Saturday, October 25, 2008
Friday, October 24, 2008
Technorati: State of the Blogosphere
The website Technorati has released its annual report on the "blogosphere". I haven't read much of it yet, but I found the statistics on who is blogging interesting. I think there must be a certain amount of selection bias, as only bloggers registered with Technorati were surveyed. But it still shows how privileged an activity blogging is, despite the fact that we tend to think of it as a democratic practice. Two-thirds of the bloggers surveyed were male, and 70% had a college degree. Both education level and household income were higher than those of the average Internet user.
Woman jailed for 'killing' virtual hubby
Note: I've copy-pasted this article from ninemsn.com. Available at http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=652750
Woman jailed for 'killing' virtual hubby
11:03 AEST Fri Oct 24 2008
By Mari Yamaguchi
A 43-year-old player in a virtual game world became so angry about her sudden divorce from her online husband that she logged on with his password and killed his digital persona, police say.
The woman, who has been jailed on suspicion of illegally accessing a computer and manipulating electronic data, used his ID and password to log onto the popular interactive game Maple Story to carry out the virtual murder in May, a police official in the northern city of Sapporo said. He spoke on condition of anonymity because of department policy.
"I was suddenly divorced, without a word of warning. That made me so angry," the official quoted her as telling investigators and admitting the allegations.
The woman, a piano teacher, had not plotted any revenge in the real world, the official said.
She has not yet been formally charged. If convicted, she could face up to five years in prison or a fine up to $US5,000 ($A7,427).
Players in Maple Story create and manipulate digital images called "avatars" that represent themselves, while engaging in relationships, social activities and fighting monsters and other obstacles.
In virtual worlds, players often abandon their inhibitions, engaging in activity online that they would never do in the real world. For instance, sex with strangers is a common activity.
The woman used login information she got from the 33-year-old office worker when their characters were happily married to kill the character. The man complained to police when he discovered that his online avatar was dead.
The woman was arrested on Wednesday and taken 1,000km from her home in southern Miyazaki to be detained in Sapporo, where the man lives, the official said.
The police official said he did not know if she was married in the real world.
Bad online behaviour is usually handled within the rules set up by online worlds, which can ban miscreants or take away their virtual possessions.
In recent years, virtual lives have had consequences in the real world.
When bad deeds lead to criminal charges, prosecutors have found a real-world activity to cite - as in this case, in which the woman was charged with inappropriate computer access.
In August, a woman was charged in the US state of Delaware with plotting the real-life abduction of a boyfriend she met through the virtual reality website Second Life.
In Tokyo, a 16-year-old boy was charged with stealing the ID and password from a fellow player of an online game in order to swindle virtual currency worth $US360,000 ($A534,760)
Virtual games are popular in Japan, and Second Life has drawn a fair number of Japanese participants. They rank third by nationality among users, after Americans and Brazilians.
Woman jailed for 'killing' virtual hubby
11:03 AEST Fri Oct 24 2008
By Mari Yamaguchi
A 43-year-old player in a virtual game world became so angry about her sudden divorce from her online husband that she logged on with his password and killed his digital persona, police say.
The woman, who has been jailed on suspicion of illegally accessing a computer and manipulating electronic data, used his ID and password to log onto the popular interactive game Maple Story to carry out the virtual murder in May, a police official in the northern city of Sapporo said. He spoke on condition of anonymity because of department policy.
"I was suddenly divorced, without a word of warning. That made me so angry," the official quoted her as telling investigators and admitting the allegations.
The woman, a piano teacher, had not plotted any revenge in the real world, the official said.
She has not yet been formally charged. If convicted, she could face up to five years in prison or a fine up to $US5,000 ($A7,427).
Players in Maple Story create and manipulate digital images called "avatars" that represent themselves, while engaging in relationships, social activities and fighting monsters and other obstacles.
In virtual worlds, players often abandon their inhibitions, engaging in activity online that they would never do in the real world. For instance, sex with strangers is a common activity.
The woman used login information she got from the 33-year-old office worker when their characters were happily married to kill the character. The man complained to police when he discovered that his online avatar was dead.
The woman was arrested on Wednesday and taken 1,000km from her home in southern Miyazaki to be detained in Sapporo, where the man lives, the official said.
The police official said he did not know if she was married in the real world.
Bad online behaviour is usually handled within the rules set up by online worlds, which can ban miscreants or take away their virtual possessions.
In recent years, virtual lives have had consequences in the real world.
When bad deeds lead to criminal charges, prosecutors have found a real-world activity to cite - as in this case, in which the woman was charged with inappropriate computer access.
In August, a woman was charged in the US state of Delaware with plotting the real-life abduction of a boyfriend she met through the virtual reality website Second Life.
In Tokyo, a 16-year-old boy was charged with stealing the ID and password from a fellow player of an online game in order to swindle virtual currency worth $US360,000 ($A534,760)
Virtual games are popular in Japan, and Second Life has drawn a fair number of Japanese participants. They rank third by nationality among users, after Americans and Brazilians.
Thursday, October 23, 2008
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Monday, October 20, 2008
due to popular demand...my tute discussion notes
For those of you who couldn't make it to the tute last Friday :)
Mia Consalvo’s article, ‘Hot Dates and Fairy-tale Romances’ takes a look at two popular games, Final Fantasy and The Sims, and discusses the construction of sexuality and gender within them. Discussion about Final Fantasy was mostly tied up around the idea that the game player automatically inhabits the male character Zidane, who engages in a romantic discourse with the princess Garnet, and who is ultimately responsible for ‘saving her’. Consalvo also discusses the interesting notion of the ‘erotic triangle’- which exists within FF and how it is weakened when the game player is female.
In discussion of The Sims, Consalvo focuses on the wording of the user manual which states things like ‘a same-sex relationship does not have the option of marriage’, but at other times goes to great lengths to use vague language in discussions about the characters- which is supposed to reduce pigeon holing.
Overall, I found the most interesting part of the article was when she spoke about how within the game ‘The Sims’, sexuality is considered an activity, rather than an unchangeable aspect of personality chosen when the character is created. Consalvo outlines that some gay activists have a problem with this- saying that by making sexuality ‘merely’ a choice, it gives weight to the argument that homosexuality is optional. On the other hand, some support the way the Sims game is structured in this aspect, because they believe that saying the body is ‘innately’ sexual is too essentialist.
The second article in this weeks reading ‘From Quake Grrls to Desperate Housewives: A Decade of Gender and Computer Games’ opened with (in my opinion) a very bold statement; “today, few worry about women’s access to cyberspace- the gap between the sexses in online participaton has largely closed… we scarcely think about [the web] as a male-dominated space”. As this is central to my research essay, I have done quite a bit of reading around this issue and the general consensus seems to be that the web still is considered a male-dominated space. Does anyone else find the above extract a bit unstable?
I won’t write any more on this article because my copy in the course reader is missing what looks like every second page and thus is very hard to get any sense out of!
Third article: ‘as we become machines’: talks about body as cyborg. Old Haraway argument.
Thinking like a computer
2D to first person perspective- making the body ‘grunt’ in pain etc... screen shudder, fade to red etc...
Occupy role of camera operator as well- shifiting postion.
Arcade games- actually sit on a replica motorbike.
Wii- extention of this idea. Using body as the apparatus, not a joystick.
While you can change skin colour in a game, your character and the world around still behaves in the same way.
Mia Consalvo’s article, ‘Hot Dates and Fairy-tale Romances’ takes a look at two popular games, Final Fantasy and The Sims, and discusses the construction of sexuality and gender within them. Discussion about Final Fantasy was mostly tied up around the idea that the game player automatically inhabits the male character Zidane, who engages in a romantic discourse with the princess Garnet, and who is ultimately responsible for ‘saving her’. Consalvo also discusses the interesting notion of the ‘erotic triangle’- which exists within FF and how it is weakened when the game player is female.
In discussion of The Sims, Consalvo focuses on the wording of the user manual which states things like ‘a same-sex relationship does not have the option of marriage’, but at other times goes to great lengths to use vague language in discussions about the characters- which is supposed to reduce pigeon holing.
Overall, I found the most interesting part of the article was when she spoke about how within the game ‘The Sims’, sexuality is considered an activity, rather than an unchangeable aspect of personality chosen when the character is created. Consalvo outlines that some gay activists have a problem with this- saying that by making sexuality ‘merely’ a choice, it gives weight to the argument that homosexuality is optional. On the other hand, some support the way the Sims game is structured in this aspect, because they believe that saying the body is ‘innately’ sexual is too essentialist.
The second article in this weeks reading ‘From Quake Grrls to Desperate Housewives: A Decade of Gender and Computer Games’ opened with (in my opinion) a very bold statement; “today, few worry about women’s access to cyberspace- the gap between the sexses in online participaton has largely closed… we scarcely think about [the web] as a male-dominated space”. As this is central to my research essay, I have done quite a bit of reading around this issue and the general consensus seems to be that the web still is considered a male-dominated space. Does anyone else find the above extract a bit unstable?
I won’t write any more on this article because my copy in the course reader is missing what looks like every second page and thus is very hard to get any sense out of!
Third article: ‘as we become machines’: talks about body as cyborg. Old Haraway argument.
Thinking like a computer
2D to first person perspective- making the body ‘grunt’ in pain etc... screen shudder, fade to red etc...
Occupy role of camera operator as well- shifiting postion.
Arcade games- actually sit on a replica motorbike.
Wii- extention of this idea. Using body as the apparatus, not a joystick.
While you can change skin colour in a game, your character and the world around still behaves in the same way.
Thursday, October 16, 2008
What?? No discussion???
Just a quick note to remind everyone that this week we are back in the classroom for the tute (friday)- incase everyone was wondering why I haven't posted yet, as this is my week for presentation.
I had a beautiful blog all written out too, but now I have to come face to face with your ugly muggs instead! :)
I hope everyone has got something out of this blog- I think that althought it can be harder to remember to log-on every week, it promots much more considered and interesting discussion than you get in a classroom when everyone is just watching the clock and throwing the odd comment into the room :P. Depends upon the tute of course.
Anna xxx
I had a beautiful blog all written out too, but now I have to come face to face with your ugly muggs instead! :)
I hope everyone has got something out of this blog- I think that althought it can be harder to remember to log-on every week, it promots much more considered and interesting discussion than you get in a classroom when everyone is just watching the clock and throwing the odd comment into the room :P. Depends upon the tute of course.
Anna xxx
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