The Women of EA: What's it Really Like?

This video is quite positive about working for video game company Electronic Arts, even as a minority female.

(video link)

I am happy to see this, but I can't help but question what it's really like.  I have heard so many horror stories about excruciating hours and lack of life balance.

What do you think? Have things changed?

Women and Going Beyond the Game

From my personal blog:

While it seems to me that many more women are playing traditionally "male" video games these days, there is also a group of women who go beyond the game in ways that, according to James Paul Gee and Elizabeth Hayes, are important to 21st century learning.  An in depth look at this phenomenon and what we can learn from it is described in Women and Gaming: The Sims and 21st Century Learning.

 Read the rest here.

Games for Change Festival 2011

I just got back from New York City for my first visit to the Games for Change Festival. In its eighth year, this year’s festival was held on June 20-22 at New York University.  I wasn’t able to attend the entire conference, but thanks to live streaming I caught most of the Tuesday talks I would have missed otherwise.  (You can watch the archives of the live stream, too!)

I wrote a complete blog post summarizing the event on my own blog, which was also syndicated on BlogHer, which I encourage you to check out.

Here are some other great resources to learn more about the event:

• Livestream video archives
• My (very) rough live notes
• Games for Change: Jesse Schell Keynote
• Video of Jesse Schell's Keynote
• Al Gore champions gaming at Games for Change
• Games for Change 2011: Furniture Forest
• Games for Change 2011: Public Media and Games
• 10 Good Minutes with Dan White of Filament Games

"Stop Playing Homework and Do Your Video Games - A Video Game Quintet"

Welcome to summer term! I don't know if I'll be keeping up the Wednesday fun videos all summer, but here's a live performance of a great little video game quintet to ease you out of exams and into whatever you're doing next. I really love that they've got people doing stuff in the background (check out pong at 4:04) and that girl in the foreground with the cards to tell you what you're listening to for people who might not recognize all the tunes. A very fun performance!

This one sets the bar high for geek parents

Want to be the coolest geek mom on the block? Maybe you could try building this neat marble run around your kid's room:



How's that for some Wednesday fun?

The kind soul who made this video also provided instructions on how to build the marble run. Forget kids, I kind of want to build this for myself!

Super mario bros accapella

There are a lot of covers are the mario bros theme, but this one Jimmy Wong's version is especially cute and singable because it goes beyond the source to make something really fun:



And as if the song itself weren't amazing, the artist himself is a pretty neat guy. Check out the NPR story on him: Jimmy Wong Saves The Internet:

Jimmy Wong reminded me that the tools that can be deployed by the so-called cyberbullies are also freely available to those they harass.

[...]

The lyrics are funny and good-spirited, and effectively turn the tables on the original rant. And the song itself has a catchy hook, has been viewed about 800,000 times, and is now for sale on iTunes.

When I was a kid, here's one thing I never thought of saying to a bully who was about to pummel me:

"Hey, don't mess with me. I've got a quirky sense of humor, a great singing voice, and I know how to code!"

But Jimmy Wong and many others are proving those types of creative skills could be a decent way to put up a defense.

Jimmy's Mario song is available on iTunes along with a bunch of his other music, and proceeds are currently going to the Japanese relief efforts.

A terribly educational video about turtles

Since I know your brains are all filled with studying now that exams have started, I thought it best today's wednesday fun had a nice simple "educational" video that won't take up too much memory space. Enjoy!



And best of luck with your final exams!

Dominoes!

Back in the tech boom, I worked in a research group at a very fun company that not only had plenty of toys around, but let us play with them during meetings. Some weeks I'd grab our huge set of dominoes and set up a lengthy run. When I finished, we'd pause the meeting, knock them over, then get back to discussing the business at hand. It might sound ridiculous, but playing with stuff like that really kept us energized during the meetings, and meant we looked forwards to them even when we had heavy stuff to discuss.

And in that spirit, today's Wednesday fun video features dominoes and tic tac toe:

World's greatest paper rollercoaster

Who needs expensive plastic toys when you can build marble rollercoasters out of paper? This coaster is over 12' high!



Here's a picture of a shorter one:

and the video to go with it:


For more pictures and videos of various paper coasters, check out his website, PaperRollerCoasters.com. It looks like he does a lot of school visits -- maybe this would be a great outreach activity!

Scientific Tuesdays on Wednesday: Colourful Milk

For this week's Wednesday fun video, we've got a video from Household Hacker's Scientific Tuesday series. It's a neat trick to do with milk, food colouring, and soap:

Do video games have to be about combat?

By the time this is posted, I'll have just come back from PAX East, a huge video game convention. So here's a video game related video, but something a little more educational than the standard trailers. The question here is "Do video games have to be about combat?" Extra Credits says no, so here's their video on the subject for a bit of Wednesday meta-fun:

Fun uses of technology: "Just the way you are" cover video

Today's wednesday fun is a great example of creative use of technology. When Dawen decided to do an acapella cover of Bruno Mars' "Just The Way You Are," he did the video all shot in one continuous take with 4 iPads, 3 Macbooks and an 1 iTouch. How cool is that?



Found via Angry Asian Man (who made the screenshot used above).

Great Canadian Appathon

I wrote the following on my personal blog and thought the CU-WISE community might be interested in participating, too!

Carleton's Game Development Club is one of six host schools for the upcoming Great Canadian Appathon:

The Great Canadian Appathon is a chance for post-secondary students across Canada to showcase their skills in developing great games. Students can get together in teams of up to 4 people to hack their game together for 48 hours. The event is presented by XMG Studio and the National post. The Prizes are being sponsored by TELUS and the finale event is being sponsored by KPMG.

A few friends of mine were hoping I would join their team, and yesterday I finally decided that I would.  (I was a little worried about time because there are a few projects I have to wrap up in the next couple of months, but this looks like a really fun opportunity I don't want to miss.)

This is supposed to be one of those hackathon-type events where you work for 48 hours straight to come up with a game programmed completely within the allotted time.  I've never participated in any of these before.  The closest I've come is the one all-nighter we pulled for our school's notorious software engineering class project.  (And that's the only all-nighter I've ever done in my life!)  I'm a little nervous about it because that's not really how I work usually.  My eye problems alone make it impossible to work all night.

Luckily, it sounds like the plan is to design as much of the game ahead of time as possible, and maybe even prototype it.  Then the idea is to have us work in shifts with partners, so those who like working at night can.  According to the Appathon's rules, you don't even have to be on campus - you can work online if you want.  I don't know if it's a gender thing or just because we're getting older, but I personally really appreciate this flexibility.

The competition is happening March 11-13, so I'll post about our experience after that.  In the meantime, if you happen to be a student, consider giving it a shot yourself!

Top Women in Tech Lists

There has been a sudden increase in "top women in tech" lists lately, which is pretty awesome.  Just wanted to stop by to share some of my recent favourites:

• The Most Influential Women in Technology 2010
• Women in Tech: The Entrepreneurs
• The 15 Most Important Women in Tech History

Now if only the third hit when Googling "top women tech" wasn't "Top 10 hottest women in tech: AskMen.com."  :(

The Speaker Orchestra

Here's a cool little promo video involving paint, speakers, symphonic music and a conductor to tie the whole experience together. If you've got 3d glasses, you can watch it in 3d which is probably pretty cool, but I'll just embed the regular video here for some wednesday fun:

DTS: The Speaker Orchestra from Ross Ching on Vimeo.

Want to know how they set that up? Ross Ching has an amazing blog post on how the production was done including lots of pictures.

"Image Enhancing" Has Nothing to do with Photoshop

After listening to Gail's informative presentation on 'Unlocking the Clubhouse', I began thinking about the issue of image in computer science. Many disciplines have their own Hollywood representations, glamorous (though unrealistic) portrayals of their field. Archaeology and anthropology have the Indiana Jones films. The English department has The Dead Poets Society. Even physics has a photogenic ambassador thanks to Professor Brian Cox (on whom People magazine bestowed the title of "World’s Sexiest Quantum Physicist.") In fact, the only area I can think of without such a superstar is accounting... sorry, accountants.

But I digress. While some may find "image" to be a trivial matter, the importance of public perception shouldn't be so easily dismissed. A positive image of computer science is important for recruiting diverse talent to the field. There are many capable, intelligent people who may pass over CS as a career because of misconceptions about the job of computer scientists. Dilbert-esque scenarios of cubicle rows and "code monkey" work may spring to mind. I think that a key part of recruiting more women to CS involves breaking down stereotypes of the field. In that respect, I think the media can have a role in reshaping people's perception of computer scientists. One of my favourite recent examples is Stieg Larsson's Millenium trilogy, featuring the grey-hat hacker Lisbeth Salander (pictured). Another favourite of mine is the television show Numb3rs, a crime drama that follows two dramatically different groups of people - a team of FBI agents and a group of academics - who collaborate to solve crimes using the power of applied mathematics. And as tacky and cliché as the 1995 movie Hackers seems today, to my ten year-old self it was the coolest thing ever.

Is the use of technology in such media unrealistic? For the purpose of entertainment, there's bound to be some exaggerations for dramatic effect - but that's missing the point. The point is to break down preconceptions of what "kind of person" uses computers, and what they use them for.

(Have any favourite fictional scientists of your own (female or not)? The comments section is wide open!)

Weird Al's Patterns

One day, several years ago, I was hanging out in the Math Society lounge when it came up that pretty much everyone used to watch the educational kids show Square One. (It turns out an inordinate number of people in that room also played trombone, but that's another story.) This show was my introduction to a lot of fun math concepts, including Fibonacci numbers, and it was also probably my introduction to Weird Al.

I've had this song about patterns from Square One stuck in my head many a time, starting with the first time I heard it now several decades ago... and now I'm giving this earworm to all of you as today's Wednesday fun video. No no, you don't have to thank me. ;)

Finally, a reason to watch game shows

Computer scientists have a reason to cheer tonight for Watson, IBM's artificial intelligence that is attempting to beat two of Jeopardy’s human champions and expand the frontiers of artificial intelligence. Last night's broadcast ended with Watson at $35,734, Brad Rutter at $10,400, and Ken Jennings at $4,800 after a fascinating game (in which Watson strangely thought Toronto was a U.S. city.)

I've been closely following Watson's progress because of the implications "he" has for computer science. I like the idea of "grand challenges," as IBM calls their ambitious projects - not only for the innovation they produce, but also because of their power to engage the public and promote interest in computer science. For those interested in learning more, IBM.com/watson has many interesting videos on the project. The videos cover the actual tech behind the system (dubbed "DeepQA" by IBM), and its implications for data management and analytics in various industries. The human element is given special attention, too - my favourite segments are the ones profiling the various teams of IBM researchers from different disciplines, and showing how each of them contributed to this ambitious project.

The videos are entertaining, fascinating - sometimes even amusing. In one of the video commentaries, one of the developers said his favorite misparse of a question was when the clue was:

"Category: Bottoms Up!:
It's made with equal amounts of champagne and orange juice."
and Watson said "What is breakfast?"

Ottawa IBM employees and Carleton students (including yours truly) will celebrate tonight with a party and screening of the final game at Oliver’s Pub. For A.I. enthusiasts, it's perhaps a more exciting broadcast than the Superbowl!

Math song for extra credit

I just love the description of this math song video:

During my Freshman year, my Algebra 3-4 teacher, Mr. Krenz, gave me extra credit if I wrote him a Math Song. So I did!

Here's the chorus, in case you need to sing along. ;)

math is my happiness
and life is a total mess without you
one plus one equals two
if you be my one, i'll be yours dude
cuz love is about adding stuff together
its math and me forever

Hm, I wonder why so many of the math/science/engineering songs I find seem to be about love?

Coldplay's "The Scientist" -- Cover by Jennifer Chung

You know, I'd heard this song a lot of times, but never really listened to the lyrics until I happened across this cover version. Given the name, I figured it'd make a different sort of Wednesday fun video.



Ever found science or mathematics in a song where you didn't expect it?

I was just guessin' at numbers and figures,
Pulling the puzzles apart.
Questions of science, science and progress
Do not speak as loud as my heart.