Girls vs. Guys @ Gaming - Is it fair to talk about?

So, apparently men are far more likely to be willing to dedicate hours on end towards acquiring the skills to enable them to successfully compete in complex online strategy games...compared to girls, who incidentally just want to feed a virtual dog and post an update of its well-being every hour.

Now, surely in the 21st century you all find this type of comment that devalues the efforts of women in our society completely offensive and down right unnecessary - right? We shouldn't be putting women down when it is so clearly not their fault - when it is merely a reflection on the way society has always been. Since time immemorial, the woman's role has been confined to washing, cooking and having a baby now and then; it is the man who was given the more complex role in life having been dealt the 'sole responsibility for his family's survival' card. In his effort to satisfy societies expectations of him - tilling the fields everyday to ensure the daily bread, trying to maintain friendships with other men whilst also trying to be more successful than them, constantly negotiating the line between strong bloke/ sensitive husband etc, he has been given the upper hand in developing the necessary skills and patience to allow him to do better than a women could at complex online games.

Men, be aware however. As Judith Butler says, gender is performative and new media has given women the perfect vehicle through which to mask their identity and adapt their performance to enable them to compete in the masculine domain of both real and online societies. Though it may not be happening immediately, these experiences that new media affords them will only aid, through opportunity, in educating women on masculine roles. The result - a new dominant woman figure able to match it with and defeat man at complex online games *big gasp* ... oh, and in every other facet of society as well by the way... muhuhahahaha

How much is too much?

... is going to the movies =)

... is eating lunch

... loves hanging out at the beach

... is going out tonight if anyone wants to join?

... Finally home, long day!

How many of you have friends that update their facebook or twitter status once every 5 minutes? There is always at least one in every sub circle in the vast 'family' that is facebook where everytime you log on to curiously check what notifications you have or what photos you've been tagged in, you find a new update from said person/s filling your live feed with what they have been doing every minute of the day.

Living in the web 2.0 age is almost encouraging people to live their lives through their status or in 140 characters or less.

Is there a sort of celebrity status involved with updating your status every few minutes? Does fame and fortune come from a few hundred friends knowing exactly where you are at a certain point in the day or that you're eating a sandwich for lunch?

Jobs for the (Play)boys

Yes, I'm a frustrated headline writer. Anyway, apropos of this week's topic, here's an interesting piece on the rather awkward way in which squeaky-clean Apple and squeaky-but-not-so-clean Playboy have come to a mutual arrangement for the iPad.

How could facebooks privacy settings affect you later on?

Facebook is one of the biggest networking sites around at this point in time. If it was a country it would be the third largest in the world. However, what will happen to its view on privacy in the future?

Facebooks privacy policy at this point in time is almost 6000 words long. Now how many of us actually read what we agree to on the internet? Not many, if any. You must also remember that this privacy policy can be amended at any time without your notice, so one day you can log on and realise all of the photos, comments and anything else you have published could be accessible to anyone.

This could include family, co-workers or crazy ex boyfriends who guess your password and then change your relationship status back to "in a relationship with -". This has some scary implications and there have been a few cases where people have been fired from jobs as their bosses have found out their employees have not been 'sick' or just bad mouthing the company. Would you like everyone including you 92 year old Grandmother being able to access photos of you when even you weren't sure what you were doing at the time? I don't think so...
Even in the 'chat' box at the bottom of its page where you think you can have private one on one chats to your friends seems dubious. Mark Zuckerberg has been reported saying he can access "emails, pictures and SNS (social networking sites)" whenever he wants.

What I'm trying to say is that we should be more careful what we post. Treat messages, pictures and even emails if you're that paranoid as if they were public, before it is public and matters get out of your hands.

Blog Writing 101

In hindsight, my last entry looks like a mini essay, not a blog entry. It’s pretty awkward and boring, an obvious first attempt. There is a definite style and approach necessary to write an interesting, popular blog. Certain skills us digital natives need to acquire

I thought I would cover some basic ground rules on how to write a great blog post.
Many of you clearly have a good idea but hopefully this will provide some extra insight (other than just for me)

1. Write with your reader in mind
2. Keep it short and snazzy Don’t repress your personality. Use colloquialisms and slang if you like. This will make your post more interesting
3. Get in touch with the medium
   Links and visuals are key
4. Write clearly
   Grammar and spelling
   How irritating is it to come across a violation of primary school English? Make sure you edit!
   Use clear formatting
   Your post must be easy to read, otherwise it won’t be. Make the most of bold lettering, Italics and sizing
5. Be opinionated
   No one wants to read a boring reiteration of facts. Provide some of your own insight to engage the reader.

I hope this was helpful!

Robots Centre Stage

It seems we're evermore relying on our technological products in everyday life that link us with this connotation of a cyborg, such as being plugged into an iPod consuming music, using lap tops and texting on mobile phones. As of recently though, you cant help but recognise the cyborg-esque identity 'artists' are adopting in their sound to create the current music of the 21st century market. With the aid of machines 'musicians' are increasingly leaning on and maybe even (no, they are) exhausting or abusing the use of many digital technologies in the audio world. For examples look no further than much of the mainstream RnB and Hip Hop. There main weapon of mass destruction: Auto Tune. Listen to much (if not all, although I can't) of 'Lil Wayne's material that is put across the airways. Bam! The listener is bombarded with a "cyborg-gangsta", or a hybrid of rapper-meets-Star Wars. It seems more focus is put on the sound of technology rather than a musical talent, or the lack of that is hidden behind a wall of... well, robot voices to move with the ever increasing speed of developing technology. This has been recognised and questioned by other musicians in the field such as Jay-Z with the track "Death of Auto-Tune" Cyborg music for the cyborg-human? Or maybe another dose of creative disaster for the masses following the digital emergence of the 1980s?

Some Grey Bloke

You know that feeling that someone has already explained it better, wittier and simply more original? You’ve sat there wondering how to package your thoughts about culture, social networking, online dating and the ability to zoom in on Lara Croft’s curves when playing Tomb Raider on the X-Box. And nothing. Your mind is blank so you start procrastinating and how convenient the Internet is for doing just that. Minutes, hours fly by, while you’re pretending to do something useful. You’re researching, brainstorming or something like it, is what you’d like to believe while looking at Facebook pictures of friends of friends because you can.

By now you’ve forgotten why you came online in the first place. The World Wide Web tends to have that effect. There is just too much other interesting stuff out there to keep your mind off the task at hand.

And then you stumble across Graham Murkett. Was it because a friend sent you a link or you kept clicking on fun looking buttons on other websites or you typed some useless phrase you thought was funny into YouTube? Whatever it was it doesn’t matter, because you’ve just found Some Grey Bloke who has already done everything you set out to do in the first place. He has something to say about Twitter, religion, Photoshop, chatting, Internet porn, and maybe even Lara Croft. You’re annoyed for a moment, because he’s just so much funnier and original and greyer than you’ll ever be. So when you realise that the creator of this grey bloke has already come up with all the originality you set out to blog about you decide to at least take credit for having found this online genius, surely that earns you brownie points right?