jccalhoun

Members
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Content count

    68

  • Joined

  • Last visited

Posts posted by jccalhoun

  1. Posted

    There have been studies that show that once some people have made up their mind about something that no amount of evidence will make them change their mind. http://www.newyorker.com/science/maria-konnikova/i-dont-want-to-be-right

    Some people involved in gamergate illustrate this quite well ( some people on the other side do as well, I'm sure). In the abstract, it is interesting to see how no amount of evidence will get them to change their minds.

  3. Posted

    The protests at Mizzou and Yale have spread to some other campuses, including KU.  KU students are now calling for the firing of a professor after she showed that she's an ignorant asshat in a discussion about how TAs can handle discussions of racism in the communications classes. 

    As a followup on this, she's been suspended: http://www2.ljworld.com/news/2015/nov/20/ku-communications-prof-who-used-n-word-class-discu/

    But of course instead of focusing on the nuance of the situation and why students are mad, the newspaper goes for the easy headline and focuses on her language.

  4. Posted

    Meanwhile, GOG has just stardocked a little too much for my taste.

     

    Yes, I was a bit worried when I went to GOG for their Witcher 3 sale yesterday and saw all the Stardock stuff on their front page. But at least they aren't baiting people like play asia and direct2drive are. Luckily, my current computer doesn't meet the minimum specs for Witcher 3 so I can hold off buying it until I get a new computer.

  5. Posted

    Anyone know of a good media criticism podcast? I used to like Media Matters with Bob McChesney but he quit doing it a few years ago http://will.illinois.edu/mediamatters

     

    No One's Listening with Irene from Real World had its moments (even if it was too simplistic in its criticism for my taste) http://nooneslistening.libsyn.org/

     

    On the Media is good but I want something less journalism focused and more general cultural studies-media studies focused. Any suggestions?

  7. Posted

    I have a phd in Communication (technically the department was called Communication and Culture) and I teach in a Comm department (in fact I am writing this from my hotel room as I attend the National Communication Association conference). I am stunned that someone who teaches in communication is so ignorant and could honestly claim "“As a white woman I just never have seen the racism." WTF. in the comm departments I have been a part of we talk about race and gender and sexuality all the time.

  9. Posted

    That Atlantic article is pretty amazing. It says a lot more about the author than it does the situation - so much so that I had to look him up: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conor_Friedersdorf The whole part where he talks about the plight of the white male student is pretty amazing...

     

    I wonder why the husband is involved in defending his wife. It was her name on the email so why is he involved? Is it just because he is "master" of the residence hall?

     

    I was a grad student at a big 10 college for a decade where I taught pretty much every semester and now i'm an adjunct at a smaller midwestern college and i'm not sure what generalization I can make about college students. I started to write about a consumer/"customer is always right" mentality among students but upon reflection I can't really say that I have experienced it. Sure students get upset when they don't get good grades but with few exceptions they don't make a big deal of it when I explain their grade to them (and the one time a student did make a big deal it was such a clear cut situation that there was little chance anything would come of it).

  10. Posted

    There is also the fact that the gamergate panel is also made up of someone from this "Open Gaming Society" thing which no one had ever heard of before this. But I'm sure they aren't trying to get publicity out of this or anything...

     

    Speaking of things no one had ever heard of, I just checked and the gamergate board on 8chan is down to the 15th most popular board there. I think it says a lot about how many people are still going on about this when it isn't very active even at a site basically no one had ever heard of before gamergate,

  11. Posted

    Several years ago I was teaching a college class and we went over Mulvey and the male gaze. The next class I mentioned "male gaze" a few times and then a student who apparently had been absent the previous class raised her hand and asked, "What about the female gays?"

  12. Posted

    I was also confused about why everyone was a Colonel in that string! Yeah, they really like to bring up Wardell. That first post looks like it's all examples against "indie devs." I know that sometimes there are posts about AAA ethics stuff, but indies take so much more heat. Wonder why that is...

     

    I found this comment string between journalist Jesse Singal (who was on HuffPo Live debating against some GG folks today) and various GGers to be fascinating: https://archive.is/9ep6z

     

    Singal is the user "jsingal." There's a lot in there about how GG uses ethics as a smokescreen for their reactionary feelings. No surprises to anyone here I guess... but I thought Singal was very articulate in making his points and the replies were very revealing about what members of the movement think.

     

    Yeah, before that thread I don't remember even hearing about the Wardell thing. One article was written about it and they act like it was the biggest ethical breach ever.

     

    It amazes me when they can claim not to be right wing in one breath and in the next call people like Sarkeesian and Mia Consalvo "radical feminists." As if there is anything radical about Sarkeesian's feminism. I don't really agree with her but it isn't because of her feminist beliefs.

  13. Posted

    KIA was recently asked what one ethics breach should be talked about and the results of what people think is the one ethics breach that has to be mentioned in the poster's media appearance are pretty interesting: https://archive.is/Pfx81

     

    The top two suggestions are about people being friends with people they cover and Brad Wardell (He's head of Stardock and was sued for sexual harassment. Kotaku wrote an article about it. Then during the lawsuit a lot of the stuff mentioned in the article was given alternate explanations by witnesses and the accuser was forced to appologize for the accusations.)

  16. Posted

    I feel like Cuphead knows what it's doing. It's got sort of a Mega Man or bullet hell feel to its gameplay.

    I agree and that makes me worry that it is going to be Not For Me because I don't really like Mega Man and I really don't like bullet hell games. Cuphead looks awesome but I feel that it will play just like a million other games.

  18. Posted

    something about this is real off for me. I think it is the way she is posed like a teenage model from a Target catalogue. I don't know if it is supposed to reflect the tone of the comic, but it looks like it is pushing hard to make her look like a savvy young fashionista who posts selfies on Facebook after fighting bad guys because yolo.

    That's why I'm not real fond of it. Barbra Gordan for the last few decades has been depicted as a grown woman and this seems really young. Of course with the New 52 things are different and I haven't read any of the Bat-books since the reboot but other, younger, women have been Batgirl so it would make more sence for them to have this look. But if they do go with Barbra Gordan as late-teens/early-20s then this would work.

  19. Posted

    Holy fuck. A literal feminist witch hunt:

    He literally literally splits people up into "feminist" or "academic" and judges people based on whether or not they are "feminists." At 18:50 he says “I can’t be sure that any of these academics are not feminists” and then at 21:48 he concludes “I cannot be sure that the people I have classified as academics are not also feminists. I think there is every chance that they are.”

     

    I can't help but imagine him asking people "Are you now or have you ever been a feminist?"

  20. Posted

    on /r/Kotakuinaction there have been more and more posts about "SJWs are a cult!" all the while acting more and more like a cult themselves. They talk about how they hate it when all those feminists lump gamergate people together and how they have a hive mind mentality and force out anyone who doesn't agree with them...The lack of self-awareness really is amazing.

     

    Since I've been to DiGRA and am familiar with some of the people who go to the DiGRA conferences I have been monitoring that and it is also clear that many of them have no idea what an academic organization is or even the difference between DiGRA itself doing something and DiGRA just posting a call for papers or announcement for another conference on their web site. And it is amazing that even though DiGRA is allegedly a cabal of evil feminists that they are somehow working hand-in-hand with the government and the military in the form of DARPA...

  22. Posted

    Anyone know the origin/reasoning behind the drawing of the redhaired girl that so many of the gamergate people seem to use? I know that someone who uses a panel from the Doom comic book as his pic shouldn't really judge but any time I see someone using that red haired girl drawing or some anime character I find myself thinking "blech."

  24. Posted

    after seeing tons of tweets and comments on /r/kotakuinaction about how awesome this video is I had to watch it. Wow. really? She doesn't even answer the question. The video is titled, "Are video games sexist?" and after spending a good deal of the 6 minute video on Video game violence she uses the old "there are different video games for different people" argument. As if being aimed at men makes it ok for a game to be sexist. That's good thinkering there...