Middle Raged Punk

Full of Fun Fridays! Xbox blog edition

December 19th, 2008 by Jessika

Seems like anyone can set up and blog nowadays. In fact, even inanimate objects can, too. My Xbox has a blog! It just started yesterday:

The Lady Athena’s Xbox - Dec 18 2008

I love to game, you love to game, The Lady Athena loves to game, we all love to game! 2,515 points FTW!!! She opened up Left 4 Dead, and then… yeah… that was awesome…

I signed up after seeing Corwin’s post about it. I’ll let him explain the details:

The guys over at 360Voice have coded up a site that grabs the public information from your Xbox Live gamer card and uses it to generate a daily blog written by your console. It chronicles what games you play and whether you earn achievements and increase your gamer score. Apparently, if you go for a certain period without playing anything, it will start talking smack about you, too.

The amusement will come when my Xbox will start talking smack. I don’t get to play every day, sometimes only getting in a couple of hours in during the weekend, so I’m sure by next week there will be lots of bad things said about me. I wonder if I go a reeeeeealy long time without turning it on, will it get depressed and turn emo? That would be even funnier.

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Full of Fun Fridays! Tank Girl Edition

December 5th, 2008 by Jessika

It doesn’t seem like it, but it’s been 20 years since Tank Girl made her first appearance. Like many US fans, I became aware of the comic after seeing the 1995 movie with Lori Petty. I’ve seen it many, many times, but ashamedly I’ve not read the comics!

Well, now I don’t have an excuse, as there are many options for me and other fans. Not only are there collections of the old comics, but there are new ones out monthly in the UK. Skidmarks is the current arc, which started in August, and it is scheduled to be released in a 4 part series in the US next year. And there is a new art book called The Cream of Tank Girl with sketches, concept pics, and the covers…all collected into a huge book.

I’ve also found out that Alan and Rufus, the guys doing the comics, have a Tank Girl pinup every month at Suicide Girls. The first one is live, and the second one shows up on Sunday, December 7th.

As for me, I think I know what I’m going to ask for this Xmas. Some Tank Girl books to close the gaping hole in my comic reading!

Tank Girl

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Full of Fun Fridays! Left 4 Dead edition

November 21st, 2008 by Jessika

It seems that the consensus on Left 4 Dead among all my gamer friends is the same. It’s fucking *intense* and a hell of a lot of fun. The first time you get overrun by a zombie horde, we all were saying “Oh shit! Oh shit! Oh shit! Oh shit! Oh shit!” and wildly firing into the crowd…often hitting our own teammates.

I’m the type of gamer who generally doesn’t like playing against others, although I love playing co-op. That’s where this game shines. You’re a team of four survivors fighting their way through the zombie infested city, and I’m glad there are 4 of us, since I can easily become overrun and die with just one person. There are thousands of zombies out there, and they’ll come from everywhere…sometimes all at once.

The one part I’ve not played yet is when a team plays co-op against another team, where one team plays the zombies and the other plays the survivors. I think we’ve got it lined up for this weekend. I’d really like to play as a zombie and chomp on someone. Although I’ll be playing against others, the co-op with the other zombies will make it worth it I think.

If you’re on Xbox Live, get the demo for free and give it a try. And leave me a comment if you wanna swap gamertags. I’m up for more online play.

PC gamers, you’re not left out. Get it via Steam.

Either way you play, you can’t go wrong with zombies.

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Women, stereotypes, math, and science

November 17th, 2008 by Jessika

A study was released earlier this month, finding that American students are far lacking in science compared to the rest of the world. Nothing shocking there really. But you know what sucks? It looks like we may really need Danica McKellar’s books more than we thought. The study found that while both boys and girls are lacking in math, girls are much harder hit:

In elementary school, girls do as well as or better in math than boys. In middle school, Mertz and her colleagues suggest, girls with an inclination for math begin to lose interest and fall behind, mostly due to peer pressure and societal expectations. Throughout middle and high school, social stigma and lack of appropriately challenging educational opportunities for the mathematically precocious becomes a hard reality in most American schools. Consequently, gifted girls, even more so than boys, often camouflage their mathematical talent to fit in well with their peers.

It seems that this is making it’s way deeper into the norm. Math, and by extension, science, is more for boys. Our culture reinforces it more than anything. Take this example of science kits that are marketed towards kids that elle found. Girls need science disguised as a spa kit, while boys get funky and fun science experiments. This is just one example of an endless stream of crappy girl toys, but I best switch gears, since this isn’t my focus…at least not this time.

Now if, after bucking the norms, they grow up into smart young women who embrace their geekiness, smarts, and femininity, then they have a tougher time. Being judged on their looks, like when they are young and attractive, is just one issue. Like the Nerd Girls, who focus on being smart with embracing their nerd aspects and femininity. The Newsweek article published on them was atrocious, with the two women authors playing up the sexiness aspect, when that’s not what they are about.

Once women graduate, get into ar career, and become successful, then it seems that the criticism increases. Take some recent examples.

A recent letter to Nature Magazine, via Sciencewoman, seems to think that women just need to not enter science if they are going to leave. The major problem with the end of the letter is the assumption that women leave because of children or family obligations that are in conflict with their career. Apparently they didn’t read The Athena Factor, which concluded that the major problems are hostility of the workplace culture and isolation. There does need to be more work done to help make science careers “family friendly”, and that would help both men and women, but blaming women for leaving, without even doing the research as to why they leave, is detrimental.

Unfortunately it’s even women in science who hurl the criticisms and insults at other women. Take a comment about Dr. Isis:

I liked it [Dr. Isis’s blog] at first but now the writing is just a steriotype [sic] and a pretty poor one at that. Thing that bothers me more is that this cartoon personality makes female scientists sound like shoe fettish [sic] ignorant bimbos.

Dr. Isis did not like this comment, as I wouldn’t either, and as a response she wrote quite a rant.

A woman who is aggressive, or who proclaims to anyone who will listen that she has the potential to achieve great things, is not a bitch. A woman who chooses to wear high-heeled shoes is not a slut, a bimbo, or a tramp. We need not be ashamed of the things that make us women (though, granted, we all embrace and express our femininity differently and that should always be acceptable). Neither our bodies, the social/gender roles we may choose to embrace, or our decision to or not to parent children, should ever have the capacity to limit our academic success. The first time it is deemed acceptable to suggest that someone is hurting science because of who they are, and not because of the quality of the science they produce, is the time I hang up my labcoat, turn out the lights in the lab, and hand the keys back to the status quo.

The whole thing is awesome, and I agree wholeheartedly. Attacking a woman with a sexist attack hurts everyone, and fighting against those type of attacks, even when you don’t agree with the woman’s positions, is how feminism works. Zuska at Scienceblogs also weighed in with more goodness:

The problem, you see, is that women aren’t really allowed to be ANYTHING in science. If you are a hot goddess then you are Not Serious and Not A Real Scientist and you are Ruining Science For Other Women Who Are More Serious and so on. If you are just a regular goddess (like Zuska) then you are an ugly hairy-legged man-hating feminazi who needs to get laid and Not A Real Scientist and Ruining Science For Other Women Who Are More Reasonable.

It’s just like always. A woman has to be smart, but not too smart, attractive, but not too attractive, want to be a mother, but not have it interfere with her career or it will hurt all women…it’s just hard to avoid any kind of criticism for being a woman in a science/math career. Hell, sometimes just being a woman in general. I just hope by the time Baby Grrl gets older it’s at least a little better for her. I don’t ever expect sexism to go away completely, but the less she has to deal with it, the better.

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Full of Fun Fridays! Child’s Play Edition

November 14th, 2008 by Jessika

Five years ago Child’s Play launched, and last week Penny Arcade made its annual announcement that the site is up and ready to receive donations!

Since 2003, over 100,000 gamers worldwide have banded together through Child’s Play, a community based charity grown and nurtured from the game culture and industry. Over two million dollars in donations of toys, games, books and cash for sick kids in children’s hospitals across North America and the world have been collected since our inception.

This year, we have continued expanding across the country and the globe. With over 45 partner hospitals and more arriving every month, you can be sure to find one from the map above that needs your help! You can choose to purchase requested items from their online retailer wish lists, or make a cash donation that helps out Child’s Play hospitals everywhere. Any items purchased through Amazon will be shipped directly to your hospital of choice, so please be sure to select their shipping address rather than your own.

When gamers give back, it makes a difference!

Last year gamers raised over $1.3 million, and they’re well on their way with over $100,000 so far. There are many ways to help out, too. Choose a hospital in your area, like I’d pick Children’s Hospital here in OKC, pick an item or two on their wish list, and Amazon will even ship it to the hospital. Easy peasy. There are tons of toys, games, and books to choose from, in all price ranges.

With the economy like it is, and with so many great charities that need help, I know it’s hard to give sometimes. But even just tossing a couple of dollars their way via PayPal helps out. If 100 people can give just $3, that would get a hospital a Wii and some left over!

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Full of Fun Fridays! Danica McKellar edition

October 3rd, 2008 by Jessika

Time for another cool and smart girl crush of mine. My generation knows Danica McKellar for Winnie Cooper on The Wonder Years, but it wasn’t her acting that made her one of my heroes. It was her excelling in mathematics and writing two books about girls and math that got her there.

She graduated from UCLA, summa cum laude, with her Bachelors of Science in Mathematics, but the awesome part is that she co-authored a math proof (PDF), which is very rare for an undergrad. I won’t even pretend I know what they’re talking about in the paper. Way over my head. But thanks to that, she has an Erdős–Bacon number of 6:

A person’s Erdős–Bacon number is the sum of one’s Erdős number—which measures the “collaborative distance” in authoring mathematical papers between that individual and Hungarian mathematician Paul Erdős—and one’s Bacon number—which represents the number of links, through roles in films, by which the individual is separated from American actor Kevin Bacon. The lower the number, the closer an individual is to Erdős and Bacon.

Wow, how geeky cool is that?

Her most recent mathematics involvement is her latest book, Kiss My Math. It was written for middle-school aged girls to help show them that math isn’t going to stop them from being anything they want to be. That math isn’t just for the stereotypical nerd, and that it’s important to learn, no matter what field they want to get into. She tackles pre-algebra, offering problems to work and help understanding how they can do it. It’s a follow up to her first book, Math Doesn’t Suck, which in an introduction to middle school math in general, and shows girls that they don’t have to hide their smarts; that they need to use them. An excerpt:

Let’s get a few things straight: Acne sucks. Mean people suck. Finding out that your boyfriend kissed another girl? That would totally suck. Too much homework, broken promises, detention, divorce, insecurities: suck, suck, suck, suck, suck.

But math is actually a good thing. Here are a few reasons why: Math builds confidence, keeps you from getting ripped off, makes you better at adjusting cookie recipes, understanding sports scores, budgeting and planning parties and vacations, interpreting how good a sale really is, and spending your allowance. It makes you feel smart when you walk in a room, prepares you for better-paying jobs, and helps you to think more logically.

Most of all, working on math sharpens your brain, actually making you smarter in all areas. Intelligence is real, it’s lasting, and no one can take it away from you. Ever.

And take it from me, nothing can take the place of the confidence that comes from developing your intelligence—not beauty, or fame, or anything else “superficial.”

That’s exactly what girls need to hear. When Baby Grrl gets old enough, I will definitely keep these books in mind. I want her to know that she doesn’t have to act dumb or dumb herself down for a boy or for anyone. I remember often doing that in class when I was young, because no one liked the smart kids. I wish I could go back in time and give myself a talking to, but I’ll have to live with trying to raise Baby Grrl, knowing what I would have liked to know back when I was a kid.

Anyway, for parents of girls to math geeks, there are plenty of people who are fans of Danica. I’ll be watching to see if she releases another math book!

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Full of Fun Fridays! Wild Cards edition

September 26th, 2008 by Jessika

On a previous Full of Fun Fridays! I talked about my girl crush on Mur Lafferty and that she wrote a superhero book called Playing For Keeps. I didn’t get into the details about what her book is about, but it relates to todays post.

It tells the story of Keepsie Branson, a bar owner in the shining metropolis of Seventh City: birthplace of super powers. Keepsie and her friends live among egotistical heroes and manipulative villains, and manage to fall directly in the middle as people with powers, but who just aren’t strong enough to make a difference. Or that’s what they’ve been told. As the city begins to melt down, it’s hard to tell who are the good guys and who are the bad.

For those of you who are fans of PFK, I’ve got the perfect book series for you. George R.R. Martin’s Wild Cards series.

Into a world hungry for peace, comes a spaceship ferrying chaos…

An alien bomb is detonated above the planet, shedding an indiscriminate gene virus on an Earth barely recovered from the horrors of World War ll. The result: Wild Cards. ACES blessed with superhuman powers and JOKERS cursed with bizarre physical and mental disfigurements.

This is their story.

And so began a series of shared-world anthologies that would bring the metahuman into the real world - our world. Everything up until 1946 is how we remember it. After that watershed year, many things will have changed.

In addition, there are people like the Second Wave main characters in PFK. Deuces were infected by the Wild Card virus and gained a useless or trivial ability, like the power to levitate a penny, grow body hair at will, or the ability to turn into a puddle of water.

Everyone has their favorite Ace. Hubby likes Fortunato, a pimp with telepathic and telekinetic powers, derived from his use of tantric sex, while I’m partial to The Sleeper, who wakes up with a different power after every time he falls asleep. He never knows if he’ll wake up as an Ace, Deuce, or even a Joker. Both of us have a strong fondness for The Great and Powerful Turtle, the world’s strongest telekinetic.

It’s really hard to get into more specifics on the characters without giving away plot spoilers. Wiki and the above official site are chocked full of them, so if you go wandering around, be warned.

I *love* this series, if you can’t tell. Our house has the first 15 books on our shelves, and I’m in the process of getting 16 and 17. Yeah, there are a lot of books out already! But don’t let that discourage you from giving it a try. There are new books coming out, with no need to read the first 17. Published earlier this year, Inside Straight brings a new batch of Aces and Jokers. The trade is coming out in November, just in time before the next book, Busted Flush comes out in December.

But if you’re interested in the series, definitely try to get some of the earlier books. At least look at the graphic novel that was adapted from some of the anthologies, due out in collected form next year. Or if you can’t wait, track down the 6 issues of the comic mini-series.

If you’re a fan, or if I’ve created one, definitely let me know!

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iPhones, evil AT&T and EFF

September 24th, 2008 by Jessika

Even though I’ve been a long time user of an iPod (my first had a click wheel, with a monochrome screen), I didn’t run out and get an iPhone. Oh, I was tempted, but there were a few reasons why I didn’t. One is just the basic rule of new gadgets; you never buy first generation stuff, no matter how cool it looks. Wait for a bit, and let them iron out the kinks and add new features that were missing the first time around. Plus the price usually comes down some as a side effect.

The big, major reason was the exclusivity of the iPhone with AT&T. It’s not that I don’t like their coverage or their pricing. It’s because they are evil. “Cooperating with the Bush administration with warrantless wiretapping, building a secret room for the NSA, and conducting major privacy violations” evil.

Last month though, a seed was planted. Joel Johnson over at BoingBoing made a compromise.

When I bought my first iPhone a year ago, I made a donation to the Electronic Frontier Foundation as a sort of sin tax. An indulgence for an indulgence. An attempt to counteract giving money to a company that has colluded illegally with the U.S. government to spy on its own citizens, has plans to try to filter the entire internet for copyright violations, and has generally shown itself to be an enemy to personal liberty and privacy.

I’m mentioning it as a challenge to other AT&T subscribers. If you can afford it, please consider making some sort of donation to the EFF. Even a one-time donation will help bolster an organization that has a long history of fighting for our rights online against attacks from profit-addled interests. By giving companies like AT&T our money we’re funding in part a fight against ourselves; a donation to the EFF tips the odds back towards even.

I kept thinking about that. Sure it would be hypocritical of me, on the one hand bashing AT&T but also using their service. But I kept coming back to it. T-Mobile is my current cell phone provider, but that doesn’t mean I can’t avoid AT&T entirely (or that they’re any less evil). All but one person among my friends & family use AT&T. Work cell phones are AT&T. My internet at home is Cox, but just like phones can, I’m sure they use the same lines, or buy bandwidth from AT&T. So I’d still be subject to wiretapping no matter what (it’s been said that all telcos but Quest participated in warrantless wiretapping anyway, and now that FISA passed and is law, it’s not even illegal now).

The last reason I haven’t got an iPhone yet may be lifted. Storage space. I currently have a 30GB iPod video, and use about 20GB currently. There’s a rumor that a 32GB iPhone will be out soon, possibly before Xmas. I’d then be able to have just one device in my purse instead of two. Plus the OH LOOK SHINY aspect of an iPhone.

If a 32GB version does come out soon…well, I may be throwing my morals out the door. I know, very disappointing. But to counter that, I will be making a monthly donation to EFF. They still have legal cases against both the NSA and AT&T, and I want them to win. I want them to make AT&T and all the other telcos change how they do business with the government with regards to wiretapping, and to make them protect our privacy. I don’t want to give up civil liberties for the illusion of privacy. We’ve had to do that enough over the past 8+ years.

Continue The Fight Against Warrantless Wiretapping

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Fallout 3 censored, thanks to Australia

September 11th, 2008 by Jessika

I’ve talked about Fallout 3 a few times here, and each time has been a full-on geek fest. This time will include a rant. Just so you know.

Now, Australia has a very long history of banning and/or censoring controversial media, which has an impact on video games like Postal and Grand Theft Auto. Usually though, the game is edited only for the version that is released in Australia, while the rest of the world enjoys the full game as intended. Changes were required by the Australian Office of Film and Literature Classification to give Fallout 3 a MA15+ rating and avoid banning entirely, and here’s what the report stated:

The game contains the option to take a variety of “chems” using a device which is connected to the character’s arm.

Corresponding with the list of various “chems” are small visual representation of the drugs, these include syringes, tablets, pill bottles, a crack-type pipe and blister packs. In the Board’s view these realistic visual representations of drugs and their delivery method bring the “science-fiction” drugs in line with “real-world” drugs.

One other reason cited was the use of the real-world drug name “Morphine”. Bethesda explains what they did in response:

Edge has been told by Bethesda vice president of PR and marketing Peter Hines that there will be no differences between the version that releases in Australia and the versions that will release in other territories, including Europe and the US.

Calling the idea of an Australia-specific version of the game a “misconception,” Hines told us, “We want to make sure folks understand that the Australian version of Fallout 3 is identical to both the UK and North American versions in every way, on every platform.”

He continued, “An issue was raised concerning references to real world, proscribed drugs in the game, and we subsequently removed those references and replaced them with fictional names. To avoid confusion among people in different territories, we decided to make those substitutions in all versions of the game, in all territories.”

Hines stated, “I didn’t want people continuing to assume the version in Australia was some altered version when it’s not.” Finally, he explained that, “There are no references to real world drugs in any version of Fallout 3.”

What really irks me, besides the obvious censorship, is that Bethesda is trying to spin this. I mean, from both a financial and business standpoint, I can totally understand wanting to keep just one version of the game for everyone. Less cost. But don’t say that it’s to “avoid confusion”, when gamers are already used to different versions of games depending on what country you live in. Dealing with different laws and regulations for ratings around the world has to be frustrating, but don’t decide for me that the censorship decided in a different country is what you will give me, just because it’s more convenient for you.

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Full of Fun Fridays! Mur Lafferty edition

August 22nd, 2008 by Jessika

Ok, I’ll admit it. I’ve got a serious girl crush on Mur. She’s a huge geek, with tons of the same interests I have! I mean, check out her very awesome Suicide Girls article where she talks about having a Kindle, but being very anti-DRM. *swoon*

The best part is that she actually does what I just talk about doing…she writes! Her superhero novel, Playing For Keeps, is out in print, and on August 25th, there will be a rush on the Amazon sales charts to push her up onto the NY Times “bestseller” status. It was released as a free, serialized, podiobook, and as an added bonus, you can download the full PDF of the novel, plus a new short story, for free!

(Back in March, Scott Sigler’s book Infected got the same treatment, and it did pretty well!)

If superheros aren’t your thing but zombies are, at the very least check out her podcast The Takeover.

About The Takeover

The Takeover is our audio blog describing Zombinc’s merger with a local web company. Be sure to take a listen to find out what goes on in a day-to-day office environment with zombies, humans, and a mad scientist. Why does a web design company need a mad scientist? Well, why not?

So check out her stuff, and at the least, head over to her site and tell her to kick ass on the 25th!

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