Ha - but in all fairness, the article is called "How I Scored An Interview ...", not "What we Talked About During the Interview"!
@Last Face: Wow. Written at 5am or not - what a dick move to say that about an 8 yr old kid who is expressing her opinion.
So what if she is or isn't the appropriate demographic for the movie? Her opinion is just as valid as yours (and mine) but the difference is that she didn't say that you should "fuck off" for expressing your opinion.
Just because we have anonymity and plenty of places to express our opinions doesn't mean that we should be willing to accept asshattery; "fighting words" (especially directed at an 8 yr old kid) is completely unacceptable.
So what if she is or isn't the appropriate demographic for the movie? Her opinion is just as valid as yours (and mine) but the difference is that she didn't say that you should "fuck off" for expressing your opinion.
Just because we have anonymity and plenty of places to express our opinions doesn't mean that we should be willing to accept asshattery; "fighting words" (especially directed at an 8 yr old kid) is completely unacceptable.
@mkzone13: Yes, it's brand-new.
@mkzone13: Yes, it's brand-new.
@mkzone13: Well, yeah.
A rule of "add the first four letters of the URL to my base PW" might not be especially robust. That said, it's definitely stronger than just using the same PW for every site. Furthermore, with only one PW revealed it might not be clear which portion of that PW is the base and which part is the pre/appended portion.
Let's say that you somehow knew my passwords for Twitter, Facebook, and Amazon. Obviously you wouldn't be content until you'd gained access to the holy grail, my Kotaku password; based on the following what would that be?
twitter PW: fido@two
facebook PW: fido@four
amazon PW: fido#three
kotaku: ?
A rule of "add the first four letters of the URL to my base PW" might not be especially robust. That said, it's definitely stronger than just using the same PW for every site. Furthermore, with only one PW revealed it might not be clear which portion of that PW is the base and which part is the pre/appended portion.
Let's say that you somehow knew my passwords for Twitter, Facebook, and Amazon. Obviously you wouldn't be content until you'd gained access to the holy grail, my Kotaku password; based on the following what would that be?
twitter PW: fido@two
facebook PW: fido@four
amazon PW: fido#three
kotaku: ?
Here's an excerpt from an article I wrote for my law school's paper about online security w/ some suggestions about passwords. (I doubt there's any interest in the whole article but here's the link if you are for some reason: [law.gsu.edu] )
-----
1) Stop using the same password for everything. At a minimum come up with a base password and then append (or prepend) it with something unique for each application. If your base password is "fido" then for Twitter you could use "fidotwit" or "twitfido."
2) Don't use "Fido" as your password. One of the most common passwords is the name of the user's pet (Paris Hilton's Sidekick was hacked because the cracker knew her dog's name was Tinkerbell). Teenage guys often use the type of car they drive. Parents often use the names of their children. Law geeks often use the name of their favorite Justice.
3) Change your passwords occasionally. Just because you haven't noticed anything amiss doesn't mean that your emails aren't being accessed. If you have a base password of "fido" (which you won't because you're faithfully adhering to #2, you might change it to "fidomarch2010."
4) Avoid dictionary words (even non-English words). One fairly simple technique is to come up with a phrase that has some meaning to you and then use the first letter of each word. "I love taking Fido to the park when it's sunny" becomes "iltfttpwis" which could be used as your base password. Applications that allow you to use upper-case and lower-case characters as well as numbers and symbols exponentially increase the complexity of your password. "I love taking Fido 2 the park when it's sunny!" then becomes "IltF2tpwis!" and you have a fairly robust base password; when combined with a variation for each site and occasional changes you should have a decent password system.
-----
1) Stop using the same password for everything. At a minimum come up with a base password and then append (or prepend) it with something unique for each application. If your base password is "fido" then for Twitter you could use "fidotwit" or "twitfido."
2) Don't use "Fido" as your password. One of the most common passwords is the name of the user's pet (Paris Hilton's Sidekick was hacked because the cracker knew her dog's name was Tinkerbell). Teenage guys often use the type of car they drive. Parents often use the names of their children. Law geeks often use the name of their favorite Justice.
3) Change your passwords occasionally. Just because you haven't noticed anything amiss doesn't mean that your emails aren't being accessed. If you have a base password of "fido" (which you won't because you're faithfully adhering to #2, you might change it to "fidomarch2010."
4) Avoid dictionary words (even non-English words). One fairly simple technique is to come up with a phrase that has some meaning to you and then use the first letter of each word. "I love taking Fido to the park when it's sunny" becomes "iltfttpwis" which could be used as your base password. Applications that allow you to use upper-case and lower-case characters as well as numbers and symbols exponentially increase the complexity of your password. "I love taking Fido 2 the park when it's sunny!" then becomes "IltF2tpwis!" and you have a fairly robust base password; when combined with a variation for each site and occasional changes you should have a decent password system.
Yeah yeah yeah - rather than attempt to be snarky I'll say "good job" to Jay and Emily for volunteering your time to help make the lives of these children brighter! It's encouraging to know that people are out there trying to make the world a little bit better.
@M1911:
"Jesus, and I thought parents today were getting over this stupid 'protect the children from reality' bullshit."
For somebody espousing a libertarian ethic it's interesting that you would demean a parent's right to raise their child as they wish. Hypocrite much?
"But the parent can be dead fucking wrong, like in this case."
Instead of violent video games turning kids into violent predators maybe we should be concerned that they're turning them into jackholes instead.
"Jesus, and I thought parents today were getting over this stupid 'protect the children from reality' bullshit."
For somebody espousing a libertarian ethic it's interesting that you would demean a parent's right to raise their child as they wish. Hypocrite much?
"But the parent can be dead fucking wrong, like in this case."
Instead of violent video games turning kids into violent predators maybe we should be concerned that they're turning them into jackholes instead.
Very cool idea. I've wondered if something like this would become available, it really does make sense.
Sure, some are perfectly content watching a movie wholly alone but many people enjoy sharing experiences - and movies are great for that. Just look at how many watch a movie like "The Wizard of Oz" when it's on TV - you're not just watching the movie, you're engaging in a communal experience and that matters to some.
That said, why would some studios "opt out" of this? My guess is that what they'd be agreeing to is more broad than merely "the ability to jointly watch movies through XBL" and as a result studios are waiting on the sidelines to see how things play out. Image-sensitive Disney may have concerns about any allowable interactivity with the movie-watching experience.
It's a shame not all are supporting this but hopefully MS and the studios will work out an agreement that allows (at a minimum) the "joint" movie watching. It's something I've wanted for a while and would consider adding Netflix back just for that feature.
Here's hoping everybody gets on board.
Hey Guys - thanks for the great comments!
A few notes:
* 60% of the scoring is based on "educational" value so you should definitely see a bias toward the educational aspect of Teen Dating Violence in the winning games
* we saw a 40% increase in the number of entries this year!
* we also received entries and requests for info from several different countries representing four continents - and one of the winning entries is from Mexico!
Thanks again to Brian and the Kotaku community for the tremendous support that Jennifer Ann's Group has received.
I'm currently in Europe for law school and am spreading the word about teen dating violence here. Today I was fortunate enough to meet with a Supreme Court Justice of Austria while in Vienna and briefly spoke with him about our efforts and the need to educate teens / young adults about this very real issue.
And... for those of you wondering about the "luscious hair and sparkling smile" I can only say that we *do* share the smile. Check out our website if you wanna see the hair!
Again, thanks!
Drew Crecente
Executive Director, Jennifer Ann's Group
(and proud father of Jennifer)
cool beans
For those who don't know, I'm Brian's brother and am the founder of Jennifer Ann's Group. We're dedicated to stopping Teen Dating Violence and $5,000 will help us a LOT!
Thanks to everybody for your votes.
Vote early, Vote OFTEN!
- Drew
First - thanks to everybody for your support!
Second - if you had a problem accessing the website, try again. I removed the blocked IP ranges.
Third - we'll be back with a new contest next year and hopefully will have bigger and better prizes!
Drew Crecente
Director, Jennifer Ann's Group
A few comments:
(1) First, thank you! I can't tell you how refreshing it is to read these comments regarding the contest. Teen Dating Violence has historically not been discussed much and I'm genuinely pleased to see the gaming community not only embrace this cause but also have such an intelligent discourse - and this applies regardless of whether I agree with your POV or not!
(2) When I initially started tossing around the idea of this contest one of the first thoughts I had - and this was echoed by several others - was that I did not want to see entries that were gratuitously violent.
So... no "vigilante" games where the purpose is to round up as many abusers as possible w/ bonus points for creative torture techniques. No playing as the abusee and turning the tables on your abuser w/ bonus points for CTT. And absolutely no playing as an abuser à la the guro genre.
(3) Does this make the contest more difficult? Certainly! But I have faith in the creative-types out there and believe that many will see this as a true challenge - worthy not only for the theme represented but also proof-positive that video games are capable of playing other roles than as entertainer.
Thanks again,
Drew Crecente
Director, Jennifer Ann's Group
[www.JenniferAnn.org]
*gave
My fingers are too thick for a laptop keyboard. ;-)
@SG79:
crud. I had "bonanza" on the mind and the alliteration game me bootkit. Thanks for the catch!
fyi - the game rules have been slightly modified. You no longer have to be a US Citizen.
Good luck!
