When I was a little girl, I was taken to see a miniature (model) city, Minimundus at Klagenfurt. We visited several other tiny towns, in Austria I think, and in England, and in one of them, I'm not sure which one, some of the tiny models of people actually moved around the city on tracks, going to their workplaces or in and out of shops. Every so often the church would hold a service, with an organ and the sound of hymn singing, and then the little people coming out on their tracks and dispersing to their homes.
This idea of the people on tracks fascinated me, and of course translated to "real life" - the predictablity of people's lives, the patterns we draw in time, the paths we wear by walking them over and again.
Being a sickly, solitary, bookish sort of child, I made endless paper and cardboard houses and towns. The physical difficulties of modelling with the rather limited resources available to me meant these were rather unsatisfactory. A building set called "Betta Bilda" was one of my favourite toys, before I discovered Lego, which was far too expensive for me to have much. (A pocket-sized pack of bricks and windows of real Lego cost about three weeks' of my pocket money at the time). But Lego and Betta Bilda (IMHO far better for house building than Lego) were still very limiting. You could only build houses of a certain shape. Roofs were limited by the tiles available, and of course you could only build houses you had ENOUGH, and the right shape of, bricks for, so the large or complex buildings were out of reach.
Paper was cheap and plentiful. I decided I would DRAW my houses; my father helped by pointing me at books of architects' houseplans. In those days there was no hope of a child from a working-class family becoming an architect, let alone a female. So it became a game; I made books full of house designs and of course, planned out the families that would inhabit them. One favourite game was to develop a family over many generations, following rules I had set up for myself, and to see how the house was added on to, to provide extra living space, and as the family became wealthier.
Does this sound at all familiar? If you are a Simmer, it will.
Much time passed.
In about 2001, I was once again off work sick, and my son-in-law lent me, along with a pile of other games, a copy of The Sims 1.0, Will Wright's masterpiece game which has since developed to Sims 3 and still selling millions of copies. That was the start of my obsession. Sims 3 allows the modelling of the Sims' characters much more fully than the very first pixel people, who stood 128 pixels tall and suffered many an iniquity at the hands of Simmers. Sims 1 was a spoof of the consumer society and IMHO particularly modelled US suburban consumer society of the 60s and 70s: Sims got happier as you bought them better "stuff" and the game was all about making them richer, etc. (One nice touch was that while Sims 1 Sims could actually "play in bed" - an odd activity which involved barking and much giggling and which sometimes resulted in pregnancy) - they got more Fun points from playing a computer game!)
The reproductive cycle of Sims 1 Sims had to be seen to be believed. A pregnant Sim immediately upon discovering her "pregnancy" produced what I always thought of as an egg - a baby bassinet or cradle containing a "baby" which periodically required feeding, changing and singing to. If the parents nurtured this baby successfully, it hatched amid brighly coloured stars into a Sim-child after three days. If not, it was taken away. (They used a very similar sequence for dragon eggs in a later expansion pack of Sims 1 called Makin' Magic, though those actually LOOKED like eggs.)
The beauty of Sims and its sequels for me is that the whole town can be modelled. And that unlike Sim City and other city modelling games, you can actually PLAY the Sims and see how they live, get inside their lives, see and control the tracks they run on. Sims 3 does this exceptionally well, with the "seamless view" of the town. While far from perfect, it's the best yet.
Friday, January 14, 2011
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
Matrilinearity
There are crimes which are caused by sheer jealousy. One of these is the case where a man kills his wife, and or his children, because the relationship has broken down and, as he sees it, the wife and children are no longer "HIS". He can't stand the idea that they might become the PROPERTY of some other man.
In UK society, which is the one I know best, and in many classes, there are single women bringing up their children because the man has left, or been made to leave. This is in itself almost a matrilineal society. The children may or may not have the name of their father, depending on whether the couple married or not; but marriage is becoming increasingly rare as it is commercialised to the point of idiocy and people are drawn to expect their parents to spend many thousands of pounds on what should be a simple public ceremony.
(I've met far too many women who longed to marry their sometimes decades-long partner, but simply couldn't afford the wedding.)
In a matrilineal society, the mother, left with the children, would receive some kind of support from her "line" - her mother, her relatives; a sister or aunt. She might move back to her mother's house.
Many of the single mothers I have known have been forced by circumstances, usually money or loneliness, to take a new partner very soon after their breakup.
(The fact that women's work is STILL far lower-paid than that of men may have something to do with this... also state benefits that are completely impossible to live on.)
This can lead to all kinds of further problems, where the new partner, a little like a lion, may resent the children of his predecessor. The children too, of course, may well resent the man they see as their father's replacement. Tensions follow, and the second relationship all too often breaks up.
My thought, I suppose, is that a matrilineal style of living might be a better one for many women, and for their children, and also that it is very difficult, in a culture that is overwhelmingly patriarchal, to achieve that goal. But that it might well be a direction we need to move in, if our culture is to survive at all.
(In case you were wondering, I am very happily married in RL and have been for 36 years. Marriage DOES work for some of us, and matrilinearity would not invalidate marriage for those who want or need a long-term partnership.)
In UK society, which is the one I know best, and in many classes, there are single women bringing up their children because the man has left, or been made to leave. This is in itself almost a matrilineal society. The children may or may not have the name of their father, depending on whether the couple married or not; but marriage is becoming increasingly rare as it is commercialised to the point of idiocy and people are drawn to expect their parents to spend many thousands of pounds on what should be a simple public ceremony.
(I've met far too many women who longed to marry their sometimes decades-long partner, but simply couldn't afford the wedding.)
In a matrilineal society, the mother, left with the children, would receive some kind of support from her "line" - her mother, her relatives; a sister or aunt. She might move back to her mother's house.
Many of the single mothers I have known have been forced by circumstances, usually money or loneliness, to take a new partner very soon after their breakup.
(The fact that women's work is STILL far lower-paid than that of men may have something to do with this... also state benefits that are completely impossible to live on.)
This can lead to all kinds of further problems, where the new partner, a little like a lion, may resent the children of his predecessor. The children too, of course, may well resent the man they see as their father's replacement. Tensions follow, and the second relationship all too often breaks up.
My thought, I suppose, is that a matrilineal style of living might be a better one for many women, and for their children, and also that it is very difficult, in a culture that is overwhelmingly patriarchal, to achieve that goal. But that it might well be a direction we need to move in, if our culture is to survive at all.
(In case you were wondering, I am very happily married in RL and have been for 36 years. Marriage DOES work for some of us, and matrilinearity would not invalidate marriage for those who want or need a long-term partnership.)
Thursday, July 1, 2010
Avertible Catastrophe - More on the Oil Disaster
Could something really have been done? A fascinating bit of news has surfaced. avertible catastophe
It seems that help, GOOD help, help probably the most experienced marine engineers and researchers in the world, was offered. And refused.
WHY? Was it because of that precious thing, valued ONLY by those in control of our nations, called SOVEREIGNTY? That thing that has caused more wars than ANY other concept ever?
Wikipedia says "Sovereignty is the quality of having supreme, independent authority over a territory. It can be found in a power to rule and make law that rests on a political fact for which no purely legal explanation can be provided. ... The current notion of state sovereignty was laid down in the Treaty of Westphalia (1648), which, in relation to states, codified the basic principles of territorial integrity, border inviolability, and supremacy of the state (rather than the Church). A sovereign is a supreme lawmaking authority." The whole article is well worth a read.
but the most important part, for me, is its statement of Hobbes' theory
"Hobbes deduced from the definition of sovereignty that it must be:
* Absolute: because conditions could only be imposed on a sovereign if there were some outside arbitrator to determine when he had violated them, in which case the sovereign would not be the final authority.
* Indivisible: The sovereign is the only final authority in his territory; he does not share final authority with any other entity."
Which implies, in this situation, "If the President of the US, who is the SOVEREIGN RULER, shares authority in the sense of accepting ANY help from the Dutch, or any other nation, he is diminishing his own power. No matter what help is NEEDED, unless he is the Commander in Chief of the forces, he would be put under obligation to the other nation, he (and his nation) would be diminished.
Is sovereignty more important than cleaning up the mess? It would seem that for some, it is.
It seems that help, GOOD help, help probably the most experienced marine engineers and researchers in the world, was offered. And refused.
WHY? Was it because of that precious thing, valued ONLY by those in control of our nations, called SOVEREIGNTY? That thing that has caused more wars than ANY other concept ever?
Wikipedia says "Sovereignty is the quality of having supreme, independent authority over a territory. It can be found in a power to rule and make law that rests on a political fact for which no purely legal explanation can be provided. ... The current notion of state sovereignty was laid down in the Treaty of Westphalia (1648), which, in relation to states, codified the basic principles of territorial integrity, border inviolability, and supremacy of the state (rather than the Church). A sovereign is a supreme lawmaking authority." The whole article is well worth a read.
but the most important part, for me, is its statement of Hobbes' theory
"Hobbes deduced from the definition of sovereignty that it must be:
* Absolute: because conditions could only be imposed on a sovereign if there were some outside arbitrator to determine when he had violated them, in which case the sovereign would not be the final authority.
* Indivisible: The sovereign is the only final authority in his territory; he does not share final authority with any other entity."
Which implies, in this situation, "If the President of the US, who is the SOVEREIGN RULER, shares authority in the sense of accepting ANY help from the Dutch, or any other nation, he is diminishing his own power. No matter what help is NEEDED, unless he is the Commander in Chief of the forces, he would be put under obligation to the other nation, he (and his nation) would be diminished.
Is sovereignty more important than cleaning up the mess? It would seem that for some, it is.
Wednesday, June 23, 2010
On Oil and Cutting Corners
Such a tragedy.
My friend made this video, have a look.
/rant mode on...
11 men killed, pelicans, other birds, fish and more creatures dying every day. All in the name of profit. Does it really matter WHO is responsible? I suppose it matters in the sense of - if we can decide who is responsible we can make them pay. In other words, we can use money to pay for the mess, for the cleanup. But even if we throw billions at the disaster, it will not undo it. The oil is spilled and cannot go back in the ground. The genie is out of the bottle.
Just as after the Chernobyl disaster, many of us living thousands of miles away WERE affected, this will affect many who live far from the actual spill - initially Florida's beaches, but then maybe yours. And who knows what damage it will do to an already fragile ecosystem and our struggling climate.
But why did it happen? PROFIT. Someone cut corners somewhere. Maybe several people cut corners. Profit is what is demanded all the time from companies, it's what drives capitalism. Shareholders demand profit from companies. Preferably ever-increasing profit. It's what is killing our planet. Sacrificing a scapegoat is NOT going to fix this. Until attitudes change, disasters like this will continue to happen.
In my own life, I've seen corners cut in several fields: one example is food hygiene. Meat that should have gone in the waste is put back on sale and sold - and occasionally causes food poisoning, but all in the name of profit. If you asked the management of the company you would be told that of course, all hygiene regulations are carefully observed. While in fact the local staff are constantly pressured into "keeping waste down". Cleaners are told "You have one hour to clean this whole ward because we put in an incredibly low tender for this job." lecturers in universities are expected to provide expert tuition but not allowed to use some of the university's library facilities because that would be too costly. And one more, in the building field: many buildings made from concrete in its heyday of the 70s and 80s are crumbling, because there was extra water or sand added to the mixture, to save a few pence here and there, whether for the company or for individual foremen. The material is then nowhere near as strong as it was in fact designed to be by the architect, and breaks.
I must be old fashioned but I still believe that "a job worth doing is worth doing well".
We need to remind the capitalists and multinationals of this, and that the most important thing they do is WHAT they DO, building, selling, making, drilling, providing, not just making a profit for the shareholders by cheating the customers. At the end of the day we are all customers.
/rant mode off...
My friend made this video, have a look.
/rant mode on...
11 men killed, pelicans, other birds, fish and more creatures dying every day. All in the name of profit. Does it really matter WHO is responsible? I suppose it matters in the sense of - if we can decide who is responsible we can make them pay. In other words, we can use money to pay for the mess, for the cleanup. But even if we throw billions at the disaster, it will not undo it. The oil is spilled and cannot go back in the ground. The genie is out of the bottle.
Just as after the Chernobyl disaster, many of us living thousands of miles away WERE affected, this will affect many who live far from the actual spill - initially Florida's beaches, but then maybe yours. And who knows what damage it will do to an already fragile ecosystem and our struggling climate.
But why did it happen? PROFIT. Someone cut corners somewhere. Maybe several people cut corners. Profit is what is demanded all the time from companies, it's what drives capitalism. Shareholders demand profit from companies. Preferably ever-increasing profit. It's what is killing our planet. Sacrificing a scapegoat is NOT going to fix this. Until attitudes change, disasters like this will continue to happen.
In my own life, I've seen corners cut in several fields: one example is food hygiene. Meat that should have gone in the waste is put back on sale and sold - and occasionally causes food poisoning, but all in the name of profit. If you asked the management of the company you would be told that of course, all hygiene regulations are carefully observed. While in fact the local staff are constantly pressured into "keeping waste down". Cleaners are told "You have one hour to clean this whole ward because we put in an incredibly low tender for this job." lecturers in universities are expected to provide expert tuition but not allowed to use some of the university's library facilities because that would be too costly. And one more, in the building field: many buildings made from concrete in its heyday of the 70s and 80s are crumbling, because there was extra water or sand added to the mixture, to save a few pence here and there, whether for the company or for individual foremen. The material is then nowhere near as strong as it was in fact designed to be by the architect, and breaks.
I must be old fashioned but I still believe that "a job worth doing is worth doing well".
We need to remind the capitalists and multinationals of this, and that the most important thing they do is WHAT they DO, building, selling, making, drilling, providing, not just making a profit for the shareholders by cheating the customers. At the end of the day we are all customers.
/rant mode off...
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
Knitting
Knitting is a craft that I have loved. I can't knit now for more than a few minutes at a time. But there is still something magical about the feel of the yarn and the whole process of turning it from a string into a fabric, and eventually from a flat fabric into a garment or other useful item - or even into a work of art, and it still calls to me and tempts me to buy pretty yarns from time to time.
Knitting (and I would include crochet in this, being a similar craft involving knotting a single fibre to build up a fabric) is one of our most ancient crafts. You can do it with fingers or with sticks, as well as with the knitting needles we use now.
And there are wonderful yarns out there now. My choice used to be horribly limited - I like soft and fluffy yarns, shiny or bobbly yarns... and smooth, crunchy cottons. Most of the fluffies used to be mohair based or wool, both of which are inimical to me, but these days I have my pick of the "man-made" yarns.
Way back in the day, my parents, struggling for money with four teenage daughters, started a small mail-order wool-supply business. It did moderately well, and a by-product was that there were an awful lot of small quantities of different dye-lots - a few ounces at a time, quantities too small to be sold, in many different shades. And as it happened, most of that leftover yarn was Bri-Nylon (trademark I think)... an early nylon yarn with quite a soft feel, at least on the ball. So my father bought a knitting machine and spent many Sunday afternoons making what seemed to be hundreds of stripy sweaters for us.
In Bri-Nylon. Now the thing about Bri-Nylon is that it washes and dries quickly, lasts forever, and that with repeated washing it changes its feel, becomes hard and ropey, and very gradually shrinks. We wore these stripy sweaters for a VERY long time. And grew to hate them... as they became tighter and harder to get on and off, we used to try and snag them on bushes just to wear them out faster.
So with all this spare yarn, and very little pocket money, for Christmas time we were encouraged to knit presents for one another and other people and I developed a serious addiction to knitting patterns. I started to make many knitted items; some I even completed, though the delight was more in the starting than in the completion. There were knitted and crochet hats, bags, scarves, toys, jewellery, for instance, this being the Sixties. So began my interest in making 3D items in yarn. And over many years I collected many hundredweight, eventually, of knitting magazines and patterns. I found knitting books too, sometimes in the jumble sales we visited from time to time, and later in the "charity shops" that developed (IMHO) as a by-product of Thatcher's economy in Britain. The hobby of knitting for me became the hobby of studying knitting magazines, sorting them into "I might make that for..." or "I have enough yarn of the right colour to make that" and I still did occasionally make something. I had a wonderful deep turquoise crochet cotton tunic I made during many long hours travelling by train, started before I was married, that I actually wore right through my first pregnancy until it was completely stretched out of shape and useless for a non-pregnant shape. I had a pretty apricot-coloured crochet lace dress that I wore to death, again it took literally years to finish but was much admired. (I did long to make a crochet wedding dress but decided I wanted to get married sooner than that!)
I still remember Daddy knitting. My mother refused to touch the machine, and with reason. It was an old machine, with small, evil, hooked needles that held each stitch. If you were unlucky, when you ran your arm with the carriage across the needlebed to knit each row, the carriage made a roaring sound and had to be pulled across with quite a lot of force. The needles could be slow in returning back to their "bed" where they were held safely captive, and remain sticking out so that they caught the skin of your forearm as it pushed the carriage across... You couldn't wear any kind of protective garment, or the needles would shred that too. So he sat there in his trousers and vest, post-Sunday-afternoon bath, in a good mood and fought this knitting machine, often with The Mikado playing on his tape recorder, the next enthusiasm. It really must have been a labour of love - I'm sure any blood was instantly washed out of the jumpers he made for us, but I do know my mother disposed of the machine into the garage (the store for all his finished enthusiasms) as soon as she could, where it slowly and gracefully rusted into oblivion. Unlike our sweaters, which my youngest sister eventually inherited.
Knitting (and I would include crochet in this, being a similar craft involving knotting a single fibre to build up a fabric) is one of our most ancient crafts. You can do it with fingers or with sticks, as well as with the knitting needles we use now.
And there are wonderful yarns out there now. My choice used to be horribly limited - I like soft and fluffy yarns, shiny or bobbly yarns... and smooth, crunchy cottons. Most of the fluffies used to be mohair based or wool, both of which are inimical to me, but these days I have my pick of the "man-made" yarns.
Way back in the day, my parents, struggling for money with four teenage daughters, started a small mail-order wool-supply business. It did moderately well, and a by-product was that there were an awful lot of small quantities of different dye-lots - a few ounces at a time, quantities too small to be sold, in many different shades. And as it happened, most of that leftover yarn was Bri-Nylon (trademark I think)... an early nylon yarn with quite a soft feel, at least on the ball. So my father bought a knitting machine and spent many Sunday afternoons making what seemed to be hundreds of stripy sweaters for us.
In Bri-Nylon. Now the thing about Bri-Nylon is that it washes and dries quickly, lasts forever, and that with repeated washing it changes its feel, becomes hard and ropey, and very gradually shrinks. We wore these stripy sweaters for a VERY long time. And grew to hate them... as they became tighter and harder to get on and off, we used to try and snag them on bushes just to wear them out faster.
So with all this spare yarn, and very little pocket money, for Christmas time we were encouraged to knit presents for one another and other people and I developed a serious addiction to knitting patterns. I started to make many knitted items; some I even completed, though the delight was more in the starting than in the completion. There were knitted and crochet hats, bags, scarves, toys, jewellery, for instance, this being the Sixties. So began my interest in making 3D items in yarn. And over many years I collected many hundredweight, eventually, of knitting magazines and patterns. I found knitting books too, sometimes in the jumble sales we visited from time to time, and later in the "charity shops" that developed (IMHO) as a by-product of Thatcher's economy in Britain. The hobby of knitting for me became the hobby of studying knitting magazines, sorting them into "I might make that for..." or "I have enough yarn of the right colour to make that" and I still did occasionally make something. I had a wonderful deep turquoise crochet cotton tunic I made during many long hours travelling by train, started before I was married, that I actually wore right through my first pregnancy until it was completely stretched out of shape and useless for a non-pregnant shape. I had a pretty apricot-coloured crochet lace dress that I wore to death, again it took literally years to finish but was much admired. (I did long to make a crochet wedding dress but decided I wanted to get married sooner than that!)
I still remember Daddy knitting. My mother refused to touch the machine, and with reason. It was an old machine, with small, evil, hooked needles that held each stitch. If you were unlucky, when you ran your arm with the carriage across the needlebed to knit each row, the carriage made a roaring sound and had to be pulled across with quite a lot of force. The needles could be slow in returning back to their "bed" where they were held safely captive, and remain sticking out so that they caught the skin of your forearm as it pushed the carriage across... You couldn't wear any kind of protective garment, or the needles would shred that too. So he sat there in his trousers and vest, post-Sunday-afternoon bath, in a good mood and fought this knitting machine, often with The Mikado playing on his tape recorder, the next enthusiasm. It really must have been a labour of love - I'm sure any blood was instantly washed out of the jumpers he made for us, but I do know my mother disposed of the machine into the garage (the store for all his finished enthusiasms) as soon as she could, where it slowly and gracefully rusted into oblivion. Unlike our sweaters, which my youngest sister eventually inherited.
Friday, May 14, 2010
Bah! Facebook
I've finally deleted my Facebook accounts. I had not used it much; an application that seems to be able to access some of my local information, that claims to give me freedom to communicate and express myself but in fact gives me NO chance to customise my "homepage" - that is difficult to use to actually communicate with people, which is its primary stated goal - large PHAIL in blinking lights.
I did get a large increase in spam from it, worse than I ever got from joining Yahoo Groups, which was admittedly pretty bad, but is worth it for the content.
Possibly because I didn't do it often, I found it difficult to actually SEND messages to people - I could write on their "wall" and it would be seen by anyone. Sending a message which would be seen only by them seemd next to impossible. So I made sure people I cared about had my real email, phone etc - old tech rules! and didn't use it.
I also contracted a very unpleasant trojan this spring which appeared to come from one of those many emails (and yes, I know - I NEVER open attachments to emails whoever they claim to be from). I had to reformat my whole machine because of that thing.
It was odd, too, WHO exactly wanted to add me to their friends list... I think four genuine friends (yes I know that's sad) and maybe five distant but genuine family members. And then literally SCORES of people who wanted to add me, that I had never heard of. WHY?
The Facebook apps worried me. Seemed to be a way to compromise my system, install stuff without any of the usual protection.
Writing - anything you write and publish on there becomes Facebook's property. As a writer, I want to keep MY material to MYSELF!
So I've used it very little over the years...
Interesting point: I DID have an alternate account, in a second name, which I kept completely separate. This was a fictional name, a name I used to use in a roleplaying game. Oddly, I had surprisingly many "people" asking this fictional character to befriend them, claiming to be a long-lost friend or frequently a member of my non-existent family. Including, of all people, one Barak Obama....
That capped it for me. At that point I deactivated my account.
Now with the latest round of scare stories about Facebook, I have had enough. I have deleted my account/s. If you want to do so too, read this http://www.wikihow.com/Permanently-Delete-a-Facebook-Account then log in to Facebook and then follow this link.
I did get a large increase in spam from it, worse than I ever got from joining Yahoo Groups, which was admittedly pretty bad, but is worth it for the content.
Possibly because I didn't do it often, I found it difficult to actually SEND messages to people - I could write on their "wall" and it would be seen by anyone. Sending a message which would be seen only by them seemd next to impossible. So I made sure people I cared about had my real email, phone etc - old tech rules! and didn't use it.
I also contracted a very unpleasant trojan this spring which appeared to come from one of those many emails (and yes, I know - I NEVER open attachments to emails whoever they claim to be from). I had to reformat my whole machine because of that thing.
It was odd, too, WHO exactly wanted to add me to their friends list... I think four genuine friends (yes I know that's sad) and maybe five distant but genuine family members. And then literally SCORES of people who wanted to add me, that I had never heard of. WHY?
The Facebook apps worried me. Seemed to be a way to compromise my system, install stuff without any of the usual protection.
Writing - anything you write and publish on there becomes Facebook's property. As a writer, I want to keep MY material to MYSELF!
So I've used it very little over the years...
Interesting point: I DID have an alternate account, in a second name, which I kept completely separate. This was a fictional name, a name I used to use in a roleplaying game. Oddly, I had surprisingly many "people" asking this fictional character to befriend them, claiming to be a long-lost friend or frequently a member of my non-existent family. Including, of all people, one Barak Obama....
That capped it for me. At that point I deactivated my account.
Now with the latest round of scare stories about Facebook, I have had enough. I have deleted my account/s. If you want to do so too, read this http://www.wikihow.com/Permanently-Delete-a-Facebook-Account then log in to Facebook and then follow this link.
Saturday, September 20, 2008
Internet Addiction
Blogging is strange... today the title of my post insists on turning itself into Hindi... It SHOULD say Internet Addiction.
My addiction to the internet is ooooold... I was going to write about that today but it would bore you... And yes, I am still reading and vastly enjoying Minette Walters' books, and when I have finished Fox Evil, I am going to get on my broomstick, fly to the library and find the ones I have missed!
But I did love (and was distracted by) this cartoon.
Sort of says it all.... Manners are just as important on the Net as off it.
I've been hanging out on a forum, lately, where the game of "bait the n00b" seems very popular. I don't think I am very happy with it but there is information on this board that is useful to me, so I lurk, often in dismay as I see people attacked, for no offence other than asking a question that is obvious to the other, more experienced members of the forum - the "ruling class" members in particular.
I was wondering what drives people to do that... the only answer I could come up with for ages was pecking-order. On the lines of "If I can make you feel worse, it makes me feel better"... Sad.
How about a little helpfulness instead, or as my father would say, "if you can't say anything nice or useful, keep your mouth shut" (in this case your fingers still?)
Maybe there is more to it than that. Maybe the "ruling clique" of members on this forum feel that by knocking down some poor n00b they are raising themselves up, but more - they are establishing a level of dominance that reinforces THEIR "right" to be there; any remaining n00bs, or timid people like me, dare not post at all... (By the way, I should point out that most of these people are not mods of the board, just regulars.) So yes, this looks like pecking order in its nastiest form. In fact on one part of the board, one regular member who is reliably helpful and friendly to ALL, is repeatedly maligned and lambasted by the ones who are not... something I have seen on another board as well. A traitor to her class?
The thing to remember about newbies is that although he/she might appear to be a total idiot, asking the most stupid questions, and maybe not speaking the flavour of English we would prefer, we were ALL there once. Once every one of us was a newbie; and the people we remember most kindly are those who helped us bootstrap ourselves up, patiently assisting and answering or referring to somewhere we could get the answers we needed.
But this issue of the "ruling clique" bothers me. It seems to be a way of establishing territory, and the net-word pwned" roughly translated owned suggests territory again...
I played a MMORPG (translation: multi-media online role playing game) for two years or more, till it became very clear to me that what was going on was that the "aristocracy" of older players, who were by far the richest (in game wealth) were quite determined to keep the less aristocratic players "in their place". There was no chance of a newer or casual player EVER passing some of the tests in this game as the aristos would cheat in any way possible to keep them from anything that might give them a chance to join their class. While complaining bitterly about OTHER people cheating.
Is this really the kind of world we want our virtual worlds to be? Don't we have a chance to do something BETTER?
My addiction to the internet is ooooold... I was going to write about that today but it would bore you... And yes, I am still reading and vastly enjoying Minette Walters' books, and when I have finished Fox Evil, I am going to get on my broomstick, fly to the library and find the ones I have missed!
But I did love (and was distracted by) this cartoon.
Sort of says it all.... Manners are just as important on the Net as off it.
I've been hanging out on a forum, lately, where the game of "bait the n00b" seems very popular. I don't think I am very happy with it but there is information on this board that is useful to me, so I lurk, often in dismay as I see people attacked, for no offence other than asking a question that is obvious to the other, more experienced members of the forum - the "ruling class" members in particular.
I was wondering what drives people to do that... the only answer I could come up with for ages was pecking-order. On the lines of "If I can make you feel worse, it makes me feel better"... Sad.
How about a little helpfulness instead, or as my father would say, "if you can't say anything nice or useful, keep your mouth shut" (in this case your fingers still?)
Maybe there is more to it than that. Maybe the "ruling clique" of members on this forum feel that by knocking down some poor n00b they are raising themselves up, but more - they are establishing a level of dominance that reinforces THEIR "right" to be there; any remaining n00bs, or timid people like me, dare not post at all... (By the way, I should point out that most of these people are not mods of the board, just regulars.) So yes, this looks like pecking order in its nastiest form. In fact on one part of the board, one regular member who is reliably helpful and friendly to ALL, is repeatedly maligned and lambasted by the ones who are not... something I have seen on another board as well. A traitor to her class?
The thing to remember about newbies is that although he/she might appear to be a total idiot, asking the most stupid questions, and maybe not speaking the flavour of English we would prefer, we were ALL there once. Once every one of us was a newbie; and the people we remember most kindly are those who helped us bootstrap ourselves up, patiently assisting and answering or referring to somewhere we could get the answers we needed.
But this issue of the "ruling clique" bothers me. It seems to be a way of establishing territory, and the net-word pwned" roughly translated owned suggests territory again...
I played a MMORPG (translation: multi-media online role playing game) for two years or more, till it became very clear to me that what was going on was that the "aristocracy" of older players, who were by far the richest (in game wealth) were quite determined to keep the less aristocratic players "in their place". There was no chance of a newer or casual player EVER passing some of the tests in this game as the aristos would cheat in any way possible to keep them from anything that might give them a chance to join their class. While complaining bitterly about OTHER people cheating.
Is this really the kind of world we want our virtual worlds to be? Don't we have a chance to do something BETTER?
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
On writing
Well, here I am. Always said I wouldn't have a blog but - well, if you are a writer at heart the itch is always there...
After fighting it for many years, I've come to the conclusion that writing is a kind of addiction. I read a great deal, and one of the many factors behind my enjoyment of a good book is that I want or need to emulate the artistry of the author. I want to create something that is as good or even better. Many books I have read start well and - peter out. As if the author is good at the beginning, has great ideas, and then is not good at the endgame. Or maybe is asked by the publisher to change something.
Sometimes, I read quite compulsively, one book after another. And now and then arrives a delight! One delight I discovered recently was an author called Minette Walters. I've read one of her books a few weeks ago; that was Acid Row, which greatly impressed me - as the publishers like to say, as "unputdownable". Well last week I raided my local charity shop (thrift store for Transatlantic readers) - and got The Echo.
The Echo is dense with suspicion while it still has love. Minette Walters takes topics that in the hands of another could simply shock, or produce prejudicial attitudes - murder, abuse, crimes that people commit against other people, religious belief, suicide - and deals with them sympathetically, making their perpetrators are HUMAN, lovable and needy - just as she takes other characters and makes them into unexpected monsters.
She writes for intelligent readers, brought up on Poirot, Holmes and Taggart, and many many other detective stories, and wraps their minds around a group of fully human characters, with all their hurts, losses and indignities, and builds this into a delicious tangle that slowly unravels. NONE of her characters is a stereotype, even the policeman called out on Christmas Day.
I particularly loved the character of Lawrence. An elderly solicitor, a Jew by descent, a wise man and a godly one. A Jungian stereotype in a way (the Wizard) but also an intense, lovable character in his own right.
Both Acid Row and The Echo are high drama, comedy, beautifully characterized and delicately structured, and I would highly recommend both. I'm looking forward to devouring The Breaker (in the omnibus). Watch this space!
After fighting it for many years, I've come to the conclusion that writing is a kind of addiction. I read a great deal, and one of the many factors behind my enjoyment of a good book is that I want or need to emulate the artistry of the author. I want to create something that is as good or even better. Many books I have read start well and - peter out. As if the author is good at the beginning, has great ideas, and then is not good at the endgame. Or maybe is asked by the publisher to change something.
Sometimes, I read quite compulsively, one book after another. And now and then arrives a delight! One delight I discovered recently was an author called Minette Walters. I've read one of her books a few weeks ago; that was Acid Row, which greatly impressed me - as the publishers like to say, as "unputdownable". Well last week I raided my local charity shop (thrift store for Transatlantic readers) - and got The Echo.
The Echo is dense with suspicion while it still has love. Minette Walters takes topics that in the hands of another could simply shock, or produce prejudicial attitudes - murder, abuse, crimes that people commit against other people, religious belief, suicide - and deals with them sympathetically, making their perpetrators are HUMAN, lovable and needy - just as she takes other characters and makes them into unexpected monsters.
She writes for intelligent readers, brought up on Poirot, Holmes and Taggart, and many many other detective stories, and wraps their minds around a group of fully human characters, with all their hurts, losses and indignities, and builds this into a delicious tangle that slowly unravels. NONE of her characters is a stereotype, even the policeman called out on Christmas Day.
I particularly loved the character of Lawrence. An elderly solicitor, a Jew by descent, a wise man and a godly one. A Jungian stereotype in a way (the Wizard) but also an intense, lovable character in his own right.
Both Acid Row and The Echo are high drama, comedy, beautifully characterized and delicately structured, and I would highly recommend both. I'm looking forward to devouring The Breaker (in the omnibus). Watch this space!
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