HUPOMNEMATA

if you happen to be in the neighbourhood, spend some time in the HOTEL…

Very interesting (french) article about the region locking of game consoles, and the artificial confusion between different things : unlocking the machines to play games from other regions and/or to play pirate copies, and some worrying trends in the Australian and German courts under Sony (and other’s) pressure.

I quote: “We – monochrom and comrade Cory Doctorow – would like to ask you to perform an act of civil disobedience.

Please bring a digital camera next time you go to the movies, take a picture of the piracy-warning before the movie starts and use the flashlight. Don’t go for quality taking the picture, it’s secondary. Please jot down time, place and the title of the movie. And thanks!”

Go, take pictures and upload (and spread)!

(courtesy Boing Boing – do they ever sleep?)

Went there :
“misbehaving.net is a weblog about women and technology. It’s a celebration of women’s contributions to computing; a place to spotlight women’s contributions as well point out new opportunities and challenges for women in the computing field.”

full of good stuff.

clicking and clicking, i got there. Selected this :

“I don’t play as much as I used to; these days I’m more likely to demand that moriarty6 buy a title and play it for me than hit the keyboard myself. I prefer to spectate while sitting in bed with a glass of wine and some popcorn. I love it. I’d rather watch him play Silent Hill 3 again than go to the movies. At a theater, if you scream, “DON’T GO IN THERE!” you get pelted in the back of the head with chocolate-covered peanuts. Also, you get ignored by the people in the story, who will merrily go about making the sorts of suicidal decisions that make me want to pistol-whip the writers. But if I’m sitting at home, with all the lights out, and waves of mystical shit are driving that video card into a frenzy … should I call out, “DON’T GO IN THERE!” Jym says, “Hmmm, maybe you’re right. Let’s try another approach, or at least arm-up and check our health levels before we open that door.” But I say all that to say this: how am I not a target market? How come it is, that when people talk about games for women, they are inevitably talking about the Sims? Or Everquest? While I realize that many women (it would seem) really enjoy the community aspects of MMORPG, there are plenty of us out here who scan the racks at EB looking for good single-player action and/or survival horror. ”

It’s part of a reaction to this, which is a rather fun report from a “Women in Games” panel with only men talking.

speaking of humanoid robots, i can only recommend
this article, and the video footage linked to it

Wendy sent me this incredible link about a hamster controlled midi sequencer. You can listen to it too (wav and mp3).

Stitch and Split poster on a Barcelona wall.

A little bit of engrish poetry from the japanese online shop metamorphose (equipping the gothic lolita chan all over the world) :

” The other good reason to wear drawers is
worm in winter.
Wearing skirt in winter is a little bit cold.
So wear drawers to get worm!!”

They’re launching a new series. Good time for a visit to that nice virtual museum.

Hop, un post en français une fois n’est pas coutume, mais à propos d’un livre en anglais. “Trigger Happy” de Steven Poole n’est pas bien vieux, mais comme il parle de jeux vidéo, le lecteur/la lectrice risque de penser qu’il est déjà rance, ce qui serait dommage. Même si Poole au moment d’écrire n’avait pas encore pu jouer sur de nouveaux morceaux de plastique qui n’existaient pas encore, le propos reste captivant.
Trigger Happy est une tentative (souvent réussie) de développer un discours critique un peu poussé sur les jeux vidéo, et en profite en cours de route pour expliquer pourquoi le vocabulaire critique du cinéma n’est pas forcément bien équipé pour traiter des jeux, et pourquoi la fameuse convergence cinéma/jeux est, à la réflexion, une mauvaise idée. Et plein d’autres choses pas toujours abouties, mais c’est un bon début. On ne trouve pas grand chose en français allant dans ce genre de directions mais certainement un jour ça viendra.

(à noter aussi que le/la gamer est alternativement “he” ou “she” tout au long du texte ^_^)