Mary Flanagan’s collaborator at Tiltfactor in the rather hush-hush Book of Jing manga project, Jonathan Jay Lee, has had a solo show in Hong Kong and been featured in Penninsula magazine as a “rising star” in the comics world.
Go Jonathan!
And… a sneak peak — Book One!
This past week’s Virtual Cinema course at Dartmouth College proved that machinima works can go far beyond the tried and true. A mere handful of students explored lost love, gaming culture, poet-zombie attacks, and perhaps most importantly, the pensive and strange qualities of virtual life. Check out their playlist, and celebrate with Tilt.
Dr. Cordelia Fine, with a Ph.D. in cognitive neuroscience from University College London, notes in her summary of many gender studies in her book, Delusions of Gender, about gender and the brain a) several studies have found no difference in hemispheric size in neonates; b) the allegedly bigger female corpus (callosum) is in dispute and c) size vs function has not been proven: as Dr. Fine notes, “getting from brain to behavior has proved a challenge.” There may be biological difference in brain, but what do they show us about our thinking?
A recent article in the Washington Post discusses South Korea’s world-leading gaming culture. Considered the world’s most technologically integrated country, with high numbers of gamers and internet users, South Korea is the one to watch as far as gaming policies. Appx 95% of households have broadband access, and in July 2010 there were appx 420,00 concurrent users of the popular online game Maple Story — that is about one in every 115 South Koreans playing the same game at the same time. The e-sports movement has gained massive momentum in South Korea as well, with popular Starcraft competitions.
Meanwhile, the government is ineffectively trying to combat ‘internet addiction’ (or what game industry folks there call ‘overindulgence,’ as it is a type of behaviour, not a particular substance) and considering blocking underage gamers from logging in from midnight to 6am.
The gamers argue that there is no proof that internet use or game playing is dangerous.
The 3G Summit a visionary 4-day initiative in Chicago that convenes 50 urban teenage girls with five leading women game designers and scholars for intensive dialogue, inquiry, game-play, and mentorship. Through multi-faceted workshops and a public forum, this initiative will critically confront gender representation and participation in our society’s fastest growing cultural medium.
There are many recent studies that try to discover anew why, during a time when women are increasingly prominent in medicine, law and business, there so few women scientists and engineers.
The 2010 AAUW research report Why So Few? Women in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) presents evidence that can help to explain this puzzle. Primarily, the research points to environmental and social barriers – including stereotypes, gender bias and the climate of science and engineering departments in colleges and universities. These elements persist to block women’s participation in STEM, but the report does recommend things everyone can do to help the associated fields open up. A collection of related recent reports can help flesh out this picture. The good news: Women are slowly on the increase in academic departments in these areas. The bad news: women continue to earn less $ than their equally educated and experienced male counterparts, across the board in almost every career category.