gateway 3 lab syllabus
Posted: March 28, 2014 Filed under: Grad School | Tags: 2014, design, gateway, sojc, spring, syllabus Leave a commentThis is my last term teaching a Gateway lab course for the School of Journalism and Communications. I started iterating a lab syllabus for personal reasons some time ago, but thought that this time around I’d design one that wasn’t some hum-drum text document. Maybe the design could be better, but I wanted to keep it to a single page. This meant that there was a lot of text on the page, but I think I’ve maintained the only things students will remember anyways. Of course, I always go over this at the beginning of the course and remind students to come forward with any special accommodations they may need in completing the course (ADA regulations). This syllabus is also accompanied by a much longer and detailed syllabus students receive for the lecture component for the course, so details on what will be covered week-by-week are missing for that reason.
Essay on Minecraft Accepted!
Posted: October 26, 2013 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: academia, essay, gender, genderless, genderlessness, minecraft, notch, publication, research, steve Leave a commentThis last month or so I’ve been sitting on some exciting news: the backbone of my master’s thesis has been accepted into a collection of essays on Minecraft. The chapter I am writing for the book will talk about the conventions of gender in the game as a place to think about the utility of “genderlessness” as a “gameplay mechanic.”
What’s with the ” ” ? you might be asking yourself—this essay is inspired by Notch’s public reflection on gender, wherein he referred to gender as a “gameplay mechanic.”
If it wasn’t for the fact that the default Minecraft character is referred to as “Minecraft Guy” and that I once jokingly answered “Steve?” when asked what his* name was, Minecraft would be a game where gender isn’t a gameplay element.
The human model is intended to represent a Human Being. Not a male Human Being or a female Human Being, but simply a Human Being. The blocky shape gives it a bit of a traditional masculine look, but adding a separate female mesh would just make it worse by having one specific model for female Human Beings and male ones. That would force players to make a decisions about gender in a game where gender doesn’t even exist.
All the other mobs in the game are genderless and usually exhibit the most prominent traits of both genders. …
Also, as a fun side fact, it means every character and animal in Minecraft is homosexual because there’s only one gender to choose from. Take THAT, homophobes!
I hope to trouble notions of who determines the gender of players and their avatars, and how the setting in Minecraft is suggestive of an interpretation of Steve’s gender (i.e. why it is, perhaps, no accident that Steve is popularly perceived as a dude).
To anyone who may not know me personally, I am very excited about writing this essay—I openly adore the game. The first aca-paper I wanted to write for publication was conceptualized 2 years ago when the game was in one of the earlier beta versions. At the time I considered the playscape as an existential plane—perhaps if I was more into philosophy I would have gotten around to actually writing about it. Alas…
As an aside, it’s equally exciting for me to now know who is also doing research on the game—sometimes the videogame research world seems like a small place. At Oregon, doubly so. I look forward to sharing more about the collection + who is in it as we get closer to publication deadlines.
Disposable Mentality Needs Re-Design
Posted: May 19, 2013 Filed under: Video Games | Tags: complex, design, first, fps, games, idea, industry, integration, military, multimedia, person, real, rts, shooter, simulator, time, video, videogames Leave a commentMichael Ciaglo and Dave Philipps recently published an amazing story, Disposable: Surge in discharges includes wounded soldiers, for the Colorado Springs Gazette. Amazing multimedia integration, heart-wrenching story, thorough documentation—just fantastic.
Reading the story got be thinking about videogame design—what would a FPS look like that begins with the IED blast, then tries to reintegrate a soldier (un/successfully) into society? Real people are being forced through this experience by the thousands; maybe a game could provide for a more comprehensive facilitation in terms of both societal reintegration (for military) and cultural reconstitution (for non-military).
It could be a FPS and RTS integrated system in which a player has the opportunity to analyze and affect the social and legal systems in place that create barriers to re-entry. The player should also have the ability to manipulate time—move forward and backwards—in order to experiment with different solutions and mechanisms.
Remembering David
Posted: May 6, 2013 Filed under: Life | Tags: baker, community, david, games, libraries, memorial, memoriam, memories, oregon, play, science, think, think.play, university, video, videogames 1 CommentIn his passing I have been asked by people who didn’t know David to explain who he was, but I don’t know how to talk about someone whose impact on my life was multiplicitous. Our relationship wasn’t of one variety or another; the experience was more like a jam session. We shared a wavelength. Simply put, David was someone who’s principals and guidance affected what I think about, and how I think and move about the world.
I’ve been writing a lot since I found out. For someone who doesn’t write often, the process has been very therapeutic. Maybe it’s ironic that I’m sharing some of my grief, but I think you should know why I am so sad, and why I will be grieving this loss for a very long time—for no other reason than to iterate the impact of a single person’s life. I think there are take-aways from that.
What’s in a name?
Posted: February 28, 2013 Filed under: Grad School, Life Leave a commentBeing told my name brands my identity inherently with feminine adjectives like:
pretty, fragile, delicate
Dishwashers – A Textual Analysis
Posted: February 24, 2013 Filed under: Grad School, Life | Tags: analysis, behavior, class, community, dishwashers, gifs, grad, homework, living, normative, school, socioeconomic, textual 3 CommentsSomeone who has never used a dishwasher before would not immediately recognize the importance of the machine’s placement in a kitchen—near the sink, but not immediately perpendicular to an oven. It is a closed box commonly found to be approximately three feet tall and two feet deep, and requires access to plumbing and running water. It’s only “door” is one side of the box that detaches at the clasp of a latch. The door falls 90 degrees toward the ground on a hinge that positions the door perpendicular to its housing. Inside, two wire-frame racks sit with their wheels trapped on a track so that they can be pushed and pulled, horizontally, in and outside the dishwasher. The racks are wire-framed to ensure water and suds flow freely around objects during a “cycle” of sanitation and have been augmented with many small, stiff, upright wire prongs to guide the placement and distribution of dishes. When the racks are extended it is easier to see that in the bottom of the machine sits a large, heavy, plastic fan that whirls during a cycle to push water up and around dishes. Before “starting” a cycle, some variant of detergent must be manually added to a dispensary located inside the machine. The machine sanitizes dishes by heating water that is fed into the box via the plumbing, mixing the water with the detergent, and pushing the suds around the inside of the closed box with enough force to simultaneously strip food particles off of the dishes without breaking the dishes themselves.
The dishwasher in my house is black; it’s color and texture of the plastics and aluminum front coordinate with the refrigerator and oven. The inside is white, slightly discolored from years of use that expose the plastic to heat, chemicals, and—naturally—food particles. In the bottom-most rack sits a caddy for silverware. Many of the wire prongs are inexplicably bent in odd directions. Fixed to the door is a small housing the size of a credit card; it has a simple clasp that releases during a wash to deposit soap into the wash water—provide that you remember to fill it before starting the cycle. When the machine is running, its noises reverberate throughout the house. The sloshing of water running through it dominates the soundscape within a ten-foot radius. The machine is commanded by a modest panel on the outside of it, along the door’s front siding. After a load has been sanitized, a green light glows brightly on the panel to confirm its done duty.
In any other household, perhaps, the dishwasher is a sanitization tool. It performs human labor; it is a mindless automaton that augments everyday life in an effort to preserve water and time. The privilege of ownership comes at a price between $200 and $3,800, dish-loader not included. In my home the dishwasher is the most political object in the house. In the early days of our living agreement each house member vocalized the high value they place on a clean kitchen (dishes included). The house culture, consequently, reflects this in the rotation of biweekly chores that mediate communal spaces. My roommates and I share dish ware, and 3/4 of our collection dirties in day-to-day consumption. To ensure that dishes are always clean, two of the four chores in rotation deal with the dishwasher on a daily basis, either in the form of loading or unloading. A member’s diligence to these duties is tied to their relationships with other housemates—neglecting one’s duty to clean or unload dishes harbors a significant social penalty. The machine polices the individual’s duty to cleanup after oneself; it mediates the level of acceptable sanitation within the kitchen. When a house member neglects to move their dirty dishes into the machine, their action is perceived by others as rebellious to accepted norms and practices adopted by the community.
The dishwasher is by no means the only household tool used to mediate or control human behavior; it is but one that normalizes and standardizes notions of upper-middle class sanitation. The absence of a dishwasher within an American home reflects on the socio-economic class of the home’s inhabitants; the cheaper one’s dwellings, the less likely a dishwasher is part of the kitchen floor plan.
My partner and I are in the market for a new place to live in the coming year. We are making a point to eliminate from our pool of potential homes places that do not have a dishwasher. Perhaps this says more about our perception of an acceptable living standard than it does the real utility of an autonomous dish sanitizer.