Bjorn

Vice and some other sites are going after gamergaters for illegally stealing their content by using Archive.today. I've used Archive, and don't feel too bad about it. But the primary reason I've used it has not been to deny traffic or ad revenue, it's because for some of the niche or privately owned sites, I DO NOT want there to be easily traceable links back here, so we don't end up with Mike the lawyer, or Ralph or someone trying to come in here and be d-bags, or to start running hit pieces on the Thumbs (as Ralph has done with a bunch of people). Overall I'd say it's a bad move by Vice and others. Even though it is a kind of piracy, it's not like trying to be heavy handed about piracy on the Internet has ever been a winning movie. Hilariously, there's someone who's decided to call themselves an Ethics Auditor who is going to start "auditing" the ethics policies of sites. Despite this person admitting that they have absolutely no background or knowledge about journalism or journalistic ethics. Here's a fascinating infographic where someone broke down the gender of the characters of the Top 1000 games of all time (based on a combination of sales and critical scores). Only 1 in 5 characters is female. Lastly, Liana K dropped my favorite tweet I've seen this week:

Someone just texted me, "Hey, do you know where I can get some furry chaps like Jeff Goldblum wears in Buckaraoo Banzai?"

Apparently, bright pink shirted guy actually broke or sprained his ankle while helping to intervene. Probably sprained, as he was treated on site and released. The police report has been released.

That didn't occur to me. That's amazing.

I don't know if this could be run locally on one machine, but it is probably one of the most interesting collaborative story games is Sleep is Death. It's a two player game, one player controls the "world" (all characters, items, etc) and the other player is a guest in that world. It's basically a 2D pixel improve game.

I've continued to watch the news most weeks, but hadn't really said much about it. This doesn't bode well though. The combined St. Louis county and city police forces have spent a reported $500,000 on riot gear, tear gas, rubber bullets, etc., since August. A big chunk of that has been in acquisitions in the event that Wilson is not charged.

Next up, Game 7 of the World Series! I don't normally get nervous watching sports, I'm a fan, but not a super emotional one, usually. Something about this series is making me a wreck though. I was so freaking nervous going into game 6 tonight.

If you go through his replies to people, it gets pretty ugly. --- ---

I keep wondering if DOTT might be held back with some intention to give it the HD facelift treatment, since its got to be one of the most in demand titles in the library.

FWIW, I don't disagree with your sentiment, and several pages back you can see me discussing language use and dehumanizing, with examples of how even moderate ggers engage in dehumanizing behavior and concerns that my own way of discussing this stuff might be doing the same thing. I do worry about how I and others discuss gg. But I don't have a problem with people venting in this thread, making up some jokes, etc. People do have a right to be angry about this shit, and to vent that anger, and venting that is not always going to come out in a form that is comfortable or digestible to everyone. So yeah, I wouldn't roll into KiA or start spamming prominent ggers on Twitter with stuff like this. But we haven't seen much pro-gg stuff in this thread, and the few who have came in quickly betrayed that there weren't interested in discussing things in good faith (engaged in pretty obvious troll behavior). While this is technically a public space, it's also a safe place for Thumbs fans to discuss gg and vent when need be.

Well that's fucking cool. I never played it, was always on my PS3 shortlist, just never got around to picking it up.

GamerGate makes for some weird bedfellows. One of the sites who has ended up backing gg, and being backed in return, is Christ Centered Gamer. Seems to be for two main reasons. First, CCG has fully embraced the narrative that this is about ethics. Second, CCG splits it's reviews into basically two scores, one for the technical/game elements of a game and the other is its "Morality Score". gg heralds this as the innovation games journalism was looking for, and a move towards the mythical objective review. gg has worked to try and get CCG onto Metacritic and to get a verified Twitter account. A majority of people in the threads I read through seem to agree that because you completely understand that CCG is coming from the Christian perspective, that it's totally fine. What. The. Fuck. Everyone knows Polygon is progressive, Chris Grant has identified Polygon as being a progressive site. It's literally one of the reasons that the site exists, and it consistently shows in the pieces they run. But Polygon is routinely condemned for its progressive content. So it's fine to be biased, as long as you're biased in the right way. I guess. I don't care about people writing about games from a Christian perspective. I kind of agree with Tom Chick's comments on CCG from a few years ago that he was disappointed that the reviews didn't delve more into viewing games through a Christian cultural lens. A poly-religious review site that looked at games through the lens of multiple beliefs would be FUCKING FASCINATING! And then there's the constant refrain from gg that politics has no place in games. And yet CCG is actually giving a Morality Score to games. They are literally making a moral judgment and applying a number to that judgment. And they will dock a game 4 points from it's morality score for: Actually, their points guidelines for giving a moral judgment (archive link purely in case it changes in the future) is pretty fascinating, and one would argue that their attitudes towards morality actually indicates that the morality of obeying laws is more importance that the ethics of doing the right thing. A mentality that says the moral decision is always the one that respects and follows authority is...problematic for me. This is one of the concluduing statements of the Gone Home review: It also has a Moral Warnings section in the sidebar of games: Tell me again about your inclusiveness and anti-political stance gamergate. Somewhere in a comment, I also saw someone say that the site is simply misnamed, and if it was called Socially Conservative Gamer it would be more accurate. As far as ethics goes, I suspect there's an interesting Christian ethical question about naming your company with the word Christ in it, but only representing a very, very narrow view of the Christian belief spectrum in your Morality Score. I'm pretty sure I could really easily whip up a #notmychrist campaign opposing the way that CCG presents itself, given some of the really activist minded friends I have who are both Christian and Gay (or greatly support gay rights and marriage equality).

Yeah, I wish I had something more interesting to say about it (like an interesting discussion was started or something). But it was just a pretty standard undergrad presentation. I'm glad she didn't have to deal with any bullshit, so it's overall a positive. Sarkeesian wrote an op-ed in the NY Times, continuing with the theme that gamer as a cultural label is functionally dead and that the self-appointed gatekeepers of gaming have already lost.

At some point I've seen someone critique the Fifth Element as essentially being a super stylized fairy tale, complete with prince kissing the incapacitated princess at the end to save the day. I've also read some other thoughts on it with the weird thing of Leeloo being infantilized and childlike through much of the movie, and Dallas' obsession with her starts well before she's shown much of anything resembling adult capability. But I still love the movie, it's just one of those that even with all its problems, I prefer to enjoy it for the good stuff in it without condemning it for its myriad flaws.

I agree in principle, but I've also seen way to many conversations or meetings stall out because people became focused on a single point or example.

Watched a few more episodes last night. The Princess episodes were an interesting trilogy that seemed mostly about driving several of the relationship arcs forward. Crighton's reaction was kind of funny, as he's shown a willingness to sacrifice his own life to save his friends, but he drew the line at getting married to save his friends' lives. There's something that's so American Male about that idea, that death is a preferable sacrifice to make than marriage. “Won’t Get Fooled Again” (S2E15) was another dream/hallucination episode that was pretty delightful for being completely insane and essentially one long running series of non-sequiturs. Some of the episodes which are really about just mind fucking Crighton and the rest of the crew often seem like an excuse to introduce some sexual content that would not normally appear in a television show 15 years ago. When Rygel pops up late in the episode in the doctor's office, that's one of the funniest things I've seen:

I think the Jessica Rabbit discussion is a bit of a distraction. I would tend to fall on the side of not thinking she's part of the trope, but ultimately, arguing any specific example into the ground just seems to kind of drag the conversation down. What's probably better is to identify a solid half dozen examples like Edi that I think we're all on board with fitting the trope.

It's a class about interactive media and the ways that different types of media intersect.

Oh, totally different topic, my daughter gave her gamergate presentation in class today, and no one stood up to say, "Actually, it's about..." She actually thought it went really well.

Serious question. So do you consider the Sea Lioning comic to be bullshit antagonistic mockery? Or the best examples of the "Actually Ethics" memes? If those are fine, how do the jokes here cross the line that those don't? If you think those are just as bad, then we've got a bit of a different discussion going on. I'm not going to say that our little collection of lightbulb jokes is as good as either of those, but they are mostly all in the same spirit of providing some light hearted commentary, criticism and, yes, some mockery through some humor.

Huh, wow, I don't think I've ever seen the original Wolf Man. I have seen most of the other classics. Farscape pretty much derailed all my intended Halloween watching, I should try to get in one or two more movies before the week is done. Oh, and one more recommendation. If you're in the mood for some Halloween zombies, I'd highly recommend Pontypool if anyone hasn't seen it. It's easily my favorite zombie flick from the last five years or so. It's on Netflix streaming. First, it's set in a news radio station (I <3 journalism) and second it does some really interesting things with the spread of a zombie infection that I hadn't ever seen before.

:fart: It seems like we're all mostly on the same page, it's just kinda minor semantics or details about specific examples. I would suspect that most male examples would end also explaining something else about the guy, like Conan is crazy strong because he pushed a grist mill for years (and didn't die). Captain America gets a rad bod thanks to magic-science, and he's really strong, fast, etc.

Wow, I'm pretty surprised at giving out copies of HnS to owners of Spacebase (and vice versa). That's a pretty standup thing to do given how things shook out. Any idea how to redeem that? I don't see an obvious option in Steam, though maybe it will just take a few hours to update.

Q: How many gamergaters does it take to change a lightbulb? A: We have people who light candles as well! #notyourillumination

ADORABLE! I keep trying to get good pictures of ours, but they're always out right after dusk and neither my camera nor my skill is good enough to get good shots of them.