zircon
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Posts posted by zircon
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Yes but that's not how ethics work. As I mentioned, not sure if you read it (???), but ethics are quite often about avoiding even the impression of impropriety. If you agree that Kotaku's post about clarifying ethical responsibilities of journalists was, in your OWN words, "all good stuff" then don't you ALSO agree that the public discussion of questionable ethics regarding this topic was justified in the first place? And NOT just a private matter for which "it's none of your business" was 100% acceptable? Also, I thought your point was that it was purely speculation that it resulted in anything, not that it DIDN'T result in anything, which are two different concepts? When did you leap from it being pure speculation to it being factually incorrect?
How can you have it both ways? How can you feel that Kotaku's post clarifying/explaining ethical policies was positive & beneficial while at the same time insisting that the conversation that sparked it did not deserve public scrutiny to begin with? It's a somewhat paradoxical position, imo... I'd love an explanation, or perhaps I've actually changed your mind?
There might be a miscommunication here... Kotaku said there was no impropriety on the part of the journalist who wrote about Quinn. Their post about tightening standards were for two other cases / writers, one of whom was writing about a friend's project, another who was using Patreon to support the subject of an article. There was 0 issue with the writer whom Quinn had a relationship with.
If you're making the argument that the ends didn't justify the means - that the topic in the abstract, or with names/specifics removed, would have potentially warranted discussion, but not at the expense of Zoe's privacy & airing what was basically dirty laundry, well, I'm right there with you. That's squarely on the ex-boyfriend though, right?We're kind of on the same page. Of course I think that ethics in game journalism are an important subject, and this scandal as a whole has drawn more attention to the issue even as it does NOT relate to Quinn (i.e. the two other writers on Kotaku). But the blame isn't solely on the ex-boyfriend, it also falls on the legions of people who decided to harass Quinn & her friends / supporters (including Danny B, among others). It's depressing to see so many people on sites like Reddit basically cheer on the slandering of Quinn & others, saying she "deserved it" etc. It's been an EXTREMELY shitty way to have a conversation about an issue. About as shitty as one could imagine.
Did I claim equivalency? Where did I say that? Quote me where I said that those things were equivalent. They are not. I did not say that they were. I did not say those things were equivalent. Nowhere did I say those things are equivalent. I did not mention, imply, or otherwise state that those things are equivalent. No aspect of my writing indicated a belief that those things are equivalent.You wrote "the reaction in kind"... which I interpreted to mean a response "in the same way", which is the definition of those words.
...but because of the antagonists involved (MRA-types and genuine troll/misogynists), the reaction in kind has been QUITE ridiculous...I don't think any reaction to the MRA-types and troll/misogynists has been "in kind", because nobody on Quinn's side AFAIK is executing the same level of harassment, doxxing, hacking, photo sharing, privacy violations. It was so bad on Reddit that r/games banned all threads on the subject for several days, because, according to the moderators, they could not effectively moderate threads due to the overwhelming amount of personal information being posted (i.e. phone numbers, addresses, etc.) along with personal threats.
Given that, on ANY topic involving feminism & games, we are almost GUARANTEED to see worms emanating from the woodwork who pull shit like this, don't you realize this means you'll ALWAYS be saying, for ANY debate on pretty much ANYTHING, "Well, WE'RE not the ones posting nude photos and making physical threats, so WE must be RIGHT!!"?? Isn't that a massive hole in accountability and ANY potential for discourse?? Isn't that a logical/rhetorical blank check - as long as these bozos keep showing up & pulling their shit, we're irrefutable & infallible?You might be surprised to learn that I agree with you here. After all, since the beginning of this thread I've come to disagree with a number of views/opinions expressed in the Tropes videos. I've merely said that in the case of the Quinn discussion, one "side" has behaved far worse than the other, which is not really in dispute I think. It makes it a lot harder to have a tempered conversation on the matter, because you have to parse between people who are disagreeing for logical reasons, and people who are out to attack/slander women for being women (or whatever other reasons they might have).
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I'm just wondering on this:
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http://knowyourmeme.com/photos/815645-quinnspiracy
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http://knowyourmeme.com/photos/817752-quinnspiracy
Does this also fall under "Not any of your business" umbrella of protection? Were these faked?
I agree with TB's opinion on this as noted earlier. I don't condone the use of DMCA like this. However, it's quite possible that someone NOT her did this, either as a misguided attempt at helping OR to make her look bad. Considering the lengths to which people have gone to do both of these things, both are very plausible.
Well, we know she DID sleep with the Kotaku dude, right? I mean, he indicated so, himself. What we don't know - the speculation part - is whether it did her or her game any good. It doesn't seem like it, since as you mention he didn't review it and only mentioned it briefly. She's also (alleged) to have slept with a previous employer. Again, one can only speculate. Ethics, however, are often about eliminating even the suggestion of impropriety by removing speculation from the equation. That's on journos and employers, too, of course.Sure... Kotaku released two statements on the matter.
http://kotaku.com/in-recent-days-ive-been-asked-several-times-about-a-pos-1624707346 <- Short version here is that their romantic relationship began after his one and only article mentioning her. Seems open-and-shut.
http://kotaku.com/a-brief-note-about-the-continued-discussion-about-kotak-1627041269 <- Basically adding that they're taking the matter of integrity seriously and making strides to ensure ethical journalism on their end. etc etc. All good stuff.
What I want to know, Andy, is where was "It's all just speculation" when you were talking about Ferguson? Because I agree, there IS a lot of speculation here, but it's a similar instance where there are a lot of indicators that point in a given direction, that are hard to ignore... but it's also hard to be sure. I feel like Ferguson was (and still is) a similar thing - I don't want to derail too awful much, but I appreciate your refrain from leaping to judgments and your skepticism surrounding sources of information in THIS instance, I just don't know where they were when we were discussing THAT topic. Seems highly inconsistent? Or, rather, seems consistent with skepticism and speculation only being worthwhile depending on your ideological stance on the topic...Definitely a derail
If I were to summarize my opinion on Ferguson, it's that I personally find it MORE likely that the shooting of Brown was not in self-defense given the facts we know - although if I were on a jury, I would not be able to say that without a reasonable doubt given current info. I find the other explanation, of Brown turning + charging, far less plausible. That's about it. The rest of my opinion is more about how the local police botched things up.It's clearly a public matter. Whether it should be or not is up for debate; whether it IS seems rather tangibly obvious. I think people ARE almost implicitly defending that behavior by employing a mob mentality that is casting any aspersions on Zoe whatsoever as being misogynistic groupthink. No matter how ugly the ugliest of trolls gets, I don't think responding to them or criticizing them should morph into attacking ANYONE who might find certain aspects of this incident disturbing or believe, however mistakenly, that it warrants public debate. You're saying the censorship is "so-called" but I'm wondering why the qualifier was needed? Because it's alleged, or because you don't view it as legit censorship? Using DMCA to get rid of stuff that's clearly fair use, because YOU don't like what it's saying, is to me clearly censorship. As to the question of it being alleged, there appears to be proof. Also, many of those defending Zoe are doing so in the form of attacking people:Just look at the shit TB got for making the relatively benign points that he did.
Well, a few points here... one is that again, we don't know who sent the DMCA request, whether it was faked, etc. Yes, a DMCA is actual censorship. But I think when a moderator of a user-curated section of a private website deletes posts that they believe are breaking the rules... calling that 'censorship' cheapens the word, IMO. When we delete shitty posts on OCR, would you call that censorship? Deleting spam from a Facebook page? I mean if you do, OK I guess. The dictionary definition of the word seems stronger.
https://twitter.com/devincf/status/503986333334114304This guy appears to be a complete idiot. First he said he hated anti-quinn people more than ISIS, then he attempted to backpedal and referred to it as a joke. Which... these guys are actively beheading people.... maybe not good joke material?
OK, so people posted dumb opinions on Twitter. TB got called out. Sure. I'm not sure I see the problem here. People aren't posting TB's personal information all over the internet, or threatening his family, or posting private nude photos, etc. There is a huge disparity between those actions - wouldn't you agree? Arguing on Twitter vs. criminal actions?
More on the "none of your business" line... does it hold up? I can see making a compelling argument that it's the way things SHOULD be, but I don't see much evidence that it's the way things ARE. I don't see it being used as an effective defense by anyone accused of anything that SHOULD be personal, and I feel like when someone makes a public accusation that involves five other people (one of whom has confirmed), numerous pieces of evidence, etc., the cat's out of the bag. If you believe this is still a viable, respectable response, I'd only suggest that you remember taking the high road here and think about whether you have in the past, or will in the future. "It's none of your business" doesn't hold water for most people, when it comes down to it, and I'd personally argue that once people start putting their professional reputations on the line to defend you, and you let them, it's all the more problematic.I think it holds up in this specific case, given the facts that we know. If her sexual history resulted in any positive press for her game, then it might be relevant (albeit the public is still not 'entitled' to know this, we're talking about video game blogs and not matters of national security). But the point that I'm going to keep coming back to is that it DIDN'T result in anything.
http://ogeeku.com/2014/08/31/war-over-zoe-quinn-nowinners/
This article seems to have it right.... no winners. It was a loser of a battle, but because of the antagonists involved (MRA-types and genuine troll/misogynists), the reaction in kind has been QUITE ridiculous and childish and disturbing in its own right.I'll only reiterate that there's a big difference between people being argumentative and belligerent with your opinions on Twitter, and people posting private information, pictures, home addresses and phone numbers of family members, hacking Skype accounts, etc. Let's not have a false equivalency here.
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http://knowyourmeme.com/photos/815645-quinnspiracy
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A couple points
[*]Nothing her ex has alleged has been directly refuted/contradicted, has it? I was under the impression she basically agreed to all those things, did not refute the evidence he presented as being false/doctored? Just to be clear, airing personal dirty laundry = not cool, at all. Doesn't make it false, though.
That's not accurate. What she posted on that specific subject was: "I’m not going to talk about it. I will never talk about it. It is not your goddamned business."
[*]"Most game journalists and developers are on the developer's side" vs. "various randos" - this sounds an awful lot like a combination of bandwagon & appeal to authority fallacies. Does being a game journalist make you right, and being a "various rando" make you wrong?No, I was just describing the situation, albeit disparaging one group more than the other simply because one group has people doing the 'doxxing', nude photo sharing, family harassment, rape threats etc...
[*]Is TotalBiscuit a rando? JonTron? The former made his thoughts known, the latter at the least has indicated that the issue is far from clear and that bullying/mob mentality is taking effect just as much, if not moreso, in her defense.TB's original post made a few points.
1. He doesn't support using DMCA to suppress criticism. However, whether or not Quinn did this is entirely speculation, which he also said.
2. He said that he takes issue with nepotism in games journalism and that he would be disappointed IF the allegations were true. However again, he said that you can't really know whether they are or not.
These are both fair points. All of this is based on speculation. There is only one journalist writing for Kotaku who was confirmed to have been in a relationship with Quinn at some point. He wrote one piece mentioning her game - not reviewing it - before their relationship started.
"Misogyny" really DOES start to lose its teeth as a label when it's used willy-nilly... all I'm seeing are a bunch of posts from people who want to spin the whole story to support their own individual worldview. Assuming the information is true, I don't know too many people who would approve of someone cheating on their partner five times, having unprotected sex, and not informing them. That's not behavior to champion, or defend. Most of what I'm seeing here is a "my enemies' enemies are my friends" mentality, which has never seemed particularly admirable to me, personally...Sure, but people aren't really defending that behavior. They're saying it's not a public matter, which it isn't. I think the shitstorm - as it were - is more because of the so-called censorship of the matter. And I think THAT is a very difficult issue, as you and I well know as moderators of a public forum.
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Her vengeful ex-boyfriend is the person who kicked all of this off, just put two and two together.
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People are getting harassed and exposed from both sides.
Meanwhile' date=' one side is trying to find proof for their claims while the other side is screaming "misogyny!". Guess which side is which.
That's all I'm gonna say in this thread because I don't wanna feel more stupid than I already feel for wasting my time on this whole controversy
[/quote']People are free to post negative opinions of other people. Accusing someone of being a misogynist on Twitter is not a big deal. On the other side of the fence, you have people 'hacking' Skype accounts, posting nude pictures, death threats, rape threats, posting addresses online, etc. Calling someone a misogynist or anti-feminist or whatever might hurt feelings, but all that other stuff is heinous.
The whole "bububut game journalism is corrupt and unethical!" angle just seems disingenuous as hell to me. When I was trying to figure out what was even going on, never once did I actually find any links or sources to these journalists involved and the articles they had supposedly written. The actual truth and facts surrounding that seemed completely uninteresting to the vast majority partaking in this cesspool debate. Not to mention just how petty this all seems compared to everything else that's been happening if you genuinely care about ethics in games press.Right, that is the absurd part. There have been far more flagrant cases of corruption in game journalism but the reaction has been far more muted (if there is even a reaction at all). Here, it's all allegations and heresay at best - no 'smoking gun' 10/10 reviews or major press pieces written in supposed exchange for sex, or whatever.
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Have not had the chance to watch the latest episodes. The "Quinnspiracy" thing is quite sickening, however. For those who are not familiar, it goes something like this:
1. A female game developer creates a game.
2. Her vengeful ex-boyfriend publicly alleges that she cheated on him with a number of game journalists.
3. The internet being what it is, a witch hunt begins where lizard-brain trolls start posting her private information, harassing her & her family, sharing nude pictures of her, etc.
4. The justification for the above is that she 'slept her way to the top' in order to get coverage for her game.
5. On websites like Reddit, in the first few days after it became public, moderators censor discussion of the controversy as threads routinely degenerate into people posting nude pictures of her, sharing her private info, etc.
6. The controversy creates two 'sides'. Most game journalists and developers are on the developer's side, showing support in light of her severe harassment. Various randos on message boards on the other hand take this as a crusade against the perils of corruption in game journalism.
7. People who have publicly posted their support for the developer have had their Twitter, Skype etc hacked by vengeful gamers believing they're doing the right thing.
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My thoughts, succinctly, are as follows:
* The controversy is pretty much entirely based on private messages and information shared by a vengeful ex-boyfriend. Sharing private conversations with sites like 4chan to try and effect change is despicable on so many levels.
* Though it WAS confirmed by a Kotaku (IIRC) journalist that he had a relationship with the developer, her game did not receive any particular attention of note from that journalist - certainly nothing meriting this level of controversy.
* Censorship may have been heavy-handed in the deletion of non-offensive posts on certain sites like Reddit, however in general I support censorship on private sites if there is a very real and present trend or threat of private information being shared (addresses, phone numbers, nude pictures, etc).
* I think that the level of harassment and controversy is sadly much greater because (a) the developer is female, and (
it's alleged that she slept with multiple people. Needless to say, people have attacked her for being a 'slut' etc. Meanwhile, game journalism has suffered from severe corruption for years - on a far greater scale than a mention in a blog post or two - without attracting this level of hatred and animosity.* I think there are legitimate conversations to be had about ethics in game journalism, but they should be separated from a specific individual's private sexual history, especially when that history is being presented by an ex-boyfriend on 4chan. We're not talking about actual crimes or civil offenses here, we're talking about video games. Nobody deserves to be harassed and exposed over video games.
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That's understandable. For me (and I guess anyone else who enjoyed ladders in D2), it can be fun to have a fresh start especially with the knowledge that eventually your accounts will merge.
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Basically the 2.1 patch just came out and it added a buttload of new stuff, balance changes, new items, and new ways to play. One of two major features is the addition of "Greater Rifts". These are like infinite dungeons you do one level at a time. Each level is harder than the last, but the rewards are great. The other feature is the addition of "Seasons".
Seasons are like ladders from Diablo 2. When you create a Seasonal character, you start 100% from scratch. Nothing is carried over from your previous account. There are leaderboards and a general sense of fun & competition in racing to the top. There are also season-exclusive items and drops to be found. At the end of the season, your character + items roll back into your normal account and you get to reap the rewards of everything combined.
In other words, it's a fresh start! Fresh fun! Play!
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Season 1 begins!!!! Let's play & race & diablo
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42?! Are you serious? That's like.. top 1%, elite athlete, olympic-level. Insane. I'm at around 70 and I exercise like 5 days a week minimum.
On a side note, back in July I somehow injured a disc and it has been causing me pain for over a month. Started physical therapy and it turns out my legs are about as flexible as steel bars. I've been doing 1.5 hr PT sessions AND daily stretching exercises to help get to where my flexibility should be, as well as strengthen my core.
Other things I've done to help prevent further problems with back / joints: got a lumbar pillow, knee wraps, and back brace for heavy lifts.
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Statistics can be misleading. If we say 99% of people that want to be pro composers don't achieve their goal, that doesn't say much about their backgrounds, work ethic, methods, etc. A guy who pirates FL Studio and some orchestral plugins, makes some tracks and complains about not getting AAA gigs is different than someone who puts in the years of practice, networking, research, etc. If we were to see the success rate at a more granular level I think you would find that the people who DO put in the time + effort are a lot more successful in the end.
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You probably want to use even shorter articulations. Spiccatos I believe are the shortest ones available. You probably also need richer orchestration, i.e. it doesn't sound like you have the full chords there from the original piece - plus, it won't sound as full unless you have the rest of the orch too.
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Pretty neat idea. I contributed my list, which looked pretty different from the existing top 20. Lots of SNES, PS1, PS2
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So basically what we're all saying is that in order to hang out with OCR folks on a regular basis, you should either live in Phoenix or New England?
Maryland / DC / VA isn't New England, foo!
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Gotcha. Well, it's a little counter-productive to focus ONLY on arms. You would probably be better suited doing a simple upper body routine focusing on several larger muscle groups as well as isolated biceps / triceps.
For each of these exercises, check on YouTube for highly rated videos on how to do each, or ask a trainer/instructor at the gym. None are too complicated though.
As a beginner, I recommend doing 3 sets for each exercise. For your first set, you want to be able to do 10 repetitions pretty easily. So, the weight should not be so heavy that you're struggling to hit 10, although not so light that it feels like nothing.
Your second set should be heavier to the point where doing 10 reps is possible, but challenging - i.e. you might feel like you want to stop at 8 or 9, but you can push through it.
Your third set should be heavy enough that you are barely able to hit 10, if at all. Even if you only hit 6-7 it's ok. Less than 6 and that is probably too heavy.
Finding these numbers is trial and error. What's your height / weight / age? I can probably give you some basic suggestions on where to start in terms of ballpark weights. Anyway, the exercises:
1. Bench press. This will help build your chest and arms. It's one of the very best exercises you can do for upper body strength.
2. Overhead press. Can be done standing or seated, great for shoulders. Can be done with dumbbells instead of a barbell - I prefer dumbbells myself.
3. Seated row. Great upper body movement in general - builds lots of muscles.
4. Bicep curls. Easiest with an "EZ curl" bar (it looks wavy, not straight) but can be done with dumbbells. The key thing here is to try and keep your elbows locked at your sides, and to make sure you're getting the full contraction of the muscle each time. It's easy to sort of move your entire arm instead of actually contracting your bicep.
5. Tricep pulldown. Builds your triceps.
After your first set of each, wait about 1 minute. After your second set, wait about 2 minutes. You can move on to the next exercise once you finish your third set - don't wait too long (<1 min).
There are of course many more exercises and variations you could do, but if you are untrained, even just doing these five will probably give you good + fast results.
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Do you have access to a gym, or is this bodyweight only?
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Noooiiiice:nicework:
Great work, Zirc. How is the weight loss affecting your lifts (or is it?)
My lifts are not going up, but they're also not going down.
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Progress!
I started counting calories over 2 months ago, but I've only been tracking my weight on May 30th. Start weight was 189.8, going up to 191.6. I'm now at 185. Love seeing that trend.
Unfortunately my lifts are pretty stagnant or with very minor increases (squat, some leg extensions) which sucks, but it means I'm not losing muscle at least.
185? More like 181.8.
Fat can go to hell. FINALLY starting to see some visible improvement on my belly fat. Gonna go to 170 and see how it looks.
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Thanks for making this thread!
Jill is in China right now for Video Games Live but she and I are really excited that people are enjoying the video. I'll ping her and see if she can talk about it here more. -
This is really a dumb question, but do you report album sales to Soundscan (that is, if the artist has an album UPC to report)?
No, but that's a great idea. We should look into that.
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I checked my stats after starting, and I am at
Fat Free Mass: 161.16lb
Fat Mass: 16.09lb
Body Fat %: 9.1%
overall seeing good visible progress, and I am hyped! Seeing a plan executed gets me really excited, and I am pretty sure i will be able to maintain this easily enough until I reach my goal.
Awesome stats. I am not at the point where I want to know my BF% (probably like 22% right now) but my new lowest weight is 183.4. Highest during this whole thing was like 191.6 so I'm making a real dent in that number.
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Take it from me, this show is going to be AWWWWESSSSOOOOOMMMMMEEEE
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Indeed! Hence the new interface!
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Yes, email support@impactsoundworks.com for an add'l $10 off
Tropes vs. Women / #GamerGate Conspiracies
in General Discussion
Posted
I think there's such a strong emotional reaction from people in the industry because many of them have been in the position of receiving large amounts of internet hate, and they empathize with her position. Then, because of heightened sensitivity (which is probably warranted on their part) they're lashing out at people who don't deserve to be lashed out at.
I WILL say one thing about TB, even though I agree with the points he was making. His post could have been.. better-timed. He's publicly talked about how difficult it can be to be a visible figure in the game industry. Because of his popularity, he's received tons of hate himself and he said it's extremely stressful etc. By making that post at the time that he did, he drastically magnified the attention drawn to the situation.
I think he should have known that some % of his readers would be the type to take allegations & speculations as fact for any NUMBER of reasons, skimming over his points that cooler heads should prevail, that there are other possible explanations for things, and so forth. The end effect of his post, intended or not, was significantly increasing the amount of negative attention (putting it lightly) directed at Quinn & her friends. Were I in his position, and given the harassment already occurring, I probably would have waited a little while to make my points about game journalism and focused first on condemning people acting like shitlords.