Several fans from overseas reported that the movie was unavailable to them. I think the problem there was that theaters were grappling with the issue of demand. If they didn't see a demand for Serenity, they wouldn't spend time to place it in a theater.
I drove home from college, just to see it. I couldn't guarantee the theaters in town were going to play it, or for how long, so I drove home and caught the 12 am showing on Saturday.
I agree there is a small population of women interested in today's games, specifically the games that are mostly geared toward men, like first person shooters. I personally love them and have played them since I was 15. I derive great joy from running around "pouring machine gun turret blasts at other people.":-D
My opinion, from what I've observed from non-gaming girls, is that it is something that is passed from the parents and from the environment they live in, or grew up in. Girls who have parents who discourage any kind of "male" oriented activity in girls generally produce girls who are "girly" (I use this loosly -- I'm pretty feminine, though I don't wear pink) and who aren't just dissuaded from liking these types of games, they don't understand the appeal.
As a kid, I was never discouraged from watching X-Men, Spiderman, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, etc. I wanted to be Rogue, and I also wanted to be Mary Jane, without the whole damsel in distress complex. My love for comic books and the animated series based on them was never encouraged but never discouraged. I was allowed to explore different genres of television and books, especially science fiction. This translated into my fascination with video games, especially first person shooters. I find FPS to be a lot like the comic book scenarios I enjoy. There are good guys, there are bad guys, there's fighting, and there are larger-than-life scenarios that are much like the science fiction books I like.
Some of my friends, however, can't understand the appeal of these games -- many of them see it as too violent, and would much prefer to stay away from video games. I think the reason is that because they have been told so many times that "video games are for boys" that to be a gamer is to immediately de-feminize yourself...and that's definitely not the case. I'm a girl just like the others. I go shopping, I wear stilettos, I wear makeup. I'm also good at playing shoot-em-ups and that doesn't make me any less of a girl.
I've become used to playing the male in games like Doom 3. I'm just used to it. But if they can add an option to play as a female, I'd play as her. This is why games like Halo are great for a lot of girls -- everyone looks the same and it's up to your profile name to distinguish you. Everyone has a helmet, you don't know if it's male or female.
That's her choice, but I'm just saying it wouldn't be mine. As long as there *is* a choice of female avatars to choose from, I'm happy. But I get annoyed when every option looks like a gross caricature of a porn star, because it assumes that it's what every girl wants to imagine herself as and what every guy wants to see. More choice, and especially more realistic choices, can hardly be a bad thing.
I agree! As a girl, I don't care that there are big breasted girls in video games because I understand the industry and what sells to men and games such as Dead or Alive don't just sell because of the gameplay. I'd like a choice in what I represent myself as in a game though, that's the point.
(Side note: a lot of people seem to be interpreting the word "realistic" as ugly. I don't mean it that way. There are lots of real people who aren't ugly, but don't have F-cups either.)
When I play Resident Evil and Jill Valentine is running around in a tube top and shorts, I can vaguely see the practicality in that. It doesn't entirely make sense why one would wear a tube top to fight zombies but it's better than say, a bikini. Plus, she's anatomically possible.
It can be related to women's magazines -- women want to be the people on the cover. They want to have that hair, that perfect skin. This is why female characters in video games are so appealing. We want to be them, to be like them and the illusion that we can be is entirely gone, I think, once it hits that these women have bodies that could never be naturally achieved. It doesn't mean we hate our bodies as they are -- it means that our motivation to interpret ourselves as strong and efficient like these characters is diminished.
Consumer-wise, the industry is still under the impression that girls just don't play video games. Or at least, don't play them well. And when they do find that a game hits home with females, it's a game like The Sims, which tends to be more gender-neutral. FPS such as Quake, counter-strike, Halo, etc. are still assumed to be favored entirely by males and just because not a hugely significant amount of girls are plunking money for a FPS (or if they are, the clerks ask them if they need a gift receipt -- this has happened many times to me) many of them conclude that it must be because they're not interested. But if they are interested (according to the numbers) in The Sims, that must be all they'd be interested in!
It's funny the reaction I get when people hear me list my choice in games. One of the highest-rated games for women is The Sims...I prefer FPS like Doom 3 and Halo. Furthermore, they're surprised that I'm actually good at them. What a concept. I've had parents express shock. I think they expected me to tell their sons video games are a waste of time, not sit down with them and play.
Yes, I'm proving that it can be done -- girls can use the internet for things other than searching google for "100 great hairstyles this season."
My store was a high-target store because it was so popular. It was also inside a mall and there was more space to just disappear after you've left the store. One of the things they always told us to watch out for was people carrying bags from stores that aren't in the mall. I'm not sure how many of those I saw but I think I would've been pretty suspicious.
We were also told on a few occasions that the reason why a lot of people steal from the store is that they aren't intending to steal but something ticked them off and they decided to retaliate. This happens more with teens, I think. We've had a lot of teenage girls come in either using mom and dad's VS charge card (not supposed to do that) and we can't let them buy anything with it because it's not their card. They get mad and embarassed and can't understand why we can't let them use the credit card that isn't theirs and if their name isn't on the account then we can't let them use it. They throw hissy fits, argue, even call their parents up and have them yell at us -- I remember in almost all cases, the mothers were just like their daughters -- irrational and shrill. The mothers couldn't understand why we wouldn't let their daughters use the card...I thought the answer was fairly obvious and told them so: it's not their credit card.
So we were told that sometimes small theft, one or two lower-priced pieces of merchandise, will be attempted if we're doing our job and the customer simply doesn't like it.
We had a whole meeting devoted to shrinkage one time. We watched a few security videos of merchandise being stolen and it was amazing how sophisticated some people are at nabbing merchandise. One woman had an accomplice holding a product with the anti-theft tag walk by a counter close to the scanners so when it went off, associates just looked up, saw him walking by the scanner, presumably on his way to another counter, she slipped by.
They were so focused on him that they didn't notice someone leaving, and it never occurred to them that she might've been a thief.
A lot of thieves from the store I used to work at are teenagers. A lot of teenagers aren't particularly interested in stealing items like ipods, though it's certainly something they want. Many teenagers don't know about the barcode technology used in scams like this one. They're more interested in figuring out how they can just walk out with merchandise. Thus, a store like mine (Victoria's Secret) was such a popular target. A lot of the products had an anti-theft device attached but the lower-priced merchandise that was often on top of counters did not and those were the ones that teenagers really liked to buy anyway. They'd steal what they'd like to buy and that meant that we often had to have tons of employees up at the front, monitoring the counters.
One of my managers one time saw two girls that looked about 15 who were really interested in one counter in particular. She dispatched several of us to not only move around that counter a lot but to also ask them often if they needed help. If you make it obvious that you know they're there, oftentimes they will get nervous. These girls seemed to get really nervous and left soon after employees were sent over. I guess to managers, losing a bit of business from teenagers is better than getting stolen from.
I used to work for Victoria's Secret (yes, I'm a girl) and we were told that if someone was stealing and you saw them steal, you can't do anything about it until they leave the store. The key is to call security and have them at the door, waiting for them to leave. Or, have security walk through the store and become a presence to everyone, so the thief will hopefully put back whatever he/she took.
As far as I know, from the time I was there, we haven't had to call security to physically stop anyone. Their presence was pretty much all it took for us to know that we at least minimized the theft, even if they did end up making out with some merchandise.
curious to know how Camino works on a mac...Camino and Firefox both have done poorly on my mac and I'm wondering if they are overall a better fit, like Firefox and Opera are better on PC.
I bought an Asus M6Ne for that exact reason. I'm in college and I can't have a desktop and a laptop. My solution was to have a laptop. It's got a Radeon 9700 and it works just fine with most of the FPS I play.
Of course I'd rather have a desktop, just to be more upgradable but having a laptop that can do most of what I want is the best of both worlds.
Because people don't want to be sitting next to their phone just as much as they hate being tied to a muzak-ridden phone call and put on hold.
I had that happen the other day. I was calling Verizon about my malfunctioning cell phone but I was using my phone to call Verizon because it's free that way (and I couldn't find the 1-800 number). The tech guy asked for my number and he called me back after I got off my cell phone. We got disconnected, unfortunately, and that was the end of that entire tech support escapade.
There are times where controlling when you talk to a machine or a person is much more convenient. The worst thing is waiting on the fridge repair guy to come fix your leaky fridge, why would you want to sit next to a phone waiting for the tech people to call back? It doesn't eliminate holds and most people aren't going to want to give the support people their cell phone numbers because holding over the phone means minutes wasted.
It's a good idea, in theory...but a lot of tech support people would rather not take disgruntled phone calls in general and if they can delay that by not calling you back as soon as they should, why not?
The funny thing about Overstock.com is that I went through their maze of automated options but it only took a few seconds and I got to a person right away, who was more than happy to fix my problems.
I recently had a problem with my cell phone and when I called Verizon, I made 4 button pushes and got to a human. They put me on hold for about 8 minutes but when I did get a human, they were helpful.
I really dislike Samsung's tech support though...they didn't know their own technology and told ME that I had broken the phone I had only had for one afternoon and that the NEW transflash card I bought for the phone was broken. So basically when their phone doesn't work, it must be my fault because I turned it on and expected it to work properly.
Re:Houston, we have a busted/confirmed myth
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Awesome web site, thanks for the info. At least he got feedback from people from the program he was debunking.
Is there any indication that there was a misinterpretation of what TV was in the Bhutan culture? Were they under the impression that it was something very benign, that it was really like PBS and Mr. Rogers and the PAX channel? Or did they know exactly what was on a lot of these channels?
A theory I have about the Bhutan example is that these people, being so isolated for such a long time, were then told "we're going to join the rest of the world, we're going to introduce other culture, we're modernizing" and the citizens, thinking "right, we're going to modernize" suddenly became assaulted with all these violent images. Seeing these images supposedly representing the "modern" world, the people might revert to being very impressionable and think that this is how they are to behave in order to modernize.
If Johnny wants to jump off a bridge and does so, it is up to you to notice the splat Johnny makes and conclude that perhaps jumping off a bridge is not such a great idea. If you don't get to that conclusion and go the way of Johnny, well I'm sorry but it wasn't the fault of anyone but yours that you jumped. Johnny isn't to blame -- in fact, he did you a favor since he showed you what would happen if you jumped. It was all your decision to take that leap so you can't blame others for your splat.
I'm about to buy a Samsung SCH-a950. This baby has an integrated MP3 player and with a 512 mb transflash card, all I have to do is upload all my music. There's no paying 2.50 for a song...I mean, why not just get the song online from your computer (free or at least a lot less than 2.50) and upload it to your card?
I know there are people who think "ooooh, convenience" but how many of these people are going to pay 2.50 a song?
Well, since he's a European history prof and the class focuses on pre-WWI history, it won't really matter. The class would be visiting old sites, like the battlegrounds of Waterloo.
One of my history profs is trying to get a new format approved. He's trying to make half his class time lecture and half of it travel in Europe, taking actual tours and looking at the actual examples they would be studying in the classroom. I think it's a great idea.
I had a professor who was also one of the high officials of the university...he was notorious for answering his cell phone during class...he figured that it would be a healthy distraction from class once in a while and he also figured that the person on the other line (barring someone really important, like the university president) should know that they interrupted class. so he'd hold up the phone and have all 100 students shout hello into the phone before he told them he'd call them back.
it usually just gives everyone a laugh and it wakes up those who were sleeping.
I don't think laptops are the concern when it comes to profs saying students are not paying attention. I think it's the anonymity of the laptop. Teachers can't tell whether their students are looking at Slashdot or Facebook and not paying attention, or whether they're following a powerpoint or taking notes. Professors used to deal with students doodling, where you could wander by and notice the notepad before they could flip to another page. Laptops are much harder to catch...one flick of the finger and the window is gone. Another flip, and you have a powerpoint or some notes.
If the class is too boring, try a different section.
Oh how I wish this was the case...I'm a Communications major and there are one or two upper level classes that are taught by one or two professors only (who handle multiple sections). They do this because these profs are pretty frelling good at what they do and they don't want to thin the population between several good ones and several mediocre ones if all of their students can get the same level of education.
Unfortunately, some of these profs don't appeal to certain people. I took a class one time on the advice of a friend, who loved the prof. I hated the prof.
Sometimes you just can't switch...plus, registering for classes is sometimes a hassle and switching to a different section is impossible if other sections don't work in your schedule or if there are just not enough sections.
I certainly type faster than I write in most cases...and it hurts less after pages and pages of notes.
In many cases with my classes, my profs use powerpoints and if they put them online, all I have to do is follow along with the slide and when they add an extra bit of information not on the slide, it's much easier to just make a text box and type that in, rather than printing off the slides (gigantic waste of paper) or making a random note in my notebook and trying to find out later what slide it corresponds with.
I can't even begin to describe how boring some of my classes have been. When I have my laptop with me and I'm in a boring class, what else can I do except use my laptop for reasons other than note taking? In a great class where the prof is interesting, I might have the laptop up, but I'll be taking notes and doing research.
In a lot of cases, I've been in great classes where the prof is trying to think of a recent example and immediately students can recall for him, or look it up online. It's a great tool.
One of my professors didn't discourage laptops, but rather, she was smart enough to know that people are going to be slacking off and she made people with laptops sit on the front row. She also moved around a lot (she had a huge class) and made the class fun by using the students as examples in whatever she was trying to explain. so not only does this:
a) give her a good look at what the students are doing on their laptops b) get people to wake up and stand up for an example c) give them a memorable example of her topic.
Here's another example that doesn't relate to laptops but can still be applied: one of my professors gives students 9 skips. Students are allowed to skip 9 times before their grades are marked off....but the thing is, no one skips. why? the professor is engaging and he is entertaining and he gives practical examples in his lectures. He starts off class with a joke and a lot of people go just to hear the joke of the day. He makes his class FUN and that is why students don't skip it.
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I drove home from college, just to see it. I couldn't guarantee the theaters in town were going to play it, or for how long, so I drove home and caught the 12 am showing on Saturday.
"Live, Highlander. Grow stronger. Fight another day." - Methos
My opinion, from what I've observed from non-gaming girls, is that it is something that is passed from the parents and from the environment they live in, or grew up in. Girls who have parents who discourage any kind of "male" oriented activity in girls generally produce girls who are "girly" (I use this loosly -- I'm pretty feminine, though I don't wear pink) and who aren't just dissuaded from liking these types of games, they don't understand the appeal.
As a kid, I was never discouraged from watching X-Men, Spiderman, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, etc. I wanted to be Rogue, and I also wanted to be Mary Jane, without the whole damsel in distress complex. My love for comic books and the animated series based on them was never encouraged but never discouraged. I was allowed to explore different genres of television and books, especially science fiction. This translated into my fascination with video games, especially first person shooters. I find FPS to be a lot like the comic book scenarios I enjoy. There are good guys, there are bad guys, there's fighting, and there are larger-than-life scenarios that are much like the science fiction books I like.
Some of my friends, however, can't understand the appeal of these games -- many of them see it as too violent, and would much prefer to stay away from video games. I think the reason is that because they have been told so many times that "video games are for boys" that to be a gamer is to immediately de-feminize yourself...and that's definitely not the case. I'm a girl just like the others. I go shopping, I wear stilettos, I wear makeup. I'm also good at playing shoot-em-ups and that doesn't make me any less of a girl.
Examples of not-so handsome men in romantic comedy roles:
Jack Nicholson in Something's Gotta Give.
Examples of not-so handsome men in romantic comedy roles:
I've become used to playing the male in games like Doom 3. I'm just used to it. But if they can add an option to play as a female, I'd play as her. This is why games like Halo are great for a lot of girls -- everyone looks the same and it's up to your profile name to distinguish you. Everyone has a helmet, you don't know if it's male or female.
I agree! As a girl, I don't care that there are big breasted girls in video games because I understand the industry and what sells to men and games such as Dead or Alive don't just sell because of the gameplay. I'd like a choice in what I represent myself as in a game though, that's the point.
(Side note: a lot of people seem to be interpreting the word "realistic" as ugly. I don't mean it that way. There are lots of real people who aren't ugly, but don't have F-cups either.)
When I play Resident Evil and Jill Valentine is running around in a tube top and shorts, I can vaguely see the practicality in that. It doesn't entirely make sense why one would wear a tube top to fight zombies but it's better than say, a bikini. Plus, she's anatomically possible.
It can be related to women's magazines -- women want to be the people on the cover. They want to have that hair, that perfect skin. This is why female characters in video games are so appealing. We want to be them, to be like them and the illusion that we can be is entirely gone, I think, once it hits that these women have bodies that could never be naturally achieved. It doesn't mean we hate our bodies as they are -- it means that our motivation to interpret ourselves as strong and efficient like these characters is diminished.
Consumer-wise, the industry is still under the impression that girls just don't play video games. Or at least, don't play them well. And when they do find that a game hits home with females, it's a game like The Sims, which tends to be more gender-neutral. FPS such as Quake, counter-strike, Halo, etc. are still assumed to be favored entirely by males and just because not a hugely significant amount of girls are plunking money for a FPS (or if they are, the clerks ask them if they need a gift receipt -- this has happened many times to me) many of them conclude that it must be because they're not interested. But if they are interested (according to the numbers) in The Sims, that must be all they'd be interested in!
It's funny the reaction I get when people hear me list my choice in games. One of the highest-rated games for women is The Sims...I prefer FPS like Doom 3 and Halo. Furthermore, they're surprised that I'm actually good at them. What a concept. I've had parents express shock. I think they expected me to tell their sons video games are a waste of time, not sit down with them and play.
My store was a high-target store because it was so popular. It was also inside a mall and there was more space to just disappear after you've left the store. One of the things they always told us to watch out for was people carrying bags from stores that aren't in the mall. I'm not sure how many of those I saw but I think I would've been pretty suspicious.
We were also told on a few occasions that the reason why a lot of people steal from the store is that they aren't intending to steal but something ticked them off and they decided to retaliate. This happens more with teens, I think. We've had a lot of teenage girls come in either using mom and dad's VS charge card (not supposed to do that) and we can't let them buy anything with it because it's not their card. They get mad and embarassed and can't understand why we can't let them use the credit card that isn't theirs and if their name isn't on the account then we can't let them use it. They throw hissy fits, argue, even call their parents up and have them yell at us -- I remember in almost all cases, the mothers were just like their daughters -- irrational and shrill. The mothers couldn't understand why we wouldn't let their daughters use the card...I thought the answer was fairly obvious and told them so: it's not their credit card.
So we were told that sometimes small theft, one or two lower-priced pieces of merchandise, will be attempted if we're doing our job and the customer simply doesn't like it.
They were so focused on him that they didn't notice someone leaving, and it never occurred to them that she might've been a thief.
A lot of thieves from the store I used to work at are teenagers. A lot of teenagers aren't particularly interested in stealing items like ipods, though it's certainly something they want. Many teenagers don't know about the barcode technology used in scams like this one. They're more interested in figuring out how they can just walk out with merchandise. Thus, a store like mine (Victoria's Secret) was such a popular target. A lot of the products had an anti-theft device attached but the lower-priced merchandise that was often on top of counters did not and those were the ones that teenagers really liked to buy anyway. They'd steal what they'd like to buy and that meant that we often had to have tons of employees up at the front, monitoring the counters.
One of my managers one time saw two girls that looked about 15 who were really interested in one counter in particular. She dispatched several of us to not only move around that counter a lot but to also ask them often if they needed help. If you make it obvious that you know they're there, oftentimes they will get nervous. These girls seemed to get really nervous and left soon after employees were sent over. I guess to managers, losing a bit of business from teenagers is better than getting stolen from.
As far as I know, from the time I was there, we haven't had to call security to physically stop anyone. Their presence was pretty much all it took for us to know that we at least minimized the theft, even if they did end up making out with some merchandise.
curious to know how Camino works on a mac...Camino and Firefox both have done poorly on my mac and I'm wondering if they are overall a better fit, like Firefox and Opera are better on PC.
Of course I'd rather have a desktop, just to be more upgradable but having a laptop that can do most of what I want is the best of both worlds.
I had that happen the other day. I was calling Verizon about my malfunctioning cell phone but I was using my phone to call Verizon because it's free that way (and I couldn't find the 1-800 number). The tech guy asked for my number and he called me back after I got off my cell phone. We got disconnected, unfortunately, and that was the end of that entire tech support escapade.
There are times where controlling when you talk to a machine or a person is much more convenient. The worst thing is waiting on the fridge repair guy to come fix your leaky fridge, why would you want to sit next to a phone waiting for the tech people to call back? It doesn't eliminate holds and most people aren't going to want to give the support people their cell phone numbers because holding over the phone means minutes wasted.
It's a good idea, in theory...but a lot of tech support people would rather not take disgruntled phone calls in general and if they can delay that by not calling you back as soon as they should, why not?
I recently had a problem with my cell phone and when I called Verizon, I made 4 button pushes and got to a human. They put me on hold for about 8 minutes but when I did get a human, they were helpful.
I really dislike Samsung's tech support though...they didn't know their own technology and told ME that I had broken the phone I had only had for one afternoon and that the NEW transflash card I bought for the phone was broken. So basically when their phone doesn't work, it must be my fault because I turned it on and expected it to work properly.
Awesome web site, thanks for the info. At least he got feedback from people from the program he was debunking.
A theory I have about the Bhutan example is that these people, being so isolated for such a long time, were then told "we're going to join the rest of the world, we're going to introduce other culture, we're modernizing" and the citizens, thinking "right, we're going to modernize" suddenly became assaulted with all these violent images. Seeing these images supposedly representing the "modern" world, the people might revert to being very impressionable and think that this is how they are to behave in order to modernize.
If Johnny wants to jump off a bridge and does so, it is up to you to notice the splat Johnny makes and conclude that perhaps jumping off a bridge is not such a great idea. If you don't get to that conclusion and go the way of Johnny, well I'm sorry but it wasn't the fault of anyone but yours that you jumped. Johnny isn't to blame -- in fact, he did you a favor since he showed you what would happen if you jumped. It was all your decision to take that leap so you can't blame others for your splat.
I know there are people who think "ooooh, convenience" but how many of these people are going to pay 2.50 a song?
Well, since he's a European history prof and the class focuses on pre-WWI history, it won't really matter. The class would be visiting old sites, like the battlegrounds of Waterloo.
One of my history profs is trying to get a new format approved. He's trying to make half his class time lecture and half of it travel in Europe, taking actual tours and looking at the actual examples they would be studying in the classroom. I think it's a great idea.
it usually just gives everyone a laugh and it wakes up those who were sleeping.
Oh how I wish this was the case...I'm a Communications major and there are one or two upper level classes that are taught by one or two professors only (who handle multiple sections). They do this because these profs are pretty frelling good at what they do and they don't want to thin the population between several good ones and several mediocre ones if all of their students can get the same level of education.
Unfortunately, some of these profs don't appeal to certain people. I took a class one time on the advice of a friend, who loved the prof. I hated the prof.
Sometimes you just can't switch...plus, registering for classes is sometimes a hassle and switching to a different section is impossible if other sections don't work in your schedule or if there are just not enough sections.
In many cases with my classes, my profs use powerpoints and if they put them online, all I have to do is follow along with the slide and when they add an extra bit of information not on the slide, it's much easier to just make a text box and type that in, rather than printing off the slides (gigantic waste of paper) or making a random note in my notebook and trying to find out later what slide it corresponds with.
In a lot of cases, I've been in great classes where the prof is trying to think of a recent example and immediately students can recall for him, or look it up online. It's a great tool. One of my professors didn't discourage laptops, but rather, she was smart enough to know that people are going to be slacking off and she made people with laptops sit on the front row. She also moved around a lot (she had a huge class) and made the class fun by using the students as examples in whatever she was trying to explain. so not only does this:
a) give her a good look at what the students are doing on their laptops
b) get people to wake up and stand up for an example
c) give them a memorable example of her topic.
Here's another example that doesn't relate to laptops but can still be applied: one of my professors gives students 9 skips. Students are allowed to skip 9 times before their grades are marked off....but the thing is, no one skips. why? the professor is engaging and he is entertaining and he gives practical examples in his lectures. He starts off class with a joke and a lot of people go just to hear the joke of the day. He makes his class FUN and that is why students don't skip it.