Check out the announcement.
Synthetic World News
As some of you may know, Silver Hand is the server I play on. I have three questions for these guys:
1. Why did you choose an RP server? Arguably the behavior and how people communicate in an RP server is different than the stuff you would see in a PvE or PvP server…
2. Why did you choose Alliance? Horrible decision, imho, because you’ve basically sided with the dominant culture and fed more fire into the faction imbalance. There’s more to see on the Horde side simply because we’ve had to form a tighter knit network and we lament our oppression all the time. Well… at least that’s the conventional wisdom of Horde players. We’ll see if it lives up, I suppose.
3. Why did you choose Silver Hand? One of the most crowded, lag-ridden servers available… odd choice.
Lots of stuff happening in guild and real-life right now… How much do I post on this blog? What is the purpose of this blog? Academia or the other stuff in my life? whatever.
In other news, I finally created a new .sig! Email me if you want to see it. :P
I had an awesome meeting with Lisa Galarneau today. She is working on her PhD, works for Microsoft games research, and runs socialstudiesgames.com. Really cool person.
We traded info about research and people. It would be great to make stronger connections between MS and UW. She also gave me feedback on my recent paper on coop and camaraderie in WoW. Really useful, Lisa…thanks!
It seems like everytime I feel like shit about academia and games research and my place in it, I meet someone like Lisa and come away reenergized. :) But I forgot to show off my DS Lite…
Crap.
Rather than linking to a news site, I’ll link to the thread on my guild’s forum about Paladins and Shammies being available to both factions because I’m self-serving like that…
Nice way for Blizzard to solve the problem about certain raid bosses being easy-mode for the Alliance. Not.
I am totally convinced this is the best gaming related thing I’ve ever bought.
The reason is the same reason why I am scared to hell about it. I can game anywhere. (well, except when it is too bright outside)
Yesterday, I played at a local park. Holy shit; I got some sun.
Aaron is in town and wanted to get a portable gaming device for his plane trips… He decided on a DS Lite and since Ari has a DS also, I decided to get one, too.
We found out that a lot of games have a downloadable component which other DS owners can get to play certain game modes without owning the game cart. So we played a little Mario Kart, Metroid, FIFA, and Advance Wars. The Advance Wars Combat mode is fine but some sort of turn-based mode for download would have been great. The FIFA game advertises on the box that the download mode is from 2-4 players but they lie; it’s only for 2 players. Totally lame.
My first ever portable… can I afford it? We’ll see…
I learned the word for stupid in French on Sunday! Hooray!
Zidane, the guy who made me secretly root for France in a predominantly Italian backing room by showing some crazy-ass fancy stuff in the previous games up to the final of the World Cup 2006, is stupid for doing that headbutt and getting a red card in the last game he’ll ever play (he announced his retirement before the match). What a way to end a career… and he ended up making me root for Italy, just like this woman named Lindsay.
So, maaybe what was said to him by that Italian player really, really sucked. But these guys are professional football players. Don’t they shit-talk to each other all the time?
My brother stayed with us for a week while attending a blacksmithing conference, ABANA. Some of them are more blacksmith craftsmen while others are more blacksmith artists with varying degrees of skill in each category. It was cool having him around and explaining some of the blacksmithing culture to us. Check out Max’s work!
Well, that’s a generalization, but it seems pretty clear that words of encouragement from our peers in the academe doesn’t happen often enough. I mean, there’s a dichotomy between wanting to make a name for ourselves and at the same time being really, really happy and proud of other people when they succeed. When we are really, really happy for others, we aren’t letting them know well enough, which translates to when it is our turn to be proud of our achievements, we don’t get enough encouragement from our peers.
Kurt Squire, professor at UWisc Madison, and a driving force in the new wave of video game studies, recently posted a comment about how Bill had a positive influence on his life when he was going through graduate studies and again as a new professional. I wonder if he ever told Bill that, and it makes me have to relook at myself and wonder if I’ve been letting others know how much influence they have on me. Come to think of it… Kurt, we hardly know each other but you’ve always been very helpful whenever I sought advice. Thank you.
The former dean of engineering at UW and more recently the chancellor at UCSC, Denise Denton , recently committed suicide. No one has formally said this, but it is generally understood that Bill also committed suicide. What is it about this profession? I think part of it is that we aren’t letting each other know we appreciate each other as people and as academics.
It also has been a minor shock to my world view. For some reason I had always assumed acts of suicide were typical of angsty teens or 20-somethings going through deep depression. To see two people who were nearing the end of their successful careers… I dunno… shock. Makes me wonder about what success means.
