and Solli came tumbling after...

Ramblings of a PhD student starting her dissertation process. Reeling and Writhing, of course, to begin with, and then the different branches of arithmetic -- Ambition, Distraction, Uglification, and Derision.

[researchingvideogames]

Researching Video Games

At this time this research is limited to those on the island of Oahu, Hawaii.

UNT IRB Study #15023

[solliphd]

My dissertation research is live! 

[thisfeliciaday]

I had a day off this weekend from shooting Supernatural, and I was walking around downtown Vancouver on Saturday, sampling all the artisan coffee I could get my throat around. At one point I saw a pair of guys walking towards me wearing gamer shirts. Black short-sleeved, one Halo and one Call of...

[sollitaire]

[solliphd]

And another semester begins… 

[solliphd]

"To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism, to steal ideas from many is research." ~ Wilson Mizner

[solliphd]

I miss introducing my brain meats to new ideas, people, and places

I miss getting my brain on and talking brainy stuff with brainy people. I miss going to conferences. I miss riffing off of others in a long tangental conversation that ends up miles from where we began but was filled with so much awesomeness we can't wait to do it again.

I miss going to class. I miss my university. I miss the idea of learning new things. I have no idea what I'll do when I actually finish my dissertation. I just don't see myself outside of academia, but I also don't see a place for me within it.

[thisfeliciaday]

No skin thick enough: The daily harassment of women in the game industry

Content warning: This post contains graphic language, slurs and triggering content

This article is heartbreaking. And true.

There is a reason I throttled back on doing a lot of creative gaming content a few years ago. And why I still avoid taking some jobs in the gaming world when they’re offered to me. And why, when we have a female host on any of our Geek and Sundry gaming shows, we have to monitor the comments on YouTube extra, to remove the many comments that are offensive and pollute our community’s spirit of equality. Because I hate that shit. 

There is an endemic acceptance in the gamer world that “well, it comes with the territory” when a woman receives threats and harassment and the hateful anonymous internet dialogue is focused on her body and whether they would “do” her or not. I don’t know why this became okay. It’s a vocal minority that has been given way too much power over the industry dialogue, and I am so happy to see more and more articles like this shining the light on what reasonable gamer men and women have been conned into accepting as a given.

NOTHING is a given in this world. And frankly, it taints the art form we so love and keeps it back from becoming more respected and more diverse to not at least TRY to fight it. Gaming deserves more than complacency in this area.

Even posting this link will cause me to receive hateful Tumblr PMs. I can always tell when something I write gets linked on certain places on the internet (like 4 Chan or a few other forums of troll-hood), because I’ll immediately get dozens of hate mails along the veins of what is posted in this article. 

Well, I’m a lucky one to be prominent enough to have 10 supporters for every hater. I mostly feel sorry for girls and women who aren’t in my position, who may just give up on gaming when they’re too beaten down to fight anymore.

We have to change that. For the good of what we love doing, gamers! Okay, back to work :)

[solliphd]

One of the reasons why, though I love this industry so much, I've shied away from trying to do anything more in it than research. 

[theorizingtheweb]

Call for Submissions: Theorizing the Web 2014 Special Issue of Interface

The Theorizing the Web Organizing Committee invites all those who presented work at Theorizing the Web 2014 to submit papers to an open-access special issue of Interface, hosted by the Berglund Center for Internet Studies. The issue will be edited by Jenny Davis, Nathan Jurgenson, and PJ Rey. All submissions should be sent to [email protected]. Submissions are open immediately and will be accepted until August 1st 2014.

Submissions can come in two forms: peer-review articles and non-peer review essays/reviews. Please clearly indicate which you are submitting. The peer-review articles will go out for anonymous evaluation by scholars with relevant expertise. Both peer-review articles and non-peer review essays will be reviewed by the editorial team (Davis, Jurgenson, and Rey) who will make decisions about inclusion.

(PDF version available here.)

Read More

[lookatthisstory]

With parents flooding their camera phones with hundreds of photos — from loose teeth to hissy fits to each step in the potty training process — how might the ubiquity of photos change childhood memories?

Maryanne Garry, a psychology professor at the Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand, is trying to figure that out. For years, she’s studied the effects of photography on our childhood memories.

"I think that the problem is that people are giving away being in the moment," she says.

Those parents at the park taking all those photos are actually paying less attention to the moment, she says, because they’re focused on the act of taking the photo.

Overexposed? Camera Phones Could Be Washing Out Our Memories

Photo Credit: Courtesy of Rebecca Woolf

[liberalsarecool]

One of the reasons your tuition is high and classes are getting cut.

[signifi-cunt-deactivated2021051]

ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME

[thepageofhopes]

fact checked and…apparently this is completely correct.

[littlecofiegirl]

Imagine we ban this sport worldwide and spend the money on something else.

[ouijubell]

This is absolutely true. They pay coaches outrageous funds out of the yearly budgets and give little thought to research and schoalrship

[solliphd]

Things that make you second guess all the work you put into your degree...

[solliphd]

TIL: The IQ test and its beginnings are more fantastical than I could have ever imagined.

The book I'm reading about baby brain development talked about the history, which of course being the person that I am, led me down a rabbit hole.  "Intelligence testing was gaining popularity in America, and it became the bread-and-butter for many early psychologists. Although Lewis Terman later supplanted Goddard as the authoritative voice on intelligence testing, it was Goddard who created the intelligence testing industry. Thus, he's responsible for popularizing psychological science in America and providing psychology practitioners with their chief assessment tool. Goddard's work at Vineland led him to conclusions about the origins of "feeblemindedness." He expressed those views in his most popular book, "The Kallikak Family: A Study in the Heredity of Feeble-Mindedness" (Macmillan, 1912). Using a fictional family name, Goddard shared the story of a family begun by an American Revolutionary War soldier who married a "worthy Quakeress," but also "dallied with a feeble-minded tavern girl." According to Goddard, descendents of the marriage produced generations of normally functioning people, whereas the union with the "tavern girl" produced intellectually inferior descendents, even criminals. The book sought to illuminate the role of heredity in "feeblemindedness" and provide a moral lesson emphasizing the societal harm that can result from casual sex. In fact, Goddard argued that society should keep feebleminded people from having children, either through institutional isolation or sexual sterilization. As a result of its seductive mix of science and ideology, Goddard's book became a favorite among eugenicists. As such, Goddard's views were part of a dark chapter in American history. There were always skeptics though, including psychologists, and recent research suggests that Goddard ignored family data that were inconsonant with his views." (x) Then there is this:  "In 1910, scored against today's norms, our ancestors would have had an average IQ of 70 (or 50 if we tested with Raven's). By comparison, our mean IQ today is 130 to 150, depending on the test. Are we geniuses or were they just dense? Modern people do so well on these tests because we are new and peculiar. We are the first of our species to live in a world dominated by categories, hypotheticals, nonverbal symbols and visual images that paint alternative realities. We have evolved to deal with a world that would have been alien to previous generations. A century ago, people mostly used their minds to manipulate the concrete world for advantage. They wore what I call "utilitarian spectacles." Our minds now tend toward logical analysis of abstract symbols—what I call "scientific spectacles." Today we tend to classify things rather than to be obsessed with their differences. We take the hypothetical seriously and easily discern symbolic relationships." (x) I may read this book next: Measuring Minds: Henry Herbert Goddard and the Origins of American Intelligence Testing 

[suspenseful-funk-music]

The issues regarding bodies as well as body parts and their ownership are actually quite immediate, and they emerge most evidently (and egregiously) when biomedical research is involved. Personally, I became almost fanatically interested in these matters when I first read Rebecca Skoot’s article “Taking the Least of You,” in the New York Times back in 2006. She went on to write The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks (2010), which also profoundly affected the way I think about these things (it’s also become one of my favorite books to teach to undergraduates in the history of science and technology).

Orphan Black’s scientific consultant Cosima Herter, telling all of you TO READTHISBOOK. Seriously. It is so horrifying and amazing.

Also read her Hive article. Learn cool things.

(via thewetcloud)

Surprisingly I had actually heard of Henrietta Lacks' story. Now I just can't remember if it was an article I read or something from one of my anthro / psych classes. 

[wilwheaton]

Franken makes his case that the FCC’s controversial plan could hinder future innovation and consumer choice by giving big incumbent companies a permanent competitive advantage over up-and-coming startups. As an example, Franken points to the short-lived battle between YouTube and Google’s Google Video platform last decade. Under traditional network neutrality principles, neither YouTube nor Google Video were given preferential treatment and consumers were free to choose YouTube, which eventually won out as the superior platform and was bought by Google. However, under the FCC’s new proposal, there’s a danger that Google Video would have delivered its videos at a significantly faster speed than YouTube, which wouldn’t have been able to afford to pay for its own “fast lane.”   Because of this, Franken says he wants to rally the public to tell the FCC to scrap its plan.   “We cannot allow the FCC to implement a pay-to-play system that silences our voices and amplifies that of big corporate interests,” Franken says. “We have come to a crossroads. Now is the time to rise up and make our voices heard to preserve net neutrality. We paid for a free and open Internet. We can’t let it be taken away.”

Senator Franken launches net neutrality campaign (via wilwheaton)

[caramelzappa-deactivated2018012]

[discovergames-blog]

Bottom line - There’s no link between violent videogames and violent behavior, and even any supposed “link” between such games and “aggressive thoughts” has been greatly exaggerated because of lack of proper control methods and publication bias.

[solliphd]

This plays very well along side my dissertation subject matter. 

[devinjk]

[sun-fishy-deactivated20170212]

YAAAASSSS

[lysanderblake]

GOD FUCKING BLESS THIS WOMAN

[illestfrisco]

THANK YOU!!!!

[ink-n-severedties]

Wow

[solliphd]

As a PhD student who graduated from a very poor part of Texas and who's mother was a highschool dropout, this, this, a thousand times this. There was simply no way I could support myself and get an education without government student loans. I am very thankful my PhD has been fully funded (4.0 student), but my BA and MS came at quite a cost.

Now, sadly, my they've changed the rules of the game on my funding just as I'm trying to finish up. I have at least 2 semesters left and both of those will have to come out of my pocket because I refuse to get any more student loans. This would be a lot easier to do if I wasn't already paying on my student loans (all government based), which climbed an additional 10-20k on top of what I borrowed due to interest that was added to them WHILE I WAS IN SCHOOL. 

I'm not an ABD long timer either. I've just finished my 4th year and hope to graduate by the end of my 5th. That is, if I can afford to pay for it. 

[nprbooks]

In 1887, American journalist Nellie Bly had herself committed to New York’s notorious Blackwell’s Island insane asylum — on purpose, as part of an assignment from the New York World newspaper. When she was released 10 days later, she had seen cruelty that made her shudder. In her account for the World, she wrote:

"I left the insane ward with pleasure and regret. Pleasure that I was once more able to enjoy the free breath of heaven; regret that I could not have brought with me some of the unfortunate women who lived and suffered with me, and who I am convinced are just as sane as I was and am now myself.”

The story that resulted is called “Ten Days in a Mad-House,” and it’s one of many pieces collected in a new volume, Nellie Bly: Around the World in Seventy-Two Days and Other Writings — released this year in honor of Bly’s 150th birthday. The book’s editor, Jean Lutes, talked about Bly’s legacy on Morning Edition yesterday.

Image via Library of Congress

[breakingnews]

SCOTUS rules prayers at public meetings are constitutional

AP: The Supreme Court ruled Monday that prayers said at town council meetings do not violate the US Constitution. The 5-4 decision was a victory for the town of Greece, NY.

[bookoisseur]

Well this sounds like a great idea.

[wilwheaton]

What fucking part of the separation of church and state do these shitfucks not understand? This SCOTUS is a fucking nightmare.

[solliphd]

Great! Let's see some other religions get in on this then! It can't be restricted to Christian prayer. That's where the line is crossed. So, let's make them try to cross that line. They've opened up a larger can of worms than they likely realize. 

[solliphd]

Having a hard timing braining lately

Sigh. What do you do to get in the dissertation zone?