What if we had FB’s privacy settings in real life?

I don’t think most people would like it very much.

Facebook amending statement of rights and responsbilities, here’s a rundown of the changes | VentureBeat.

 

an application your friend has downloaded also has the right to your information because you’ve allowed that friend to see your content

“We reserve the right to exclude or limit the provision of any service or feature in our sole discretion.”

Curious that FB thinks my friends’ apps should have access to all my stuff.

Big DogThat’s a little like saying my friends’ friends should all be welcome at my house…….

Or that I had to share all the same hobbies and pass-times that my friends do.

Hmmmmm……

Glad I have BIG dogs.

 

Wonder if there’d be a market for a Gaurd-Dog app – one that would keep other apps off your property.

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Game-Education.Com – Home

A new place to check out if you’re looking for information on game education.

Game-Education.Com – Home.

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iPad3 means no shuffling between several gadgets … REALLY????

iPad3 means no shuffling between several gadgets | NextWorth.

Professing never-ending love for the iPad has taken on a real cult-like fervor. It’s really quite embarrassing.

The digital world is converging on a revolutionary all-in-one device, the powerful, brand-new iPad. These are the iconic portable devices that led to (and are to some extent being replaced by) Apple’s innovation.

Get REAL.

I have an iPad – it has replaced NOTHING. In fact I now have MORE devices to carry around rather than fewer.

I just came back from an Ed Conference where almost everyone has an iPad. People in Education LOVE LOVE LOVE their iPads, and are quite hurt and offended if anyone says anything bad about them. When I say that it really isn’t much good at doing real work, they say, of COURSE it is…. I use mine ALL THE TIME.

OK. The infographic shows how people use their iPads.

  • 35% browsing the web
  • 22% social media
  • 12% play games
  • 12% watch videos

leaving 19% for EVERYTHING ELSE. Let’s be generous and suppose that email takes up only half of that (it’s probably more). That leaves 10% for ALL other activities, including, BUT NOT LIMITED TO actually making something. What do you use your computer for? I don’t know about you but I write papers and books, develop games, write actual computer programs, create presentations, design courses, do accounting, archive several hundred gigabytes of photos, videos and other info, and so on. The iPad can handle NONE of that.

 

This ad claims the “new” iPad 3 will replace nearly $3500 worth of devices. OK, I’ll bite. Lets see…

$710 Laptop: NOPE. One of the last trips I was on, I took my iPad and my Transformer. Sorry to say NEITHER one could even help me make a simple powerpoint presentation. I was able to edit one on the Transformer, but I couldn’t make a new one. When I travel, I still need my netbook. Whatever my netbook can’t handle, I do at home on my desktop.

$105 e-reader: maybe. Although, that’s debatable. I much prefer my Kobo for reading: it’s light, batteries last for days, and I can read in the daylight. If anyone thinks I’m going to replace my Kobo with something that costs more than twice as much, think again.

$200 tablet: the iPad IS a tablet, for crying out loud.  Most people have no use for TWO tablets, so this is just a red herring.

$120 Gaming System: Yea, … NO WAY. Anyone who is in the least serious about playing games will NOT be replacing their Wii, or Xbox, or PlayStation, or ANY of their portable game devices with an iPad. Most gamers – even most fairly casual gamers have multiple game devices. They’re not like toasters you know, where all you need is one.

$1500 digital SLR camera : SERIOUSLY? ….. This is a joke, right? The iPad takes LOUSY pictures. Anyone who is interested enough in photography to buy a digital SLR would think you were NUTS if you suggested the iPad toy camera could replace their real camera.

$370 point-and-shoot camera: HARDLY. By modern standards, 5MP is pathetic, and the iPad doesn’t even have a flash. Like I said, the iPad takes lousy pictures. My Transformer is better. Hell, my phone (NOT an iPhone) is better. AND, my little point-and-shoot takes 12 MP pics, does great video, has 3x optical and 12x digital zoom, and has a GOOD flash. NOT only that, it’s shock-proof, freeze-proof AND water-proof. I wonder what would happen to my iPad if I accidentally dropped it in duck poo on a winter day and then tried to wash it under the tap? I’ve done that with my point-and-shoot. It’s FINE. I doubt the iPad would be. (And I can totally see myself walking around on the farm toting an iPad around my neck while I do chores so I’ll be ready to snap that perfect picture. NOT. I’d look like something out of The Typing of the Dead. And I have no doubt the bunnies and other critters would be perfectly fine with me shoving something that looks like a book in their faces….. Thanks. I’ll keep my point-and-shoot. I’ll buy another camera before I buy another iPad).

$435 iPad 2 OK. This is just specious. I can’t think of ANY reason to replace a functioning tablet with another ALMOST identical tablet. The iPad 3, in spite of claims to the contrary is not a revolutionary ANYTHING, unless you count brainwash.

On second thought…. if you buy the ‘message’ in this ad, I have some snake oil you might also be interested in…… cheap…. replaces ALL OTHER DRUGS. Seriously. No. Really…..

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Cool – Texting of the Bread

TextingoftheBread.com.

How come no-one told me they’d re-skinned this again?!
I *still* think Typing of the Deadwas one of the best typing tutors ever made, but this one might actually less push-back from teachers (assuming of course, teachers even acknowledge the value of learning how to text).

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“Working with researchers who are legendary game designers in their own mind” | Pamela M. Kato, EdM, PhD

 

Working with researchers who are legendary game designers in their own mind” | Pamela M. Kato, EdM, PhD.

A nice piece.

Researcher also = client here.

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For Creators of Video Games, a Faint Line on Cloning – NYTimes.com

For Creators of Video Games, a Faint Line on Cloning – NYTimes.com.

Indie developers simply don’t have the infrastructure to produce games in the same way that the big companies do. Yes, I know that the big companies all started off as little guys.

So, when did they stop being considerate and understanding of other indies? At what point do they loose sight of what they were trying to do (make great games) and grab onto the capitalist dream (become fabulously rich)? Is it really just as simple as that people are greedy?

Why do we keep idolizing bullies with money? Is there any connection between that and our apparent love of competition?

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Does A Postumus Pardon Right a Wrong or is it Just Rewriting History?

Widespread Celebrations But No Pardon For Turing.

from /www.turing.org.uk

This is Alan Turing Year – the year we are to celebrate the accomplishments and life of this remarkable man. As a computer scientist, he is one of the icons of our discipline.

This month the House of Lords declined to grant a posthumous pardon for the crime of gross indecency for which he was convicted in 1952. Many people are upset about this decision. I think it was a good and appropriate decision. Read the explanation carefully, as I think they’ve summed it up well.

“A posthumous pardon was not considered appropriate as Alan Turing was properly convicted of what at the time was a criminal offence. He would have known that his offence was against the law and that he would be prosecuted.
It is tragic that Alan Turing was convicted of an offence which now seems both cruel and absurd-particularly poignant given his outstanding contribution to the war effort. However, the law at the time required a prosecution and, as such, long-standing policy has been to accept that such convictions took place and, rather than trying to alter the historical context and to put right what cannot be put right, ensure instead that we never again return to those times”.

A pardon is effectively the same as saying that the conviction was a mistake. It wasn’t. Not for that time.  Of course it would be wrong to convict him had he done the same thing in the present day. But he was convicted of an act he  committed knowing it was a crime (at that time). He did not deserve what he got, but the legal system has never really been about justice. Nor is it about right and wrong. Mostly, the legal system is about vengeance.

What happened to him was tragic, and I share the sentiments of many who sincerely wish we had been more enlightened at the time so we could have given him the recognition he so richly deserved. But we weren’t – we were just coming out of a terrible war where much of Europe had personally come face to face with just how monstrous humans can be. We were also just starting to emerge from our Victorian sensibilities and coming to realize that people – ALL people – might just deserve to be treated with the same respect and dignity – regardless of colour, religion, sexual orientation, or financial standing. We’re not there yet.

Alan Turing took his own life in 1954, probably in large part because of the conviction. That can NEVER be put right. What we can and should do is to make sure we learn from our mistakes so that ultimately we learn never to do this to anyone else again.

Erasing our mistakes, as pardons do, does NOT make anything better. In fact it makes things worse – they give us permission to sweep our past atrocities under the carpet and pretend they never happened. Thus insulated from our mistakes, it becomes much more likely that it will be only a matter of time before we do it again.

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Gamasutra – Features – Jerked Around by the Magic Circle – Clearing the Air Ten Years Later

Gamasutra – Features – Jerked Around by the Magic Circle – Clearing the Air Ten Years Later.

A broad strokes definition: The magic circle is the idea that a boundary exists between a game and the world outside the game.

Outside the magic circle, you are Jane Smith, a 28 year old gamer; inside, you are the Level 62 GrandMage Hargatha of the Dookoo Clan. Outside the magic circle, this is a leather-bound football; inside, it is a special object that helps me score — and the game of Football has very specific rules about who can touch it, when, where, and in what ways.

Is the magic circle a verifiable phenomenon? A useful fiction? A ridiculous travesty? And who really cares? This essay endeavors to answer these questions by looking at the history, the use, and the misuse of the term. And along the way, I offer some correctives to how we think about the concept, about game design theory, and about the more general study of games.

 

Games (and play) exist in a space somewhat apart from reality: a dimension of time and space(*): ‘the magic circle’. Within this magic circle things are permitted that cannot (or should not) happen in real life, yet we can learn things from games that we can apply to real life. Children of almost any age seem to understand that this special realm exists,and most of us probably remember playing complaining that someone in the group “wasn’t playing right” – there are always rules to game-style play, even if they aren’t explicit.

The problem runs deep. It goes beyond just wide-eyed graduate students. Sometimes, I see it in the work of colleagues for whom I have the utmost respect and whose work I otherwise admire: game studies icons Mia Consalvo, Marinka Copier, and T.L. Taylor all have written about the need to overthrow the oppressive magic circle.

The argument goes something like this: the idea of magic circle is the idea that games are formal structures wholly and completely separate from ordinary life. The magic circle naively champions the preexisting rules of a game, and ignores the fact that games are lived experiences, that games are actually played by human beings in some kind of real social and cultural context.

My question remains: who is this ignoramus that holds these strange and narrow ideas about games? Where are the books and essays that this formalist-structuralist-ludologist has published? Where is this frightfully naïve thinker who is putting game studies at risk by poisoning the minds of impressionable students? Just who is this magic circle jerk? (Note that the word is “jerk” as in annoying person — I’m using it as a noun, not a verb.)

I am here to tell you: there is no magic circle jerk. We need to stop chasing this phantasm. I offer this essay as a corrective. It is meant to clarify where this magic circle idea came from, what it was intended to mean, and to stop the energy being wasted by chasing the ghost of the magic circle jerk — a ghost that simply doesn’t exist.

 

 

The concept of the magic circle is not unique to humans – animals also understand it, which implies to me that it is a fundamental concept common to most intelligent life.Example: When dogs are play-fighting, they exhibit almost all of the same behaviours they would when fighting for real. There are some important differences though – the secondary physiological reactions are absent (like the hair up on their backs), and the normal dominance hierarchies are not enforced (a subordinate dog can ‘best’ a superior dog in play without retribution). If you’ve spent any time watching dogs play, you will also have seen times when the magic circle is broken (someone breaks a rule) and suddenly it becomes serious. The growling changes, their posture changes, the hair goes up, the growling changes, etc. and a whole new set of rules come into force, for now this isn’t play.

There have even been studies that imply that this kind of play is essential to normal development: In one experiment, Irenäus Eibl-Eibesfeldt (human ethologist) discovered that polecats who are not given the opportunity to play with siblings did not know where to bite prey and rivals or how to hold females during mating once they grew up (Lorenz & Leyhausen, 1973).

I think we can argue over the precise definition – though personally I don’t see the need, but that the concept exists and is understood by people and animals alike on a very deep level does not seem to be disputable.

(*)“….You’re traveling to another dimension. A dimension of time and space. A dimension of sight and mind. You’re moving into a land of both shadow and substance. You’ve just crossed over into..” Sorry, couldn’t resist…this is the intro to the Twilight Zone , Rod Serling’s television series that ran from 1959-1964.

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