Henroid

Greg Costikyan is now one of my favorites.

Even the people who wanted to discuss journalism legitimately were doing a bad job of talking about AAA development and the shit it pulls for review scores. I was firing point-blank examples at people, only to have it brushed aside because oh man I heard this one chick had sex one time.

That probably could've been the best option, yeah. It emphasizes the courage of people like Zoe and Jenn Frank for being willing to have their name and face out there in speaking out against the shit.

I'm not sure I'm ready to hold writers accountable for being scared of what could happen if they decided to write about this. Because when this all started we saw what the crazy shits were capable of; dumping people's personal information onto the net (because video games). Unless a game site or writer declared, "We are in favor of this stupid shit going on," then I'll hold them accountable. And so far the only one I know of is the guy at Kotaku that decided to change their policy on something meaningless, giving in to a bullshit demand from people with bullshit convictions. I'm sure he's still hated by everyone now.

It's gonna be a weird next-couple-of-days seeing how much backpeddling goes on. One of the biggest give-aways for this, to me, was how easily people into the hashtag were back-patting and high-fiving each other in such huge volume. I've done enough Twitter interaction to see what actual hashtag use, even for more popular media like Kardashian level shit, actually produces. Most responses I'd get over GamerGate would have a few people retweeting / favoriting them. Nobody honestly into something would go through that much effort. Like if it was one or two tweets, that'd be different. Like the Ferguson stuff, only the most profound of revelations would get such high-volume of response.

So those claims that "GamerGate" is "winning"? I think those people are in for a huge shock. The FBI is working with the IGDA, collaborating on fighting harassment and crimes against game developers. According to the FBI, they keep track of instances of extreme harassment and cyber crimes, and approached the IGDA because of the rise in both (and from the way it reads it isn't just a matter of the last couple of weeks, it sounds like they mean over the last few years it's been increasing). So this is pretty rad. It should have those jackasses that hide behind anonymity running scared and thinking twice about doing this shit. Because, y'know, they are getting the attention they desire - but it's from people that can prosecute them at a federal level. Game, set, match. http://www.polygon.com/2014/9/4/6105185/fbi-game-developer-harassment

By the way, quick note - I saw someone among the GamerGate folks say that PewDiePie was "now in their corner." But I went looking through PDP's stuff to see what they were talking about and found nothing of him talking about what's been going on. I can only assume they meant his decision about comments, but the thing is, in his explanation he talks about the toxicity comments create rather than be an inclusive thing. Not to mention that shutting down comment functions is something the GamerGate believers denounce (see their reactions to Sarkeesian's videos). There's so many people co-opting the stupid thing that it means nothing and contradicts itself at every turn. "Gamers are united!" Apparently not.

I also saw someone with the GamerGate tag post this gem: But guys it's just about journalism right? (My favorite part is "the smoking gun." Holy shit.)

Well it is the Sith Code to constantly test themselves, including each other.

If anyone hasn't seen it, Andreas Zecher wrote an open letter for devs to sign, which is more or less a declaration against harassment and threats. It has like 2,000 signatures so far (I think I saw Remo signed it when I scanned over it). According to a tweet he posted though, some people are now trying to falsify names to add to it, likely with the intent to declare all the signatures are fake. As someone else put it, "As mild as an open letter against harassment is the fact that it’s rattled people enough to try and work to delegitimize it is telling." Edit - Links to tweets. https://twitter.com/andreaszecher/status/506837798171979776 https://twitter.com/celsiusgs/status/506841836141690880

It's the Fox News argument. "Just because I call myself a _____ doesn't mean I have to operate in that fashion." All he cares about protecting is his income.

Here's another article about things going on. 4chan /v/ created a female avatar / spokesperson to be on their side. The article has links to everything it alleges the community did regarding that, and yet the comments are full of, "Where's the proof?" type shit. http://www.vice.com/read/meet-the-female-gamer-mascot-created-by-anti-feminists-828

I got another great article from someone on Twitter, pointing out a phenomena known as "extinction burst" and how we're seeing that in video games at the moment. http://www.doctornerdlove.com/2014/08/the-extinction-burst-of-gaming-culture/

This isn't about either show specifically but I feel the same way with content I watch/listen to. There's nothing wrong with either; enjoying the more 'base' stuff is a sign of not being wound up tight as a personality. And with the latter, the stuff where discussions can get overwhelming, it's something to aspire to (in terms of understanding and being able to discuss, and knowledge gained).

Reading this over at Gamasutra filled me with a lot of hope and made me feel good. I was under the impression that nothing was going to change and shitlords were gonna keep shitlording. Which they will but they'll get bored and give up eventually.

Don't water down Watergate. Gate. Edit -Gamergatefold foldgate.

So all the things have culminated into the #GamerGate hashtag. It's voiced to be about the integrity in journalism and its ethics and also about protecting the video game playing passtime (hobby isn't really proper word usage here is it?), but the reinforcement of that intent doesn't really back it up. I spent this morning challenging people in favor of the hashtag to talk about other issues of ethics problems in journalism, even throwing softball suggestions like paid-for content on journalism sites or review embargos being a reinforcement of something negative. I didn't get any straight forward responses, instead run-around to bring up what seem to be nonsense talking points. There's a huge irony that there are ethics issues to talk about, but all they're interested in is gossip. Also naming controversies with the ____gate format is really stupid. Watergate was named Watergate because that was the name of the place, not because there was a controversy regarding water. /pet-peeve

Earlier today I ended up engaging some of these people on Twitter (big mistake), and one of them said he would explain things out for me. But then he just linked me to a conspiracy theory post that explained nothing, it just ran with assumptions about things being true and wrecking things. Without qualifying how things have been ruined. If there are "sides" to everything that's happened on the net, 'our' side has had powerful voices writing and speaking about things concisely in easy-to-understand fashion, with examples used as necessary. The 'other side' doesn't have anyone going for them in this manner. It's a bunch of people eager to be a mouth piece and they get trapped in the 24/7 news network thing of just spouting talking points. Which is another weird allusion to the political landscape in America, with this whole thing.

This panel was the first that I looked into the game, and I've gotta say I like what I see. I hope the direction the team is aiming for is fulfilled (regarding the game being open-ish, but still guided). That's gonna be impressive finesse to see executed. Also. Every time they said "Henry" I was like "Why are they talking about me." It's an underused name in video games. So Firewatch is already GOTY for me POWER TO THE HENRYS OF THIS WORLD.

I'm seeing on the net that the people in Ferguson have a lawsuit filed in against the police department, which is a start for reparations, but it's only one part of the bigger puzzle. But on top of that, litigation takes so damn long that this issue may come to rest for a year and a half now until it is settled. And by then, it will have been forgotten. Which would be the worst because we'll effectively be back to square one with all this.

So I'm finding myself grossed out by another web community I'm in, as they're sickeningly aligned against Sarkeesian. It's the same kinda crap people have talked about here already, like claiming the threats aren't real, that she's bad at having critical analysis, etc. But they never provide any counter-examples or evidence of what they claim. The only thing that gives me comfort is that it's the 'usual suspects' for me, in that the people speaking about it tend to be contrarian on every topic. It's not even like some high brow trolling, just a serious personality defect. Though one of them said, as 'evidence' that Sarkeesian is lying about the threats, she was followed home once by a guy. ... that's it btw. It was that, and an unspoken "therefore, Sarkeesian is lying." God I'm so frustrated with people.

Such is technology. The old eventually loses worth. In the short term though it could operate as backup maybe, if you have something that takes SD and micro SD cards.

Ben Stein is arguing that Mike Brown being a particular height, weight, and "on marijuana" meant that he was armed and dangerous. http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/08/28/1325419/-Ben-Stein-has-to-be-one-of-the-dumbest-MFers-on-the-Planet# I thought he was smart.

I heard elsewhere that it'll support HTML5 which means I can play NP2 from my 3DS. Potentially.

That content filter for the web browser just goes to show that Nintendo are the dumbest and worst at implementing internet functionality. They really need to get on board with that crap because they get more criticism for it than they get praise. What I want to know is if the browser is an actual browser, not whatever program they have in place that deconstructs pages into images.