfriends blood inside my old computer... he was helping me put in a graphics card, as I recall, and cut himself on one of the many many sharp and pointy bits inside the case.
Women can find dates online way more easily than men mainly because we're a lot less common. We're also the ones answering requests for dates rather than asking, and some of us have a hard time finding a nice way to say no. If guys were rare and had to deal with countless girls begging for dates, we'd probably see the statistic swing the opposite way.
Incidentally, I haven't dated anyone that I met on World of Warcraft, but I have gone out with a few guys that I met via MUDs. Nothing ever came of it, though -- I prefer to meet men in real life, but I'll give online guys a chance from time to time.
It's also the user-created content. A FPS is designed by professionals who, at least in theory, have the same goals in mind, and easy, consistent navigation is usually one of those goals. Second Life is an example of something that has been slapped together by a wide variety of people, all of whom have different goals and inspirations. In a 3D web, we would certainly have professionally made web environments, but to get to them we may have to stumble through the three dimensional equivalent of a 13-year-old's Geocities tribute to Frodo/Sephiroth slash fiction.
When I first heard about a web browser being put onto the Wii, it occurred to me that this would be an excellent opportunity to add some 3D capabilities to the web. The Wii has a pointer that can simulate a mouse, but the analog controller might actually make moving around a 3D environment to find information easier than surfing in any conventional fashion. I don't know about you guys, but I think it would be fun to fly around in a 3D information-laden room with the nunchuku firmly in hand, grabbing at relevent pieces with the wiimote.
I've only tried Second Life for a few hours, but I agree with you there. Unfortunately, it's still very difficult to navigate and otherwise interact with -- at least compared to the web as we know it today. Don't get me wrong, I'd love to see a fully 3D web, but I'm not willing to sacrifice functionality to get it.
I doubt CDs would work as well, if only because the average computer-worker's first reaction upon seeing a "lost" CD is to fling it at something. Especially if it's found without its case (or in a broken case), most people will assume that it's scratched beyond recovery -- or at least, that's what they'll say if anyone asks why they're using it as a frisbee instead of seeing what's on it.
Well, Warhammer borrowed from Tolkien, and Warcraft borrows from Warhammer.... so I guess it kind of works...
It's just funny looking at screenshots of the new Warhammer games and trying to fight the urge to exclaim "That looks just like Warcraft!", especially since I actually know better. I don't play the miniatures game, but I'm involved in a regular WFRP group, so I know the art style well:)
I think Warcraft takes a fair bit of inspiration from D&D too, if only because their world is a lot more light-hearted and high-fantasy than the Old World. Yes, even with all the demons and undead, Azeroth is still less grim and dirty than the average gutter in Altdorf. Probably less smelly too.
If actors and directors were more accessible, they would probably have less problems with at least part of their fanbase -- there are an awful lot of folks who stalk famous people because they either want a challenge or are looking for bragging rights/money. By keeping themselves so separate from the rest of the world, famous people are actually making themselves more tempting targets.
Think about it this way: if you were one of the paparazzi, would you spend your time chasing after the star who hides everything, always walks around with bodyguards, and rarely speaks to the public, or the star who'll talk to any old fan on his/her public forum? Who would generate the juiciest gossip that people would actually pay to read?
I don't know about you, but if I ever become famous in any industry (not bloody likely, since I'm just an ordinary computer science student), I'm going to do my best to remain as approachable as possible. Although I've obviously never been in the situation, I would imagine that having a fan approach me at Tim Hortons for a chat would be way less creepy than that same fan hiding in the bushes because I wouldn't let him/her near me otherwise.
I'm a regular reader/commenter on the site, and from what I've seen, Dennis (the guy running it) is a pretty good journalist. He has free-lance columns in a couple of real newspapers, and although GamePolitics is more of a hobby for him, he's pretty good about doing his research and (for the most part) keeping his coverage objective. He's also frequently linked by blogs such as Kotaku and is occasionally quoted by the mainstream press.
Another reason why GamePolitics is a good source for something like this is that the site's forums and screened-by-default comments are a direct result of a little trolling problem that we had with Jack Thompson. The man went through at least 50 banned LiveJournal usernames before Dennis finally got rid of him. We also periodically get other notable figures commenting, including the guy who uncovered the Hot Coffee mod, and even Hal Halpin visited for a day to answer people's questions.
Yeah, I know I'm getting a bit fangirlish here, but even so... I'm not sure why a story like this would be any more valid coming from a "real" news site, especially given GamePolitics' reputation as a news source for all things Jack Thompson.
It can also be used as a deterrent for non-touch-typists, particularly technologically illiterate relatives, who might want to use your computer.
My dad used to bring his own keyboard up to my room whenever he wanted to do something on my computer because the letters on my ultra-cheap keyboard had long since rubbed off, but if he hadn't had miscellaneous spare keyboards lying around, he would have been out of luck.
Nintendo tends to be cutting edge, but not in the pile-on-more-RAM-and-CPUs sense. They're better at coming up with ways to make consoles and games that are fresh and fun without being either expensive to produce or expensive to purchase. I mean, the Wiimote is undeniably "cutting-edge" in some sense of the word, but sticking a motion sensor in a controller is going to be a lot cheaper -- at least to produce, no clue about development costs -- than custom-making a blazingly fast CPU or graphics card. By picking the route that's cheaper for them, they can get away with charging less for their products without taking a huge hit on each console sale a la Xbox or Playstation.
I agree that it's a non-issue, and that was actually the point I was trying to make -- if other companies emulate their new consoles on competitor's hardware, of all things, why go after Nintendo for just using the Gamecube's case?
I'm not sure why this is a big deal, or even a surprise -- at last year's E3, the 360 was emulated on heavily modded PowerPCs. When I saw a stack of them at EA, I couldn't help but giggle at the huge Apple logos emblazoned on the side and the small, unassuming "Property of Microsoft" labels affixed to the top of each machine.
Slashdot Mirror
There's an asteroid with a moon (Ida/Dactyl, as I recall), so I don't know why Pluto would have a problem :) A moon is really just a small thing orbiting a big thing, after all, and it doesn't matter whether the big thing is a planet it or not.
I wouldn't mind seeing a Canadian branch -- I'm living in Vancouver right now, and I'm originally from Ottawa.
Is it bad that I hope something like this will be started in Saskatchewan, just so they/we will have an excuse to use "The Last Saskatchewan Pirate" as a themesong?
Don't forget: it vibrates too ;)
Well, yes, but I meant as multiple species vs. single species :) In any case, they remain an interesting anomoly when you're trying to decide what is and what isn't a distinct species.
The problem is, nature isn't very good at fitting into the tidy little categories that appear in all our textbooks. This is why scientists keep having to re-evaluate those categories whenever they find something that doesn't fit, and sometimes, yes, definitions change.
I've read about one particular trio of species where species A could breed with species B (producing viable offspring), species B could breed with species C (again, producing viable offspring), but species A could not breed with species C. How would you classify them? By the old textbook definition, A and B are the same species, as are B and C, but A and C are not -- this presents an obvious problem.
You also have to consider that many textbooks, particularly highschool or early university-level books, over-simplify pretty much everything. When learning something new, it's a lot easier to imagine that everything does fit nicely into categories and follow clearly specified patterns, so that's what's taught.
I don't always announce my femininity when I talk to guys online, and I've met plenty who have this idea that women absolutely must be brought into the industry because somehow they will have a positive effect on whatever products are being developed. However, I still haven't quite discovered what this effect will be or how extra boobs in an office will do anything other than improve male morale.
:)
Maybe I've just been talking to the wrong guys, I don't know
I occasionally grief in online games, but it's more of a roleplaying thing for me. If I go ganking noobs as my undead rogue, it's because she's a freakin' undead rogue. What do you expect, hugs and kisses from the walking corpse who just happens to be a trained and specialized thief/killer?
However, if I play an evil character, I usually have at least a few extremely kind and benevolent alts. I've played MUDs before where I'd strip someone of gear with my evil character but happily re-equip them with better than what they had before as one of my alts. I just don't want to play good characters all the time because it gets boring.
I don't really understand people who'll spend absolutely all their time griefing, however. To me, that's just as boring as spending all your time helping others as a good character, and while it may be fun to gank a lowbie once, I rarely see the point in corpse camping. There's no challenge in it, and one or two kills are enough to convince the guy that you're evil and dangerous.
Well, you've pretty much summed up the way gender relations actually are in the tech industry ;)
Most techie guys that I've talked to are convinced that all women who've ever even thought of getting into the industry are untapped fountains of innovation in a conveniently sexy package.
Most women that I've talked to are convinced that all techie guys are ugly, overweight, unwashed 30-year-old nerds who sit in their parents' basement and look at porn.
Incidentally, I'm an example of a woman who isn't a total tech genius (although I certainly get by just fine), and none of my co-workers fit the male nerd stereotype. Most are actually fit young guys with pretty wives and newborn babies.
Re: your comments about nursing, I've read that the same is true among social workers. If a man wants to become a daycare worker, for example, he will face almost insurmountable discrimination -- in the minds of many, he will be branded as a pedophile. To keep him away from children, he will quickly be shunted into a management position, and from a feminist perspective, he may indeed "come out on top." But what if all he wants to do is work in a daycare and take care of children? That avenue is closed to him. In my opinion, a glass floor is just as bad as a glass ceiling if it keeps people from doing what they love.
They might find three superior candidates, or they might not. If they only get a small number of female applications after this announcement, they may end up doing the best with what they have just to fill a quota.
Think about it this way: if only three women apply at this point, all three are guaranteed to get the positions. Their combined intellect could be the equivalent of a doorknob's, and they'd still get in, but qualified men wouldn't even have a chance.
Besides, if they're confident that they can find three or more "superior" candidates, why not just put out a call for female applicants and let them compete with the men? If the women are superior, they'll win, right?
Incidentally, I'm female myself, but I hate discrimination of any sort. Giving a woman a job or a scholarship purely because she has a vagina is just as bad as giving a man that same position purely because he has a penis. Encourage all genders to apply, and let the best candidates win. Hell, I don't even have a problem with putting out a call for female applicants or even refusing to make a final decision before X women have applied, just as long as gender is ignored in the actual application evaluation process.
I'm female, and I certainly haven't seen anything that was "not well-designed to reach women." I actually considered applying, but then decided against it.
:)
My reason is just that I don't have enough time. I'm on a co-op workterm as a full-time tools programmer at a small game company, so I can't easily devote myself to an open-source project. If I had the time to spare, however, I'd be all over the Summer of Code. It sounds like a lot of fun
The concept of a static image of boobs (particularly fake boobs) as a marketing tool is not limited to gaming, so I don't know if it would qualify as a gameplay mechanic. Boob physics, however... that's an interesting one. It took a long time for the game industry to come up with character models that jiggled in the right places, and I'm actually surprised that they didn't do it earlier. It's not quite as surprising how many... uhm... packages it moved when it was finally implemented, though.
I still have my ex-boyfriends blood inside my old computer... he was helping me put in a graphics card, as I recall, and cut himself on one of the many many sharp and pointy bits inside the case.
Women can find dates online way more easily than men mainly because we're a lot less common. We're also the ones answering requests for dates rather than asking, and some of us have a hard time finding a nice way to say no. If guys were rare and had to deal with countless girls begging for dates, we'd probably see the statistic swing the opposite way.
Incidentally, I haven't dated anyone that I met on World of Warcraft, but I have gone out with a few guys that I met via MUDs. Nothing ever came of it, though -- I prefer to meet men in real life, but I'll give online guys a chance from time to time.
It's also the user-created content. A FPS is designed by professionals who, at least in theory, have the same goals in mind, and easy, consistent navigation is usually one of those goals. Second Life is an example of something that has been slapped together by a wide variety of people, all of whom have different goals and inspirations. In a 3D web, we would certainly have professionally made web environments, but to get to them we may have to stumble through the three dimensional equivalent of a 13-year-old's Geocities tribute to Frodo/Sephiroth slash fiction.
When I first heard about a web browser being put onto the Wii, it occurred to me that this would be an excellent opportunity to add some 3D capabilities to the web. The Wii has a pointer that can simulate a mouse, but the analog controller might actually make moving around a 3D environment to find information easier than surfing in any conventional fashion. I don't know about you guys, but I think it would be fun to fly around in a 3D information-laden room with the nunchuku firmly in hand, grabbing at relevent pieces with the wiimote.
I've only tried Second Life for a few hours, but I agree with you there. Unfortunately, it's still very difficult to navigate and otherwise interact with -- at least compared to the web as we know it today. Don't get me wrong, I'd love to see a fully 3D web, but I'm not willing to sacrifice functionality to get it.
I doubt CDs would work as well, if only because the average computer-worker's first reaction upon seeing a "lost" CD is to fling it at something. Especially if it's found without its case (or in a broken case), most people will assume that it's scratched beyond recovery -- or at least, that's what they'll say if anyone asks why they're using it as a frisbee instead of seeing what's on it.
Well, Warhammer borrowed from Tolkien, and Warcraft borrows from Warhammer.... so I guess it kind of works...
:)
It's just funny looking at screenshots of the new Warhammer games and trying to fight the urge to exclaim "That looks just like Warcraft!", especially since I actually know better. I don't play the miniatures game, but I'm involved in a regular WFRP group, so I know the art style well
I think Warcraft takes a fair bit of inspiration from D&D too, if only because their world is a lot more light-hearted and high-fantasy than the Old World. Yes, even with all the demons and undead, Azeroth is still less grim and dirty than the average gutter in Altdorf. Probably less smelly too.
If actors and directors were more accessible, they would probably have less problems with at least part of their fanbase -- there are an awful lot of folks who stalk famous people because they either want a challenge or are looking for bragging rights/money. By keeping themselves so separate from the rest of the world, famous people are actually making themselves more tempting targets.
Think about it this way: if you were one of the paparazzi, would you spend your time chasing after the star who hides everything, always walks around with bodyguards, and rarely speaks to the public, or the star who'll talk to any old fan on his/her public forum? Who would generate the juiciest gossip that people would actually pay to read?
I don't know about you, but if I ever become famous in any industry (not bloody likely, since I'm just an ordinary computer science student), I'm going to do my best to remain as approachable as possible. Although I've obviously never been in the situation, I would imagine that having a fan approach me at Tim Hortons for a chat would be way less creepy than that same fan hiding in the bushes because I wouldn't let him/her near me otherwise.
I'm a regular reader/commenter on the site, and from what I've seen, Dennis (the guy running it) is a pretty good journalist. He has free-lance columns in a couple of real newspapers, and although GamePolitics is more of a hobby for him, he's pretty good about doing his research and (for the most part) keeping his coverage objective. He's also frequently linked by blogs such as Kotaku and is occasionally quoted by the mainstream press.
Another reason why GamePolitics is a good source for something like this is that the site's forums and screened-by-default comments are a direct result of a little trolling problem that we had with Jack Thompson. The man went through at least 50 banned LiveJournal usernames before Dennis finally got rid of him. We also periodically get other notable figures commenting, including the guy who uncovered the Hot Coffee mod, and even Hal Halpin visited for a day to answer people's questions.
Yeah, I know I'm getting a bit fangirlish here, but even so... I'm not sure why a story like this would be any more valid coming from a "real" news site, especially given GamePolitics' reputation as a news source for all things Jack Thompson.
It can also be used as a deterrent for non-touch-typists, particularly technologically illiterate relatives, who might want to use your computer.
My dad used to bring his own keyboard up to my room whenever he wanted to do something on my computer because the letters on my ultra-cheap keyboard had long since rubbed off, but if he hadn't had miscellaneous spare keyboards lying around, he would have been out of luck.
Nintendo tends to be cutting edge, but not in the pile-on-more-RAM-and-CPUs sense. They're better at coming up with ways to make consoles and games that are fresh and fun without being either expensive to produce or expensive to purchase. I mean, the Wiimote is undeniably "cutting-edge" in some sense of the word, but sticking a motion sensor in a controller is going to be a lot cheaper -- at least to produce, no clue about development costs -- than custom-making a blazingly fast CPU or graphics card. By picking the route that's cheaper for them, they can get away with charging less for their products without taking a huge hit on each console sale a la Xbox or Playstation.
I agree that it's a non-issue, and that was actually the point I was trying to make -- if other companies emulate their new consoles on competitor's hardware, of all things, why go after Nintendo for just using the Gamecube's case?
I'm not sure why this is a big deal, or even a surprise -- at last year's E3, the 360 was emulated on heavily modded PowerPCs. When I saw a stack of them at EA, I couldn't help but giggle at the huge Apple logos emblazoned on the side and the small, unassuming "Property of Microsoft" labels affixed to the top of each machine.