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BallGum

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Everything posted by BallGum

  1. I don't care if it is dumb. As long as it will shut up some of the idiots trying to change the industry to their own subjectively good ideals. It won't affect what I buy.
  2. Also, prizes and large sums of money help legitimise industries to the eyes of the average Joe.
  3. I can't wait to get my hands on one. In the meantime I'm still learning more C++ and working on problems from project euler.
  4. I had completely forgotten about that. I don't think it will be necessary though. As far as I can tell, apps don't care if they run on ART or Dalvik.
  5. This was a good article on An and just looking over the new runtime in Android 5.0 Lollipop. http://www.anandtech.com/show/8231/a-closer-look-at-android-runtime-art-in-android-l/3
  6. They're getting a lot smarter that's for sure. A friend of mine had his twitter account compromised, which sent out links to all his followers with a message like "haha I loved this article you wrote" and the link went back to a fake twitter asking you to sign in.
  7. I'm a little annoyed even my Nexus 7 hasn't got it yet. Been looking forward to the performance bumps and the new look.
  8. Specifically I mean the plot. I like the universe, I like the core ideas, but, to my knowledge at least, the in game plot has always seemed a little weak.
  9. The games are amazing. I can see the appeal for the films, it's just not for me.
  10. I've been a huge fan of the transformers comics, which were really good, but the movies... Screw Michael Bay.
  11. I have read a few. Cole Protocol, Ghosts of Onyx, and one of the new ones released to explain halo four (it was about a forerunner whose father was a prominent Builder and also about how the Didact came back).The books are pretty good but not amazing IMO.
  12. I'd wait till I watch it myself, though my expectations were never high to begin with really. Halo's story has always been massively overrated (although its lore / universe has been really cool).
  13. It's more about the frame of mind from the guy doing (or not) the victim blaming. If he has acknowledged that event x happened and this person is a victim, and is then blaming the victim for what had happened to her, then that is definitely victim blaming. I may have not made it clear / misunderstood. I'm saying people who retweet Anita's tweets with the hashtag of gamergate would contribute toward the tweet count. I thought you tried to argue against that by saying "However, let's even assume that you have done that, what does it show? Aren't retweets a reflection of the population's feelings as much as original tweets? I hope you see that point, and I don't have to go on." I can see where you're coming from when saying it's not the right metric, but I think it is the right metric for judging whether the movement as a whole is about ethics or if it's purely a sexist movement. I, personally, would just dismiss that 0.5% as trolls / people out to cause trouble who may happen to be sexist or so on. Maybe that's irresponsible of me. Oxford Dictionary: Prolonged cruel or unjust treatment or exercise of authority. It's possible for anyone to hate and oppress any other group. For example, using stereotypes and applying it to all members of a certain group could be considered sexist: i.e. women being manipulative, or mean being violent and loud. Another way of sexism is hypersexualising things. This can also be applied to both genders.
  14. Firstly, I don't appreciate a condescending attitude. It adds nothing to a discussion. I am a maths student. Your maths is sound but what you are trying to infer from it is not. The fact is that the issue is more complex. There is a variance in the number of followers, as well as their "importance" regarding the gamergate movement. If we take a look at the followers, we see that Briana Wu has a following of 28K, while Nathan Grayson has a following of just 6K. Having more followers increases the likelihood of getting tweets retweeted. We have to include how "involved" they are with gamergate in addition to how much they tweet themselves. More tweets = more retweets. Anita, Zoe, and Briana are rather active on twitter and tend to speak out more against gamergate and criticise them, making it more likely for their followers to retweet. If you are attempting to infer that the popularity of an opinion increases its veracity, that's a fallacy. Absolutely. He has already asserted that she was raped, and is then blaming her. Agree somewhat here also. I don't think it's that insensitive. (Personally I'd make sure that person was first ok and safe before prying into the issue a little more). Also, questions must be asked at some point. That's one of the issues I have. When can I start asking questions and looking into this? Now, let's spin that analogy. What if you were accused for something you didn't do? You are immediately shunned, you aren't allowed to ask for proof, and, if there is proof, you aren't allowed to ask questions? It's an unfair system. My main point is that if someone says they are a victim of something, the burden of proof is on them. Then the accused has to refute that evidence. And then the jury makes up its mind if the accuser was actually a victim of something. That's the thing with Anita. At the moment I'm not blaming her for being harassed. I'm questioning the harassment itself. It has to be questioned and analysed at some point, right? I hope you at least see the point I'm making here. This point is something I utterly disagree with. Even if someone is lying we must take their side? If they're lying then they're not the victim in this case, the person they're accusing is. Imagine how screwed up that person's life must get because someone lied. Again, there are also other factors to consider; if the person would gain something from lying, and so on. I don't know. The numbers are there. 10% of tweets were aimed at these individuals. Of that 10%, 95% was either positive or neutral. 0.1 * 0.05 = 0.005. 0.5% of all gamergate tweets were negative to these individuals.
  15. I actually think we shouldn't really be arguing at all. I agree that games do have elements of sexism in them. I agree that a minority of #gamergate is sexist / are trolls. What my main complaint is that this doesn't automatically make every other point completely false just because of the actions of a few. Anyhow, I think I have already said all I have. Just going to leave this up so that people can read through and come to their own conclusion. There's no point for all the other members here to continue bashing our heads together to persuade each other otherwise.
  16. It absolutely challenges it. It suggests that the vast majority of tweets aren't directed to women. Also, as I said earlier, the reason for the larger amount of tweets at the women is because of their followers retweeting things that they say. It has nothing to do with sexism within gamergate. Even if it were not so, you are suggesting that the entirety of gamergate is about sexual harassment due to the actions of a minority. That's silly. As for victim blaming, we have not asserted that she is a victim. I'm not blaming her for what's happening, I am saying that I don't believe her evidence because of reason X or Y. That is not victim blaming. If someone claimed they were raped I would be supportive but also ask for evidence and see if that evidence is plausible. If I feel he or she is lying then I'd say so. I'm doing the same thing here. That's not victim blaming, that's just investigating.
  17. In that example we have already asserted that your friend was raped, so you'd obviously be caring and helpful. Victim blaming is when you have already asserted that someone is indeed a victim and then you blame it on them. It would be victim blaming if I said it is all Anita's fault for being harassed. It is not victim blaming when I am calling her evidence into question. Here is wikipedia: "Victim blaming occurs when the victim of a crime or any wrongful act is held entirely or partially[citation needed] responsible for the harm that befell them." Even if we use your definition of victim blaming it would still fall flat. She has presented her facts. And here is an article that blows Newsweek pretty much out of the water. Also, that doesn't refute the fact that the vast majority of tweets were deemed neutral. Additionally, the newsweek article's statistics included followers who retweet tweets of people. That would explain why some of the women have higher number of tweets than the men. If this doesnt conclusively prove that gamergate is about ethics and not about sexism I don't know what will. I'd advise checking out the r/KotakuInAction subreddit. They do pretty well.
  18. Those are heavily slanted articles. This part in particular stood out at me: " What it comes down to is this: an intelligent woman uploaded an academic analysis of females as tropes in video games, and this caused such fury that one person created a specific Twitter account just to abuse her. This Twitter user sought out her home address, and her parents’ home address. He said he would kill her parents, after telling her he would “drink your blood out of your cunt.” Because she analyzed a video game." Her analysis was far from academic and held hardly any studies or research, unlike Christina H Sommer's (I think that's her name). Thunderf00t has a good breakdown of that. I'll link it. I condemn harassment just like any other sane individual but I have to question was she really harassed there? There have been a lot of people analysing that screenshot and it doesn't add up. The span between tweets are very small, and yet despite this, the tweets are grammatically correct, suggesting the tweets were written somewhere else then copy/pasted and tweeted. This in itself isn't conclusive at all but further along we notice that she is not logged in. And the time between the last tweet is just large enough for someone to log out of an account. I think it's definitely arguable that it may have been faked. And before someone calls me out on victim blaming... This is not victim blaming. Victim blaming is when we have confirmed that someone is a victim of something, and then we blame it on the victim: for example we confirm that someone was indeed raped, but we say it's their own fault for dressing provocatively. At this point I'm saying she's not a victim. We haven't confirmed that yet. Now, if it turns out that these definitely weren't faked, I apologise and take back what I said. But I also don't think that the actions of a minority should mean that the actions of the moderate majority get disregarded entirely. Guilt by association needs to stop. Edit: Kind of getting tired of the "sexism" argument. How do I conclusively prove gg is not sexist? Oh wait, that burden of proof is on you. What I can provide evidence for is that it is about ethics. Why are all media trying so hard to silence it, and write such hugely slanted articles? Because it affects them. Because it is calling them out. Additionally we have some of these media publications writing out code of ethics. We also have Newsweek inadvertently stating that 95% of the tweets with the gamergate hash tag were neutral. That's extremely high especially considering the low barrier to entry with a hash tag.
  19. If you don't want to know about it, fine. But it's not crap; it's a real issue that needs addressing. And it's still going on because a lot of people remain ignorant about the whole thing.
  20. Quote: While I appreciate the calm tones I feel that this video does not give an accurate assessment of the situation and furthermore continues to push a harmful narrative that really doesn't seem to have too much basis in reality. So it's important to really know the history behind it. The catalyst was a long post by an ex of an indie developer called Zoe Quinn. In this post, it alleged a conflict of interest between a Kotaku journalist and the developer. This information turned out to be inaccurate to a point, it alleged that the journalist (Nathan Grayson) had written a positive review of the game while in a romantic relationship with the developer. This is not true, however what is true is that Grayson wrote an article using Quinn as a source on March 31st of this year, regarding a game jam, in which he promoted her game. In "early April", the two began a romantic relationship. Editor in Chief at Kotaku Stephen Totilo claims he does not see a problem with this, since the romantic relationship began after the article was written, however many people including myself disagree, since it is unlikely that the relationship suddenly sprang out of nowhere and that a friendship was in place prior to this. I and many supporting Gamergate believe this should have been disclosed or that Grayson should have recused himself from writing this article. Kotaku disagrees. However, while this and many other examples of corruption and nepotism are core to what keeps Gamergate moving along, it wasn't even called Gamergate back then, it was called Quinnspiracy or later, Burgers and fries. These two names were abandoned because people wanted to disassociate with Zoe Quinn and any trolling and harassment that had gone on and focus on ethical issues. After 10+ articles were released in the course of one day, claiming "gamers are dead" and using hurtful and incendiary language to condemn the identity of many innocent people, #Gamergate exploded, after the term was coined by actor Adam Baldwin. It was a consumer backlash against anti-consumer articles. Many people felt angry and alienated by them and in my opinion rightfully so. In the course of this, Anita Sarkeesian released her latest video and inserted herself into the discussion. She published alleged death threats from an anonymous internet troll and then decided to go on the offensive, repeatedly associating these threats with the entirity of those involved with Gamergate and getting directly involved in the hashtag by posting constantly negative attacks. She has nothing to do with journalistic ethics, however she inserted herself into the discussion. I personally have no doubt that she received these threats, death-threats are unfortunately very common online but I do doubt their credibility and who exactly sent them. We simply do not know. The problem with a hashtag is that there are no entry requirements. Anyone can post and claim to be associated with the movement, however it is leaderless and the actions of one person being tied to the entire movement seem fairly illogical and require some serious use of the guilt by association fallacy. In response to a one-sided narrative by the media, proclaiming all those involved to be misogynist, disgusting white male sexists, groups of those claiming to be part of Gamergate raised money for charity, hunted down and reported harassment efforts and even tracked down someone who had been sending Sarkeesian death-threats. Unfortunately Sarkeesian has refused to take this information and use it to press charges for some reason. The idea that in order to discuss journalistic ethics you must disassociate yourself from harassment is a frustrating one. These people already tried that multiple times. They raised over $70,000 for a campaign by the Fine Young Capitalists to help women make videogames. Critics called it "weaponised charity". They raised money for anti-bullying causes after Gawker employee Sam Biddle, tweeted to his tens of thousands of followers that he endorsed the bullying of nerds. They changed hashtags twice to disassociate from harassment but what good does that do when the entire media is against them? Ashly, you say that we cannot talk about ethics until we stop harassing people. I say, we cannot talk about ethics because you won't stop talking about us allegedly harassing people. What is the first law of the internet? DON'T FEED THE TROLLS. By pushing this harassment narrative, you are giving these awful people victory and marginalizing the moderate majority who do want a serious conversation to happen about journalistic ethics. I would strongly urge you to come to the table and discuss ethical issues, freeze out those who would harass others, just as popular Gamergate forums like Kotakuinaction on Reddit have been doing for months. This industry has problems that need addressing but this is not the way to go about it. The longer the harassment narrative goes on, the worse this gets, the more frustrated alienated gamers of all races, genders, sexual orientations and creeds involved in this to improve their hobby and passion become. Do we honestly believe this is an organized effort to drive women out of the industry? If that were true, why on earth would the targets be a controversial Youtube critic and two practically unknown indie developers? Wouldn't people be trying to drive out women of note in the industry who work at major studios and have real influence over the direction of games? If this is a harassment campaign aimed at driving women out of gaming, it is the single most unsuccessful one in the history of mankind. Indeed, there is far more to this. Harassment has happened, I will not deny that, but it is not the responsibility of the moderate majority to apologise for the behavior of trolls. It is indeed partly the responsibility of the media for encouraging said trolls and rewarding their behavior. Yes, we want to talk about ethics. There are plenty of examples that need resolving. This all started with Nathan Graysons relationship, Kotaku believes he did nothing wrong, some of us disagree. Patricia Hernandez of Kotaku wrote glowing articles about developers she was close friends with and in one case, even lived with as a roommate. No apologies were given, disclosure was given retroactively. Said journalist also wrote an article accusing a card game developer (nothing to do with videogames btw) of rape and after he defended himself, complained that he hadnt done enough to start a positive conversation about "rape culture". This is a man who had a potentially life-destroying allegation held over his head and Kotaku had no issue writing about it and presuming his guilt. Danielle of Polygon gave Gone Home, a game which her friend was the sound designer of, a 10/10 perfect score, she did not disclose her relationship with said person. Destructoid reviewed Borderlands 2 for which the brother of Ashley Burch was a writer and also an ex-staff member of Destructoid. This was only disclosed much later when they fell under scrutiny, they had not thought to disclose it prior. A group called GamejournoPros with a large number of "competiting" journalists allegedly colluded to blacklist a journalist called Alistair Pinsof and also discussed sending letters of support and gifts to Zoe Quinn, clearly not realising the wall that should exist between subject and journalist. Indeed one of them even referred to her as a colleague. The release of so many articles proclaiming gamers dead on the same day raised questions of collusion that have yet to be answered. However, if you need real proof that this is about ethics, you need only look at the following. The Escapist, Polygon and Kotaku all revised their ethics policies soon after this began in direct response to it. IGN and various Youtubers have either published ethics codes or intend to do so. If this wasn't about ethics, why would you do that? I call on everyone to reject harassment in all its forms, but simultaneously realise that the few do not represent the many. Do not engage in guilt by association and instead treat people as people, not some labeled box of sub-humans online for you to attack and dismiss. Gamers are very much alive and they are more diverse than ever. It disturbs me greatly that anyone would claim otherwise or even worse, attack their identity. Gamers deserve better media, everyone deserves better media. Let's discuss how to make that happen and let's not indulge the whims of trolls and bigots. Thought it would be good to share as he outlined the key issues very clearly.
  21. Yup, that game is looking awesome. Too bad they cancelled the kick starter. Not sure about how it will end up.Trailer for those who want to know more: Reflex Movement Overview: http://youtu.be/xxnwax7jzYs Basically like quake but with a robotic theme and a couple interesting new ideas.
  22. While I think that was a huge douche move by both companies, it doesn't really have much to do with this as far as I see it...
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