Science fiction is quickly becoming fact thanks to the desktop manufacturing RepRap project. For some time authors such as Cory Doctorow have been spinning tales about technology that allows individuals to cheaply manufacture items they design (or whose design they download for free, purchase, or steal). Doctorow's short stories "Printcrime" and "After the Siege" (see my discussion of the stories) go into great detail about the trouble we could get into when such technology becomes commonplace. For now, let's just bask in the shiny, new hope for a better tomorrow and the really cool technology.
How does the RepRap work? Using the desktop printer as a model, the RepRap "prints" layered pieces of plastic that can be assembled into a finished product. The use of metal and other materials are also under development so that more complex parts, such as circuits, can be manufactured.
One of the neat things about the RepRap project, is that their current milestone goal is to ensure that the RepRap can manufacture itself. Users who can ante the 400 Euros for raw material costs will be able to use the RepRap to build a copy of itself. The project intends to give the design for self-replication away for free using an open source model.
Showing posts with label Doctorow. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Doctorow. Show all posts
Monday, April 21, 2008
Tuesday, April 24, 2007
Digital Rights Management
I was sitting in an Italian movie theater waiting for the show to start. The lights dimmed, parents shushed their kids, and teenagers giggled and played with the lighted screens of their cell phones. A community service announcement played before the main feature. Were they warning citizens against the dangers of drunk driving? Child abuse? Second hand smoke? Nope, it was a warning about the punishment that awaited criminals who downloaded free music from the internet. Larger than life black letters on red flashed across the screen, showing an astronomic fine and jail sentence for anyone who dared illegally download music.
My husband burst out laughing. It was more embarrassing than going to the movies with a kid who has to pee before the opening credits.
Why did he laugh? Because we'd never met anyone in the country who had legally purchased a song online. Everyone illegally downloaded ripped music. We asked an audiophile Italian friend how to repair one of our scratched CDs and he couldn't understand our problem- why not just download the songs from the damaged CD for free, then burn a new CD?
I don't mean to be rough on Italians- many other nationalities- including Americans- steal from artists, record companies, movie studios, and publishers by downloading illegally uploaded content. Honest folks like me pay for each and every one of their eBooks, digital audio and video files, and games. I don't mind paying for something I want to read or listen to- but I do mind DRM.
Digital Rights Management cripples digital content so that the publisher, movie studio, or record company dictate how I can use it. When I pay for my content, it comes shackled with a DRM- which means the eBook I can read on my Palm may not work on my husband's pocket PC. The song I bought from iTunes will work on my computer or on an iPod, but it will not play on an MP3 player not manufactured by Apple. I may burn the song onto a CD- but only for a limited number of times.
That's right- people who illegally pirate music can burn it to a CD, listen to it on their iPod, on their MP3 player, listen to it on their computer, and do whatever the heck they want with it. But since I paid for it fair and square, I have restricted use of my purchase. Does that sound fair to you?
Probably not- and the Free Software Foundation, consumer advocacy groups, and many artists don't think it's fair, either. Before we're too hard on the big bad entertainment industry, we should remember they're like overweight, out of shape old men who've gone red in the face trying to jog up the hill of technology. They know they need to keep up with the trends, but they're worried about losing money in the process. They are terrified someone to whom they sell a copy of a song, or a book, will put it up online and distribute it FOR FREE (shudder, possible heart failure).
Hmm. That seems to be happening anyway, doesn't it?
The reality is, that DRM makes the digital entertainment we buy harder and less fun to use. It restricts how we enjoy it. It punishes the people who are honest and does nothing to halt dishonesty.
If you think this is a small issue- think again. Norway, France, Germany, and Denmark are bucking against Apple's iTunes store. Their objection? The DRM. European consumer advocacy groups complain Apple's DRM is creating a monopoly for its iPod brand of music player. And, um, that's exactly what Apple's DRM is doing.
Science fiction writers like Cory Doctorow explore the role DRM may play in our future. For now, I'd just like to listen to my favorite Cibo Matto song when I'm out and about with my Palm.
My husband burst out laughing. It was more embarrassing than going to the movies with a kid who has to pee before the opening credits.
Why did he laugh? Because we'd never met anyone in the country who had legally purchased a song online. Everyone illegally downloaded ripped music. We asked an audiophile Italian friend how to repair one of our scratched CDs and he couldn't understand our problem- why not just download the songs from the damaged CD for free, then burn a new CD?
I don't mean to be rough on Italians- many other nationalities- including Americans- steal from artists, record companies, movie studios, and publishers by downloading illegally uploaded content. Honest folks like me pay for each and every one of their eBooks, digital audio and video files, and games. I don't mind paying for something I want to read or listen to- but I do mind DRM.
Digital Rights Management cripples digital content so that the publisher, movie studio, or record company dictate how I can use it. When I pay for my content, it comes shackled with a DRM- which means the eBook I can read on my Palm may not work on my husband's pocket PC. The song I bought from iTunes will work on my computer or on an iPod, but it will not play on an MP3 player not manufactured by Apple. I may burn the song onto a CD- but only for a limited number of times.
That's right- people who illegally pirate music can burn it to a CD, listen to it on their iPod, on their MP3 player, listen to it on their computer, and do whatever the heck they want with it. But since I paid for it fair and square, I have restricted use of my purchase. Does that sound fair to you?
Probably not- and the Free Software Foundation, consumer advocacy groups, and many artists don't think it's fair, either. Before we're too hard on the big bad entertainment industry, we should remember they're like overweight, out of shape old men who've gone red in the face trying to jog up the hill of technology. They know they need to keep up with the trends, but they're worried about losing money in the process. They are terrified someone to whom they sell a copy of a song, or a book, will put it up online and distribute it FOR FREE (shudder, possible heart failure).
Hmm. That seems to be happening anyway, doesn't it?
The reality is, that DRM makes the digital entertainment we buy harder and less fun to use. It restricts how we enjoy it. It punishes the people who are honest and does nothing to halt dishonesty.
If you think this is a small issue- think again. Norway, France, Germany, and Denmark are bucking against Apple's iTunes store. Their objection? The DRM. European consumer advocacy groups complain Apple's DRM is creating a monopoly for its iPod brand of music player. And, um, that's exactly what Apple's DRM is doing.
Science fiction writers like Cory Doctorow explore the role DRM may play in our future. For now, I'd just like to listen to my favorite Cibo Matto song when I'm out and about with my Palm.
Thursday, March 08, 2007
After the Siege
The final story in Cory Doctorow's Overclocked: Stories of the Future Present is the perfect ending to the book. It revisits themes from some of my favorite stories in the collection, and takes the reader on a journey uniquely that of protagonist, Valentina.
In his introduction to the story, Doctorow explains how this story grew out of the strange marriage of his interest in copyright and patent law and the horrific WWII stories his grandmother (no coincidence, her name is Valentina) told him as they walked the streets of St. Petersburg. The story that results uses the idea from the first short in the collection, "Printcrime," of a futuristic printer that can make household items- clothes, furniture, food, medicine. Inevitably, pirated copies of household goods abound, and the government cracks down on stolen intellectual property turned boxer shorts and beer. In "After the Siege," Doctorow goes a step further, and sets us in world clearly the parallel to Eastern Europe between WWI and WWII. In this post-war world, printers serve the everyday needs of the people, from food and tasty sweets to hearing aids for deaf children, but they also construct buildings- hospitals, schools, even a movie theater. Life is good, until the foreign power who created the technology gets mad that the Eastern European nation didn't pay them for the new life they're printing. After all these folks are pirating their new standard of living- they're thieves. The rich foreign power (let's stop kidding around and call it a futuristic U.S.) bombs the heck out of the Eastern Europeans who pirated their technology, and releases a malware (think software virus) that leaves the population without functioning printers- and, in effect, without hospitals, medicine, clothing, or even food. The evil futuristic U.S. is more than willing to beat, starve, and bomb the poorer nation into respecting copyright.
So, what does the starving, limping nation do? It fights back!
Doctorow does a pretty good job of weaving these high-level concepts with the low-level view of protagonist, Valentina. Like her literary cousin, Anda ("Anda's Game"), Valentina loves sweets. She likes going to the movies, talking with her friends. Then her life is gutted by the bombing of her city and the war. She follows a pretty grim path during the siege, fighting off zombies (the enemy releases a new strain of the zombiism virus), digging trenches, losing teeth and fingers, working corpse duty for an extra half ration of pebble-weighted bread. There's a dark shadow of survival horror in here, based on what Doctorow's grandmother lived through, but also reminiscent of the gut-level shock in "When Sysadmins Ruled the Earth."
"After the Siege" starts with flying cars and candy forests, a cinema whose seats fly out like the senate seats in Star Wars, Episode II. Later there will be vampires- would it surprise you if I said there was also a wizard? Like the rest of the fantastical elements in this tale, the wizard has its roots in Doctorow's practical vision of the future.
But don't think that practicality keeps the sense of magic from sparkling through even the darkest alleys of "After the Seige."
I'd asses this story much the way I'd asses the collection as a whole: a morass of excellent ideas, an unabashed fascination with copyright law, and a good dose of excitement. "After the Siege," like most of Doctorow's stories, goes a few pages longer than I would like. I guess someone with such a strong vision of the future can't leave his readers without a glimpse at what's in store for his characters' tomorrows. Despite this and a few small stylistic lapses, the collection had something to say and sent the reader on some fun and thrilling adventures while saying it. That's good science fiction!
In his introduction to the story, Doctorow explains how this story grew out of the strange marriage of his interest in copyright and patent law and the horrific WWII stories his grandmother (no coincidence, her name is Valentina) told him as they walked the streets of St. Petersburg. The story that results uses the idea from the first short in the collection, "Printcrime," of a futuristic printer that can make household items- clothes, furniture, food, medicine. Inevitably, pirated copies of household goods abound, and the government cracks down on stolen intellectual property turned boxer shorts and beer. In "After the Siege," Doctorow goes a step further, and sets us in world clearly the parallel to Eastern Europe between WWI and WWII. In this post-war world, printers serve the everyday needs of the people, from food and tasty sweets to hearing aids for deaf children, but they also construct buildings- hospitals, schools, even a movie theater. Life is good, until the foreign power who created the technology gets mad that the Eastern European nation didn't pay them for the new life they're printing. After all these folks are pirating their new standard of living- they're thieves. The rich foreign power (let's stop kidding around and call it a futuristic U.S.) bombs the heck out of the Eastern Europeans who pirated their technology, and releases a malware (think software virus) that leaves the population without functioning printers- and, in effect, without hospitals, medicine, clothing, or even food. The evil futuristic U.S. is more than willing to beat, starve, and bomb the poorer nation into respecting copyright.
So, what does the starving, limping nation do? It fights back!
Doctorow does a pretty good job of weaving these high-level concepts with the low-level view of protagonist, Valentina. Like her literary cousin, Anda ("Anda's Game"), Valentina loves sweets. She likes going to the movies, talking with her friends. Then her life is gutted by the bombing of her city and the war. She follows a pretty grim path during the siege, fighting off zombies (the enemy releases a new strain of the zombiism virus), digging trenches, losing teeth and fingers, working corpse duty for an extra half ration of pebble-weighted bread. There's a dark shadow of survival horror in here, based on what Doctorow's grandmother lived through, but also reminiscent of the gut-level shock in "When Sysadmins Ruled the Earth."
"After the Siege" starts with flying cars and candy forests, a cinema whose seats fly out like the senate seats in Star Wars, Episode II. Later there will be vampires- would it surprise you if I said there was also a wizard? Like the rest of the fantastical elements in this tale, the wizard has its roots in Doctorow's practical vision of the future.
But don't think that practicality keeps the sense of magic from sparkling through even the darkest alleys of "After the Seige."
I'd asses this story much the way I'd asses the collection as a whole: a morass of excellent ideas, an unabashed fascination with copyright law, and a good dose of excitement. "After the Siege," like most of Doctorow's stories, goes a few pages longer than I would like. I guess someone with such a strong vision of the future can't leave his readers without a glimpse at what's in store for his characters' tomorrows. Despite this and a few small stylistic lapses, the collection had something to say and sent the reader on some fun and thrilling adventures while saying it. That's good science fiction!
Wednesday, March 07, 2007
New Publishing Models
In today's post on frigginwrite.com I introduce writers outside the spec fiction world to Cory Doctorow and ask how giving his books away for free is making him so much money.
Saturday, March 03, 2007
When Sysadmins Ruled the Earth
No, this isn't a tale about a group of anti-socials who use their technological skills to take over the world (muhaha). It's the second story in Cory Doctorow's collection, Overclocked, and it's the most emotionally powerful story from the author I've read to date.
In his introduction Doctorow tells us he's done some time as a sysadmin. What shines through in this story isn't only a knowledge of the profession, but familiarity with the people who work in the field. This allows Doctorow to create characters so real they feel like the actual people in black t-shirts who keep the network running at your office. Great characterization from start to finish makes this a gripping story.
Some pretty bad stuff goes down in "When Sysadmins Ruled the Earth." We're talking end-of-the-human-race scenarios, scary stuff. The journey through these terrifying times is made more visceral by experiencing it through the eyes of protagonist, Felix. When Felix gets his first taste of the disaster that's just struck, I felt it on my skin, in my belly. For a moment I was just as scared and sickened as he was.
It's no surprise Felix and the survivors he gathers around him look for a tech-savvy solution to the crisis. What's interesting is how conflicted these solutions are, and the personalities that suggest them. Once again Doctorow made me unsure which of the conflicting viewpoints was the "right" one. I could understand where both parties were coming from, and I looked to the journey of the story to help me out of the moral dilemma. That's great writing.
As in "I, Rowboat", the ending of "When Sysadmins Ruled the Earth" gave me the feeling of a beautiful bird with salt poured on its tail- the ending went too far past the main events of the story, weighed it down, and didn't let it take off in spiritual flight. I forgave the heavy ending in this case because the central question of the story did concern rebuilding and the future of civilization, and because the rest of the story was so darn good. Highly recommended.
In his introduction Doctorow tells us he's done some time as a sysadmin. What shines through in this story isn't only a knowledge of the profession, but familiarity with the people who work in the field. This allows Doctorow to create characters so real they feel like the actual people in black t-shirts who keep the network running at your office. Great characterization from start to finish makes this a gripping story.
Some pretty bad stuff goes down in "When Sysadmins Ruled the Earth." We're talking end-of-the-human-race scenarios, scary stuff. The journey through these terrifying times is made more visceral by experiencing it through the eyes of protagonist, Felix. When Felix gets his first taste of the disaster that's just struck, I felt it on my skin, in my belly. For a moment I was just as scared and sickened as he was.
It's no surprise Felix and the survivors he gathers around him look for a tech-savvy solution to the crisis. What's interesting is how conflicted these solutions are, and the personalities that suggest them. Once again Doctorow made me unsure which of the conflicting viewpoints was the "right" one. I could understand where both parties were coming from, and I looked to the journey of the story to help me out of the moral dilemma. That's great writing.
As in "I, Rowboat", the ending of "When Sysadmins Ruled the Earth" gave me the feeling of a beautiful bird with salt poured on its tail- the ending went too far past the main events of the story, weighed it down, and didn't let it take off in spiritual flight. I forgave the heavy ending in this case because the central question of the story did concern rebuilding and the future of civilization, and because the rest of the story was so darn good. Highly recommended.
Saturday, February 10, 2007
Intelligence Loves Company
"I, Rowboat" by Cory Doctorow from his short story collection, Overclocked: Stories of the Future Present.
This story is chock full of cool ideas. The title, for starters, is super. Robbie the rowboat is one of the last of the AIs on earth who hasn't committed suicide. Why are all the AIs voluntarily shutting down their consciousnesses? The answer is that there are no humans left on earth to play with, anymore. Humans have all abandoned their meat puppet shells (Doctorow's terms) and uploaded their consciousnesses to the noosphere.
Robbie the rowboat keeps on chugging because he's a convert to Asimovism (an AI religion based on Asimov's three laws of robotics) and because he gets to interact with sort-of human beings from time to time. See, Robbie's in the tourism industry. He oversees two non-conscious meat puppets who rent their bodies to humans in the noosphere so they can have a vacation in physical form. The vacationers spend their time scuba diving near Osprey reef (the reef becomes a major character in the story).
Doctorow tackles some pretty big issues, like what is consciousness, what is intelligence, what is humanity. Ideas as lofty as this are expressed in the narrative:
“The reason for intelligence is intelligence...Intelligence wants to exist, to spread itself, to compute itself. You already know this, or you wouldn’t have chosen to stay aware...Why did humans create intelligent machines? Because intelligence loves company.”
The ideas in the story are embodied through the adventures of the sweet, self-effacing Robbie. His adventures live in a world that grows more complex and engaging in proportion with the excitement of the story, which is what makes for fun reading. Here's my favorite line from the story, near the climax of the tale:
"Robbie...was panicking, something he hadn’t known he could do as an AI, but there it was. It was like having a bunch of sub-system collisions, program after program reaching its halting state."
The only problem with the story was the denouement. In my opinion, it would be much improved by ending with the words: "Sorry, I just don’t see the difference anymore" (the transformation of character is so great, that the reader loses connection with Robbie after this point). But this small issue hardly keeps "I, Rowboat" from being one of my favorites in the collection, so far.
This story is chock full of cool ideas. The title, for starters, is super. Robbie the rowboat is one of the last of the AIs on earth who hasn't committed suicide. Why are all the AIs voluntarily shutting down their consciousnesses? The answer is that there are no humans left on earth to play with, anymore. Humans have all abandoned their meat puppet shells (Doctorow's terms) and uploaded their consciousnesses to the noosphere.
Robbie the rowboat keeps on chugging because he's a convert to Asimovism (an AI religion based on Asimov's three laws of robotics) and because he gets to interact with sort-of human beings from time to time. See, Robbie's in the tourism industry. He oversees two non-conscious meat puppets who rent their bodies to humans in the noosphere so they can have a vacation in physical form. The vacationers spend their time scuba diving near Osprey reef (the reef becomes a major character in the story).
Doctorow tackles some pretty big issues, like what is consciousness, what is intelligence, what is humanity. Ideas as lofty as this are expressed in the narrative:
“The reason for intelligence is intelligence...Intelligence wants to exist, to spread itself, to compute itself. You already know this, or you wouldn’t have chosen to stay aware...Why did humans create intelligent machines? Because intelligence loves company.”
The ideas in the story are embodied through the adventures of the sweet, self-effacing Robbie. His adventures live in a world that grows more complex and engaging in proportion with the excitement of the story, which is what makes for fun reading. Here's my favorite line from the story, near the climax of the tale:
"Robbie...was panicking, something he hadn’t known he could do as an AI, but there it was. It was like having a bunch of sub-system collisions, program after program reaching its halting state."
The only problem with the story was the denouement. In my opinion, it would be much improved by ending with the words: "Sorry, I just don’t see the difference anymore" (the transformation of character is so great, that the reader loses connection with Robbie after this point). But this small issue hardly keeps "I, Rowboat" from being one of my favorites in the collection, so far.
Tuesday, February 06, 2007
Doctorow's "I, Robot"
The fourth story in Cory Doctorow's new science fiction anthology, Overclocked: Stories of the Future Present, really gets the attitude Asimov's human detective, Elijah Baley, has toward his robotic colleague. Doctorow puts an interesting twist on robopsychologist, Susan Calvin, by making her the disreputable wife of the protagonist detective. References to Asimov's I, Robot series are sprinkled throughout the story, including naming one of the "Calvin" character's robots Lenny.
Of course Doctorow puts his own spin on the scenario, posing questions about who owns the rights to what, and why the answer to that question is so important to society. He again shows an uncanny knowledge of twelve-year-old girls, though in this story we get to know Ada Trouble Icaza de Arana-Goldberg through her father's eyes. Single Dad Arturo is struggling with the aftermath of his wife's flight to Eurasia to build illicit robotech. She's left him to keep his chin up for Social Harmony approval so he can keep his job, and struggling to get Ada Trouble out of bed, in school, and still win her love.
A fun, detailed world awaits the reader in the beginning of the story, though as the overly-long tale drags on, the concreteness of the world drops away. Large portions of the action take place in a generic mall that, as I had no details about it, read like a typical, present-day American mall. Aside from setting issues, the father-daughter relationship so well set up in the opening lines of the story loses power when, in a moment of action-adventure, Doctorow pauses to remind us how important Ada Trouble is to her dad. We already knew that, and the reader can see the strings as Doctorow tries to tug our hearts.
But don't get me wrong, I had a lot of fun reading this story. It's jam packed with cool ideas and futuristic car chases. The references to the I, Robot world will tickle any Asimov fan. And, by the way, if you haven't read the originals, check out the core stories of I, Robot and my favorite novel in the I, Robot universe featuring Elijah Baley, Caves of Steel.
Of course Doctorow puts his own spin on the scenario, posing questions about who owns the rights to what, and why the answer to that question is so important to society. He again shows an uncanny knowledge of twelve-year-old girls, though in this story we get to know Ada Trouble Icaza de Arana-Goldberg through her father's eyes. Single Dad Arturo is struggling with the aftermath of his wife's flight to Eurasia to build illicit robotech. She's left him to keep his chin up for Social Harmony approval so he can keep his job, and struggling to get Ada Trouble out of bed, in school, and still win her love.
A fun, detailed world awaits the reader in the beginning of the story, though as the overly-long tale drags on, the concreteness of the world drops away. Large portions of the action take place in a generic mall that, as I had no details about it, read like a typical, present-day American mall. Aside from setting issues, the father-daughter relationship so well set up in the opening lines of the story loses power when, in a moment of action-adventure, Doctorow pauses to remind us how important Ada Trouble is to her dad. We already knew that, and the reader can see the strings as Doctorow tries to tug our hearts.
But don't get me wrong, I had a lot of fun reading this story. It's jam packed with cool ideas and futuristic car chases. The references to the I, Robot world will tickle any Asimov fan. And, by the way, if you haven't read the originals, check out the core stories of I, Robot and my favorite novel in the I, Robot universe featuring Elijah Baley, Caves of Steel.
Tuesday, January 30, 2007
Anda's Game
Anda's got a bit too much podge, she hates PE, and she loves sweeties and her online RPG. There's nothing particularly futuristic about this British teen, the protagonist of the third tale in Cory Doctorow's Overclocked: Stories of the Future Present
, until her passion for her favorite game gets her into more than one kind of trouble.
"Anda's Game" was a lot of fun to read. Doctorow is to be praised for the use of such phrases as "sensible boobs" and characters like "Liza the Organiza." Anda's voice is realistic- sweet, but sometimes greedy, depressed, bored. Anda's round character showcases Doctorow's ability to actually get inside a twelve-year-old girl's head. The plot is engaging, and leads logically down a path that brings Anda and the reader to a genuine dilemma.
In his forward to the story, Doctorow goes into great detail about what inspired him to write "Anda's Game." Thumbing his nose at the misnomer that titles can be copyrighted inspired the title. The practice of gold farming gave him the idea for the plot. What Doctorow fails to mention is where he got the idea that female role-playing gamers were better than males. This assumption is the only element of the story that I didn't find plausible.
Doctorow cites some believable reasons why girls aren't as avid gamers as their male counterparts, including avatars that make them "perv-magnets," taking crap from boys, and gamespace that "smells like a boy's armpit." Where he loses is me is the premise that female gamers are better than male gamers. Just as good, could be. But better?
Doctorow's feminist RPG queen, Liza the Organiza, claims that girls are "faster, stronger, and better than boys." Let's just say this is Liza's opinion, not Doctorow's. But later, when Liza says that girls' cooperative spirit makes them better fighters than boys, I really got the feeling Doctorow shared her opinion. Indeed, important events of the story were tied to the way the girls in game cooperated.
I've observed a lot male gamers playing online MUDs, RPGs and XBOX Live Arcade games. Say what you will about these fella's armpits- the spirit of cooperation is strong with them. Listen in to the audio chat channels during play. You'll hear guys of all ages from all over the USA (and in some cases the world), guys who have never even met each other, spontaneously working together to achieve a team goal. You'll hear them sharing the spoils of war, covering each other's backs, and teaching inexperienced players the ropes. It's beautiful, in a kind of smelly guy way.
I don't think girls are going to edge out male gamers based on spirit of cooperation.
, until her passion for her favorite game gets her into more than one kind of trouble."Anda's Game" was a lot of fun to read. Doctorow is to be praised for the use of such phrases as "sensible boobs" and characters like "Liza the Organiza." Anda's voice is realistic- sweet, but sometimes greedy, depressed, bored. Anda's round character showcases Doctorow's ability to actually get inside a twelve-year-old girl's head. The plot is engaging, and leads logically down a path that brings Anda and the reader to a genuine dilemma.
In his forward to the story, Doctorow goes into great detail about what inspired him to write "Anda's Game." Thumbing his nose at the misnomer that titles can be copyrighted inspired the title. The practice of gold farming gave him the idea for the plot. What Doctorow fails to mention is where he got the idea that female role-playing gamers were better than males. This assumption is the only element of the story that I didn't find plausible.
Doctorow cites some believable reasons why girls aren't as avid gamers as their male counterparts, including avatars that make them "perv-magnets," taking crap from boys, and gamespace that "smells like a boy's armpit." Where he loses is me is the premise that female gamers are better than male gamers. Just as good, could be. But better?
Doctorow's feminist RPG queen, Liza the Organiza, claims that girls are "faster, stronger, and better than boys." Let's just say this is Liza's opinion, not Doctorow's. But later, when Liza says that girls' cooperative spirit makes them better fighters than boys, I really got the feeling Doctorow shared her opinion. Indeed, important events of the story were tied to the way the girls in game cooperated.
I've observed a lot male gamers playing online MUDs, RPGs and XBOX Live Arcade games. Say what you will about these fella's armpits- the spirit of cooperation is strong with them. Listen in to the audio chat channels during play. You'll hear guys of all ages from all over the USA (and in some cases the world), guys who have never even met each other, spontaneously working together to achieve a team goal. You'll hear them sharing the spoils of war, covering each other's backs, and teaching inexperienced players the ropes. It's beautiful, in a kind of smelly guy way.
I don't think girls are going to edge out male gamers based on spirit of cooperation.
Monday, January 22, 2007
Overclocked Announced
Cory Doctorow announced the publication of his new collection of short stories on the famous Boing Boing, the "directory of wonderful things." You can see for yourself how wonderful- or not- the collection is either by buying the book, or by reading it for free under a Creative Commons license which Doctorow summarizes as "Take 'em, send them around, convert them to new formats, make new and cool things out of them -- but don't charge money for them without talking to me."
In typical Doctorow fashion, the stories are available for free in practically every digital format known to man. So far I've read the first Dickensian science fiction tale, "Printcrime," in pdf on my mac. Next up, "When Sysadmins Ruled the Earth" in Mobipocket on my handheld. I'll have reviews of the stories over the coming weeks. To learn more about Doctorow's policy of giving his work away for free, check out my previous post on Doctorow.
In typical Doctorow fashion, the stories are available for free in practically every digital format known to man. So far I've read the first Dickensian science fiction tale, "Printcrime," in pdf on my mac. Next up, "When Sysadmins Ruled the Earth" in Mobipocket on my handheld. I'll have reviews of the stories over the coming weeks. To learn more about Doctorow's policy of giving his work away for free, check out my previous post on Doctorow.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)