Kerfuffle week is nearly over, children. (Be glad about that.)
A couple of things, by way of introduction, before the free soup. Firstly, do you remember when the manufacturers of orange juice-in-cartons started making a huge fuss about their stuff being "not from concentrate"? I bet you thought that was a good thing.
Not me. My reaction was, "Oh great - this is going to be full of unrefined pith, bits of splintered pips, and half a litre of watery nonsense. Tut. Cheapskates."
It's more than just healthy to challenge the prevailing, handed-down version of received wisdom - it's absolutely vital. Someone, somewhere, wants you to think about things in a certain way because it benefits them, whether that viewpoint is guided by a profiteering ideology or not. Always ask yourself the question, "Who stands to gain from me believing this to be the truth, and acting upon it?" Then throw into that frame whichever religion, corporation, or political organisation happens to be ultimately responsible for the notion in the first place, and pull the handle. Congratulations - three cherries in a row.
Secondly, a fast, honest reaction to something is infinitely more telling (and revealing) than one which is scraped together after a lot of cross-referencing and overthinking, i.e. one which consults (and is contaminated by) external elements. (I don't really want to stray into Theodore Kaczynski and oversocialization territory here, but - if that's your bag - I'm sure you can find plenty of resources online relating to his paper, Industrial Society and Its Future.)
So, in a nutshell, be selective, and don't be a mug. On with the show...
I'm not a gamer, but I know a few, and - as of Wednesday night - it seems I've known someone for ages who used to be one until quite recently. To be honest, World of Woolcraft has always been one of those things on the absolute periphery of my direct experience. I'm aware of some LiveJournal crossover appeal (mostly because some LiveJournal people are terribly enthusiastic about it, and their enthusiasm is hard to avoid), but since I'm less than enthusiastic about LiveJournal, it's all very "contained" (as it should be). And, as with a great deal of online pastimes, I'm always amazed and impressed that people find the time and energy to pursue 'em. Facebook, Twitter, WoW, Second Life, LJ, Bebo...and so on. (Why aren't they researching and writing papers, doctoring scripts, reading and reviewing obscure technical and arcane texts, painting frescos, composing symphonies, controlling multinationals, and saving the world? Oh, right. Because they're not...whoever.)
This link has turned up everywhere lately: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/10543100.stm
However, when I appended it to an e-mail to a friend (e-mail being the preferred alternative to Facebook and Twitter for folks who aren't attention-seeking whores with raging inferiority complexes), it triggered this response (quoted with permission):
"The WoW forums have been in a mess since November...If you want to report a game bug there's proper contact info for that on the box and on the site...A lot of people think the games reached saturation and are waiting for SC2. Leave the forums for the idiots who messed them up, but attacking Blizzard is stupid. Blame the meatheads not them."
This was a minor revelation, as I had no idea E had ever succumbed to WarCrack. (I've since learned that she doesn't belong to a "Guild", and hasn't actively played since April, so apparently detox is possible. *Bemused look.*)
Something else which has been buzzing around for a couple of days is Jessica Stillman's interview with psychologist Marcia Reynolds on the topic of female ambition. It initially caught my eye because of the way it had been highlighted/condensed on one of my feed readers:
Can Too Much Ambition Be Toxic?
High-achieving career women are always striving for their next big goal. But are they making themselves miserable in the process?
Blimey, I thought, That's Loaded and Provocative with a capital L and a capital P. Here's the piece:
http://blogs.bnet.com/entry-level/?p=2677&tag=nl.e713
Unsurprisingly, I've had a fair bit of personal feedback on Reynolds' view of "wanderers" since circulating the interview. If one question has been raised more than any other, it's this: Isn't there an equally affected male equivalent? Fortunately, it's a question which answers itself, unhesitatingly, in the positive, although this particular individual has, admittedly, never really understood nor got a grip on the concept of "ambition". (Anything for a quiet life, me.)
Slightly at odds, perhaps, with that last remark is my response to my_mundane_life on this post: http://community.livejournal.com/academics_uk/90674.html although, as ever, I eschew the hypocritically derisive views of embittered hacks on anti_a_a, and prefer to make the case by example. If you've got it, there's not much point in sitting on it.
The second chunk of this...
...will be up fairly soon, along with the first visual burst from the Electronic Owl Sanctuary.
In the meantime, have a great weekend.
Not me. My reaction was, "Oh great - this is going to be full of unrefined pith, bits of splintered pips, and half a litre of watery nonsense. Tut. Cheapskates."
It's more than just healthy to challenge the prevailing, handed-down version of received wisdom - it's absolutely vital. Someone, somewhere, wants you to think about things in a certain way because it benefits them, whether that viewpoint is guided by a profiteering ideology or not. Always ask yourself the question, "Who stands to gain from me believing this to be the truth, and acting upon it?" Then throw into that frame whichever religion, corporation, or political organisation happens to be ultimately responsible for the notion in the first place, and pull the handle. Congratulations - three cherries in a row.
Secondly, a fast, honest reaction to something is infinitely more telling (and revealing) than one which is scraped together after a lot of cross-referencing and overthinking, i.e. one which consults (and is contaminated by) external elements. (I don't really want to stray into Theodore Kaczynski and oversocialization territory here, but - if that's your bag - I'm sure you can find plenty of resources online relating to his paper, Industrial Society and Its Future.)
So, in a nutshell, be selective, and don't be a mug. On with the show...
I'm not a gamer, but I know a few, and - as of Wednesday night - it seems I've known someone for ages who used to be one until quite recently. To be honest, World of Woolcraft has always been one of those things on the absolute periphery of my direct experience. I'm aware of some LiveJournal crossover appeal (mostly because some LiveJournal people are terribly enthusiastic about it, and their enthusiasm is hard to avoid), but since I'm less than enthusiastic about LiveJournal, it's all very "contained" (as it should be). And, as with a great deal of online pastimes, I'm always amazed and impressed that people find the time and energy to pursue 'em. Facebook, Twitter, WoW, Second Life, LJ, Bebo...and so on. (Why aren't they researching and writing papers, doctoring scripts, reading and reviewing obscure technical and arcane texts, painting frescos, composing symphonies, controlling multinationals, and saving the world? Oh, right. Because they're not...whoever.)
This link has turned up everywhere lately: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/10543100.stm
However, when I appended it to an e-mail to a friend (e-mail being the preferred alternative to Facebook and Twitter for folks who aren't attention-seeking whores with raging inferiority complexes), it triggered this response (quoted with permission):
"The WoW forums have been in a mess since November...If you want to report a game bug there's proper contact info for that on the box and on the site...A lot of people think the games reached saturation and are waiting for SC2. Leave the forums for the idiots who messed them up, but attacking Blizzard is stupid. Blame the meatheads not them."
This was a minor revelation, as I had no idea E had ever succumbed to WarCrack. (I've since learned that she doesn't belong to a "Guild", and hasn't actively played since April, so apparently detox is possible. *Bemused look.*)
Something else which has been buzzing around for a couple of days is Jessica Stillman's interview with psychologist Marcia Reynolds on the topic of female ambition. It initially caught my eye because of the way it had been highlighted/condensed on one of my feed readers:
Can Too Much Ambition Be Toxic?
High-achieving career women are always striving for their next big goal. But are they making themselves miserable in the process?
Blimey, I thought, That's Loaded and Provocative with a capital L and a capital P. Here's the piece:
http://blogs.bnet.com/entry-level/?p=2677&tag=nl.e713
Unsurprisingly, I've had a fair bit of personal feedback on Reynolds' view of "wanderers" since circulating the interview. If one question has been raised more than any other, it's this: Isn't there an equally affected male equivalent? Fortunately, it's a question which answers itself, unhesitatingly, in the positive, although this particular individual has, admittedly, never really understood nor got a grip on the concept of "ambition". (Anything for a quiet life, me.)
Slightly at odds, perhaps, with that last remark is my response to my_mundane_life on this post: http://community.livejournal.com/academics_uk/90674.html although, as ever, I eschew the hypocritically derisive views of embittered hacks on anti_a_a, and prefer to make the case by example. If you've got it, there's not much point in sitting on it.
The second chunk of this...
...will be up fairly soon, along with the first visual burst from the Electronic Owl Sanctuary.
In the meantime, have a great weekend.