Interesting Links for 07-02-2012

[andrewducker]

• The 25 Most Awkward Cat Sleeping Positions (The Cuteness - it burns!)
  (tags: sleep cute photos cats )
• U.S. drones targeting rescuers and mourners
  (tags: usa politics military pakistan afghanistan )
• Government rejects pardon request for Alan Turing
  (tags: uk law lgbt AlanTuring )
• Narrative is not a game mechanic - on computer games, feedback and structure. Fascinating stuff.
  (tags: computergames design games narrative )
• You Can’t Copyright Porn, Harassed BitTorrent Defendant Insists (May even have a case too)
  (tags: porn copyright )
• Zap your brain into the zone: transcranial direct current stimulation has some very interesting effects
  (tags: tdcs neuroscience brain flow )

Comments

[momentsmusicaux.livejournal.com]

As much as I love flow and miss it dreadfully when absent, I stopped reading at the bit about 'the electrical shock could blind you for a few minutes'. Eep.

[andrewducker]

Yeah, I'll definitely be waiting for version two!

[lil-shepherd.livejournal.com]

I have always thought that it was the definition of 'porn' that was the problem with that copyright clause. Besides, it is not so much copyright as passing off where the danger of being bankrupted by a court case lies.

[dommy-nick.livejournal.com]

I'd swear at least one of those cats had had their head removed. How the hell did the cat get into that as a sleeping position?

Mind you, Mewsli does a good Tabby Rug and Dommy does an excellent Elongated Ginger Cat.

Dommy_nick

[danieldwilliam.livejournal.com]

The article on narrative in game design was very interesting.

I don't play a lot of computer games so my experience is a little limited but thinking about Civilisation and Quake and Portal I see where he's going with most of it.

[wig.livejournal.com]

some of those cat sleeping positions are yoga poses, e.g. #18 looks like "chair dvi pada viparita dandasana"

[undeadbydawn.livejournal.com]

Government somewhat fails to appreciate that the point of pardoning Alan Turing is that his actions should never have been considered a crime.

the man is one of the greatest heroes in the history of mankind. the authors of that law among the greatest villains.


/sigh/

[andrewducker]

The government must appreciate that, as they said as much in their response.

[simont]

But McNally's quote – "A posthumous pardon was not considered appropriate as Alan Turing was properly convicted of what at the time was a criminal offence" – does seem to me to have missed the point somewhat.

A pardon is distinct from a retrospective quashing of a conviction. The latter would mean that you'd decided he had not in fact committed the crime after all, and that would indeed be inaccurate in Turing's case. But a pardon says (or can say) that you think he did commit the crime but nonetheless should not be, or should not have been, punished for it. So it's missing the point to argue that a pardon would not be appropriate because he did it.

If someone was punished cruelly and tragically for breaching a law that should never have been on the books in the first place, that would seem to me to be excellent cause for a pardon in moral terms. And if they were also a media-friendly war hero, it would seem excellent cause in PR terms too!

[andrewducker]

It seems the government disagrees about what a pardon means. As they agree that the law was bad and have apologised I'm not sure why else they would take this stance (unless it would have them open to criminal claims from survivors who were also convicted at the time).

[undeadbydawn.livejournal.com]

this is rather clearly a case where legal ..thingumy has nothing at all to do with recognising what is right. Turings case is entirely about the latter.

this is precisely why I disagreed with - while understanding the reasoning for - every decision Jack Straw ever made.

Legally justified, morally contemptible.

[andrewducker]

A pardon _is_ a legal thingumy. It has a specific legal meaning. Saying that that should be ignored makes no sense.

[undeadbydawn.livejournal.com]

It is clearly evident that I have no logical argument to make.


so I'll stfu :)

[andrewducker]

I do agree that the British government should make a big gesture about the fact that what happened to him was wrong. To some people the public apology was enough. The suggestion of a posthumous knighthood has potential, but I don't know if there are ramfications.

[simont]

Actually, thinking about it, it does kind of make more sense to do a big gesture of apology for the terrible law as a whole than for its effect on Turing in particular. He may have been the most famous and most heroic victim of it, but it would be a bit dodgy to issue an individual posthumous pardon to him and thereby send the message 'we don't care about all the other victims of the same law, because they weren't cool'.

[elmyra.livejournal.com]

The article on narrative in game design is a stunningly good theoretical explanation both of why I'm not a gamer and why I like Dragon Age.

[octopoid-horror.livejournal.com]

Intended narrative can easily be irrelevant.

It's entirely possible to play Call of Duty: Black Warfare Modern Medal of Battlefield, Portal or Skyrim with all the dialogue and subtitles off and ignore the intended narrative, playing it simple as a series of challenges or even creating your own narrative. The example of someone living as an NPC in Skyrim would be a good one, since this is a game that has a strong narrative, but you can entirely avoid it, and create your own, that the game world does nothing to reinforce in any way. Or Minecraft, where the narrative imperative of explore/mine/build/survive is not even mentioned in-game, it's only really discussed in out of game trailers.

Portal and Portal 2 both tell a story very well. They have an incredibly well-constructed narrative. On the other hand, they also have good gameplay. The two complement each other, but are very different things.

That said, I like it when there is subtle narrative in situations where you would not expect it. There's a clear story within some of the multiplayer maps in Call of Duty games, if you go looking, for example.