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Download - Libyan Investment Authority, as of September 2010
Download - Libyan Investment Authority, as of June 2010
Between June and September 2010 the Libyan state oil fund deposited over $1bn with HSBC, according to a document leaked to Global Witness and published today. The deposit brought the balance with the British bank to $1.42bn, up from $292.7m three months earlier. The document also reveals the total assets managed by the state oil fund – Libyan Investment Authority (LIA) – swelled from $54bn to $64bn in the space of three months.
The information, contained in a Management Information Report for the LIA dated 30 September 2010, follows a report for the previous quarter, dated 30 June 2010, that Global Witness published earlier this year. On releasing the document, Global Witness called for new laws requiring banks and investment funds to disclose all state funds they manage.
"Banking secrecy laws still mean that citizens are left in the dark about how their own state's funds are managed," said Robert Palmer, a campaigner at Global Witness. "We can't continue with a situation where information about how a state handles its assets is only made available once a dictator turns violently on his own people and information is leaked," continued Palmer.
According to the document, the LIA held $1bn in an "HSBC Liquidity Acct.", $395m in HSBC Luxembourg, and a final $2.9m in an unidentified account.
In addition to detailing the LIA's cash deposits, the September document includes a damning assessment of the performance of six of the externally managed funds with which the LIA had invested $1.7bn. The LIA was unhappy with the high fees and weak performance of NotzStucki, Permal, Palladyne, BNP, Credit-Suisse and Millennium Global Investments funds, which all performed badly against an industry benchmark of world stock prices. According to the document, the accounting firm KPMG advised that the LIA's investment in 'alternative funds' – such as those listed above – was too high relative to other investments.
The LIA, for example, had invested $300m with a fund called Palladyne, which the Wall Street Journal has reported was managed by the son-in-law of the head of Libya's state-owned oil company. The management report states that 45% of these funds were held in cash and comments that "to date we have paid in excess of $18m in fees, for losing us $30m". It is not clear when the initial investment with Palladyne was made or who this fee structure was benefitting.
Key changes between the June and September investment positions include:
- $1bn of share purchases, including $500m of UniCredit and $360m of ENI.
- The cash and deposits held by the LIA increased by $570m in total.
- Unlike the June document the September document lists the assets of two LIA subsidiaries: $7.8bn held with the Libyan Investment Development Fund and $122m with the Libyan Norwegian Fertiliser Company. The listing of these subsidiaries could explain the majority of the increase in the LIA's assets between June and September.
- Two new structured products: $200m with Italian bank UniCredit (of which the LIA was a shareholder) and $144m with CFP Fund.
Global Witness believes two actions are required from governments, beyond the sanctions that have already been imposed.
The first is that banks and investment houses must be required by law to disclose state funds that they manage. This would cost nothing and would allow citizens to hold their leaders accountable for management of state revenues.
The second is that banking regulators must do a thorough investigation to ensure that banks holding Libya's state funds have done appropriate checks – known as due diligence – to prevent transfers from state funds to accounts personally controlled by Gaddafi and his cronies.
Whilst HSBC was not able to comment on the specific account details, a spokesman told Global Witness, "HSBC has stringent policies and procedures for countering bribery and corruption in all the jurisdictions in which it operates. These apply to dealings with government entities, private organisations and individuals".
Notes to editors
- According to the Wall Street Journal, the American Securities and Exchange Commission is currently investigating whether Goldman Sachs violated bribery laws by offering to pay Palladyne a $50m fee, after Goldman lost the LIA over a billion dollars. Goldman stated: "We are confident that nothing we did or proposed was or could have been a breach of any rule or regulation".
- HSBC's U.S. division is currently under investigation for possible violations of anti-money laundering rules. Media reports have suggested that HSBC may be fined up to $1billion for not doing enough to curb the flow of dirty money.
- In a dictatorship where one individual, or a small cabal, exercises almost complete power over the state, there is a very thin dividing line between state and personal investments, and this was the case in Libya. According to the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, "Gaddafi makes no distinction between his personal assets and the resources of the country." As such it is essential that financial regulators investigate whether the banks that held LIA funds did enough to ensure that state funds were not being diverted for the Gaddafi family's personal benefit.
- In its 2009 report Undue Diligence Global Witness revealed how $3 billion of Turkmenistan's gas income was at Deutsche Bank in Frankfurt under the effective personal control of then-president Niyazov. Deutsche Bank and the German regulator, BaFin, brushed off our concerns saying these were 'state accounts'. However we had been told by a former chairman of the Central Bank that this money was treated by Niyazov as his 'personal pocket money'.
Robert Palmer on +44 (0)20 7492 5860 or +44 (0)7545 645 406, [email protected]
Andrea Pattison on +44 (0)20 7492 5858 or +44 (0)7970 103 083, [email protected]


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Creating a Living Endowment for Ensuring Performance
- Organizational Performance
- Performance Analysis
- Gap/Cause Analysis
- Intervention Strategy
- Design an Evaluation Plan to Measure End Results and Your Return on Investment
- Design, Develop, and Deploy the Intervention
- Measure End Results and Calculate Return on Investment
- Conduct a Performance Analysis
- Summary
This book describes techniques to create a workplace where members of an organization continuously strive for performance improvement. Creating such a workplace often leads to dynamic leadership, empowerment, personal ownership, and a place where people want to be every day (Fusch, 2001a). Before we focus on techniques to create a feeling of utopia in the workplace, we'll discuss organizational performance from a human performance improvement perspective. Human performance has been at the forefront of many organizations in recent years. Dr. Thomas F. Gilbert (2007), who is referred to as the father of human performance technology, pointed out the significance of human performance to the organization through his Human Competence Model, shown in Figure 1.1.
Figure 1.1. Human Competence Model
Gilbert (2007) found two main factors affected human performance in the workplace: environmental issues and worker behavior. In Gilbert's Human Competence Model, environmental opportunities for improvement are above the horizontal center line, and worker behavior opportunities for improvement are below the line. We adapted Gilbert's model to clarify that environmental opportunities for improvement above the line fall under what we will call the hard side of management. Worker behavior opportunities for improvement below the line fall under what we will call the soft side of management. It is clear from viewing Gilbert's model that the hard side of management (above the line) deals with issues that can be changed by management decisions and changes in the workplace environment. It is also evident that worker behavior on the soft side of management (below the line) is under the worker's control.
Gilbert (2007) further defined three subcategories for Environmental Supports and Worker Behavior: information, instrumentation, and motivation. Gilbert identified Information on the hard side of management as communication, data, and information available to the worker when needed to optimize workplace performance. Likewise, Gilbert defined Information on the soft side of management as the worker's knowledge and ability to take useful information and effectively perform required tasks.
In his second subcategory, Instrumentation, Gilbert described the hard side of management as having effective ergonomically correct working conditions and equipment to maximize workplace performance. The notion of effective instrumentation in the workplace environment has been evident ever since Elton Mayo's experiments at Western Electric Company's Hawthorne Works from 1927 to 1932. Mayo studied the effects of changing the physical work environment and adjusting work schedules. The changes resulted in a motivational effect not only for Mayo's test group, but also for externalities of the teams who emulated the test group on their own initiative (Mayo, 1949). Given that we have adequate instrumentation above the line, Gilbert (2007) noted that workers need the psychomotor abilities and skills on the soft side of management to perform a task.
In his third subcategory, Motivation, Gilbert pointed out that on the hard side of management, workers need motivation and incentives to want to perform. He noted that this needed to go beyond the basic monetary salary for workers to willingly perform at their best. It is interesting that Gilbert's final subcategory, Motivation, is on the soft side of management and is totally within the worker's control. Workers have total power over their behavior to perform in the workplace. However, any change, good or bad, above or below the line in any of the subcategories influences worker behavior to perform in the workplace. Gilbert's (2007) model provided a scientific framework to analyze worker behaviors and encouraged organizational leaders to look beyond training as the cure-all for lack of desired workplace performance.
Likewise, Binder (2009) worked to put a pragmatic "how-to" spin on Gilbert's work in what he coined Six Boxes. Boxes 1 through 3 are above the line (the hard side of management), and boxes 4 through 6 are below the line (the soft side of management). Binder argues that if you influence the first five boxes, box six will take care of itself. If you fail to influence the first five boxes, box six will be a chronic problem.
Indeed, box six (worker behavior) is paramount to workplace performance. Considerable research has been conducted on motivation, leadership influence, and why people decide to perform at a particular level. At a foundational level, Maslow (1970) maintained that the individual has needs, wants, and desires that, if left unfulfilled, may hinder self-esteem and self-actualization. On the surface, Maslow's findings make sense. People do have different levels of needs and fulfillment, and people in Western organizations tend to identify with their work. Think of one of the first icebreaker questions people use at social events when meeting someone new: "What do you do?" However, Maslow's hierarchy of human needs may fall short in motivating a worker to perform to a higher level.
Enhancing worker motivation and behavior in box six may be better illustrated by Vroom's expectancy-valence theory. It states that workers believe that performing will have certain desirable consequences (expectancy) and that they perceive their performance as a means to satisfy their needs (valence) (Vroom, 1959; Vroom, 1964; Mathieu and Martineau, 1997). Vroom further found that a worker's aroused motivation to perform was a "multiplicative function of strength of motive, the value of the incentive offered in the situation, and the expectancy that the acts will lead to the attainment of the incentive" (1959, p. 66).
As we influence the first five boxes with apparent incentives through information, instrumentation, or motivation, we affect the worker's attitude toward workplace performance. Building on Gilbert's (2007) Human Competence Model, let's look at a comprehensive organizational approach to performance.
Organizational Performance
In our ever-changing global economy, organizational leaders are striving to enhance workplace performance. With the realization that training is not always the best answer, the organizational performance profession began focusing on results-based interventions that are linked to the organization's strategic and operational plans. As a response to global competition in the past few decades, numerous academic and industry studies found that U.S. business focused primarily on activities instead of end results. One good example in the 1980s was the American automotive industry response to a loss in market share to the Japanese. It led to studying the organizational structure of the Japanese enterprise and a shift in focus toward performance improvement initiatives with measurable end results (Morgan, 1986; Nonaka & Takeuchi, 1995).
Following the trend toward focusing on performance improvement and measurable end results, human performance technologists supported by the International Society for Performance Improvement (ISPI) and the American Society for Training and Development (ASTD) began developing performance improvement approaches to help organizations improve workplace performance. We took into consideration current and past performance improvement strategies such as Gilbert (2007), Binder (2009), ISPI, ASTD, and other leaders in the performance industry. We recognized the critical need to integrate performance measurement, real-time strategic and operational managing, with the understanding that all businesses are in business to acquire wealth to gain additional capital to grow and prosper. This includes the absolute necessity of doing so in Valuing Ways. Our performance improvement model, shown in Figure 1.2, provides a comprehensive approach to analyzing the organization.
Figure 1.2. Performance improvement model
Our performance improvement model includes the organization's directions and movements, its end results, and the gap between its desired end results and its actual performance in both what is going well and what is not going well. We call this the performance gap. This chapter navigates each step of our model: performance analysis, gap/cause analysis, intervention selection, evaluation planning, implementation, and measuring end results (see Figure 1.3). The following chapters focus on continuous improvement for what is going well. They describe interventions to reduce the performance gap with practical, proven, how-to strategies that we call Work/Life Approaches.
Figure 1.3. Performance improvement process steps

subset: commoncrawl


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"Low-tech" and "8-bit" are everywhere nowadays. Not only are the related underground subcultures thriving, but "retrocomputing esthetics" seems to pop up every now and then in mainstream contexts as well: obvious chip sounds can be heard in many pop music songs, and there are many examples of "old video game style" in TV commercials and music videos. And there are even "pixel-styled" physical products, such as the pictured watch sold by the Japanese company "&design". I'm not a grand follower of popular culture, but it seems to me that the trend is increasing.
The most popular and widely accepted explanation for this phenomenon is the "nostalgia theory", i.e. "People of the age group X are collectively rediscovering artifacts from the era Y". But I'm convinced that there's more to it -- something more profound that is gradually integrating "low-tech" or "8-bit" into our mainstream cultural imagery.
Many people have became involved with low-tech esthetics via nostalgia, but I think it is only the first phase. Many don't experience this phase at all and jump directly to the "second phase", where pixellated graphics or chip sounds are simply enjoyed the way they are, totally ignoring the
historical baggage. There is even an apparent freshness or novelty value for some people. This happens with audiences that are "too young" (like the users of Habbo Hotel) or otherwise more or less unaffected by the "oldskool electronic culture" (like many listeners of pop music).
Since the role of specific historical eras and computer/gaming artifacts is diminishing, I think it is important to provide a neutral conceptual basis for "low-tech esthetics"; an independent and universal definition that does not refer to the historical timeline or some specific cultural technology. My primary goal in this article is to provide this definition
and label it as "Computationally Minimal Art". We will also be looking for support for the universality of Computationally Minimal Art and finding ur-examples that are even older than electricity.
A definition: Computationally Minimal Art
Once we strip "low-tech esthetics" from its historical and cultural connections, we will be left with "pixellated shapes and bleepy sounds" that share an essential defining element. This element stems from what is common to the old computing/gaming hardware in general, and it is perfectly possible to describe it in generic terms, without mentioning specific platforms or historical eras.
The defining element is LOW COMPUTATIONAL COMPLEXITY, as expressed in all aspects of the audiovisual system: the complexity of the platform (i.e. the number of transistors or logic gates in the hardware), the complexity of the software (i.e. the length in bits of the program code and static data), as well as the time complexity (i.e. how many state changes the computational
tasks require). A more theoretical approach would eliminate the differentiation of software and hardware and talk about description/program length, memory complexity and time complexity.
There's little more that needs to be defined; all the important visible and audible features of "low-tech" emerge from the various kinds of low complexity. Let me elaborate with a couple of examples:
- A low computing speed leads to a low number of processed and output bits per time frame. In video output, this means low resolutions and limited color schemes. In audio output, this means simple waveforms on a low number of discrete channels.
- A short program+data length, combined with a low processing speed, makes it preferrable to have a small set of small predefined patterns (characters, tiles, sprites) that are extensively reused.
- A limited amount of temporary storage (emerging from the low hardware complexity) also supports the former two examples via the small amount of available video memory.
- In general, the various types of low complexity make it possible for a human being (with some expertise) to "see the individual bits with a naked eye and even count them".
In order to complete the definition, we will still have to know what "low" means. It may not be wise to go for an arbitrary threshold here ("less than X transistors in logic, less than Y bits of storage and less than Z cycles per second"), so I would like to define it as "the lower the better". Of course, this does not mean that a piece of low-tech artwork would ideally
constitute of one flashing pixel and static square-wave noise, but that the most essential elements of this artistic branch are those that persist the longest when the complexity of the system approaches zero.
Let me therefore dub the idealized definition of "low-tech art" as Computationally Minimal Art (CMA).
To summarize: "Computationally Minimal Art is a form of discrete art governed by a low computational complexity in the domains of time, description length and temporary storage. The most essential features of Computationally Minimal Art are those that persist the longest when the
various levels of complexity approach zero."
How to deal with the low complexity?
Traditionally, of course, low complexity was the only way to go. The technological and economical conditions of the 1970s and 1980s made the microelectronic artist bump into certain "strict boundaries" very soon, so the art needed to be built around these boundaries regardless of the artist's actual esthetic ideals. Today, on the other hand, immense and virtually non-limiting amounts of computing capacity are available for practically everyone who desires it, so computational minimalism is nearly always a conscious choice. There are, therefore, clear differences in how the low complexity has been dealt with in different eras and
I'm now going to define two opposite approaches to low complexity in computational art: optimalism (or "oldschool" attitude), which aims at pushing the boundaries in order to fit in "as much beauty as possible", and reductivism (or "newschool" attitude), which idealizes the low complexity itself as a source of beauty.
Disclaimer: All the exaggeration and generalization is intentional! I'm intending to point out differences between various extremities, not to portray any existing "philosophies" accurately.
Optimalism is a battle of maximal goals against a minimal environment. There are absolute predefined boundaries that provide hard upper limits for the computational complexity, and these boundaries are then pushed by fitting as much expressive power as possible between them. This approach is the one traditionally applied to mature and static hardware platforms by the
video game industry and the demoscene, and it is characterized by the appreciation of optimization in order to reach a high content density regardless of the limitations.
A piece of traditional European-style pixel graphics ("Frog, Landscape and a lot of Clouds" by oys) exemplifies many aspects of optimalism. The resolution and color constraints of a video mode (in this case, non-tweaked C-64
multicolor) provide the hard limits, and it is the responsibility of the artist to fill up the space as wisely and densely as possible. Large single-colored areas would look "unfinished", so they are avoided, and if it is possible to fit in more detail or dithering somewhere, it should be done. It is also avoidable to leave an available color unused -- an idea which leads to the infamous "Dutch color scheme" when applied to high/truecolor video modes.
When applied to chip music, the optimalist dogma tells, among all, to fill in all the silent parts and avoid "simple beeps". Altering the values of as many sound chip registers per frame as possible is thought to be efficient use of the chip. This adds to the richness of the sound, which is though to correlate with the quality of the music.
On platforms such as the Commodore 64, the demoscene and video game industry seem to have been having relatively similar ideals. Once an increased computing capacity becomes available, however, an important difference between these cultures is revealed. Whenever the video game
industry gets more disk space or other computational resources, it will try to use it up as aggressively as possible, without starting any optimization efforts until the new boundaries have been reached. The demoscene, on the other hand, values optimality and content density so much that it often prefers to stick to old hardware or artificial boundaries in order to keep the "art of optimality" alive. The screenshot is from the 4K demo "Artefacts" by Plush (C-64).
Despite the cultural differences, however, the core esthetic ideal of optimalism is always "bigger is better"; that an increased perceived content complexity is a requirement for increased beauty. Depending on the circumstances, more or less pushing of boundaries is required.
Reductivism is the diagonal opposite of optimalism. It is the appreciation of minimalism within a maximal set of possibilities, embracing the low complexity itself as an esthetic goal. The approach can be equated with the artistic discipline of minimal art, but it should be remembered that the idea is much older than that. Pythagoras, who lived around 2500 years ago, already appreciated the role of low complexity -- in the form of mathematical beauty such as simple numerical ratios -- in music and art.
The reductivist approach does not lead to a similar pushing of boundaries as optimalism, and in many cases, strict boundaries aren't even introduced. Regardless, a kind of pushing is possible -- by exploring ever simpler structures and their expressive power -- but most reductivists don't seem to be interested in this aspect. It is usually enough that the output comes out as "minimal enough" instead of being "as minimal as possible".
The visuals of the recent acclaimed Flash-based platformer game, VVVVVV, are a good example of computational minimalism with a reductivist approach. The author, Terry Cavanagh, has not only chosen a set of voluntary "restrictions" (reminiscent of mature computer platforms) to guide the
visual style, but keeps to a reductivist attitude in many other aspects as well. Just look at the "head-over-heels"-type main sprite -- it is something that a child would be able to draw in a minute, and yet it is perfect in the same iconic way as the Pac-Man character is. The style totally serves its purpose: while it is charming in its simplicity and downright naivism, it
shouts out loud at the same time: "Stop looking at the graphics, have fun with the actual game instead!"
Although reductivism may be regarded as a "newschool" approach, it is possible to find some slightly earlier examples of it as well. The graphics of the 1986 computer game Thrust, for example, has been drawn with simple geometrical lines and arcs. The style is reminiscent of older vector-based arcade games such as Asteroids and Gravitar, and it definitely serves a technical purpose on such hardware. But on home computers with bitmapped screens and sprites, the approach can only be an esthetical one.
Optimalism versus Reductivism
Optimalism and reductivism sometimes clash, and an example of this can be found in the chip music community. After a long tradition of optimalism thru the efforts of the video game industry and the demoscene, a new kind of cultural branch was born. This branch, sometimes mockingly called
"cheaptoon", seems to get most of its kicks from the unrefined roughness of the pure squarewave rather than the pushing of technological and musical boundaries that has been characteristic of the "oldschool way". To an optimalist, a reductivist work may feel lazy or unskilled, while an
optimalist work may feel like "too full" or "too refined" to a reductivist mindset.
Still, when working within constraints, there is room for both approaches. Quite often, an idea is good for both sides; a simple and short algorithm, for example, may be appreciated by an optimalist because the saved bytes leave room for something more,, while a reductivist may regard
the technical concept as beautiful on its own right.
Comparison to Low-Complexity Art
Now I would like to compare my definition of Computationally Minimal Art to another concept with a somewhat similar basis: Jürgen Schmidhuber's Low-Complexity Art.
While CMA is an attempt to formalize "low-tech computer art", Schmidhuber's LCA comes from another direction, being connected to an ages-old tradition that attempts to define beauty by mathematical simplicity. The specific mathematical basis used in Schmidhuber's theory is Kolmogorov complexity, which defines the complexity of a given string of information (such as a picture) as the length of the shortest computer program that outputs it. Kolmogorov's theory works on a high level of generalization, so the choice of language does not matter as long as you
stick to it.
Schmidhuber sees, in "down-to-earth coder terms", that the human mind contains a built-in "compressor" that attempts to represent sensory input in a form as compact as possible. Whenever this compression process succeeds well, the input is perceived as esthetically pleasing. It is a well-studied fact that people generally perceive symmetry and regularity as more beautiful than unsymmetry and irregularity, so this hypothesis of a "mental compressor" cannot be dismissed as just an arbitrary crazy idea.
Low-Complexity Art tests this hypothesis by deliberately producing graphical images that are as compressible as possible. One of the rules of LCA is that an "informed viewer" should be able to perceive the algorithmic simplicity quite easily (which also effectively limits the time complexity of the algorithm, I suppose). Schmidhuber himself has devised a system based
on indexed circle segments for his pictures.
The above picture is from "Superego", a tiny pc demo I made in 1998. The picture takes some tens of bytes and the renderer takes less than 100 bytes of x86 code. Unfortunately, there is only one such picture in the demo, although the 4K space could have easily contained tens of pictures. This is because the picture design process was so tedious and counter-intuitive --
something that Schmidhuber has encountered with his own system as well. Anyway, when I encountered Schmidhuber's LCA a couple of years after this experiment, I immediately realized its relevance to size-restricted demoscene productions -- even though LCA is clearly a reductivist approach as opposed to the optimalism of the mainstream demoscene.
What Low-Complexity Art has in common with Computationally Minimal Art is the concern about program+data length; a minimalized Kolmogorov complexity has its place in both concepts. The relationship with other types of complexity is different, however. While CMA is concerned about all the types of complexity of the audiovisual system, LCA leaves time and memory complexity out of the rigid mathematical theory and into the domain of a "black box" that processes sensory input in the human brain. This makes LCA much more theoretical and psychological than CMA, which is mostly concerned about "how the actual bits move". In other words, LCA makes you look at
visualizations of mathematical beauty and ignore the visualization process, while CMA assigns an utmost importance to the visualizer component as well.
Psychological considerations
Now, an important question: why would anyone want to create Computationally Minimal Art for purely esthetical reasons -- novelty and counter-esthetic values aside? After all, those "very artificial bleeping sounds and flashing pixels" are quite alien to an untrained human mind, aren't they? And even many fans admit that a prolonged exposure to those may cause headache.
It is quite healthy-minded to assume that the perception mechanisms of the human species, evolved during hundreds of millions of years, are "optimized" for perceiving the natural world, a highly complex three-dimensional environment with all kinds of complex lighting and shading conditions. The extremely brief technological period has not yet managed to alter the "built-in defaults" of the human mind anyhow. Studies show, for example, that people all over the world prefer to be surrounded by wide-open landscapes with some water and trees here and there -- a preference that was fixed to our minds during our millions of years on the African savannah.
So, the untrained mind prefers a photorealistic, high-fidelity sensory input, and that's it? No, it isn't that simple, as the natural surroundings haven't evolved independently from the sensory mechanisms of their inhabitants. Fruits and flowers prefer to be symmetric and vivid-colored because animals prefer them that way, and animals prefer them that way because it is beneficial for their survival to like those features, and so on. The natural world is full of signalling which is a result of millions of years of coevolutionary feedback loops, and this is also an important source for our own sense of esthetics. (The fish in the picture, by the way, is a Synchiropus splendidus, photographed by Luc
I'm personally convinced that natural signalling has a profound preference for low complexity. Symmetries, regularities and strong contrasts are important because they are easy and effortless to detect, and the implementation requires a relatively low amount of genetic coding on both
the "transmitter" and "receiver" sides. These are completely analogous to the various types of computational complexity.
So, why does enjoying Computationally Minimal Art require "mental training" in the first place? I think it is not because of the minimality itself but because of certain pecularities that arise from the higher complexity of the natural world. We can't see individual atoms or even cells, so we haven't evolved a built-in sense for pixel patterns. Also, the sound generation
mechanisms in nature are mostly optimized to the constraints of pneumatics rather than electricity, so we don't really hear squarewave arpeggios in the woods (although some birds may come quite close).
But even though CMA requires some special adjustment from the human mind, it is definitely not alone in this area. Our cultural surroundings are full of completely unnatural signals that need similar adjustments. Our music uses instruments that sound totally different from any animal, and
practically all musical genres (apart from the simplest lullabies, I think) require an adjustment period. So, I don't think there's nothing particularly "alien" in electronic CMA apart from the fact that it still hasn't yet integrated in our mainstream culture.
CMA unplugged
The final topic we cover here is the extent where Computationally Minimal Art, using our strict definition, can be found. As the definition is independent from technology, it is possible to find ur-examples that predate computers or even electricity.
In our search, we are ignoring the patterns found in the natural world because none of them seem to be discrete enough -- that is, they fail to have "human-countable bits". So, we'll limit ourselves to the artifacts found in human culture.
Embroidery is a very old area of human culture that has its own tradition of pixel patterns. I guess everyone familiar with electronic pixel art has seen cross-stitch works that immediately bring pixel graphics in mind. The similarities have been widely noted, and there have been href="http://www.spritestitch.com/">quite many craft projects inspired by old video games. But is this just a superficial resemblance or can we count it as Computationally Minimal Art?
Cross-stitch patterns are discrete, as they use a limited set of colors and a rigid grid form which dictates the positions of each of the X-shaped, single-colored stitches. "Individual bits are perceivable" because each pixel is easily visible and the colors of the "palette" are usually easy to tell apart. The low number of pixels limits the maximum description length, and one doesn't need to keep many different things in mind while working either. Thus, cross-stitch qualifies all the parts of the definition of Computationally Minimal Art.
What about the minimization of complexity? Yes, it is also there! Many traditional patterns in textiles are actually algorithmic or at least highly repetitive rather than "fully hand-pixelled". This is somewhat natural, as the old patterns have traditionally been memorized, and the memorization is much easier if mnemonic rules can be applied.
There are also some surprising similarities with electronic CMA. Many techniques (like knitting and weaving) proceed one complete row of "pixels" at a time (analogous to the raster scan of TV-like displays), and often, the set of colors is changed between rows, which is corresponds very well to the use of raster synchronization in oldschool computer graphics. There are even peculiar technique-specific constraints in color usage, just like there are similar constraints in many old video chips.
The picture above (source) depicts a pillow knitted with the traditional Fair Isle technique. It is apparent that there are two colors per "scanline", and these colors are changed between specific lines (compare to rasterbars). The patterns are based on sequential repetition, with the sequence changing on a per-scanline basis.
Perhaps the most interesting embroidery patterns from the CMA point of view are the oldest ones that remain popular. During centuries, the traditional patterns of various cultures have reached a kind of multi-variable optimality, minimizing the algorithmical and technical complexity while maximizing the eye-pleasingness of the result. These patterns may very well
be worth studying by electronic CMA artists as well. Things like this are also an object of study for the field of ethnomathematics, so that's another word you may want to look up if you're interested.
What about the music department, then? Even though human beings have written music down in discrete notation formats for a couple of millennia already, the notes alone are not enough for us. CMA emphasizes the role of the rendering, and the performance therefore needs to be discrete as well. As it seems that every live performance has at least some non-discrete variables, we will need to limit ourselves to automatic systems.
The earliest automatic music was mechanical, and arguably the simplest conceivable automatic music system is the musical box. Although the musical box isn't exactly discrete, as the barrel rotates continuously rather than stepwise, I'm sure that the pins have been positioned in an engineer's accuracy as guided by written music notation. So, it should be discrete enough to satisfy our demands, and we may very well declare the musical box as being the mechanical counterpart of chip music.
I hope these ideas can provide food for thought for people interested in the various forms of "low-tech" electronic art as well as computational art or "discrete art" in general. I particularly want people to realize the universality of Computationally Minimal Art and how it works very well outside of the rigid "historical" contexts it is often confined into.
I consciously skipped all the cultural commentary in the main text on my quest for proving the universality of my idea, so perhaps it's time for that part now.
In this world of endless growth and accumulation, I see Computationally Minimal Art as standing for something more sustainable, tangible and crafty than what the growth-oriented "mainstream cultural industry" provides. CMA represents the kind of simplicity and timelessness that is totally immune to the industrial trends of fidelity maximization and planned obsolescence. It is something that can be brought to a perfection by an individual artist,
without hiring a thousand-headed army of specialists.
As we are in the middle of a growth phase, we can only guess what kind of forms Computationally Minimal Art will get in the future, and what kind of position it will eventually acquire in our cultural framework. We are living interesting times indeed.


text:
It is of paramount importance that I teach my husband how to be a Southerner, at least a half-decent one, if not one of regal bearing.
For instance, I tell this dear man, who descended from those who traveled on the Mayflower, and therefore is generations deep in New England, that to be a true Southerner, you have to get into everyone else's business. Not in a mean way but in a caring, I-can-help kind of way. His family has boundaries. No one over-shares or over-asks. No one intrudes or inquires with personal questions. Everyone minds their own business.
Drives me crazy.
Now, my family? Well, no one ever heard of boundaries. We're appalled at such a thought. If one of us has a problem, we've all got a problem. And if one of us doesn't think we have a problem, the rest of us will be happy to point out why she does have a problem and then offer wise counsel on how to resolve it.
Our motto is: You got a problem. We got a solution.
We don't timidly put a toe into someone's business. We dive in, fully clothed, and immerse ourselves in the situation. We pull together, we grumble together, we debate and, importantly — at least to us — we pray for each other.
Secondly, to be a proper know-it-all Southerner, you have to know people's names, who they're kin to and the history of the family.
Tink is failing miserably at this. Now, I know he's new at this, but you've got to start with the last name. When we started to consider building a new barn, Tink plunged into the task with his typically inquisitive nature. He bought books, studied plans, asked for advice from farmers and visited barns. One day, he returned from a barn field trip.
"What was the guy's last name?" I asked.
"Don't know." He knows I hate that answer, so he thought for a moment in order to give me more information. "The folks who own the farm came down to say 'hello'."
"Really? What were their names?"
A sheepish look crossed his face. I rolled my eyes.
"Listen, you need to learn that here in the South, we know people, we know who they're kin to and we have all the background information. You have to know enough that you can keep going until the person you're talking to knows who you're talking about."
It's so simple — if you know enough about the person, you will eventually find a connection between him and the person you're talking to. The next day, Rodney, my brother-in-law, stopped by the house. He started a story but needed to set the characters before launching into the tale.
"Do you know Walter Moses?" he asked me. I shook my head.
"He worked for Ben Gooch for years, used to be his right-hand man."
"No," I replied. "I don't know him."
"He went to White County to high school. I think he graduated, but something makes me think he mighta quit before he finished. Nice-looking man. Dark-headed. He comes to church sometimes and sits back there on the last bench, next to the Roberts. Always smilin'. I know you'd know him if you saw him."
"Hmmm. I can't place him."
"His brother, Sam, owned that store over off 115 for 'bout 35 or 40 years. I don't know for a fact, but I'm sure there's a big age difference between 'em because Sam would be in his late 70s now — he's still alive — and Walter is mid-50s."
I got it. I don't know Sam, but I've known Sam's funny, personable wife for years. I had the connection. I knew the family and, therefore, I knew Walter. Sorta. That's how it's done in the South, though.
It's six degrees of separation — Southern style.
Who's kin to whom?
Dixie diva
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text:
Oh, World of Warcraft. Why must you remind me every so often why I don't bother even trying to get my wife to play you? That, were she to log in and find trade channel flooded one day about Those Fucking Japs and Their Slanty Eyed Bitch Women, she might question what it is I find engaging about the game in the first place? Oh, honey, don't mind Moxxi, he's just a white guy, and when white people get on the internet, they use the internet cloaking field in a unique way... they become anonymous, but they insist on letting everyone know they're anonymous WHITE PEOPLE, and proceed to drag themselves back and forth in the shit trough of Trade, trying to outdo each other in complete and utter foulness. There are things I like about WoW, but a lot of the time, I'd be embarrased if anyone I knew read what I read day in and day out in Ogrimmar trade while trying to get a group together for whatever... HOW LONG DOES IT TAKE A BLACK WOMAN TO TAKE A SHIT? 9 MONTHS LOLOL GET IT? You stay classy, Trade chat. Ugh.
So here's me, proving a point. Moxxi, a paladin on my server is especially... um... ignorable. I usually get him on there pretty quick, but today I was on my rogue, leveling around the mid forties. Out of nowhere, he (or apparently, someone on his account, see below) calls someone out as "being a nigger IRL", and suggests that we should lynch said person. I reply with '...' and for some reason he decides to take it into tells at that point. Just to try and illustrate a point, that not everyone on the internet is a white male, I tell him I'm black. Maybe it will give him pause.
As I said, I usually have this guy on ignore. So within an hour of logging on my rogue, I come across this. Lord knows how much he's doing, day in and day out while I'm on my priest or warlock or warrior, all which have him muted.
Again, I'm not trying to rescue WoW, or even say anything is going to change here, but I just don't understand
1) the NEED to be as much of an offensive asshole as possible (yes, the internet dickwad theory, blah blah, it's not new)
2) Blizzard's complete disregard in cases like this.
Just for kicks, I opened a ticket, explaining that I was black, and that I found this offensive. This is purely for the point of this article. Nothing will happen. That's the only point I'm trying to make. I don't usually report people, because I know this to be the case.
You'll notice that my only public response was '...', and that our mutual friend here immediately went into 'niggers are inferior' mode in private tells without breaking stride. Maybe he has Nigger Macros™. Blizzard won't take any action against this account, though, because that's a lost subscription. The most they'll do is put a 3 hour ban on it (probably while he sleeps), and Moxxi will be right back in Trade after a healthy, balanced breakfast, and ready to take on the Jews or the Chinese. Yes, mother Blizzard doesn't wish to lose Moxxi's 15 dollars a month, but is there just NO precedent for someone that just gets tired of their inaction and quits the game because they're sick of seeing it? How must it feel for someone that's actually black, to know they enjoy the game, but just have to ignore all the dipshits tryign to look tough for their e-thug pals (ironic that they're acting like tough ghetto youth, the same thing they're demonizing)? Maybe black people are just used to Internet Whiteboy Syndrome already?
Leave trade chat.
There's a solution, except why should we as consumers need to limit our exposure to the full game, when we aren't the ones crapping all over it? I don't enable the 'Mature Language Filter', because I don't care if someone says fuck (there, I just said it myself), but Fucking Nigger Bitch That Should Swing By The Neck is kind of another story. Plus, I'm mature. I'm an adult. I think of that toggle switch as something for your 8 year old son, but who wants their son playing this garbage?
I just had a birthday, and I've just managed to reach the far side of that oh so coveted 18-34 year old demographic. I'm old. Like dirt. I think this is one of the reasons I'm more interested in thinking of formulas or systems for MMOs. Playing them is wearing a little thin, but it's something I enjoy doing. I'm not sure how much longer I can go on 'just playing' them, though. The first M is starting to grate on me, and I'm running out of patience to just wade through the bullshit looking for a reason to enjoy my time in Azeroth. With the genre getting bigger (or having gotten this big, even if its growth is slowing), there are just too many idiots to trip over on the way to check my mail.
When does a new version of Halo come out? Isn't anyone working on that? Jeez, hurry it up already. The last version that came out left WoW a ghost town for a week or so.
That was nice. : /
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
Where Ixo RPs Being Black
44 comments:
- Hatch said...
Yep. Just, yep.
Especially love the "nothing against your race, but..." part.
And the "how dare you steal our racist word!" part.
Blizzard, are you listening. If ANYTHING will get me to quit your game, it's this kind of shit. And do you really think Moxxi is a valuable customer?
And also: Hey Blizz, it's more profitable to force the racist douchebag to buy a new copy of the game every time you BAN HIM. And you still get the $15 too! Get on it. - June 9, 2009 at 8:36 AM
- Unknown said...
happy belated birthday
- June 9, 2009 at 9:01 AM
- Lantana said...
THANK YOU for this post! This is something that simply blows my mind in WoW. I honestly hadn't heard talk like that offline in... gah, I have no idea how long. Do people just want to stir things up? Are they feeling suddenly free to say things they'd get slapped for offline because they feel there are no consequences? WHY?! I ask you, WHY?!
One week in Trade there was a level 2 player, "progirlgamer" spamming, "i am looking for down to earth players that want to quest with me. yes, i am a girl but i just want to be treated equally ^_^ plz send me a pink message if you are intersted [sic]. i am new to world of warcraft but i am good at other games :)"
This, as it was designed to do, elicited a flood of nasty responses, including "helpful" advice like, "if you want to be treated equally, you don't advertise that you're a girl".
This progirlgamer was obviously someone trying to stir things up, because not only was that initial post spammed, it was spammed for days, and she never moved from level 2 (besides, how does a "new" level 2 make it to the cities to post to Trade?!).
But the vitriol.... oh my. So much hate, people. Get over it! - June 9, 2009 at 9:25 AM
You're likely wrong about Blizzard doing nothing over your report. The person you reported probably got a three hour ban. Blizzard just doesn't send off a follow up "hey we'd like you to know we totally canned the douche bag who was being politically incorrect." Despite how satisfying it would be to know someone got what they deserved. Repeat offenses are also supposed to result in a perma ban.
It's actually quite easy to get temp banned for language. I've known many many people who have received temp bans for saying 'wtf' or other acronyms that include fuck. 'fthepolice' is another example. You just won't find many people who bother to report these things. And usually when they do it's used as a way to grief the other due to a totally separate incident. - June 9, 2009 at 10:43 AM
- Rich said...
yeah, i mentioned the three hour ban thing, but it seems like less than a slap on the wrist. Maybe more along the lines of a 'disapproving eyeroll'.
I can imagine in any (serious) business establishment, were I to shout about niggers and lynching, not only would I be shown the door, I would be told not to come back, like ever.
In WoW, you're put in the corner for 5 minutes, then allowed back out to do it again. - June 9, 2009 at 8:09 PM
- Darraxus said...
It really surprises me how much of this that goes on. The most recent trend I have noticed is people talking about god and religion blah blah. And then the anti religious who talk shit back. Its annoying.
- June 9, 2009 at 8:57 PM
Don't know if you remember "Belure". He was a rogue, and he whined alot. Anyways, he and Fifty didn't get along well. One day he flipped out and called Fifty a spick during a raid. Fifty opened a ticket and told a GM. Nothing happened. So he opened another ticket and talked to another GM. Again, nothing. He then opened tickets pretty much every few hours for a couple days demanding action be taken. Blizzard banned Belure's account. Completely banned, not 3 hour.
I report people I don't like for swearing, I report all farmers and bots, etc. But unless you REALLY drive the point home they usually won't do anything.
I grew up as part of the only white family within 3 blocks. I learned to fight fairly quickly growing up and learned that white people aren't the only racists. I also managed to overcome a prejudice, despite getting jumped while walking home from school and just trying to live normally. But it takes intelligence to realize that skin color doesn't mean shit and people are a product of their environment and society. That, coupled with the fact that the most vocal people in WoW generally lack common sense, rationality, and embrace their ignorance as though it's some religion they need to echo, we're left with all the chat channels filled with babble and idiocy.
Not everyone in WoW is a racist, ignorant, cousin fucking moron - but, just like real life, those same people always have to be vocal and grab attention in whatever way they can.
(BTW, I know over the years i've said some incredibly racist, misogynist, and just very bad terrible things, but I also haven't meant a word of it considering I now live in a mixed race family and we generally just bash each other for fun.) - June 9, 2009 at 9:10 PM
- Krunchy said...
I remember Belure. Now that I think about it, I seem to remember that a lot of people Fifty didn't like ended up either banned or gkicked. Anyway, I find from experience that a lot of people don't really care about the random Teurette's-like racist wailings of random people. Even when people said some cold shit to me (Cuban descent: all sorts of fun rafting in the Gulf and Communist jokes) since it really didn't have genuine maliciousness behind it I didn't really care.
As far as Blizz, I think they know this and will be more than willing to hand out suspensions. Now, if someone takes it too far and really starts being hateful in chat logs (or if someone harasses the shit out of GMs) then you might see a permaban for internet racism.
I dunno, I just never saw the point of getting worked up over internet racism when people don't get worked up about it in real life a lot of the time anyway. - June 9, 2009 at 10:15 PM
- Arkenor said...
There is so much foulness in MMO global chats, and I think to an extent it gives us a window into how far society still has to go, or at least the portion of society that plays MMOs.
MMO companies do not do nearly enough to stop it. Of course, if the CS you get though to shares similar views on race, he's unlikely to be very helpful. I'd probably be willing to pay a premium for a server where conduct rules were ruthlessly enforced, seeing as money seems to be their prime motivator. - June 10, 2009 at 12:51 AM
- Unknown said...
One of the funny things about EvE is that antisocial behavior in-character is completely allowed, but out-of-character douchebaggery is met with a swift ban. As a result, pirates, scammers and notorious PvPers are some of the most well-spoken people out there.
- June 10, 2009 at 2:32 AM
- Brian 'Psychochild' Green said...
Part of the issue here is that there will always be racist people. Online, it's easier to say stupid racist (or other bigoted) stuff and not worry too much about it.
I got a rude awakening about this when I was playing text MUDs. I decided to roll a female character for an alt. I wanted to try out the Rogue class, and the leader of the profession came by personally to help me. He lead me through different areas to get me gear, then in the middle of nowhere started emoting kisses, etc. Very awkward, and it was the last time I really played the character. I knew the guy on my main character, so it was extra creepy. I never told him it was me, though.
For what it's worth, I've punished quite a few people from Meridian 59 who said stuff that was nowhere near as offensive as that screencap was. One time I teleported a character out into the middle of a group of people after he told a pedophilia-related joke on general chat so that he could be killed. For a while, he had a page online complaining about what I did; so, there was a page out there with my pseudonym and "pedophilia" on it. Yeah....
Now all the commenters on here can share that fun! :) - June 10, 2009 at 3:02 AM
- Stabs said...
There is a certain amount of peer pressure. A guy like this would be gkicked by many guilds or ignore listed by other players.
To some extent these people presumably thrive on that kind of rejection and feel encouraged by it. The more extreme they behave the more outrage and attention they provoke.
Game mechanics have a lot to do with the behaviour too. In WoW making enemies doesn't really hurt you. In Darkfall if you act like this you better have at least 50 like-minded friends to back you up.
In other news today's Word Verification is botorks. How apt! - June 10, 2009 at 5:00 AM
I don't know that I'd say Blizzard *completely* ignores issues like this. I reported a character on Aerie Peak named Jigaboo and he got "disappeared" and I got a nice apology note via in-game mail from Blizzard.
Granted it was probably a form letter, and imho they should be actively filtering for words like that, but I can't say I was ignored. - June 10, 2009 at 7:17 AM
- Ho Ho said...
"The most recent trend I have noticed is people talking about god and religion blah blah. And then the anti religious who talk shit back. Its annoying."
Perhaps they talk back because religious talk to them feels offensive? E.g some of them might think that people who believe in imaginary friends are not quite OK or something similar.
There are stupid people all over the world, no matter the race, religion, skin color, sex or age. Relative anonymousness of internet just makes them feel safer to express their stupidity in various ways. I've been called lots of things but I've not taken anything personally because I feel there is no need for it. Why should I care what some random person on the net tells me?
Also, when talking about racism I find it quite funny how you seem to think all the people talking crap in wow and other public places are white instead of any other race. Hypocrite much? :) - June 10, 2009 at 7:19 AM
- Rich said...
touche- I guess I should have included more screenshots of the white power "movement". Our screenshot above clearly illustrates being white. In all honesty, I think it's a pretty safe blanket statement to make, but I suppose I should have provided more background on it.
I don't pretend people other than whites aren't racist, but young white males typically seem to have the most 'gusto' for it in online games. They're racist, sexist, and PROUD OF IT. I'm not proposing any sweeping changes to rulesets or anything, this post is mostly just me rolling my eyes aloud as I log out and shut down my system for the night. - June 10, 2009 at 7:46 AM
- Ho Ho said...
"young white males typically seem to have the most 'gusto' for it in online games"
How can you make up people's skin colour by just looking at what they type? My guild has at least one black guy and he is probably the first one to make any kind of "nigga" joke.
Logical conclusion would be that you are a minority and therefore there are much less black people to do those things. As I said before, stupidity doesn't care about race or skin colour.
I'm playing in EU realm and we have very few non-white people around here. Not counting the regular anal spam the trade chat seems to be mostly half-decent. I've yet to notice any racial or religious arguments there but it could be that in general people in EU are less religious and our minorities make up a very small part of population compared to US. Perhaps if we had at least 30% of coloured/religious people things might be different. - June 10, 2009 at 8:20 AM
- Zanthor said...
Blizzard really does need to swing the banstick on these a lot harder. The 3 hour ban is nothing unless it's immediate, and even then it's unlikely to dissuade many users.
I personally think that blizzard needs to keep a rolling scale of reports for something like this...
One report, you're tagged for 30 days - 3 hour ban for the first offense.
Second report inside 30 days, you're now tagged for 90 days and get a 72 hour ban.
Third report inside those 90 days and you are tagged for 6 months, and you get a 7 day ban.
After that, you've proven you are a drain on society and should be banned from the game. - June 10, 2009 at 9:08 AM
Well if there's one positive to this whole fiasco - I found your blog! Somehow I didn't know it existed. Thanks to brokentoys for the link.
- June 10, 2009 at 9:38 AM
- Andy said...
I got some EverQuest 1 conversations along the same nature. I was simply reading, but I saved the chaotic banter to remind me that people are just mean, words hurt, and MMO companies are pretty hands off when it comes to these issues, which is sad, and a bit naive.
At 10+ mil though you should take a stand against these kinds of people, but it's hard to police this kind of stuff, takes a lot of resources, etc, but really what's a couple thousand bad apples really worth loosing customers you really want to have playing your game?
What're the RP servers like in WoW? Just as bad, or better? - June 10, 2009 at 9:40 AM
- isildur said...
I play on an RP server. I keep Trade and General turned off at all times, because this behavior is quite common despite the 'RP' tag next to the server name.
Except that in addition to racism, misogyny, and general idiocy, we also get long arguments about what is and isn't 'real' roleplaying. - June 10, 2009 at 10:09 AM
- Tholal said...
Out him on the server forums, along with the screenshot of his talk. The squeaky wheel gets the grease.
- June 10, 2009 at 10:37 AM
If you've ever checked out the Customer Service Forum for WoW, you can see Blue GM (it's GMs who work that forum) that post on how strongly they feel about hate speech. In most cases, it's NOT a 3 hour ban right away -- it's something worse. And there's a penalty volcano. Everytime that person is reported, they move up, until that account perma-banned.
However, these reports have to be generated by the players. GMs aren't normally just chilling in chat. Report, report, report. Have your friends report. Sure, it's a pain, but if people keep reporting these awful, awful people, Blizzard DOES take action. You just have to initiate it. - June 10, 2009 at 11:08 AM
I used to run a LAN gaming center. Our main customer base was 12-20 year old, middle-to-upper-class, foul-mouthed, testorerone-filled, highly caffienated white males.
To this day, I cannot play World of Warcraft, Counter-strike, or Halo, just because I would rather not game with a community that is made up of people like my former customers.
Much like Blizzard, however, I was more than happy to take their money and let them type smack-talk to each other all day long.
Bottom Line: Find a game with a better community. There are tons out there. - June 10, 2009 at 12:39 PM
So true.
There was a day when it was confined to just Barrens Chat....*sigh* those days are long gone. - June 10, 2009 at 1:59 PM
Cross linked from Broken Toys,
Definately agree with you about the filth from trade chat. Something that would probably help would be if whenever an account got banned instead of sending a nice quiet email to the account holder instead they mailed a letter containing the offense, and the action taken.
It might disuade some of these little monsters (who would probably not have anything to say to you in person) if someone else were to open the mail and read the things they were saying.
I guess in short: to make them publiclly acountable for their actions.
Halls of Shame for the banned are a great idea as well. - June 10, 2009 at 2:15 PM
Pardon my ignorance, but what the heck is a Jigaboo?
Also, unless something magic happened lately, there's still a rogue named Skagpunny on ravenholdt (Heroin pu**y) (checks armory)
yep, still there. I got a warning for repeatedly appealing the name. - June 11, 2009 at 4:51 PM
This turns me off a game faster than anything else.
For a while I played "Silk Road Online", an Asia based MMO where the ability to do "shout" or zone chat was available only as a real money purchase item.
There has never been a game with as vile chat as that one and it was completely international so you'd have people bashing the Irish, the Azerbayjan, Kurds, and groups you'd need an atlas to locate. The violence and derogatory threats also had a particularly extreme tone. One player informed us that after beheading a particular ethnic players mother he would then rape her throat. And this was a particular money making feature for the game company! That was the last straw for me.
You just don't get that kind of insane goodness here in the US.
Sure, no company can monitor every bit of text in a game but by responding swiftly and strongly to harrassment reports from players, especially in the first few months, a norm can be established that empowers civility. No system is perfect but no system can work without taking player reporting seriously. - June 12, 2009 at 10:46 AM
Do you really think these people are actually racist? I would think it is more about attention whoring than anything else.
- June 12, 2009 at 3:54 PM
- tkioz said...
okay I agree with almost everything you said, wow is a cesspool of racist and sexist twerps, but come-on, "just a white guy"?
I'm a white guy and find what he said offensive, but just because there are some white people out there that are dickwads that's no excuse to label us all with the same brush.
Being an asshat isn't a racial thing, its a human thing. I've met morons of every skin-tone that make me ashamed to be of the same species as them. - June 12, 2009 at 9:32 PM
I'm aware that you are apparently not black so this point following will seem moot, but in the spirit of RP, it really is not. To a lesser degree there is an awful lot of hypocrisy in your post. I just felt the need to point this out to you, no followup necessary.
"when white people get on the internet" "anonymous WHITE PEOPLE" "Internet Whiteboy Syndrome" - June 14, 2009 at 3:41 AM
- Rich said...
White people hate being reminded that they're white.
Film at eleven. - June 14, 2009 at 6:14 AM
FFS, if you're worth more than the queen, you can bloody well hire a small crew to monitor the damn chat channels at all times and ban these fucktards back to the stone age.. Or maybe send them to the middle east, and they'll get stoned back to the ban age..
How about hiring some of the gold farmers? They obviously need money, and they work cheep.
I just can't imagine, like you mentioned, someone playing their first MMO, the mighty WoW, Slayer of all MMO World Records, and the first thing they get to experience is the scum of humanity..
Shame on you, Blizzard. From a lesser game company, maybe some slack could be allowed, but when you're making 80 gigabillion a minute, there's just no excuse... - June 14, 2009 at 8:12 PM
"FFS, if you're worth more than the queen, you can bloody well hire a small crew to monitor the damn chat channels at all times and ban these fucktards back to the stone age.. Or maybe send them to the middle east, and they'll get stoned back to the ban age.."
That is just plain stupid. How many people does it take to monitor everything that is typed by 12 million players? 100k? Small? uh huh...
And even then everything is subjective. What is offensive to one person is humor to another. If you see something offensive, report it. Blizzard is not your mom shielding you from the bullies. - June 15, 2009 at 1:54 PM
- Unknown said...
I think part of the problem is these kids don't realize "transgression" has ben done to death already. It's like they think there's actually something fresh or new about their boringly juvenile behavior.
- June 16, 2009 at 5:12 PM
WOW, I thought our trade chat was bad but that guy steals the A-hole of the year award!
I really couldn't even read the whole thing... it made me want to puke. When I log onto my character I become who she is..night elf not some white chick at a computer.. I thought that was the beauty of WoW. You don't know who the person is behind the character, and any stereotypes of the real world should drop away. As a woman, I have seen lots of crude, and offensive things on trade, and I try to chalk it up to teenagers that don't get enough attention from their parents. These people who spout this crap off are hungry for attention anyway they can get it. I think it would be interesting to see how long they would keep saying this crap if no one commented on it. They are like trade chat arsonists, they get off on lighting a spark and seeing how intense the fire gets. - June 17, 2009 at 8:23 AM
- Unknown said...
halo 4 can't come soon enough. great writing - spreading it around.
- June 17, 2009 at 2:33 PM
- Rich said...
just as a followup:
Moxxi is still doing just fine, so no action (or at least nothing permanent) came of my ticket.
GG Blizz. - June 18, 2009 at 8:49 AM
I can't believe that a post regarding racism practically opens up with it.
"he's just a white guy, and when white people get on the internet, they use the internet cloaking field in a unique way... they become anonymous, but they insist on letting everyone know they're anonymous WHITE PEOPLE, and proceed to drag themselves back and forth in the shit trough of Trade, trying to outdo each other in complete and utter foulness."
I'm not excusing the behavior of these offenders by any means. But you need to hold yourself to the same standard you put on people when you get on a soapbox. - June 19, 2009 at 9:27 AM
- Tonio said...
I came to this post by way of Brokentoys. Fantastic post -- I've seen so many cases of this and, as you say, Blizzard doesn't want to lose their $15. (No-one in the US business world seems to understand the value of having a reputation any more.)
Well said. - June 28, 2009 at 9:49 PM
My husband sent me this post and I thought it was very interesting and totally spot on. I've seen similar comments in WoW about ethnic and religious minorities and about women. It's all such a turn off to what is otherwise a fun game.
I've often wondered if the source is as you suggest, anonymity and a desire to demonstrate one's "whiteness" or if it is a basic assumption on the part of these individuals that all other gamers are white, Christian, and male. - June 29, 2009 at 7:26 AM
Well as much as I detest this kind of behavior, we should think do we really want Blizzard to censor people like this. I mean he was an ass, but really, giving them the go ahead to do that seems like a bad idea to me.
- June 30, 2009 at 10:28 AM
- Unknown said...
They don't do anything because you're allowed to say whatever you want in this country even if it is racist nonsense like what Moxxi said. He's allowed to call people niggers just like you're allowed to post racist generalizations like:
"when white people get on the internet, they use the internet cloaking field in a unique way"
Moxxi is an idiot and clearly offensive. But I'm sure he offends many white people as well with these comments. Racist assholes (be they white, black, Asian or whatever) are part of the reason I stopped playing WoW. - July 13, 2009 at 3:14 AM
- Rades said...
Great post, and all too true and common in any online community. :( Sadly, from a purely financial standpoint it makes COMPLETE sense to not ban racist people.
If Blizzard bans someone for being racist, they lose a customer. Chances are said racist is enraged and offended someone would "censor" him/her and they don't come back.
If Blizzard doesn't ban the racist person, they MIGHT lose a customer. But chances are, the person complaining doesn't quit and instead just files it under the "resigned resentment" category. Sum loss to Blizzard: Zero.
Now if the opposite was true, and being racist actually COST Blizzard money...then I think we'd see some results. - July 28, 2009 at 4:19 PM
"""""" "The most recent trend I have noticed is people talking about god and religion blah blah. And then the anti religious who talk shit back. Its annoying."
Perhaps they talk back because religious talk to them feels offensive? E.g some of them might think that people who believe in imaginary friends are not quite OK or something similar.
There are stupid people all over the world, no matter the race, religion, skin color, sex or age. Relative anonymousness of internet just makes them feel safer to express their stupidity in various ways. I've been called lots of things but I've not taken anything personally because I feel there is no need for it. Why should I care what some random person on the net tells me?
Also, when talking about racism I find it quite funny how you seem to think all the people talking crap in wow and other public places are white instead of any other race. Hypocrite much? :) """""
- That's the most intelligent comment I saw on this. Makes perfect sense.
"""There are stupid people all over the world, no matter the race, religion, skin color, sex or age. Relative anonymousness of internet just makes them feel safer to express their stupidity in various ways. I've been called lots of things but I've not taken anything personally because I feel there is no need for it. Why should I care what some random person on the net tells me?"""
= Perfect observation of this kind of shit. - May 18, 2010 at 11:09 AM


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About Prom:In the United States, prom, short for promenade, is a semi-formal dance held at the end of the academic year. For girls, these can range from formal dress or gown to a semi-formal dress adored with a corsage given to them by their partners. Best prom dresses can also include cocktail dresses depending on the dance code of the school. These can vary in length and can be worn in any number of colors in a variety of styles. |


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Edited by Yocheved Klausner
9 January, 1936 | |
Hello my dear Freidale,
It has been two weeks since I wrote you, but it seems that more time had passed. I miss talking to you. We received your letters this Friday and last Friday, from the ship and from your place. I'm fortunate to be the first to read them. Your letters bring a lot of happiness to our home. Without exaggeration, I read your first letter ten times since it was necessary to translate and explain the Hebrew to mother and aunt. We received your letter on Friday evening, and as you know, on Friday evening the hours are so long, the longest in the world. All of us stood by the stove and I said that I will go to the post office. Everyone was laughing at me, but I was not lazy and went. It was very difficult to walk because it was dark, dim, rainy, and a cold wind blew from the side of the Vylia River. When I came to the post office they asked me if the wind did not stop me, I told them that the wind carried me over. How great was my happiness (after this difficult walk) when Benwicz gave me a letter and I immediately recognized your handwriting. I read a little at the post office and later ran home with all the energy that I had in my body. I was not able to walk on the sidewalk because it was dark, so I walked in the middle of the street. I ran to the house shouting, there is a letter! But they did not want to believe me. It took ten days for this letter to arrive and it takes 15 days for your letters to arrive from New-York. I sent Leah your first letter and also a letter from Shoshanna that we received on Thursday. Shoshanna wrote about the picture that we sent her and she says that we look good, except you. The whole letter is written about me, saying that I'm very stupid. Today I'm also writing a letter to Moshe and sending him your last letter. We found the gift that you sent us inside the letter. Thank you. How are you and how do you feel in your new place? Why are you writing that after only two days with our aunt you're already thinking about an occupation, meaning to get a job. For sure you didn't have enough time to rest. Write us about everything in detail, and we will also answer every week. How is the weather in America? [Page 2] Now it is necessary to write you of what is happening at home despite the fact that there is nothing new. On Thursday I was in Keidan to try on my coat. I now have only one occupation, as uncle Jashes says, to travel every week to that place. I bought myself three pieces of leather for a collar. Next Monday it will be ready. I will travel to Kovna for Hanukah and then I will write you about everything. Well, let's move on. Mother is making Leah a scarf from home made yak wool, it is almost ready. It will be very good for her. Even without the sleeves the coat fits me very well. I will repair the red dress and then I will be all dolled up. Miriam did not travel to Keidan. We received letters from our friends. Our aunt is getting ready to travel to Janova. She is sending you her regards. She is ordering me to ask you a lot of questions but I am lazy and tell her that you will write her. Write me about everything in Hebrew so the letters won't be censored. I am finishing because it is already nine and mother and Miriam also need to write. Greetings to aunt and uncle and the rest of the family.
I kiss you a thousand kisses. With God's help Hello my darling Freidale! Mother and Pessie already wrote you a letter yesterday but since they were not fast enough they missed the mail, so I will also write a few words. I have nothing to write about but it is necessary to write. Zelda went to Kovna [Kaunas] today, she is getting ready for her journey. She is traveling as a tourist. She needs to deposit 10 Pounds at the Consulate, and after that she will need money for a visa. But now there is another problem, it is forbidden to withdraw money, so she is having a few difficulties. But this is nothing since she has someone to rely on. Eili is very interested in her and helping her with everything. She is going to leave anyway, so this is a small problem for her. She will find a good home. It looks like Eili is living very well and Zelda will certainly get a good job. She has a lot of protekzia [favoritism], you know the meaning of protekzia. If Reizale had protekzia she also would not have to work in a job not to her liking. But still, we should be happy that she left because over there it is possible to hope for a future, here, we don't have a chance. I am going to cut my writing short so I won't miss the mail. There is nothing new at home, and if we were healthy we would have nothing to be angry about. I always told Pessie that she can't leave her rheumatism untreated. We were always negligent at that, we didn't look, this is the worst and now we need to see what we can do. Be healthy and strong, Yours Miriam.
(On the side of the page) Our aunt left today. |
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Updated 31 Jul 2010 by LA


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Review: Hulu's 'Mother Up!' doesn't rise to the occasion
Like Netflix and Amazon, the streaming service Hulu has been edging into the "original and exclusive series" biz. So far, they've fared best with imports. Last summer saw an original Seth Meyers/Michael Shoemaker animated comedy, "The Awesomes," launch to tepid reviews, while a few months later Hulu's pick-up of Sky1's Irish comedy "Moone Boy" became what might be considered the service's first critical hit.
History may be repeating itself this month with the debut of the animated "Mother Up!" (co-produced with Canadian broadcaster City), followed a few weeks later by the British series "Wrong Mans." Based on the single episode made available for review, "Mother Up!," which features the vocal talents of Eva Longoria, appears much stronger in concept than execution.
Created as a female, if not feminist, response to "Family Guy," "Mother Up!" is an HD family comedy (HD standing for Highly Dysfunctional) in which characters put their cartoon shoulders to the line that separates funny from offensive and shove.
PHOTOS: Behind the scenes of movies and TV
Longoria plays Rudi Wilson, a tough-talking, curvaceous and completely narcissistic music executive who Has It All — as in a husband she continually fights with, two small children she never sees, and lots and lots of stuff. Caught on tape hunting small South American children for sport with one of her top clients ("we were using tranquilizer darts," is her explanation), Rudi gets in front of the scandal by announcing that she is taking time off from her career to raise her two children in the suburbs. Which she then has to do, single-handedly, as her husband quickly bails.
So "Mr. Mom," only without the "Mr."
Some funny moments involving the media and the real needs of superstar clients flash bright but fade too quickly as the pilot devolves into a takedown of suburbia and all those Haughty, Controlling and Generally Objectionable Mothers who seem to populate every fictitious school, neighborhood and coffee shop in America. (Seriously, the communal anxiety dream of Americans today is not about terrorists or even high school, it's the attack of the Mama Queen Bees.)
Happy to pit city against suburb, Rudi goes toe-to-toe with the inevitably blond Super Mom over, what else, a child's birthday party. Disaster and life lessons ensue and we see a small shadow of maternal feeling begin to emerge. Yawn.
FALL TV 2013: Watch the trailers
Though far more R-leaning than a live-action comedy (see above mention of child-hunting), "Mother Up!" appears, on first glance, a bit kinder and gentler than "Family Guy" (with which it shares writer Michael Shipley) and certainly more family-friendly than, say FX's "Archer." And, as those two shows make very clear, there is a definite need for a female voice in creating adult animation.
"Mother Up!" was created by two actual mothers — Marnie Nir and Katie Torpey — and there is certainly much comedy to be mined from the difficulties of adjusting from a career to full-time motherhood, or the juggling of the two. Unfortunately, after going to the trouble to create a new kind of comedic anti-heroine, the creative team took the easy way out, relying on tired tropes and manufactured scenarios to make its point. Which seems to be that women can be just as terrible at parenting as men.
Frankly, I'd rather see an animated comedy about how hard it is to be a female music executive, with or without kids.
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There once was a real ship named Black Pearl captained by Henry Morgan, one of the world's most notorious pirates. The Black Pearl which first sailed in 1669 fought many battles; the most famous of which was an invasion in Panama in 1671. The following year Captain Morgan was put in prison in England. Years later he returned to Jamaica as a judge and governor. Henry Morgan died in England in 1688 after a long illness.
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Get set for the meteoritic grand finale of summer.
Northern hemisphere summer that is. As we head into August, our gaze turns towards that "Old Faithful" of meteor showers, the Perseids. Though summer is mostly behind us now, "meteor shower season" is about to get underway in earnest.
Pronounced "Pur-SEE-ids," this shower falls around the second week of August, just before school goes back in for most folks. This time of year also finds many the residents of the northern hemisphere out camping and away from light-polluted suburban skies.
This year also offers a special treat, as the Moon will be safely out of the sky during key observation times. The Moon reaches New phase on August 6th at 5:51 PM EDT/ 9:51 Universal Time (UT) and will be a 32% illuminated waxing crescent around the anticipated peak for the Perseid meteors on August 12th. And speaking of which, the Perseids are infamous for presenting a double-fisted twin peak in activity. This year, the first climax for the shower is predicted for around 13:00 UT on August 12th, favoring Hawaii and the North American west coast, and the second peak is set to arrive 13 hours later at 02:00 UT, favoring Europe & Africa.
Nodal crossing for the Perseid stream and Earth's orbit sits right around 18:00 to 21:00 UT on August 12th for 2013. The shower derives its name from the constellation Perseus, and has a radiant located near Gamma Persei at right ascension 3 hours 4 minutes and a declination of +58 degrees. Atmospheric velocities for the Perseids are on the high end as meteor showers go, at 59km/sec.
Of course, like with any meteor shower, it's worth starting to watch a few days prior to the peak date. Although meteor streams like the Perseids have been modeled and mapped over the years, there are still lots of surprises out there. Plus, starting an early vigil is insurance that you at least catch some action in the event that you're clouded out on game day! Like we mentioned in last week's post on the Delta Aquarids, the Perseids are already active, spanning a season from July 17th to August 24th.
The Zenithal Hourly Rate for the Perseids is generally between 60-100 meteors. The ZHR is the number of meteors you could expect to see during optimal conditions under dark skies with the radiant directly overhead. Rates were enhanced back in the 1990's, and 2004 saw a ZHR of 200.
The source of the Perseids is comet 109P/Swift-Tuttle. Discovered on July 16th-19th, 1862 by astronomers Lewis Swift & Horace Tuttle, Swift-Tuttle is on a 133.3 year orbit and last passed through the inner solar system in late 1992. This comet will once again grace our skies in early 2126 AD.
The Perseids are also sometimes referred to as the "tears of St Lawrence," after the Catholic saint who was martyred on August 10th, 258 AD. The Perseids have been noted by Chinese astronomers as far back as 36 AD, when it was recorded that "more than 100 meteors flew thither in the morning." The annual nature of the shower was first described by Belgian astronomer Adolphe Quételet in 1835.
Enhanced rates for the Perseids marked the return of comet Swift-Tuttle in the 1990s. Recent years have seen rates as reported by the International Meteor Organization at a ZHR=175(2009), 91(2010), 58(2011), & a resurgence of a ZHR=122 last year.
Just what will 2013 bring? There's one truism in meteor observing—you definitely won't see anything if you do not get out and observe. Meteor shower observing requires no equipment, just clear skies and patience. Watch in the early hours before dawn, when the rates are highest. Meteors can occasionally be seen before midnight, but are marked by lower rates and slow, stately trains across the sky. Some suggest that best viewing is at a 45 degree angle away from the radiant, but we maintain that meteors can appear anywhere in the sky. Pair up with a friend or two and watch in opposite directions to increase your meteor-spotting chances.
We also like to keep a set of binoculars handy to examine those smoke trains left by bright fireballs that may persist seconds after streaking across the sky.
And speaking of which, there has also been some spirited discussion over the past week as to whether or not the Perseids produce more fireballs than any other shower. I certainly remember seeing several memorable fireballs from this shower over the years, although the Geminids, Leonids and Taurids can be just spectacular on active years. The stated r value of the Perseids is one of the lowest at 2.2, suggesting a statistically high percentage of fireballs.
And in the realm of the strange and the curious, here are just a few phenomena to watch/listen for on your Perseid vigil;
– Can you "hear" meteors? Science says that sounds shouldn't carry through the tenuous atmosphere above 50 kilometres up, and yet reports of audible meteors as a hiss or crackle persist. Is this an eye-brain illusion? Researchers in 1988 actually studied this phenomenon, which is also sometimes reported during displays of aurora. If there's anything to it, the culprit may be the localized generation of localized electrophonic noises generated by Extra/Very Low Frequency electromagnetic radiation.
– Can meteor streaks appear colored? Green is often the top reported hue.
– Can meteors appear to "corkscrew" during their trajectory, or is this an illusion?
Wide-field photography is definitely a viable option during meteor showers. Just remember to bring extra charged batteries, as long exposure times will drain modern DSLRs in a hurry!
And did you know: you can even "listen" to meteor pings on an FM radio or portable TV? This is a great "rain check" option!
And there's still real science to be done in the world of meteor shower studies. The International Meteor Organization welcomes counts from volunteers… and be sure to Tweet those Perseid sightings to #Meteorwatch.
Also be sure to check out the UK Meteor Observation Network, which has just launched their live site with streaming images of meteors as they are recorded.
Good luck, clear skies, and let the late 2013 meteor shower season begin!
-And be sure to post those Perseid pics to the Flickr forum on Universe Today… we'll be doing photo essay roundups from observers around the world!


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Posted by emily on March 8, 2017 · Leave a Comment
Reflections on the Women's March on Washington.
Filed under Uncategorized · Tagged with 2016 election, Amtrak, capital, Capitol, Constitution, feminism, First Amendment, intersectionality, race class & gender, The President of the United States, trains, Washington D.C., women, women race & class, Women's March on Washington
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MEMPHIS, Tenn. — Memphis police are searching for two suspects who reportedly stole an expensive wig from a beauty supply store.
In a Facebook post, police said the two women entered the Value Penny Beauty Supply store, picked up a lace front wig, and walked out of the store without paying.
Police said they then got into a green Honda Accord and fled the scene.
Police posted a video of the two suspects dancing their way out of the store.
WREG reported that the wig that was taken could cost up to $600.
According to WREG, the store manager said they know people are going through hard times, so they've been offering customers discounts during the pandemic, and she's more concerned about why they had to steal in the first place.
Police say no arrests have been made, and the investigation is still ongoing.
Anyone with information is asked to contact Memphis Police's CrimeStoppers.