"...the more self-limiting the profession, the harder it is to acquire the credential and enter into practice, and the tighter the identification between the individual practitioner and the discipline." The golden age of infinite music [BBC]
"...as the great digital revolution rolls on, bands are no longer having to compete for people's money. Instead, they're jockeying for our time. And the field is huge, crossing not just genres, but eras." Going Offline In Search Of Freedom [NYTimes.com]
"If we’re inundated with data, our brains’ synthesizing functions are overwhelmed by the effort to keep up. And the original purpose — deeper knowledge of a subject — is lost." Privacy is dead, and social media hold smoking gun [CNN]
"It's easy to see the associated risks of a life-logging device. From stalkers to identity theft, recording such information (and to unlock its true value, posting it online) makes us vulnerable to all manner of bad actors.But what about the cost of not sharing? In the online realm, that might mean you simply don't exist." What sociologist Erving Goffman could tell us about social networking and Internet identity [O'Reilly Radar]
"That the Internet suppresses implicit signals such as body language, and maps poorly to high-context cultures, is well known. But what we can learn from Goffman is that the elimination of all these nuances reduces the effectiveness of team behavior when they interact in groups with other participants who have differing interests or viewpoints." Google Wave: we came, we saw, we played D&D [Ars Technica]
"...there seems to be an emerging consensus that Google Wave has as much RPG potential as any platform since the venerable and proverbial tabletop." The Science of Retweets on Twitter [PR 2.0]
"Retweets, in my opinion, are one of the most sincere forms of recognition and validation, empowering users to pay it forward through the recognition of noteworthy content." Mob Rule! How Users Took Over Twitter [Wired]
"It’s easy to write off Twitter as a happy accident, a right-place, right-time fluke. But that misses the point. When Twitter’s creators designed the service, they made a series of crucial and deliberate decisions — ones that seem brilliant in retrospect — that created the conditions that allow users to innovate." The power of tweets [Guardian]
"So is Twitter a neat way of keeping in contact with your mates? One of the most effective promotional device yet invented? A powerful new tool for democracy, enabling abuses to be exposed and offenders to be defeated? Or (in this country at least) a liberal rent-a-mob bent on hanging out to dry those who express an opinion that differs from their own?" Some thoughts on Twitter vs. Facebook Status Updates [apophenia]
"[The] difference between the two has to do with the brokering of status. With Facebook, the dominant norm is about people at a similar level of status interacting. On Twitter, there's all sorts of complicated ways in which status is brokered." Is Your Facebook Profile As Private As You Think? [NPR]
"Social network users assume a degree of privacy within their circle of friends — but it's not a safe assumption to make."
...in focusing our and our students' reflections and writing on a practice such as gaming, we are both honoring an emerging interest among many students and helping students work in platforms that, in some cases, mimic the kinds of writing environments and situations that students might find themselves in outside our classes...Moreoever, my emphasis on inviting students to consider connections across modes of writing and writing environments cuts to the heart of what we as compositionists should be doing: offering students a diversity of writing experiences and encouraging them to become more conscious writers--that is, writers rhetorically aware of how audience, genre, and tone work in a variety of writing environments.
--Jonathan Alexander, "Gaming, Student Literacies, and the Classroom: Some Possibilities for Transformation"
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Of dominant focus in this chapter is the idea of a nuclear apocalypse. While perhaps no longer as likely as an environmental catastrophe or the spread of some incurable disease (which may or may not turn us all into zombies), the notion of civilization and humanity decimated by nuclear war was once dominant.
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Within the medium of videogames, too, are post-apocalyptic scenarios becoming popular, and the latest in the Fallout series is no longer the most recent example. That might belong to Borderlands, a first-person shooter (FPS) with role-playing elements, or to Fallen Earth, a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) set in the Grand Canyon after a series of natural disasters decimate the U.S. population. 2010 will see the release of at least two more videogames with a post-apocalyptic bent, id Software's Rage and Obsidian Entertainment's Fallout: New Vegas.
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Another possible, tangential inspiration involves Winston Churchill, who appears as an inspirational hologram in Jack McDevitt's "Never Despair," and a malfunctioning Protectron robot which believes itself to be Button Gwinnett, second signatory of the Declaration of Independence, in Fallout 3's "Stealing Indepence" side-quest.
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"Stealing Independence," though, represents a situation in which completion of the quest does not result in an automatic karma gain or loss. Dialogue options with Button include a self-destruct command and words of encouragement to keep fighting the good fight. As in most of the in-game situations, such options are rather black and white, but this still shows how the exertion of greater degrees of control and influence is often what causes the player to accrue good karma or evil karma.
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I make explicit reference to these past written works not only to reveal some of the potential inspirations for the design and development of Fallout 3 as well as its morality and survival elements but also because the authors of such important literature often impart particular aspects in words better than those I might have chosen myself.
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"If Megawar is committed by the superpowers, how long will survivors keep the illusion that somehow 'our' government is less our enemy than 'their' government, or that they are different from us?" (xix) Fallout 3 provides an answer to Miller's question, offering examples of human existence that are, to some degree, successful without government. Instead, the duality of morality and simple survival dominate, particularly in the smaller communities of Canterbury Commons and Megaton. Places with greater governmental control, like the Republic of Dave and Rivet City, have more evidence of conflicts of interest.
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Rather than make reference to this sub-genre of science fiction as 'post-holocaust,' a term which saw greater acceptance in years past, Miller introduces "Megawar...another barbaric neologism" (xiii) to not only identify war at the end of civilization but also to not diminish the memory of the mass murder of Jews living in Europe during World War II. I think this different term also adheres rather well to Miller's later layout of nuclear armageddon, how, more often than not in this sub-genre, Megawar "happens offstage, between stories, and the rest is about the survivors, the orphans of a psychopathic civilization" (xiv). This is as much the case in Fallout 3 as in other Megawar-type representations.
- "The most obvious difference between real essays and the things one has to write in school is that real essays are not exclusively about English literature. Certainly schools should teach students how to write. But due to a series of historical accidents the teaching of writing has gotten mixed together with the study of literature."
Three Tweets for the Web
- "Many critics of contemporary life want our culture to remain like a long-distance relationship at a time when most of us are growing into something more mature. We assemble culture for ourselves, creating and committing ourselves to a fascinating brocade."
From North Carolina, a model of how to transform education
- "Many conservatives savaged the plan as 'social engineering' and said it was doomed to fail. Some parents were angry, and a few decamped for the private school system – until the results came in. Within a decade, Raleigh went from one of the worst-performing districts in America to one of the best."
Avataritis
- "In video games, then, we do become one with our character – at least as much as acting out a role in a play allows us to vicariously experience being an another being."
A Regular Writing Routine
- "...waiting around until you have enough time is just another excuse not to write."
The future of college may be virtual
- "Might finding the right class online become more important than which institution was offering it? What happens if colleges or even specialized online-only education companies provide essentially the same Economics 101 course? Does geography cease to matter and do low-cost providers win out?"
"He not busy being born is busy dying"
- "As authors and publishers explore the new world of online reading and writing, we need to do more than just translate print books to an electronic screen. We have a future to invent!"