Had to pack and move (don’t recommend moving down and up stairs).

Got an internship, which has had me jumping through all sort of hoops. It’s hard to complain when I got the position at the last conceivable moment (someone had decided to go with another position, I gather) with only a 30 minute phone interview. The commute is about 2 hours, so they gave me a nice stipend for a hotel. I do miss my stuff and my puppy.

And, of course, the stress has me being sick most of the time. As if being stressed isn’t a good—er, bad?—enough. That said, I have had little plot bunnies hopping through my head. But, it’s sleepy time now. Hopefully, in the next few days I can do another “What is CS?” (most likely on logic) and do prelem work on my newest project bunny plot (creating a pseudoperson and monitoring the effects).

Why are the breast physics so important? Why are strong, kick-ass women wearing next to no clothing and high heels?¹ Why are the female leads always the romantic interest for the male lead? Why are women developers objectified rather than admired for their talents? Why do women leave the gaming industry?² Why are there “girl editions”? And why are they always pink?³

But women aren’t the only ones that are not included into the gaming culture. This includes: people of color, people with disabilities, transmen and transwomen, non-heterosexuals—well, it just sort of continues on.

So, does any game at least do decent to promote diversity? Some. Not as many as I like, but some.

Beyond Good & Evil (2003) stars Jade. Jade wears cargo pants, a tank top, and a jacket. While her midriff is visible it isn’t sexy; it just sort of is there (going to go with that being the fashion of the times). She is taking on the world… through photojournalism. There isn’t any romance to be found in this title. While not intended, Jade’s design is racially ambiguous.

Mass Effect Series (2007—present) allows the user to build their own character. That said, all the marketing uses the default male character and the system enforces heteronormative romantic relationships. The women have personalities and objectives that are not necessarily best for everyone in the universe (just as the men do). It isn’t the portrayal of women that I like though.

No. It’s Jeff “Joker” Moreau, the Flight Lieutenant (read: pilot) for the series. He also has Vrolik syndrome, meaning he has bones that break very easily. When he walks, he limps and is in apparent pain. It’s a character with a disability! But, how do we know he isn’t a token character? Well, I say the biggest indication is that he isn’t a “very special lesson.” Joker is sarcastic, arrogant, and makes jokes. He is clever. He brags about excelling past his normal classmates, “They all got their asses kicked by the sickly kid with the creaky little legs. One guess who was smiling at graduation.”⁴

Final Fantasy XIII (2009) stars Lightening. For the main cast, half are women even. And they pass the Bechdel Test⁵. Hell, the only romantic subplot is between a lead male and a secondary character. The women themselves, well, they are varying degrees of sexualized and none of their clothes are particularly practical. But, they have opinions, beliefs, and secrets. Lightening punches people, as opposed to the more traditional slap; I admit it is more shocking with a woman than a man.

Even better there is a black man, Sazh. While the chocobo–friendly afro is a stereotype, he breaks many others. He is a single parent who cares deeply for his son. While he cracks jokes and is the apparent comedic relief, he is still very serious and much more mature than the other characters.

[Border House has great posts about Sazh and the women of Final Fantasy XIII.]

² Especially alarming considering how difficult it is to get into the gaming market.

³ I like pink, but give me red, green, purple, and all the other colors too!

⁴ This particular line resonates a lot with me. Not only do people with disabilities have to be equally talented to their peers, we have to be better. To make up for our disability in society’s eyes. Not a rational thought, but internalized messages rarely are.

⁵ The Bechdel Test says:

1. It has to have at least two women in it,
2. Who talk to each other,
3. About something besides a man.

Two days ago I interviewed for an Open Source internship at a branch of one of the largest tech companies on the planet. I got to hear, “prove you’re a programmer.” Unsurprisingly, my male roommate didn’t get asked that when he went to interview today.

Just so we’re clear, it’s discrimination if you ask a question to only a subset of applicants. No, there are no bullshit gray areas on this. This is the policy description held at that company.

So, what do I do? Or, more useful, what can people that find themselves in a similar situation do?

I have several advantages in that I knew most of the other interviewees. It’s really hard to know a question is only being asked of you if you’re the only interview session that you know about.

But what else?

Well, I’ve endeared myself to people that have a whole hell of a lot more influence than I do. My boss/mentor? Yeah, she and many of the faculty at my university were former employees of that company, going into academia upon retirement. She can easily get an audience with anyone there and get results out of someone.

I found and told my boss/mentor immediately to talk about this unfathomable question posed to me. And she agreed that it could have been phrased better. And stated that it could or could not be sexist, and that we’ll wait and see.

Yeah, not getting the position upset me. It sounded like a really good fit to me and my skills. But, no, I don’t want the job. First, why the hell would I want to work with some sexist asshole? Second, because it would be punishing someone (the intern chosen) who hasn’t done anything wrong.

So, what happens now? Most likely I’ll get an apology  from someone I’ve never heard of and have no beef with.

I can’t afford to sue for discrimination.

This company can’t be blacklisted as female-hating.

It’s a stalemate. One that I think happens a lot more than people talk about.

I think I know why boss/mentor was scared of what would happen if I applied to her former company. I don’t exactly fit.

¹ I was promised an email that would confirm I had the internship, or a rejection with feedback. Yeah, I didn’t get either. I got to hear it from my roommate that heard it from the person who did get it.

What’s wrong with being a…? Nothing. I am simply uncomfortable using term that include connotations and stereotypes that I don’t agree with or that are exclusive to me.

What does an X look like? What pronoun do you use? What scents do they have? What words do you use describe an X?²

All of those labels I reject? It’s because there’s a stereotype that one is male, heterosexual, European/European-American, teen to 20-something, cisgendered, and able-bodied.

Those stereotypes?  I am not the person that is being talked to by these groups.³

And, as is often required, how do I prove that I’m not the one being talked to? Happy example time:

• Reading a Wired article that stated the reader has a girlfriend with the implication that I am not female. I’m not male, heterosexual, or have a girlfriend, so definitely not talking to me.
• Reading job advertisements requiring that applicants be “rockhard geek guys.” In addition to not being a guy, I’m not okay with enforcing a definition of masculinity.
• Seeing a board game called Genji about writing poetry. This reappropriates the works of successful female writers⁴ of the Heian Period on to a male, fictional character. That is a rapist.
• Having nearly every female character as the “romantic interest” for the male (player) character. Yes, there are some exceptions. This insistence that there must be a (heteronormative) romantic relationship in a story is frustrating as an asexual.
• Being told by a person that disability and education are disjoint research subjects. Guess I should repay taxes that were wasted on my public education.
• Being called “Hitler” as a “joke.” It isn’t a joke if there isn’t a punchline.
• If I were to dress up as my favorite fictional characters, I will be in a position where I “deserve” to be sexually harassed, assaulted, and objectified.
• Having to hear that employees fitting the above stereotype helps to support diversity. Yeah, my head hurts.

And it’s not like I do not enjoy doing geeky things. And there are female geeks that proudly wear the geek badge. I’m just inclined to not use labels that reject me. For more on geeky subcultures and exclusivity, consider:

• Geek Feminism: blog that “exists to support, encourage, and discuss issues facing women in geek communities, including science and technology, gaming, SF fandom, and more.”
• “Being Inclusive vs Not Being Exclusive“: a very well written blog post on the difference between inclusive and implicit exclusivity.
• Feminists with disabilities for a way forward: Disabled feminists blog that includes critiques of social depictions of disability.
• The Iris Gaming Network: blog that promotes women’s perspectives on gaming.

¹ Dork, creative, designer, scientist, and technologist.
² I’m just going to apologize if I didn’t include some means of encoding informations. I think in lists, textures, and adjectives, which is kind of hard for others to grasp.
³ Saying these subcultures do not exclude me is not equivalent to including me. And not being inclusive is exclusive to me.
⁴ Although not relevant, not naming these women is dismissive of their value: Murasaki Shikibu is the writer of The Tale of Genji, and her rival Sei Shounago is best known for The Pillow Book. In the Heian period, being a court lady meant writing poetry to make your respective empress or courtesan look good. There were many others, but these two have made the most lasting impression.

What do Beethoven’s “Piano Sonata No. 14″ (also known as the “Moonlight Sonata”), Frank Capra’s It’s a Wonderful Life, and photographs from the Hubble Space Telescope have in common? In case the title wasn’t a giant clue, these are all works in the public domain.

Property in the public domain belong to, well, the public. Anyone can use content in the public domain and could create new protected materials from them. Copyrights, patents, and trademarks, once the protection ends, enter the public domain. In addition, works by the United States government (and several other governments) automatically enter the public domain.

Works created based on public domain content can have their own shiny new intellectual property protections (same as if the work were made from scratch). For example, modern productions of Hamlet are protected under copyright laws despite the play being in the public domain.

And, seeing as the protections are already covered, here’s a list of places to get public domain content:

• LibriVox for audio recordings of books.
• Open Clip Art for clipart.
• Project Gutenberg for text of books.

(Also see Wikipedia’s list of public domain resources

And now to part 3. This is much shorter because I really don’t care much for patent laws.

Patents are mostly to protect inventions. Patented inventions are protected against other people from making, using, or selling them. Utility patents extend about 20 years, while design patents only last 14 years. Utility patents also require maintenance fees for the 3½, 7½ and 11½ years into the granted period; the patent can be removed then. Patents can be extended, but this is much fuzzier than trademarks: the U.S. patent office chooses if and for how long the extension should be for. Like trademarks, patents must be filed for each country.

Patents have much more criticism than copyrights and trademarks. These include:

1. Prevention of new inventions: Pharmaceutical companies notoriously patent chemicals and do no further research with them; this prevents the chemicals to be used for other’s research. (See “Patent trolling“)
2. Complaints against simultaneous inventions: It’s perfectly possible for two people, with no connections, to invent the same thing. That does not matter for patent law; whoever filed first (rather than finished inventing first) keeps the patent.

Some interesting aspects of patents, is that they can cover things not covered by copyright, like fashion designs and recipes. It’s still under debate whether software should be patented in addition to copyrighted.

Next up, something I got way to familiar with as an ad major: trademarks.

Trademarks are the little things that discern one service or product from another, like logos or slogans. (Branding is built around these things. But, that’s a topic for another time.)

In the U. S., trademarks must be used in commerce before they can be filed. That said sticking a small “TM” (trademark) or “SM” (service mark) next to or on a trademark can be used until it’s registered. Once registered, the trademark will be active for 10 years and can be renewed for 10 years (and then renewed again). Unlike copyright laws, there are not international trademark protections; a trademark will need to be registered for every country it will be in effect for.

When it’s being registered, a trademark can either be granted to a person or a business/organization. In most cases, it’s wiser to keep it with the person and just license it for a set period. It makes sure that if the company is taken over, closes, etc. that the creator actually gets to keep their creations.

So, what’s so great about them? Sounds like copyrights would be better. First, many trademarks can’t be copyrighted. Words, phrases, and colors cannot be copyrighted. What’s special about “Puma” or “Good to the Last Drop” or the pink color used for Owens Corning’s fiberglass insulation?

Even better, knockoffs are also prevented. While there are a variety of mice in overalls, Disney will get involved if there’s something akin to Mickey Mouse, particularly in animation.

Alright, I’m a little pissy about intellectual property. Digital content is ridiculously easy to share. For people growing up with digital content, there’s lots of temptation to use readily available materials to be creative (animated music videos come to mind). Uh, yeah. That’s illegal.

So, I’m going to do a nice series on the topic. I expect something in the format of:

1. Copyright: protections for creative endeavors.
2. Trademarks: protecting identifiers (slogans, logos, and colors).
3. Patents: protects inventions and discoveries.
4. Fair use: staying out of trouble
5. Alternatives: public domain and creative commons.

Copyright protects artistic work including literary, dramatic/choreographed, musical, pictorial/graphic/sculptural, film/audiovisual, sound recordings, and architectural. It should be stated that copyright does not protect ideas, slogans, non-tangible works (like not recording a dance routine), and works that solely use public content (units of measurement, for example).

In the U.S., copyright is granted to every applicable thing created, but the copyright will need to be registered for legal considerations. Copyright extends 90 years from creation or 120 years from publication (whichever’s shorter). In terms of the owner of the copyright, that’s usually the creator(s). If you were to buy a painting, the artist probably did not also sell the copyrights to it.

So, what does a copyright protect? These are the exclusive rights that are granted to the copyright holder:

• To reproduce the work in copies or phonorecords.
• To prepare derivative works based upon the work.
• To distribute copies or phonorecords of the work to the public by sale or other transfer of ownership, or by rental, lease, or lending.
• To publicly perform the work, in the case of literary, musical, dramatic, and choreographic works, pantomimes, and motion pictures and other audiovisual works.
• To publicly display the work, in the case of literary, musical, dramatic, and choreographic works, pantomimes, and pictorial, graphic, or sculptural works, including the individual images of a motion picture or other audiovisual work.

Yep. You cannot legally copy and distribute works (no P2P downloads), create works based on a work (like, oh, fanfiction), or have it readily available to the public (damn, no projecting WALL•E onto buildings). These exclusive rights are not dependent on who makes money, so that “no money = okay” excuse can get someone into trouble.

Alright then, how can there be so much blatant use of copyrighted materials? One option is that someone wrote the copyright holder and was granted permission (more effective for a lone musician than RCA).

But, in addition to the rights there’s also a list of limitations in copyright. These include: fair use, reproduction by archives and libraries, and creation of an accessible copy for a person with a disability that would not be able to access the material.

In addition, I will be grading the first programming course, tutoring a foreign visually impaired student, and doing side research for the Director of Mentoring & Retention. I’m not even sure my workstudy is for this semester, but I’m guessing the Director wants to spend every dime (thereby making sure I get the full employment pay).

In most semesters, I have done side projects which dabble into my interest. Yet, I’m not sure I will have the time this time. So, I have decided that I will continue watching how this semester goes and then decide whether I have the time.

If it does work out, I think I would like to do some cell phone programming (probably Android, but maybe the iPhone‘s Objective C). I don’t know what I would want to program though. I would like to involve hardware, like the GPS or accelerometer. I think the best tools are tangible or ubiquitous.

BUG Modules

BUG modules with BUG base

These little modular hardware components are designed with rapid prototyping in mind. So, what’s so great about them?

• Various modules and planned modules:
  • Audio output
  • Motion detection
  • Zigbee
  • Touchscreen
  • GPS
• Java programmed. Java is a simple object-oriented language with large functionality, cross-platform performance, and a safety net to prevent new programmers from doing stupid things (like, wipe one’s harddrive as one can do with C/C++). It also prevents having to write each component in it’s own language
• There’s braille on the modules. While not very useful for most people, it is still a nice thing to do.
• Modules are just inserted into slots; no having to argue with wires and solder. Like electronic legos, I suppose.
• Education discount.

So, why don’t I already have these?

• Price. These things are $50-130 US a piece with the base module at a whopping $449. While I am paying for the convenience of prototyping, that’s still a lot of money considering that I (and I assume many people) would like several modules to create anything I want.
• Sharability. I have to expect other people to shell out the money if I want to share my applications. While Bug Labs promotes users to share code on it’s site, I still would like to actually see others use it.

littleBits

littleBits intro from ayah bdeir on Vimeo.

littleBits are a series of prebuilt circuitboards with components that magnetically snap together. Prevents the need to solder between boards to make connections and looks really child-friendly. Why do I want them?

• Simple design. I don’t know a lot about hardware (despite my research interests being mostly in hardware), and these seem like a safe way for me to get my feet wet.
• Outreach. These look like they would be a lot of fun for kids. While I know robots are interesting to many people, when I was little robots certainly weren’t for me (they didn’t come across as unusual or artistic enough for my tastes). These things look like they’d be more successful with atypical kids and super-hardware focused ones.

And why don’t I have them?

• Preorder without a set date. I don’t really have the time or money to tie up with a product that I don’t know when I will get it.
• Preorder without a set dollar amount. I don’t want to order something without knowing how much it will cost.

Nabaztag

Nabaztag showing colored LEDs and it's ears moving.

Created by French company Violet, Nabaztag is among the list of smart objects. This little electronic rabbit does reminders, does RSS updates, reads one version of RFID tags, and can send/receive messages from various sources. What’s the good:

• It’s a rabbit.  I like rabbits.
• RFID tagging of objects and linking these to digital events sounds convenient to me.
• Programmable. It’s nice to have a pretty toy that I can modify.
• Not having to look at my email all the time. Having a device on the other side of a room tell me I have mail sounds a lot nicer than always having to be connected.
• It does ear tai chi.
• Reads RSS, sets alarms, checks email, can receive texts. Generally, it just does lots of communication

What’s the bad?

• The services are reliant on  a database controlled by the company owner. I feel uncomfortable having data on another server and not knowing that I can be charged for services in the future.
• Violet went bankrupt. It was then bought by Mindscape (this past October actually). So, I don’t know what will become of the Nabaztag line.

Zii EGG

ZiiLABS, a subsidiary of  Creative Technology, has been pushing the creation of it’s Zii processor, a stemcell-like multimedia-focused chip. Out of this is Zii EGG, a developer tool. What makes it interesting:

• 10 point multitouch screen
• 1080p output image
• 32 gigs of memory
• WiFi and Bluetooth wireless standards
• HD camera
• Accelerometer and GPS
• Text-to-Speech engine

And the not so great:

• Android isn’t fully operational so have to rely on ZiiLABS’ Plaszma SDK.
• Cell phone chip?! Seriously, this looks like a phone.
• $400 price tag. Yeah, I get that it’s intended for companies, but there’s a nice individual and educational marketability.