Dec 31, 2011
2011: A Weaselly Year in Review
2011 - a year in which I moved to a new house, applied for about a hundred jobs and never once got an interview that lead anywhere.
Dec 14, 2011
On female gaming journalists
You can go ahead and make fun of me for this, but I am a regular subscriber to Kotaku's RSS feed. I don't always read the articles - often times I just skim headlines, skipping over anything that has to do with current press darlings Battlefield 3 and Call of Duty, and anything that happens to have the "by Tim Rogers" by-line attached. But occasionally I'll find an article that makes some outlandish claim, like "[game] is sexist and here's why!" These articles' authors often spend more time going on about the fact that they are women, than about why they feel that the protagonist of whichever recent game is not an example of a strong female lead.
Here's the thing, ladies (chivalrous context, not patronizing). Don't spend so much time reinforcing your own gender through the text. If we're at all curious about whether the article's writer has boobs or not, we'll read the by-line. You don't need to make any effort whatsoever to differentiate yourself from your male counterparts. In the end, readers such as myself are only interested in reading, not about who's doing the writing. Just write things about games and I'll read them. Simple as that. (And preferably, keep on topic, because I can't stand an article that gets my attention by claiming to be about Metal Gear Solid, only for it to turn into a long, heated discussion over how much the author paid for jeans - hello again, Tim Rogers.)
I only subscribe to Kotaku because I can't find any more up-to-date and relatively unbiased source for news on the latest major video games. If I had an alternative that covered all platforms without the possibility that they are accepting bribes for conveniently leaving out negative paragraphs in their reviews, I'd gladly boot Kotaku out of my RSS reader entirely. Does Gawker Media have any editors on staff, or are their writers able to just directly post to the site?
...Man, I should quit ranting like this, especially since I just tied the Blaugh to my Google+ feed.
Here's the thing, ladies (chivalrous context, not patronizing). Don't spend so much time reinforcing your own gender through the text. If we're at all curious about whether the article's writer has boobs or not, we'll read the by-line. You don't need to make any effort whatsoever to differentiate yourself from your male counterparts. In the end, readers such as myself are only interested in reading, not about who's doing the writing. Just write things about games and I'll read them. Simple as that. (And preferably, keep on topic, because I can't stand an article that gets my attention by claiming to be about Metal Gear Solid, only for it to turn into a long, heated discussion over how much the author paid for jeans - hello again, Tim Rogers.)
I only subscribe to Kotaku because I can't find any more up-to-date and relatively unbiased source for news on the latest major video games. If I had an alternative that covered all platforms without the possibility that they are accepting bribes for conveniently leaving out negative paragraphs in their reviews, I'd gladly boot Kotaku out of my RSS reader entirely. Does Gawker Media have any editors on staff, or are their writers able to just directly post to the site?
...Man, I should quit ranting like this, especially since I just tied the Blaugh to my Google+ feed.
Dec 7, 2011
If Web Browsers Were Video Games...
I'm pretty sure I haven't seen this done anywhere else on the 'net, so here goes.
Mozilla Firefox is Doom, because despite having been based on an antiquated source, the community has turned it into something that remains popular, and has made mods for it that make it do things that browsers really shouldn't have to do. All that, and the latest version has far higher system requirements than it really ought to need.
Google Chrome is Bejeweled, because its simple aesthetics and uncomplicated design have drawn people to it, but beneath the surface is something just as sophisticated as everything else.
Opera is Civilization, because it has a moderately-sized group of dedicated followers, and has loads of options to adjust on the surface, but some users just can't get into something that deep.
Safari is Marathon, because it does try so hard to be Firefox, and while it does have its devotees, the Firefox users tend to notice that something's not quite right about how it's put together.
Lynx is ADOM, because who needs graphics and mouse support to surf the net?
Konqueror is SuperTux, because nobody really seems to know what it is except the Linux folk, and it's really not quite as well put together as the more mainstream stuff.
Internet Explorer is Solitaire, because it comes with Windows and the people who use it don't realize that there's anything better (or can't install new programs).
Netscape is Wolfenstein 3D, because while it might be internally about the same as Firefox, it's really showing its age and can't quite do the same stuff that its younger brother can do these days.
Iceweasel is Hell On Earth 2, because it couldn't be called Doom despite being pretty much the same damn thing.
Chromium is Diamond Mine, or pretty much the same thing as Chrome except named differently due to being released under different circumstances.
iCab is MacPipes, because it's generally nice to have on older machines, but doesn't really do anything complicated, and at the end of its life, was still sold as shareware.
Haiku isn't really anything, because try as I might, I can't think of any BeOS-specific games.
Mozilla Firefox is Doom, because despite having been based on an antiquated source, the community has turned it into something that remains popular, and has made mods for it that make it do things that browsers really shouldn't have to do. All that, and the latest version has far higher system requirements than it really ought to need.
Google Chrome is Bejeweled, because its simple aesthetics and uncomplicated design have drawn people to it, but beneath the surface is something just as sophisticated as everything else.
Opera is Civilization, because it has a moderately-sized group of dedicated followers, and has loads of options to adjust on the surface, but some users just can't get into something that deep.
Safari is Marathon, because it does try so hard to be Firefox, and while it does have its devotees, the Firefox users tend to notice that something's not quite right about how it's put together.
Lynx is ADOM, because who needs graphics and mouse support to surf the net?
Konqueror is SuperTux, because nobody really seems to know what it is except the Linux folk, and it's really not quite as well put together as the more mainstream stuff.
Internet Explorer is Solitaire, because it comes with Windows and the people who use it don't realize that there's anything better (or can't install new programs).
Netscape is Wolfenstein 3D, because while it might be internally about the same as Firefox, it's really showing its age and can't quite do the same stuff that its younger brother can do these days.
Iceweasel is Hell On Earth 2, because it couldn't be called Doom despite being pretty much the same damn thing.
Chromium is Diamond Mine, or pretty much the same thing as Chrome except named differently due to being released under different circumstances.
iCab is MacPipes, because it's generally nice to have on older machines, but doesn't really do anything complicated, and at the end of its life, was still sold as shareware.
Haiku isn't really anything, because try as I might, I can't think of any BeOS-specific games.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)