As my kids get more proficient with computers and gaming, I've been wondering how to mitigate the randomness of the people they run into out there in the wild.
Then I wondered... maybe this should be a tad more organic than simply and completely cutting off contact with the outside world. Maybe there could be a safer approach at rubbing shoulders with the caustic and the refined?
I've always been reasonably protective of my personal information, but with the right attention, I unroll like a scroll. I know my kids have the same traits and have no real fear associated with it.
It was days earlier that I thought about how I would warn my daughter off from predatory people. I have to keep firmly in mind that not everyone is bad, but you also don't have to take unnecessary risks. I was preparing for the eventual dialogue.
A day later, my daughter explained to me that she had told this guy "everything" about herself in an innocuous free-to-play online game. I was a horrified... was I too late?
BriAnna sat her down and was fairly stern about the situation, but I realized that this isn't going to be the last time for engagements like this, it's about teaching the kids to be smart about who they talk to and what they tell them.
So, I asked her what she actually told him. (Because, hyperbole.) She told him her first and last name and the city she's in, but not the state. That was enough to get me worried, but I kept calm and had her show me the chat log. (Because, not everyone is evil.) If it was an adult, he was very good at being a 10 year old. She had just been overzealous in revealing information... perhaps this it could be a harmless teaching situation after all?
I had her delete the character she interacted with him on. She had just started, they were in the newbie area. And then I talked her through what the appropriate responses were in situations like that.
I explained the importance of an alias, which lets you be just anonymous enough to get by. Unfortunately, her current alias we gave her was a nickname that has her name in it. We're going to think of a new one.
It made me think of Art3mis from Ready Player One. The strong willed, tough-girl persona that shares very little information about herself. That gave me some ideas at how children, in general, should socialize online.
The final rule in all of this was: Always tell me when people are asking these sorts of questions. She should never be ashamed or afraid to talk to me about any friend, whether online or in person. She trusts me... which is something I've tried hard to nurture. That seems to be the best deterrent than hovering and getting in her business.
The situation wasn't real for her, but she sees how worried we got about it and it became real to her, too. Now she knows, in a very real sense, that she needs to be aware of how she interacts with people online.
And, as I love to say: "You don't know what you need to know until you need to know it." I hope that what she learned from this experience will help her keep her safe.
Monday, January 26, 2015
Friday, January 16, 2015
So, yeah, I lied. But mostly to myself.
I have stuck by this somewhat obnoxious pretense that I didn't want to read books, but I wanted to write them. Other's stories didn't interest me because, I swore, that nothing was outside of the scope of my own imagination.
How did I get to such a conceited and exceedingly dull opinion?
This, in part, comes from my inability to read quickly and retain any sort of information. Reading puts me to sleep faster than driving... and that's saying something. It's like all that time falling asleep with books growing up finally trained my body in exactly the wrong way. Peh! (The driving thing is another story...)
After +Garrie McLaws continued to prod me with audio books, I told him repeatedly that, with my work, I just can't concentrate on two things at once. He sent me The Martian the push me over the edge. (I've been resisting this dialogue for months and, if you're seeing this, you likely saw that I loved The Martian.)
Who knew that creativity breeds creativity? We had a spare weekend night, if such a thing actually exists, so we got together and did a one-off adventure using Savage Worlds, a pen and paper role playing game system.
I was all over this and I loved the amount of creativity I could put into the environments, but the story was thin and ended with a very deus ex machina ending that made me resent not doing it myself.
"Next time, Gadget! Next time!"
Now I'm brimming with all sorts of creativity and I've been writing for fun for the past couple of days. Why isn't NANOWRIMO happening now?
Now, I'll be moving on to another audio book... because it isn't rehashed stories I could have already thought of. While the plots are sometimes similar, it's the minutia of dialogue and interaction that makes a book sing. The clever, the quaint, the ridiculous... it all blends into a wonderful dynamic that makes reading--or listening to--words a palatable melange of imagination and imagery.
Ah me, I love it so much!
How did I get to such a conceited and exceedingly dull opinion?
This, in part, comes from my inability to read quickly and retain any sort of information. Reading puts me to sleep faster than driving... and that's saying something. It's like all that time falling asleep with books growing up finally trained my body in exactly the wrong way. Peh! (The driving thing is another story...)
After +Garrie McLaws continued to prod me with audio books, I told him repeatedly that, with my work, I just can't concentrate on two things at once. He sent me The Martian the push me over the edge. (I've been resisting this dialogue for months and, if you're seeing this, you likely saw that I loved The Martian.)
Who knew that creativity breeds creativity? We had a spare weekend night, if such a thing actually exists, so we got together and did a one-off adventure using Savage Worlds, a pen and paper role playing game system.
I was all over this and I loved the amount of creativity I could put into the environments, but the story was thin and ended with a very deus ex machina ending that made me resent not doing it myself.
"Next time, Gadget! Next time!"
Now I'm brimming with all sorts of creativity and I've been writing for fun for the past couple of days. Why isn't NANOWRIMO happening now?
Now, I'll be moving on to another audio book... because it isn't rehashed stories I could have already thought of. While the plots are sometimes similar, it's the minutia of dialogue and interaction that makes a book sing. The clever, the quaint, the ridiculous... it all blends into a wonderful dynamic that makes reading--or listening to--words a palatable melange of imagination and imagery.
Ah me, I love it so much!
Tuesday, December 16, 2014
TL;DR
I realized a couple things about writing long posts in G+. First, it isn't worth it. Second, a blog is better for gratuitous content. Third, a couple is usually two things; rarely ever three.
I have this epic long post about how boys and girls are lacking the ability to exercise their empathetic muscle. Boys had "My Buddy" and girls have dolls and stuffy's. Both of which are almost passé in current times. Everything is interaction via some sort of tool built for entertainment. I no longer see explorative play with relatable things.
Emotional roleplay is like practice being a functioning adult. As I say it, it seems silly. Most of my generation are still trying to figure out what being an adult actually means. I'm an Introvert with some social tendencies. This came from a lot of practice being social. Now-a-days, I feel like the tools that kids have used to develop that emotional maturity has changed with technology to the point where we need to adopt an alternative approach. I'll be damned if I knew what it was.
Personally, I go direct with my kids. I talk them through bad experiences and I find why they're angry and give them a chance to express it. It works with us, but outside of immediate family, it's hard to know how to relate. Because there are a lot of people aren't comfortable with that approach. This leads me to believe that there has to be alternative ways to learn to interact with others outside of the "tribe".
Toss them together in a private or public school? Sure!
What about Sports? They breed a competitive spirit against others and/or against yourself. But I don't... like competitive sports. :/
Gaming (video,board, rpg) seems to be a way to draw people together to interact. This could be through competition, cooperation, or a pure exploration (PvE). None of these really provide a way to explore the feelings of ourselves and others, though. (Although, a nice shooty game resolves all sorts of my own feels.)
Now... I'm at a point where I'm asking a question. How do we develop interpersonal skills and empathy without picking up the "aging tools" of yesteryear? How do we prepare our children--and ourselves--for interaction in the today's tech-laden world?
It's a social experiment, but it's because every generation has a different social landscape to overcome.
I have this epic long post about how boys and girls are lacking the ability to exercise their empathetic muscle. Boys had "My Buddy" and girls have dolls and stuffy's. Both of which are almost passé in current times. Everything is interaction via some sort of tool built for entertainment. I no longer see explorative play with relatable things.
Emotional roleplay is like practice being a functioning adult. As I say it, it seems silly. Most of my generation are still trying to figure out what being an adult actually means. I'm an Introvert with some social tendencies. This came from a lot of practice being social. Now-a-days, I feel like the tools that kids have used to develop that emotional maturity has changed with technology to the point where we need to adopt an alternative approach. I'll be damned if I knew what it was.
Personally, I go direct with my kids. I talk them through bad experiences and I find why they're angry and give them a chance to express it. It works with us, but outside of immediate family, it's hard to know how to relate. Because there are a lot of people aren't comfortable with that approach. This leads me to believe that there has to be alternative ways to learn to interact with others outside of the "tribe".
Toss them together in a private or public school? Sure!
What about Sports? They breed a competitive spirit against others and/or against yourself. But I don't... like competitive sports. :/
Gaming (video,board, rpg) seems to be a way to draw people together to interact. This could be through competition, cooperation, or a pure exploration (PvE). None of these really provide a way to explore the feelings of ourselves and others, though. (Although, a nice shooty game resolves all sorts of my own feels.)
Now... I'm at a point where I'm asking a question. How do we develop interpersonal skills and empathy without picking up the "aging tools" of yesteryear? How do we prepare our children--and ourselves--for interaction in the today's tech-laden world?
It's a social experiment, but it's because every generation has a different social landscape to overcome.
Saturday, December 6, 2014
Screw you, DayZ
Yes, this is a short rant about a video game, but bear with me--or just mute the post. :D
DayZ is build on ArmA 2 technology. Yes, I know that it is technically, built on the "Take-on: Helicopters" engine which is also built on Arma 2 technology.
As a simulation engine, it designs the vehicle and ties the viewpoint to that vehicle. This becomes a problem when you tie vehicle like movement to something that shouldn't feel so mechanical, like... uh,people. At a macro scale, this is just fine! You have large fields to run through and urban areas to move through, but when I'm supposed to fit in a 40 x 40 space, the herky-jerky, "human walking simulation" nonsense is way over the top.
Yet, this is never ever going to be addressed. If they had approached this from an engine standpoint, we'd have already seen it resolved, but ... no. The human in DayZ is one of the most frustrating things to "drive".
Then add in the skippy zombies that detect you with uber senses from miles away and jerkily jaunt through building floors on their way to you. Hit detection is a mess. There's no coherence to the fight in melee. You swing and, maybe, you hit, even if the cursor is right on the zombie. But they can run at you, jump past you, swing their arms and you start bleeding.
Really ... they're going to add vehicles, but we can't get your game to sync properly with the server? Hell, player vs. player engagements are the same. It's easy with weapons at long distances because the simulator is designed to do that, but anything done inside of a building is close and extremely frustrating.
Oh, and the random disconnects. There's that...
Recently, DayZ went on sale for $29.99. That's how much I bought it for originally. It was silly because they actually bumped the price to $34.99 so that it would only drop to their original price. Yeah. They're adding stuff to the engine that is very cool, but only for social engagements and equipment... there is no gameplay refinement on the horizon. I honestly think they don't believe they need it.
It's true... DayZ is fun. It's exploration and a great survival simulator. Then, with the already poor network packet handling, you introduce zombies that have better sight than a Falcon and seeking abilities rivaling that of a German Shepherd, especially since you can't hit them with that axe you just picked up from that house back there. It starts getting less fun. Add players that have much the same movement and hit detection.
I want Dean Hall and crew to seriously consider improvements to the engine network packets and player control. Make the game less like an awkward human walking simulator. (Which... is kinda what the ArmA 2 engine is.)
I'll even explain what I mean... detach the camera from the head of the character model. This would reduce the feeling of "jerkiness" considerably. Then, and somewhat unfortunately, put the player's viewpoint on a "marble". The character model moves separate from the player's viewpoint, much like how BF4 has abstracted movement from the character model.
But... here, I know what I've said won't get further than a bit of DayZ loving trololo's. :( I just wish that, when I bought this, I knew they would be making changes to the content before they moved on from the gameplay and network optimization.
DayZ is build on ArmA 2 technology. Yes, I know that it is technically, built on the "Take-on: Helicopters" engine which is also built on Arma 2 technology.
As a simulation engine, it designs the vehicle and ties the viewpoint to that vehicle. This becomes a problem when you tie vehicle like movement to something that shouldn't feel so mechanical, like... uh,people. At a macro scale, this is just fine! You have large fields to run through and urban areas to move through, but when I'm supposed to fit in a 40 x 40 space, the herky-jerky, "human walking simulation" nonsense is way over the top.
Yet, this is never ever going to be addressed. If they had approached this from an engine standpoint, we'd have already seen it resolved, but ... no. The human in DayZ is one of the most frustrating things to "drive".
Then add in the skippy zombies that detect you with uber senses from miles away and jerkily jaunt through building floors on their way to you. Hit detection is a mess. There's no coherence to the fight in melee. You swing and, maybe, you hit, even if the cursor is right on the zombie. But they can run at you, jump past you, swing their arms and you start bleeding.
Really ... they're going to add vehicles, but we can't get your game to sync properly with the server? Hell, player vs. player engagements are the same. It's easy with weapons at long distances because the simulator is designed to do that, but anything done inside of a building is close and extremely frustrating.
Oh, and the random disconnects. There's that...
Recently, DayZ went on sale for $29.99. That's how much I bought it for originally. It was silly because they actually bumped the price to $34.99 so that it would only drop to their original price. Yeah. They're adding stuff to the engine that is very cool, but only for social engagements and equipment... there is no gameplay refinement on the horizon. I honestly think they don't believe they need it.
It's true... DayZ is fun. It's exploration and a great survival simulator. Then, with the already poor network packet handling, you introduce zombies that have better sight than a Falcon and seeking abilities rivaling that of a German Shepherd, especially since you can't hit them with that axe you just picked up from that house back there. It starts getting less fun. Add players that have much the same movement and hit detection.
I want Dean Hall and crew to seriously consider improvements to the engine network packets and player control. Make the game less like an awkward human walking simulator. (Which... is kinda what the ArmA 2 engine is.)
I'll even explain what I mean... detach the camera from the head of the character model. This would reduce the feeling of "jerkiness" considerably. Then, and somewhat unfortunately, put the player's viewpoint on a "marble". The character model moves separate from the player's viewpoint, much like how BF4 has abstracted movement from the character model.
But... here, I know what I've said won't get further than a bit of DayZ loving trololo's. :( I just wish that, when I bought this, I knew they would be making changes to the content before they moved on from the gameplay and network optimization.
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