The gift of lust
I close my eyes and make a wish. This year I wish not for love, not for safety and not for warmth, but for lust, devouring passion, wild driving desire. Nothing pushes me, I live through routine, mechanically, coping well, and with no craving for more.
But I need more. I need fear and hurt and pain to chase me into weeks of frantic activity, accomplishment and satisfaction. I need something to pull me up this long uphill slope I live on. I need lust, lust in the new year.
May you all be blessed with it, and never fully sated.
Monday, December 29, 2003
Why should it be more than a game?
I am currently reading Barry Atkins' book More Than a Game. At first glance I was quite enthusiastic, but I have trained my own gaming assistant who has a surprisingly clear and critical gaze on the things that interest him. My teen-age son took one glance at the list of games and claimed that it was leaning heavily towards first person shooters, that the Sims does not make up for the lack of good strategy games, and Half-Life isn't a game I should use to demonstrate that genre for my students, I should use CounterStrike.
As I started to look more closely at the book, I found some other flaws. For a book that wishes to address the debate of games as scholarly object, the reference list is surprisingly clean of scholarly works on computer games. Considering that it is published in 2003 and probably written in 2001, the book still ought to have references to Aarseth, Bolter and Grusin, Jenkins and Murray, even if Atkins may have been doing his work too early to discover the existance of Game Studies and the entire debate on analysing computer games.
These issues aside: for a book addressing computer games outside of the ongoing debates on the topic and without references to relevant literature and with experience from a certain type of games - it is surprisingly good! Barry Atkins has lucid presentations, he has a clear understanding on the (somewhat outdated) problems of game scholarship, and he is enthusiastic about gaming. I read it with a feeling of having been there - somewhere back in the last millennum, when I was just starting to study and write about games. It is an interesting book that holds its own within its limitations, and I am reading it with interest and perhaps a touch of nostalgia.
I am however a little miffed at the title. Computer games do not need to be more than a game, and the way I read this book, Barry Atkins and I agree on that.
I am currently reading Barry Atkins' book More Than a Game. At first glance I was quite enthusiastic, but I have trained my own gaming assistant who has a surprisingly clear and critical gaze on the things that interest him. My teen-age son took one glance at the list of games and claimed that it was leaning heavily towards first person shooters, that the Sims does not make up for the lack of good strategy games, and Half-Life isn't a game I should use to demonstrate that genre for my students, I should use CounterStrike.
As I started to look more closely at the book, I found some other flaws. For a book that wishes to address the debate of games as scholarly object, the reference list is surprisingly clean of scholarly works on computer games. Considering that it is published in 2003 and probably written in 2001, the book still ought to have references to Aarseth, Bolter and Grusin, Jenkins and Murray, even if Atkins may have been doing his work too early to discover the existance of Game Studies and the entire debate on analysing computer games.
These issues aside: for a book addressing computer games outside of the ongoing debates on the topic and without references to relevant literature and with experience from a certain type of games - it is surprisingly good! Barry Atkins has lucid presentations, he has a clear understanding on the (somewhat outdated) problems of game scholarship, and he is enthusiastic about gaming. I read it with a feeling of having been there - somewhere back in the last millennum, when I was just starting to study and write about games. It is an interesting book that holds its own within its limitations, and I am reading it with interest and perhaps a touch of nostalgia.
I am however a little miffed at the title. Computer games do not need to be more than a game, and the way I read this book, Barry Atkins and I agree on that.
Magic Light
Saturday, the sky appeared to be blue, but when we looked closer it was a weird, greyish blue that had nothing to do with the cool, clear skies of frosty winter days. The sun shone, and the snowy peaks of surrounding mountains were bright shining pyramids of light against the weird sky, rising above the dark mountainsides and the lead-grey fjord.
The phenomenon was odd, and could only happen where the sun barely clears the peaks of the mountains in daytime: the cloud cover was so high up the sun shone under it and lit it up from below! The few dots of fog were pale cotton puffs against the cloud-cover, and appeared like light summer clouds against the sky, only this was a cloudy winter sky.
It turned the landscape into a magic place outside of season and time, the kind of weather that might be considered an omen, good or bad, I don't know. Good, I hope, as the light lit the clouds from both sides... but it might also be bad, the warning from the Matrix of ruined skies and heavens controlled by beings other than mankind.
Still, without doubt, it was pretty.
Saturday, the sky appeared to be blue, but when we looked closer it was a weird, greyish blue that had nothing to do with the cool, clear skies of frosty winter days. The sun shone, and the snowy peaks of surrounding mountains were bright shining pyramids of light against the weird sky, rising above the dark mountainsides and the lead-grey fjord.
The phenomenon was odd, and could only happen where the sun barely clears the peaks of the mountains in daytime: the cloud cover was so high up the sun shone under it and lit it up from below! The few dots of fog were pale cotton puffs against the cloud-cover, and appeared like light summer clouds against the sky, only this was a cloudy winter sky.
It turned the landscape into a magic place outside of season and time, the kind of weather that might be considered an omen, good or bad, I don't know. Good, I hope, as the light lit the clouds from both sides... but it might also be bad, the warning from the Matrix of ruined skies and heavens controlled by beings other than mankind.
Still, without doubt, it was pretty.
Saturday, December 27, 2003
Sitting down
A while ago Jill, me and several others, among those Liz Lawley and Dennis G. Jerz, sent our writing through gender-detection software. We all had texts that came out both as male and as female. Typically for the texts that came out as written by men was that they were written in the authoritative voice of scholarship - it was the voices we use when we talk about the topics we really know something about, something other than our private lives and emotions, and on fields where we are authorities. Also, it was when we made conscious attempts to conform to the writing in fields where men are supposed to dominate.
So, Edward Castranova runs the texts from a Dominant Woman at a BDSM site through the gender-check software, and finds that she is male:
And there's the added benefit that, in collecting the data, the company has some weapons to go after the behaviors that are messing up Sims Online. Example: I took text from Lady Julianna's writing at the Alphaville BDSM site Black Rose Castle (found through Ludlow's Alphaville Herald BDSM interview) and ran it through a gender-detection engine. OK, so Lady Julianna is a man. Doesn't really mean anything here, but it opens interesting potentials and problems.
If somebody writes with authority about something they know - suddenly they are male? Gentlemen... really.... think again. Writing in a way the gender-recognition software recognizes as a male does not require male genitalia.
A while ago Jill, me and several others, among those Liz Lawley and Dennis G. Jerz, sent our writing through gender-detection software. We all had texts that came out both as male and as female. Typically for the texts that came out as written by men was that they were written in the authoritative voice of scholarship - it was the voices we use when we talk about the topics we really know something about, something other than our private lives and emotions, and on fields where we are authorities. Also, it was when we made conscious attempts to conform to the writing in fields where men are supposed to dominate.
So, Edward Castranova runs the texts from a Dominant Woman at a BDSM site through the gender-check software, and finds that she is male:
And there's the added benefit that, in collecting the data, the company has some weapons to go after the behaviors that are messing up Sims Online. Example: I took text from Lady Julianna's writing at the Alphaville BDSM site Black Rose Castle (found through Ludlow's Alphaville Herald BDSM interview) and ran it through a gender-detection engine. OK, so Lady Julianna is a man. Doesn't really mean anything here, but it opens interesting potentials and problems.
If somebody writes with authority about something they know - suddenly they are male? Gentlemen... really.... think again. Writing in a way the gender-recognition software recognizes as a male does not require male genitalia.
Wednesday, December 24, 2003
Christmas Eve
It is Christmas Eve that is the big day for Norwegians, and I have been working like crazy the last few days to have everything ready for tonight. Still, with everything I don't mean everything the way my mother did it. When I grew up I spent the afternoons and evenings helping out in a house where Christmas preparations went on from November.
My mother would buy the side of a sheep and make "rull" - a sausage-like meat for cuts, spicy and flavourful unlike anything commonly associated with Norwegian cooking. Her "sylte" - the pork version of the same things - was also sharp and offered a mixture of cloves, nutmeg and pepper to cut the fat meat. I learned to stuff, roll and sew these meats before I was 12, and they would swim in salt, under pressure, until they were frozen before christmas. In cold years they would just be left on the verandah, covered to keep the crows off them. My mother would never stop at seven types of cakes. She would have a long long list which always started and ended with pleskener, a simple lady-finger like cookie. She would make them early in December, and the first batch would be gone long before Christmas. But in the mean time she would make berlinerkranser, sandkaker, sollikjeks, lefser, sandnøtter, fattigmenn, julemanna (julemenn), mandelpletter, sirupssnipper and four or five other types with names I can't remember, before she made doughnuts, a night-long session where she rolled them out and my father cooked them, and then ended it all with a final batch of pleskener again.
From this I learned to wield a rolling pin, to organise the kitchen, to plan for several processes simultaneously, and to have way too much in the kitchen cabinet compared to what a normal modern family needs... And I got a fixation on cookie tins, which still pulls me into antique shops and makes me buy chocolates and cookies I don't really want because they are in such incredibly neat tins.
When the last cakes were baked, the cleaning would start. In my mother's house there was no mercy at this time. I am pretty sure that I might have had much better grades in high-school if she had been a little more easygoing about Christmas, because every December, just as all others were preparing for their final exams, I was cleaning. I was emptying out closets, cupboards and cabinets, cleaning walls and ceilings, taking the covers off all the cushions, cleaning them and stitching them back on - by hand, of course, it had to be invisible! This is also when I got my first repeated stress injuries in shoulders and arms - I would have aching, clumsy arms and hands by the time of the final tests at school, barely able to hold the pen. It wasn't until I was at the University and didn't have all those tests before Christmas but still returned home to clean the house, that I realised it wasn't the writing that did it to me at all, but the cleaning: evenings spent scrubbing down a new room in my mother's large house.
All these preparations were not in vain. Ours was a large family, and we carried cakes and slices of meat to relatives, old, sick or just too busy to make some "real" christmas food. The house on Christmas Eve would smell like a mixture of pine, spice and soap, and when we came up from the sauna to dress and carry the presents into the livingroom and put them under the tree we would be cleansed as was the house, ritually for the turn of the sun. It carried with it a feeling of being born again, being new and ready, having achieved something vital, something that would ensure the birth of the new sun and bring the light back to the earth. When we feasted on all the riches prepared for this long, long night, it was with wild abandon and with the knowledge that we had done it all, all that we could, and it had all been done right.
The best thing of being an adult with two almost adult children is that I can make my own decisions about these Christmas traditions. I can decide just how much I want to clean. I still like to have a clean and tidy house, and I force my children to help with the pre-christmas chores, but I haven't cleaned a ceiling in this house since we moved in. I will soon have to, it's starting to look a little grey, but I will do it sometime this summer or spring, when there is a lot of light, when I can leave doors and windows open, a summer cleaning at my own leisure. I can also bake JUST as much as I like. OK, so I like baking a little more than strictly needed, and who really needs seven types of cookies these days, but it's fun! And some traditions, like the ginger-bread house, have become too important to ignore.
But I don't change all the tablecloths for christmas-themed ones, and I don't have crates and crates of decorations to fill up every corner of the house. I don't even have special Christmas curtains for the kitchen. And I certainly don't have salted, dried mutton ribs for Christmas dinner. For Christmas we have, of all things, turkey, lean gentle meat that agrees with adults and children alike. And my cake this year is a carrot cake decorated in the least Christmassy colours I could find in the cabinet.
Still - I have done all that I could. I have done it with all the energy I have, and my offering to the new sun is all of my spare time and a house prepared as I find most fit for the celebration this night. And we will eat, drink , sing, walk around the Christmas tree and give presents lovingly chosen and wrapped. I will bring cookies to share with my relatives and I will taste theirs, careful not to "carry the Christmas away from the house" by refusing to take part in what hospitality is offered me. The midwinter feast is all about light, hope and the return of life to this bleak, stormwhipped land, and it is a task we all take part in, as we know best.
It is Christmas Eve that is the big day for Norwegians, and I have been working like crazy the last few days to have everything ready for tonight. Still, with everything I don't mean everything the way my mother did it. When I grew up I spent the afternoons and evenings helping out in a house where Christmas preparations went on from November.
My mother would buy the side of a sheep and make "rull" - a sausage-like meat for cuts, spicy and flavourful unlike anything commonly associated with Norwegian cooking. Her "sylte" - the pork version of the same things - was also sharp and offered a mixture of cloves, nutmeg and pepper to cut the fat meat. I learned to stuff, roll and sew these meats before I was 12, and they would swim in salt, under pressure, until they were frozen before christmas. In cold years they would just be left on the verandah, covered to keep the crows off them. My mother would never stop at seven types of cakes. She would have a long long list which always started and ended with pleskener, a simple lady-finger like cookie. She would make them early in December, and the first batch would be gone long before Christmas. But in the mean time she would make berlinerkranser, sandkaker, sollikjeks, lefser, sandnøtter, fattigmenn, julemanna (julemenn), mandelpletter, sirupssnipper and four or five other types with names I can't remember, before she made doughnuts, a night-long session where she rolled them out and my father cooked them, and then ended it all with a final batch of pleskener again.
From this I learned to wield a rolling pin, to organise the kitchen, to plan for several processes simultaneously, and to have way too much in the kitchen cabinet compared to what a normal modern family needs... And I got a fixation on cookie tins, which still pulls me into antique shops and makes me buy chocolates and cookies I don't really want because they are in such incredibly neat tins.
When the last cakes were baked, the cleaning would start. In my mother's house there was no mercy at this time. I am pretty sure that I might have had much better grades in high-school if she had been a little more easygoing about Christmas, because every December, just as all others were preparing for their final exams, I was cleaning. I was emptying out closets, cupboards and cabinets, cleaning walls and ceilings, taking the covers off all the cushions, cleaning them and stitching them back on - by hand, of course, it had to be invisible! This is also when I got my first repeated stress injuries in shoulders and arms - I would have aching, clumsy arms and hands by the time of the final tests at school, barely able to hold the pen. It wasn't until I was at the University and didn't have all those tests before Christmas but still returned home to clean the house, that I realised it wasn't the writing that did it to me at all, but the cleaning: evenings spent scrubbing down a new room in my mother's large house.
All these preparations were not in vain. Ours was a large family, and we carried cakes and slices of meat to relatives, old, sick or just too busy to make some "real" christmas food. The house on Christmas Eve would smell like a mixture of pine, spice and soap, and when we came up from the sauna to dress and carry the presents into the livingroom and put them under the tree we would be cleansed as was the house, ritually for the turn of the sun. It carried with it a feeling of being born again, being new and ready, having achieved something vital, something that would ensure the birth of the new sun and bring the light back to the earth. When we feasted on all the riches prepared for this long, long night, it was with wild abandon and with the knowledge that we had done it all, all that we could, and it had all been done right.
The best thing of being an adult with two almost adult children is that I can make my own decisions about these Christmas traditions. I can decide just how much I want to clean. I still like to have a clean and tidy house, and I force my children to help with the pre-christmas chores, but I haven't cleaned a ceiling in this house since we moved in. I will soon have to, it's starting to look a little grey, but I will do it sometime this summer or spring, when there is a lot of light, when I can leave doors and windows open, a summer cleaning at my own leisure. I can also bake JUST as much as I like. OK, so I like baking a little more than strictly needed, and who really needs seven types of cookies these days, but it's fun! And some traditions, like the ginger-bread house, have become too important to ignore.
But I don't change all the tablecloths for christmas-themed ones, and I don't have crates and crates of decorations to fill up every corner of the house. I don't even have special Christmas curtains for the kitchen. And I certainly don't have salted, dried mutton ribs for Christmas dinner. For Christmas we have, of all things, turkey, lean gentle meat that agrees with adults and children alike. And my cake this year is a carrot cake decorated in the least Christmassy colours I could find in the cabinet.
Still - I have done all that I could. I have done it with all the energy I have, and my offering to the new sun is all of my spare time and a house prepared as I find most fit for the celebration this night. And we will eat, drink , sing, walk around the Christmas tree and give presents lovingly chosen and wrapped. I will bring cookies to share with my relatives and I will taste theirs, careful not to "carry the Christmas away from the house" by refusing to take part in what hospitality is offered me. The midwinter feast is all about light, hope and the return of life to this bleak, stormwhipped land, and it is a task we all take part in, as we know best.
Tuesday, December 23, 2003
Sjokolademakroner
500 gram mandler
200 gram kokesjokolade
8 eggehviter
400 gram sukker
Mal mandlene og riv sjokoladen. Stivpisk eggehvitene og sokkeret, så blander du alt forsiktig med en slikkepott. bruke teskjei og lag små kladder på brettet (husk bakepapir). Steik i 15 - 18 minutter på 150 grader Celcius.
Når du lager dette får du en MASSE eggeplommer til overs. Her er noe du kan gjøre med det:
Marengs med eggeplomme
3 eggeplommer
1 spiseskjei vann
4 desiliter melis
1/4 teskjei hortetakksalt
1 teskjei vaniljesukker.
Garnering: grovhakkede mandler.
Rør eggeplommer og vann. sikt melisen og ha den i. Visp massen kraftig til den er tykk, lys og porøs. Tilsett hjortetakksalt og vaniljesukker. Sett deigen med skjei smurt og melet stekebrett elelr på bakepapir. Strø over mandelhakket. Stek kakene ca 20 minutter ved 150 grader Celcius.
Den første oppskriften blir temmelig mange kaker, men den andre kan trygt dobles.
500 gram mandler
200 gram kokesjokolade
8 eggehviter
400 gram sukker
Mal mandlene og riv sjokoladen. Stivpisk eggehvitene og sokkeret, så blander du alt forsiktig med en slikkepott. bruke teskjei og lag små kladder på brettet (husk bakepapir). Steik i 15 - 18 minutter på 150 grader Celcius.
Når du lager dette får du en MASSE eggeplommer til overs. Her er noe du kan gjøre med det:
Marengs med eggeplomme
3 eggeplommer
1 spiseskjei vann
4 desiliter melis
1/4 teskjei hortetakksalt
1 teskjei vaniljesukker.
Garnering: grovhakkede mandler.
Rør eggeplommer og vann. sikt melisen og ha den i. Visp massen kraftig til den er tykk, lys og porøs. Tilsett hjortetakksalt og vaniljesukker. Sett deigen med skjei smurt og melet stekebrett elelr på bakepapir. Strø over mandelhakket. Stek kakene ca 20 minutter ved 150 grader Celcius.
Den første oppskriften blir temmelig mange kaker, men den andre kan trygt dobles.
Monday, December 22, 2003
Colours and me
I have taken this test three times now, and unlike Cyborgmommy always come out the same - bright and glaring yellow!
I have taken this test three times now, and unlike Cyborgmommy always come out the same - bright and glaring yellow!
#FFFF00 |
Your dominant hues are red and green, so you're definately not afraid to get in and stir things up. You have no time for most people's concerns, you'd rather analyze with your head than be held back by some random "gut feeling". Your saturation level is very high - you are all about getting things done. The world may think you work too hard but you have a lot to show for it, and it keeps you going. You shouldn't be afraid to lead people, because if you're doing it, it'll be done right. Your outlook on life is very bright. You are sunny and optimistic about life and others find it very encouraging, but remember to tone it down if you sense irritation. |
That warm fuzzy feeling
The official Christmas cards are flowing into the department. Since I am horrible at card-writing and all that, I don't get many, but one found its way into my drawer today. I almost got worried, because it was from the Norwegian Data Inspectorate, and my first thought was: What did I do now?
It turned out I had done something good! A person called me this autumn, asking me please recommend a former student who might need a short term job. A few phones and I found a graduated student who fit his specifications, and told her to call him. Then I called back to him and told him he would have a phone-call. Three minutes of work, and it was up to them to figure out if they wanted each others' skills and tasks.
I am not an agency for job-matching, but I like to see my former students in jobs that suit them, and I love making peoples' lives easier. The Christmas card today shows that I now have not only one but two friends in the data inspectorate. Who knows when that can be useful!
The official Christmas cards are flowing into the department. Since I am horrible at card-writing and all that, I don't get many, but one found its way into my drawer today. I almost got worried, because it was from the Norwegian Data Inspectorate, and my first thought was: What did I do now?
It turned out I had done something good! A person called me this autumn, asking me please recommend a former student who might need a short term job. A few phones and I found a graduated student who fit his specifications, and told her to call him. Then I called back to him and told him he would have a phone-call. Three minutes of work, and it was up to them to figure out if they wanted each others' skills and tasks.
I am not an agency for job-matching, but I like to see my former students in jobs that suit them, and I love making peoples' lives easier. The Christmas card today shows that I now have not only one but two friends in the data inspectorate. Who knows when that can be useful!
Christmas preparations
For those of my friends out there that worry about the traditional Christmas in the home of Dr. Mortensen: I have two types of cookies to go to finish the traditional 7 types - eggyolk meringue and coconut macaroons, both to be produced on popular demand from eager family members. I am afraid that my gingerbread house will not have as much personality as Jill's. After all, my kids by now have a super efficient approach to gingerbread-house decorating, among other things includes eating all the non-stop before they reach the roof of the house.
For those of my friends out there that worry about the traditional Christmas in the home of Dr. Mortensen: I have two types of cookies to go to finish the traditional 7 types - eggyolk meringue and coconut macaroons, both to be produced on popular demand from eager family members. I am afraid that my gingerbread house will not have as much personality as Jill's. After all, my kids by now have a super efficient approach to gingerbread-house decorating, among other things includes eating all the non-stop before they reach the roof of the house.
Learning from students
One of the good things about this period of assessing students is all the things I learn. Even the most boring load of low-level droning papers can teach me something about what students understand from textbooks, lectures and comments made to them. Reading the exams tells me about the curriculum, what should be adjusted, where we should make an effort to teach more or clearer next time around and where we pershaps should find some newer or more precise literature.
I am also learning a lot about methodology, of writing and structuring a paper, of different genres in paper writing and of the importance of those structures I sometimes feel like I am repeating to the extent of absolute boredom. I know how to spot a flawed hypothesis in three sentences, and I can tick the most common errors in most humanistic and social science theories and methodologies on my fingers at a moment's notice. Exams can do one thing: make professors better!
From the most recent batch of papers I have also had the incredible blessing of starting to think about two central concepts to my own work: flow and immersion. There is an immersion article out ther ewaiting to be written, and it should be coupled with among other concepts: flow. The working title in my head at the moment is seduction, immersion, flow and satisfaction. Of course, it is all about games, and it is all about pleasure, the pleasure of letting go. It's an article I have wanted to write for years, and it will be an essay written for my own pleasure, using my pet references. Just thinking of it makes me smile.
It's been a while since the thougt of writing and building a scholarly argument made me feel eager and happy. No matter if I finish this, just recognizing the feeling and cherishing it, in the middle of the chaos before Christmas, is really, really GOOD.
One of the good things about this period of assessing students is all the things I learn. Even the most boring load of low-level droning papers can teach me something about what students understand from textbooks, lectures and comments made to them. Reading the exams tells me about the curriculum, what should be adjusted, where we should make an effort to teach more or clearer next time around and where we pershaps should find some newer or more precise literature.
I am also learning a lot about methodology, of writing and structuring a paper, of different genres in paper writing and of the importance of those structures I sometimes feel like I am repeating to the extent of absolute boredom. I know how to spot a flawed hypothesis in three sentences, and I can tick the most common errors in most humanistic and social science theories and methodologies on my fingers at a moment's notice. Exams can do one thing: make professors better!
From the most recent batch of papers I have also had the incredible blessing of starting to think about two central concepts to my own work: flow and immersion. There is an immersion article out ther ewaiting to be written, and it should be coupled with among other concepts: flow. The working title in my head at the moment is seduction, immersion, flow and satisfaction. Of course, it is all about games, and it is all about pleasure, the pleasure of letting go. It's an article I have wanted to write for years, and it will be an essay written for my own pleasure, using my pet references. Just thinking of it makes me smile.
It's been a while since the thougt of writing and building a scholarly argument made me feel eager and happy. No matter if I finish this, just recognizing the feeling and cherishing it, in the middle of the chaos before Christmas, is really, really GOOD.
Almost there (is that where I want to be?)
A surprising little email this morning:
I thought you would be interested to know that your blog is #15 in our weekly BlogSpot hosted sites poll. That leaves it just out of the running for this week, but frequently when a blog is close, it makes it in at a future point. We rely on Google to do the choosing and limit the search to BlogSpot sites and to the prior one-week period.
Take a look at www.bloggerforum.com in the right-hand column to see this week's Top Ten.
Congratulations on having a site that Google considers extremely important in this past week.
Regards, --Steve Covell
www.bloggerforum.com
So google considers me extremely important. I am - hmm - baffled?
A surprising little email this morning:
I thought you would be interested to know that your blog is #15 in our weekly BlogSpot hosted sites poll. That leaves it just out of the running for this week, but frequently when a blog is close, it makes it in at a future point. We rely on Google to do the choosing and limit the search to BlogSpot sites and to the prior one-week period.
Take a look at www.bloggerforum.com in the right-hand column to see this week's Top Ten.
Congratulations on having a site that Google considers extremely important in this past week.
Regards, --Steve Covell
www.bloggerforum.com
So google considers me extremely important. I am - hmm - baffled?
Thursday, December 18, 2003
Never in a Winter's Night
I have been good today, done a LOT of work - so I was going to have some fun and install Never Winter Nights on the new computer. But instead of a fun night of game playing and work combined I got a really weird problem. It looks like somebody grabbed the right hand side of the image on the screen and dragged it around the back of the screen and back to wrap around at the left hand side of the screen. Weird, unexplicable and very frustrating. I have of course written support and asked what can cause this, but it's getting towards midnight and I have wasted an other couple of hours on making Never Winter Nights work on one of my computers, so that I can play it and assess Jill's students.
I am learning a few things thought from this, valuable if I manage to get my multimedia editing course running: students must submit their work in standardised formats, decided on and tested by the staff. The neccessary software must be supplied free of cost by the University or College when using external assessors. And assessing games/multimedia products/cybertexts needs to pay differently from the standard rates used for a 15 page paper.
I have been good today, done a LOT of work - so I was going to have some fun and install Never Winter Nights on the new computer. But instead of a fun night of game playing and work combined I got a really weird problem. It looks like somebody grabbed the right hand side of the image on the screen and dragged it around the back of the screen and back to wrap around at the left hand side of the screen. Weird, unexplicable and very frustrating. I have of course written support and asked what can cause this, but it's getting towards midnight and I have wasted an other couple of hours on making Never Winter Nights work on one of my computers, so that I can play it and assess Jill's students.
I am learning a few things thought from this, valuable if I manage to get my multimedia editing course running: students must submit their work in standardised formats, decided on and tested by the staff. The neccessary software must be supplied free of cost by the University or College when using external assessors. And assessing games/multimedia products/cybertexts needs to pay differently from the standard rates used for a 15 page paper.
Advent surprise
Almost 10 pm, and the doorbell rang. I was tired from struggling with Neverwinter Nights - something I have to do right now, yes, it is work, and I have to play. Anyway - I was kind of tired with technology that doesn't work. And then it arrives. Oh baby, my new love! A new computer, lcd screen, dvd burner, photo printer... I cleaned out of the computer room, for a year now the den of husband and son, the air almost unbreathable and I don't know when we last saw the floor. This room is now shining clean, and I have decided to make new curtains and am considering the wallpaper... perhaps something slick and past 2000 to match the computer. Yep, I am planning to move in here!
Almost 10 pm, and the doorbell rang. I was tired from struggling with Neverwinter Nights - something I have to do right now, yes, it is work, and I have to play. Anyway - I was kind of tired with technology that doesn't work. And then it arrives. Oh baby, my new love! A new computer, lcd screen, dvd burner, photo printer... I cleaned out of the computer room, for a year now the den of husband and son, the air almost unbreathable and I don't know when we last saw the floor. This room is now shining clean, and I have decided to make new curtains and am considering the wallpaper... perhaps something slick and past 2000 to match the computer. Yep, I am planning to move in here!
Tuesday, December 16, 2003
Monday, December 15, 2003
A moment's quiet
I had a list of things I wanted to write down - things accomplished before I took a break. But in the multi-directional reality of life, a break is not a break, and the first time I wrote the first sentence, I didn't manage to write "I took a break", instead I wrote "before the phone rang", thinking I wrote "I took a break", because it did ring after I had written the first half of that first sentence, and suddenly all the things I had already finished were insignificant compared to the things left to do.
Confused? Not after the next episode in Dr. Mortensen's office life...
I had a list of things I wanted to write down - things accomplished before I took a break. But in the multi-directional reality of life, a break is not a break, and the first time I wrote the first sentence, I didn't manage to write "I took a break", instead I wrote "before the phone rang", thinking I wrote "I took a break", because it did ring after I had written the first half of that first sentence, and suddenly all the things I had already finished were insignificant compared to the things left to do.
Confused? Not after the next episode in Dr. Mortensen's office life...
Sunday, December 14, 2003
What I might remember
If I was hypnotised to remember who I was in some former life, who knows who I could have been? No limits to the splendour my mind could come up with, but somehow I don't think I was anyone remembered by posterity.
Perhaps I was the fourth wise person. I never got mentioned, because I wasn’t a wise man, but a wise woman. I was the one who asked for the way when we were lost, the one who remembered to pack a spare blanket and a bag of treats for those moments on the trail when you really need some extra energy.
When the men went to speak to King Herodes in Jerusalem, I visited with the wife. She told me what the king would do if he learned where the newborn king of men was. Of course I had to make it sound like an angel told me – and she was pretty enough to be one – but at least they listened.
In the stable the others brought gold, incense and myrrh. Nobody remembered what I brought to Maria. I had warm clothes for the child and the mother, food for them all, herbs and little things a woman needs. While the others admired the baby, I cleaned and cooked, and told Maria she needed to make sure they got out of there quickly, since the King in Jerusalem would be looking for her baby.
I was forgotten, as the wise women tend to be. The three wise men have been celebrated through the centuries. I was lucky to live when I did – I was ignored, but not burned.
If I was hypnotised to remember who I was in some former life, who knows who I could have been? No limits to the splendour my mind could come up with, but somehow I don't think I was anyone remembered by posterity.
Perhaps I was the fourth wise person. I never got mentioned, because I wasn’t a wise man, but a wise woman. I was the one who asked for the way when we were lost, the one who remembered to pack a spare blanket and a bag of treats for those moments on the trail when you really need some extra energy.
When the men went to speak to King Herodes in Jerusalem, I visited with the wife. She told me what the king would do if he learned where the newborn king of men was. Of course I had to make it sound like an angel told me – and she was pretty enough to be one – but at least they listened.
In the stable the others brought gold, incense and myrrh. Nobody remembered what I brought to Maria. I had warm clothes for the child and the mother, food for them all, herbs and little things a woman needs. While the others admired the baby, I cleaned and cooked, and told Maria she needed to make sure they got out of there quickly, since the King in Jerusalem would be looking for her baby.
I was forgotten, as the wise women tend to be. The three wise men have been celebrated through the centuries. I was lucky to live when I did – I was ignored, but not burned.
Friday, December 12, 2003
It looks pretty
Yeah, I know, I live in what looks like paradise. Anybody who envy me are invited to come and clean the pretty white stuff off the drive-way. I'll even serve coffee after a job well done.
Yeah, I know, I live in what looks like paradise. Anybody who envy me are invited to come and clean the pretty white stuff off the drive-way. I'll even serve coffee after a job well done.
Thursday, December 11, 2003
A very elegant defense
According to sources in Oslo, present at Anders' defense, it was "elegant". How could it not be? I wish I could have heard it, as it is I will just have to say congratulations, Dr. Fagerjord! Party well, you deserve all the praise and glory and flowers and presents coming your way today!
According to sources in Oslo, present at Anders' defense, it was "elegant". How could it not be? I wish I could have heard it, as it is I will just have to say congratulations, Dr. Fagerjord! Party well, you deserve all the praise and glory and flowers and presents coming your way today!
Wednesday, December 10, 2003
Short term memory - and I mean short
It is totally shot. Too much information yelling for attention. I carry little pieces of paper to tell me what I was going to do when I go to do copies, fetch printouts, get a glass of water or give a message, and I have turned calendar keeping into a rigid discipline. It always happens when I get stressed - it's how I know I am doing too much.
It is totally shot. Too much information yelling for attention. I carry little pieces of paper to tell me what I was going to do when I go to do copies, fetch printouts, get a glass of water or give a message, and I have turned calendar keeping into a rigid discipline. It always happens when I get stressed - it's how I know I am doing too much.
Tuesday, December 09, 2003
Neverending...
Have to take a day off, in the middle of the pre-Christmas chaos, to see my mother's doctors and nurses. She broke her thigh-bone and was operated Sunday. Priorities shift, endlessly, as the flow of life shifts about me.
Have to take a day off, in the middle of the pre-Christmas chaos, to see my mother's doctors and nurses. She broke her thigh-bone and was operated Sunday. Priorities shift, endlessly, as the flow of life shifts about me.
Sunday, December 07, 2003
Strolling about the Metaverse
I just read through Cory Ondrejka’s article (pdf) linked from a post at Terra Nova, and it was intriguing. Cory, I agree with a lot of your points, and they correspond with what I have found studying MUDs. I do however not agree that the Metaverse is a MMORPG.
As far as I am concerned, the Metaverse is the web itself. While Stephenson's vision does not overlap Gibson's vision and the concepts Cyberspace and Metaverse may not be synonyms, they are more closely related than the Metaverse and computer games. I find that limiting the Metaverse to the different graphic games limits, as you argue excellently in your paper, the user - or inhabitant - in a manner that runs counter to the desire for personal expression and creativity.
But when your article opens with: "However, despite the enormous technical advances of the last decade, the concept of a broadly appealing online world has not yet been realized." I wish to point out that the image of the Metaverse can be restrictive as well as inspiring. The Metaverse and Cyberspace are metaphors for how the web CAN be used and developed, not how this will or should happen.
1) It might be that graphic interfaces are not the ideal medium for the expression of user creativity. At the moment graphic interfaces rule the net because we have few other technical options. A world where we navigate by sound or by touch may be as efficient, as soon as the technology supports that. While visual interfaces rule out most other simultaneous operations, sound lets us sort through and focus by utilizing the much more efficient selective perception through the ear. Our eyes can only see in one direction at the time - our ears have no such restrictions, nor does our three-dimensional bodies. A lot of our physical interface with the real world depends not on vision, but on the sensations of the body.
2) I think there is already a budding Metaverse out there, an online space where people express themselves freely, dependent on their abilities and desires. MMORPGs are part of this, but not all of it, nor even the most important aspect. It is called the internet. All the different communication clients and clients for interaction and experimentation are parts of this Metaverse - the digital space of human interaction.
Being of the firm belief that computer games push the development of the computer industry and technology forwards innovatively and as a good alternative to the weapons industry (even if they at times overlap) I have great sympathy with the MMORPG=Metaverse analogy. But I think the present-day computer games are still just one more step towards realising the full potential of computer-generated communication.
I just read through Cory Ondrejka’s article (pdf) linked from a post at Terra Nova, and it was intriguing. Cory, I agree with a lot of your points, and they correspond with what I have found studying MUDs. I do however not agree that the Metaverse is a MMORPG.
As far as I am concerned, the Metaverse is the web itself. While Stephenson's vision does not overlap Gibson's vision and the concepts Cyberspace and Metaverse may not be synonyms, they are more closely related than the Metaverse and computer games. I find that limiting the Metaverse to the different graphic games limits, as you argue excellently in your paper, the user - or inhabitant - in a manner that runs counter to the desire for personal expression and creativity.
But when your article opens with: "However, despite the enormous technical advances of the last decade, the concept of a broadly appealing online world has not yet been realized." I wish to point out that the image of the Metaverse can be restrictive as well as inspiring. The Metaverse and Cyberspace are metaphors for how the web CAN be used and developed, not how this will or should happen.
1) It might be that graphic interfaces are not the ideal medium for the expression of user creativity. At the moment graphic interfaces rule the net because we have few other technical options. A world where we navigate by sound or by touch may be as efficient, as soon as the technology supports that. While visual interfaces rule out most other simultaneous operations, sound lets us sort through and focus by utilizing the much more efficient selective perception through the ear. Our eyes can only see in one direction at the time - our ears have no such restrictions, nor does our three-dimensional bodies. A lot of our physical interface with the real world depends not on vision, but on the sensations of the body.
2) I think there is already a budding Metaverse out there, an online space where people express themselves freely, dependent on their abilities and desires. MMORPGs are part of this, but not all of it, nor even the most important aspect. It is called the internet. All the different communication clients and clients for interaction and experimentation are parts of this Metaverse - the digital space of human interaction.
Being of the firm belief that computer games push the development of the computer industry and technology forwards innovatively and as a good alternative to the weapons industry (even if they at times overlap) I have great sympathy with the MMORPG=Metaverse analogy. But I think the present-day computer games are still just one more step towards realising the full potential of computer-generated communication.
Friday, December 05, 2003
No increasing violence
Just found an article about violence between 1990 and 1999 in Norway. Turns out there has been no increase in serious violence: that is intended harm and serious harm. There was an increase in reporting less serious violence - what we call "body insults" (legemsfornærmelse) in Norway, but as harm in these cases was minor and the result of accidents, it is not reported as violence. As for violence among young people: the ratio of violent youths and violent adults remains stable. There has been an increase in certain groups, such as ethnic minorities in large cities, but not among youths in general. Youths have shown the same decrease in violence as adults.
The article is from 1999, so I don't know about 1999-2003, but still - if video, internet, television, cinema etc was to blame for the increase in violence... it's not like it should decrease in the nineties, hmm?
Just found an article about violence between 1990 and 1999 in Norway. Turns out there has been no increase in serious violence: that is intended harm and serious harm. There was an increase in reporting less serious violence - what we call "body insults" (legemsfornærmelse) in Norway, but as harm in these cases was minor and the result of accidents, it is not reported as violence. As for violence among young people: the ratio of violent youths and violent adults remains stable. There has been an increase in certain groups, such as ethnic minorities in large cities, but not among youths in general. Youths have shown the same decrease in violence as adults.
The article is from 1999, so I don't know about 1999-2003, but still - if video, internet, television, cinema etc was to blame for the increase in violence... it's not like it should decrease in the nineties, hmm?
communication
Just found this information, which might be relevant when jill wants to use sms and not email in USA: According to the CIA factbook, Norway has as many internet users as cellphone users. In the USA the number of internet users is ten times that of cellphone users. Now that information is a little dated, Norway now has more than one cellphone pr inhabitant, which means approcimately 5 mill cellphones.
Just found this information, which might be relevant when jill wants to use sms and not email in USA: According to the CIA factbook, Norway has as many internet users as cellphone users. In the USA the number of internet users is ten times that of cellphone users. Now that information is a little dated, Norway now has more than one cellphone pr inhabitant, which means approcimately 5 mill cellphones.
Yes, it looks like I am back
Since 1998 I have been only partially involved in the exams at the department. Before that I was normally not only one of the examinators, but the person to arrange, administrate and be responsible for one the most demanding and largest (most students) exams. This exam is just before Christmas, and as a result I would always be sick for Christmas. From 1992 until 1998 I was in bed, sick, most of the Christmas holiday. The woman who has been doing the job I used to do is already on a sick leave before the rush has even started.
I almost forgot about this until this year. This year I am fully back to teaching and expected to pull the customary load at the end of the fall term. So if you don't hear from me until January I am either grading papers, doing oral assessments or sick with fever. Quite possibly all at the same time; been there, done that.
Since 1998 I have been only partially involved in the exams at the department. Before that I was normally not only one of the examinators, but the person to arrange, administrate and be responsible for one the most demanding and largest (most students) exams. This exam is just before Christmas, and as a result I would always be sick for Christmas. From 1992 until 1998 I was in bed, sick, most of the Christmas holiday. The woman who has been doing the job I used to do is already on a sick leave before the rush has even started.
I almost forgot about this until this year. This year I am fully back to teaching and expected to pull the customary load at the end of the fall term. So if you don't hear from me until January I am either grading papers, doing oral assessments or sick with fever. Quite possibly all at the same time; been there, done that.
Thursday, December 04, 2003
Queer musings
Randomly sampling blogs for an article, and I come across no milk, please. It's really funny, weird and smart and mixed up. See what a diamond can do!
Randomly sampling blogs for an article, and I come across no milk, please. It's really funny, weird and smart and mixed up. See what a diamond can do!
Bourdieu and the role of intellectuals
I would like writers, artists, philosophers and scientists to be able to make their voice heard directly in all the areas of public life in which they are competent. I think that everyone would have a lot to gain if the logic of intellectual life, that of argument and refutation, were extended to the public life. At present, it is often the logic of political life, that of denunciation and slander, 'sloganization' and falsification of the adversary's thought, which extends into intellectual life. It would be a good thing if the 'creators' could fulfil their function of public service and sometimes of public salvation. (Bourdieu 1998:9)
Pierre Bourdieu (1998): Acts of Resistance Against the New Myths of Our Time, Polity Press, Cambridge.
I would like writers, artists, philosophers and scientists to be able to make their voice heard directly in all the areas of public life in which they are competent. I think that everyone would have a lot to gain if the logic of intellectual life, that of argument and refutation, were extended to the public life. At present, it is often the logic of political life, that of denunciation and slander, 'sloganization' and falsification of the adversary's thought, which extends into intellectual life. It would be a good thing if the 'creators' could fulfil their function of public service and sometimes of public salvation. (Bourdieu 1998:9)
Pierre Bourdieu (1998): Acts of Resistance Against the New Myths of Our Time, Polity Press, Cambridge.
Monday, December 01, 2003
Laboratories and real worlds: Games and positivism
The debate at Terra Nova is taking a turn that exposes one of the problems I have with a lot of game scholarship. Edward Castranova states, in a reply within the "fascism is fun" thread:
Alek: "But I am really scared by the idea, that studying an artificial social reality, with it's basic assumptions - an ontology of sorts - so different from real world societies, might give a simple answer to a question that social sciences are meticulously researching in these - allow me to say this - more real societies."
I guess, contra Alek and Nick and a few others, that I'd prefer not to allow you to say this. I believe the essential forces of economics emerge whenever humans interact under conditions of scarcity and specialization of resources. The essential forces of sociology emerge whenever individuals sort themselves into groups. The essential forces of politics emerge whenever the structure of resources and groups create collective interests, issues that everyone cares about but that need to be resolved by the community as a whole, through designated leaders.
With this, as I understand Edward Castranova, he claims that games can give directly relevant information about human interaction, and act as a testing ground for theories, to see how they work in society, and he considers the more cautionary voices to be dismissing games as a field for learning about human interaction. This is a positivistic view on games, where games are treated like the laboratories of the behaviourists. Castranova does not appear to be aware of the failure of the skinner box or the staged experiments on human violence and media influence (Noble 1975) as he argues for his view of the general validity of the forces of economics:
But the claim that generalizing is impossible, or only allowable for trivial aspects of behavior ("when thrown together into community, people argue"), goes much too far, I think. It's very easy to dismiss the goings-on in a virtual world as a tempest in a teapot, or as 'just a game,' or 'virtual and hence not real.' I mean, what makes political engagement 'real'? Surely the touchstone cannot be the realness of the objects in question; people have had bitter politics over lots of intangible things, from flag colors to communion wafers.
My stance on this is that we can learn a lot about human behaviour from computer games. But what we learn is about human behaviour in this given context. Humans behave differently in different situations, and we are intelligent enough to realize that being part of a research project, for instance, is a different situation from our every day life. This is one of the main sources of errors for researchers who work with human beings and the human condition. It is one of the reasons why so many people have spent so much time and resources trying to answer the question: "are the media dangerous?" If we agree with Edward Castranova, that behaviour in games tells us how people will behave in the flesh world given a similar situation, then please, PLEASE forbid Grand Theft Auto and all other games that promote violent, aggressive, destructive behaviour!
Human beings are too complex for human behaviour to be understood through the limited study of behaviour in games. That does not mean that we cannot learn significant things about the games, or that games are not important. Try to tell athletes, sports fans or just amateur players of sports that playing their particular game: football, volleyball, handball, is not important! Try to interrupt a game of chess between two dedicated players! Try to crash a LARP, fool around, break it up, and see how understanding the players will be! Games carry immense significance, have a symbolic power and yes, economical power, but this meaning is not directly transferable to any other arena.
This is why I think games - also computer games - need to be studied: Because we don't really understand their significance. We know they are important to human beings, we know they generate activity, creativity and even conserve sanity, they build understanding and social skills, they promote understanding, cooperation and healthy competitiveness, but we don't really know why, how, where, when. There is no such thing in my book as "just a game". But that is also why I don't think they are just an other part of the same trivial everyday behaviour mode.
The debate at Terra Nova is taking a turn that exposes one of the problems I have with a lot of game scholarship. Edward Castranova states, in a reply within the "fascism is fun" thread:
Alek: "But I am really scared by the idea, that studying an artificial social reality, with it's basic assumptions - an ontology of sorts - so different from real world societies, might give a simple answer to a question that social sciences are meticulously researching in these - allow me to say this - more real societies."
I guess, contra Alek and Nick and a few others, that I'd prefer not to allow you to say this. I believe the essential forces of economics emerge whenever humans interact under conditions of scarcity and specialization of resources. The essential forces of sociology emerge whenever individuals sort themselves into groups. The essential forces of politics emerge whenever the structure of resources and groups create collective interests, issues that everyone cares about but that need to be resolved by the community as a whole, through designated leaders.
With this, as I understand Edward Castranova, he claims that games can give directly relevant information about human interaction, and act as a testing ground for theories, to see how they work in society, and he considers the more cautionary voices to be dismissing games as a field for learning about human interaction. This is a positivistic view on games, where games are treated like the laboratories of the behaviourists. Castranova does not appear to be aware of the failure of the skinner box or the staged experiments on human violence and media influence (Noble 1975) as he argues for his view of the general validity of the forces of economics:
But the claim that generalizing is impossible, or only allowable for trivial aspects of behavior ("when thrown together into community, people argue"), goes much too far, I think. It's very easy to dismiss the goings-on in a virtual world as a tempest in a teapot, or as 'just a game,' or 'virtual and hence not real.' I mean, what makes political engagement 'real'? Surely the touchstone cannot be the realness of the objects in question; people have had bitter politics over lots of intangible things, from flag colors to communion wafers.
My stance on this is that we can learn a lot about human behaviour from computer games. But what we learn is about human behaviour in this given context. Humans behave differently in different situations, and we are intelligent enough to realize that being part of a research project, for instance, is a different situation from our every day life. This is one of the main sources of errors for researchers who work with human beings and the human condition. It is one of the reasons why so many people have spent so much time and resources trying to answer the question: "are the media dangerous?" If we agree with Edward Castranova, that behaviour in games tells us how people will behave in the flesh world given a similar situation, then please, PLEASE forbid Grand Theft Auto and all other games that promote violent, aggressive, destructive behaviour!
Human beings are too complex for human behaviour to be understood through the limited study of behaviour in games. That does not mean that we cannot learn significant things about the games, or that games are not important. Try to tell athletes, sports fans or just amateur players of sports that playing their particular game: football, volleyball, handball, is not important! Try to interrupt a game of chess between two dedicated players! Try to crash a LARP, fool around, break it up, and see how understanding the players will be! Games carry immense significance, have a symbolic power and yes, economical power, but this meaning is not directly transferable to any other arena.
This is why I think games - also computer games - need to be studied: Because we don't really understand their significance. We know they are important to human beings, we know they generate activity, creativity and even conserve sanity, they build understanding and social skills, they promote understanding, cooperation and healthy competitiveness, but we don't really know why, how, where, when. There is no such thing in my book as "just a game". But that is also why I don't think they are just an other part of the same trivial everyday behaviour mode.
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