Friday, September 2, 2016

The Complete Skr1pt Kiddie Guide to Elite Hacker Games

The learning curve for information security (aka hacking) can be pretty steep. In addition to understanding tools, exploits, coding, and attack vectors, there's also absorbing the subversive thinking it takes to be a hacker. Nature vs. Nurture: Perhaps people are born with these traits, or perhaps they can be taught. I'd argue that if you're curious enough to try to learn, you've got the proper nature. Now it's time to nurture.

Example of old school hacking,
From the true-to-life 1983 documentary, Hackerman.
Back in the day, we had to learn these concepts by word of mouth, by finding a mentor or have hacker friends, or by brute-force figuring it all out our own damned selves. Moreover, computer equipment was expensive, so experimentation was prohibitive for most of us. To learn, we had to crack live systems which were someone else's property, which was both unethical and illegal.

Today, in this magical virtual world built by us old school hackers, we have the luxury not only of wikis, videos, training programs (some at actual colleges!), cheap hardware, and virtual machines to learn on, but we also have a fine collection of hacker games.

There are three categories of hacker games:
  1. Technical games involve the practice of actual coding or cryptanalysis.
  2. Hacker logic games which teach hacker thinking processes, but the interface and skill bears little resemblance to real-life hacking. 
  3. Hacker-motif games full of green-on-black facades, but with little relation to real hacking.
This list includes games in the first two categories, that is, games of substance that teach something about real hacking.

Click to embiggen.
(Remember to say "Enhance!")
And a quick note about what I mean by "hacking". I define hacking as "any attempt to subvert the designed purpose for a technology, to use it in a way that was not originally intended." This stereotypically include infosec, that is, breaking and entering computers and networks (and defending against said breaking and entering), but it also includes all manner of opening things up, figuring out how they work, and changing them. If you've ever soldered tiny cargo bays to your quadcopter so you can glitterbomb tourists in downtown Seattle*, you're a hacker.

* No confirmed sightings have been reported, however, if someone were to happen to create such a thing, I am completely not responsible.

I've not played all of these, so my description and categorization of them might be off. A listing with a checkmark means I've played it for at least 5 hours.

And listing of the game does not mean I vouch for it.

One last point: If you want to get the full value from these games, don't resort to walkthroughs! Googling how to do something is useful, because you're learning a skill and applying it to a new problem. But looking up the answer in the back of the book teaches you nothing. If you're "stuck", you should spend at least a few days pondering it — then and only then should you go looking for a hint. And I said *hint*, not walkthrough. Looking up the answer should be a last resort.

Lower Tech, Hacking Themed Games:

Look like a hacker, without all the mess!
(Seriously, he's wearing a TIE?!)
Most of these require download and install, for various platforms, including Windows, Linux, Android, and iOS. Some are web-based.
  • ✔ Digital: A Love Story —
    http://scoutshonour.com/digital/
    Story-based adventure game that simulates a 1988 computer environment. Solved through email and dialing into BBSes. Loved this game.
  • ✔ Uplink —
    https://www.introversion.co.uk/uplink/
     Simulated hacking environment, which simplifies hacking tools but retains the logic. Awesome game.
  • ✔ The Secret World —
    http://www.thesecretworld.com/
    An MMORPG that requires a hacker brain. Set in a dark version of the modern world of conspiracies, werewolves, and Lovecraftian bliss, it's a regular MMO in many ways: You have a character, get gear, and level up. But to get through the story, you have to solve actual puzzles, including cracking passwords on real (staged) websites. There's Morse Code in the early game that you have to transcribe in order to progress. (Which is harder than it seems if you don't know Morse Code.) As with Telehack, if you want to really learn the hacker mentality, you should solve all puzzles yourself (even if you're stumped) rather than fall back to the wikis and walkthroughs.
  • ✔ Hacker Evolution —
    http://www.exosyphen.com/page_hackerevolutionuntold.html
    A story-based game which, like Digital: A Love Story, immerses you by placing you at a simulated computer console. The story unfolds as you receive emails and take on hacking tasks. Again, the tech is simplified, but you still have to explore and think like a hacker.
  • HackNet —
    http://www.hacknet-os.com/
    The description says it's a "terminal-based hacking simulator."
  • Hacker Experience —
    https://hackerexperience.com/
    Virtual simulated hackable world.
  • Hacker Project —
    http://www.hacker-project.com/
    Story-driven hacking simulator. Web-based.
  • Slavehack —
    http://www.slavehack.com/
    Web-based hacking simulator.
  • Hacker Forever —
    http://www.hackerforever.com/guest.php
    Text-based browser and mobile multiplayer hacking simulator.
  • Secret Republic —
    http://secretrepublic.net/
    Multiplayer hacking simulator.
  • Mainlining —
    https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/mainlining/mainlining/description
    This adventure-style hacker sim does not yet exist, and is still in Kickstarter. Consider supporting it! Hat Tip: @virtuity
  • Geek Typer —
    http://geektyper.com/
    Totally not even a game. But that doesn't matter. Fake it till you make it. Type like a geek!

Technical Hacking Games:

Typical scene from DEFCON. Learn the skillz to be legit.
Most of these technical games are web-based and require no installs. Most are free.

Bonus Category: Advanced

It's not stupid. It's advaaaanced!
These aren't technically games, but rather, hacking testbeds that you can set up on your own system and challenge yourself to complete them all.
  • SQLi-Labs 65 SQL Injection Labs —
    https://github.com/Audi-1/sqli-labs
    Mess around with SQL Injection to learn how Little Bobby Tables got his Master's Degree.
  • Metasploitable VMs —
    https://sourceforge.net/projects/metasploitable/
    Metasploit is a hacker tool that assembles an impressive number of scanners and exploits into one powerful machine. Metasploitables are downloadable virtual machines with known vulnerabilities, so you can practice using Metasploit without breaking any laws. The idea is you grab a VM of something like Backtrack or Kali Linux (which come pre-installed with Metasploit and other tools), and a Metasploitable, and pit the two machines against each other, all while learning both offense and defense. I've been thinking about doing this and live streaming my learning process on Twitch, but this is a project I will likely never get around to.

Want More? So do I.

If these aren't enough, there's a bunch more on this link which I haven't sorted yet: http://hiddenspider.net/links/hacker-games

And once, maybe 15 years ago, I stumbled upon a game where you have to solve various elements hidden within the static HTML, and other 4th-wall breaking puzzles, to advance. I think of it often, and I wish I could remember the name of it so I could find it again! If it still exists. If you know of this game, please tell me in the comments.

I'm highly interested in finding more, especially those teaching real technical skills. Please let me know in the comments, and I'll add them to the list.


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posted by Luna Corbden @ September 02, 2016   8 Comments

Monday, October 14, 2013

Splines Theory: A Spoons Metaphor for Autism

An incident occurred last week where my child unexpectedly needed a ride to school in the middle of my writing session. And it ruined my whole day. Why?

I knew it had to do with Aspergers, but I wanted to know more. Puzzling over this question, I went in search for the perfect metaphor to describe the experience.

I love the spoons metaphor for invisible disabilities. It describes a portion of my world, and it goes something like this: Every morning, most typical people wake up with infinite spoons. They don't even think of spoons as a resource because they almost never run out. They can easily choose to do this or that without risking much other than time consumption. Sure, they get tired by the end of a full day, but generally they have enough spoons to do all the normal things. It's a gift they take for granted.

Those with chronic pain or serious illness or certain types of mental illness, like depression, only get twelve or twenty spoons a day. Each activity, even small things like getting dressed or making breakfast, takes a spoon. Careful choices must be made about how the spoons are spent; otherwise, they will be gone before the day is through. Or worse. A bad spoon-management choice might leave them without spoons for several days.

There is no spoon. It's just a theory.
Which states aren't enough spoons.
The word "spoon" is actually quite weird, when you think about it.
Why is it called a spoon?
Oh, that's why.
It's still weird.
I'm already out of spoons. I wonder why?
Oh look, a butterfly!
For the origin of Spoon Theory, and why spoons and not some other eating utinsil, see Christine Miserandino's account on her blog, But You Don't Look Sick.

I relate to this analogy somewhat, but it fails to describe the intricate resource-management I must do as an aspie. I wake up with a random number of spoons. Why? Why do I mysteriously get a bunch of new spoons at unpredictable times? The process of getting ready for a new task seems to cost me "spoons", but that model doesn't reflect the intricacies of the gathering process itself. What about the frustration I feel when I fail to gather or get interrupted? How do I describe the sense that a dozen little things need doing before I can start a big thing, each costing a fractional "spoon"?

Spoon Theory didn't fit the all data for my experience, so I went in search of a Grand Unified Theory of Resources or Law of Conservation of Aspergers Energy that I could use to think about and describe my universe.

I found a few articles on inertia that help describe some aspects of life with Aspergers, like:

Inertia is a term I'd used years ago, long before my diagnosis. The idea is just like the law of motion. An object at rest tends to remain at rest, and an object in motion with a certain trajectory will tend to remain in motion, headed that direction, at that speed, until stopped or bumped off course by an outside force.

Inertia Theory perfectly describes my hyperfocus, or lack thereof, but it failed to describe outside forces I must apply to get up to speed. Or my frustration at outside-outside forces that stop me.

Last night, after doing a little light reading from Olga Bogdashina's book, "Communication Issues in Autism and Asperger Syndrome," eureka! I found it. The perfect metaphor, "Reticulating splines..."

I'm a huge gamer, and in the 90s I loved old school Maxis games. You know, SimCity, SimEarth, SimAnt. Back then, games took forever to load, especially on my old 386. While games loaded or maps generated, many companies showed useful information, like "Decompressing graphics files...", "Loading sounds..."

Maxis wanted to be funny, so their load screens repeated random nonsensical phrases that sounded Really Important™. Some of them flashed by so quickly you couldn't read them. One remained on the screen the longest, while a voice read it aloud: "Reticulating splines..."

Reticulating Splines...
Seems legit.
Maxis has carried on this fine tradition for decades, and while games now load lickity-split, they ensure you have just enough time to see "Reticulating splines..." flash past. For tradition's sake. Other software drops this phrase in as an Easter egg, and everyone who knows the joke gives a chuckle.

Separately, "Reticulating" and "Spline" are real words, but put together they make no sense. Until now.

What does this have to do with Asperger's?

The single greatest resource hog during my day is what some call "shifting gears", or moving from one task to another. Skilled teachers of autistic kids know to give a child ample warning of an upcoming task and to explain the purpose of moving on. Anyone who's worked with autistic kids knows the reason for taking this extra step. It's to avoid meltdowns.

Even the gear metaphor is problematic, because it takes no energy or time or frustration or boredom to shift a real gear. It's just BAM, you're in first and now you're in second. And you're still driving, not suddenly riding an elephant. It totally fails to describe the struggle of wrapping up one task and beginning a new one. For a neurotypical, it's as simple as shifting a gear. For someone on the spectrum, it's something else.

I knew from the get-go that my search for the perfect metaphor would center around this question: "Why does it take so long for me to get started?" The answer is wrapped up in other autistic tendencies: hyperfocus, special interests, distractibility, and "getting stuck".

Bogdashina describes how the autistic brain processes sensory information differently than neurotypical brains. NTs tend to take in sensory data all at once, summarizing, and comfortably filling in gaps with assumptions. As a result, NTs leave alot of things out, and in return for this compression, they get a speed boost.

According to Bogdashina, autists on the severe end of the spectrum cannot sense objects as part of a whole. A face breaks up into "mouth", "nose", "eye", "eye". A person then is "hand", "arm", "ear", "face", "hair". A room is instead a "wall", "wall", "table leg", "table top", "plate", "chair", "floor". Sounds and other senses take on the same fragmentation, and it's difficult for the autist to lump them all together into "mother" or "dining room".

My experience is not so extreme. I can see a person, a face, a room, a coffee shop, as a "whole thing", though sometimes details jump out at me like the eyes on a cartoon character, causing distraction (but it's also a superpower of observation).

Yet there is an aspect of sensory fragmentation I can relate to, and that's in memory storage and in my understandings of concepts.

Take a concept. For instance, one of my special interests, cults and mind control. I can can perceive the concept as a whole, but not without all its parts. Mind control is a network in my brain of all the thousands of things I've read about over the years, and my own experiences, and my views on how it appears in religion, politics, public schools, and the media. Everything I've ever linked to mind control is in there in this massive file, stored by words, principles, feelings, and synesthetic colors. The topic of "mind control" is not complete without all those bits.

Right now, I'm knee-deep in mind control, because that's the writing project I'm working on. If I were to switch to another project, say editing Emerald City Iron, which is a novel about fairies, I'd be knee-deep in fairies, with mind control long forgotten. I need room in my brain to unpack all the details about fairies and my characters and writing fiction. I'd no longer have room for the topic "mind control" and the task "non-fiction writing". The files would have to be stored away.

In order to really understand fairies and fiction editing again, I'd need to get back into that space, open up the whole file with all the parts. And doing that requires a resource which is nothing like a spoon or inertia. It's more like opening a big game on my old, slow 386. Hence:

Reticulating splines. . .<hourglass>

Screenshot of my brain reticulating splines.
Yes, this artist managed to capture it.
Credit: Jon Storm
It makes sense that a complex topic or project, like mind control or fairies, would take a long time to shift into. That would be difficult for anyone. But what is harder to describe is how the little things, things NTs take for granted, can be just as difficult to shift into.

Reticulate means to "make a net or network of". A spline is a number of things, including: "a. Any of a series of projections on a shaft that fit into slots on a corresponding shaft, enabling both to rotate together. b. The groove or slot for such a projection."

When I switch tasks, I am making a network of all the projections and grooves and slots and shafts and strips of metal and curve-drawing tools and geometrical maths used to draw up the task. I am loading and linking together all the details in my brain that are connected to the project at hand. And that's going to take time, whether that project is making a phone call, disciplining the dog, or writing a novel.

It doesn't just take time. It takes a bunch of energy and processing resources. It isn't fun at all. My brain has to work really, really hard. So when something interrupts me, and demands I dump the loaded program to load up a new program, I get very frustrated. When I've got lots of annoying little errands to do outside the scope of my main project, I lose splines and spoons. The more do this in a day, the more frustration builds.

For instance, if I need to make a phone call about a bill, I need to gather the phone number, collect all the data about the bill, and get into the frame of mind to make the call. For me, that requires gathering lots of little pieces, and on my hardware, it's slow loading. On NT hardware, it might flash by, "Reticulating splines!" so fast you can't even see it. Yet because I have more splines, they take longer to reticulate.

This is why, when I made and took twenty phonecalls a day as part of my tech support job, talking on the phone was relatively easy. It didn't take a lot of spoons, because it wasn't reticulating many splines. The "talk on the phone solving technical problems" program was all loaded up. It stayed in memory for years.

These days, using the phone requires all kinds of splines. And when I need to reticulate that many splines, it ends up costing spoons.

Likewise when I ran Sapioscape, an online retail business, I ran to the post office every day, shipping 3-5 boxes at a time. I was efficient, and it was even a pretty fun. Sometimes I still miss those days.

Now, when I need to ship just one box? I procrastinate forever and the task seems impossible. Because I have to reticulate every single spline related to packaging a shipping and item. It's a rather complex task for me, because my memory has stored each step as a separate thing that I have to recompile.

Same goes for home improvement tasks. I loved remodeling my house. I couldn't wait to get home and build bedrooms in the basement, retrofit foundations for earthquakes. and landscape the yard. Now? Hanging a picture seems impossible. Because I have to remember where I keep the nails and how to use a hammer.

Computers can run multiple programs in background, and so can I, which is fortunate. I can keep one or two complex tasks, and several small items partially loaded into memory. So at the end of the day, I can reticulate splines on some smaller tasks and recreational activities (which also require splines), and switch back to the big project again the next day.

It's not entirely free of cost. I can't just Alt-Tab. A few splines get lost and have to be regenerated again in the morning. If I do too many side-tasks or have too many interruptions or too much time passes, loading up the main project begins to cost more and more.

Part of my spline-management system involves ridding myself of potential interruptions before I can start on my real work for the day. So I invest alot of initial spoons and splines into dealing with small tasks. I try to make sure Prince Ryuk of Pomerania (the dog) is happy. I feed myself and make tea. I deal with email and twitter. I cycle through my ritual of lighting candles and taking meds and turning on music. I let kids and other events interrupt me during this time, and work as fast as I can to get through this routine so I can get to my real work. Sometimes even then my brain isn't into gear, and maybe by that time, I'm hungry again or out of tea. I stare at the blank page a few moments, and I'm back to checking twitter or fiddling with things on my desk.

Somedays, I can reticulate my splines within an hour, and I have an amazingly productive writing day. Other days, it takes many hours. With each passing moment, the frustration builds. I fear I won't be productive, that I'm wasting time, that my book will never be written. It's just like waiting for your favorite game to load on an old, slow 386. You're eager to get started, but those damn splines are still reticulating.

This is why my child needing a ride to school ruined my productivity for the day. It had taken me about three hours to prep for writing. (I was coming off a full week non-productivity due to other life tasks that needed attention, so I required additional spline reticulation.) The door slid open just fifteen minutes after I had finally gotten started putting words to page. I was the only one who could drive said child to school.

I thought I'd be able to get her there and home without issue. But no. I lost all the splines on the drive back. And I got angry. I had an anger-meltdown in the car. I screamed at the top of my lungs and smacked the steering wheel. I knew the day was wasted.

I wasn't angry at anyone in particular. Things happen. I was angry at the situation. And a little bit at myself for being this way.

I also knew that Spoon Theory wasn't going to be enough to describe what just happened.

I still have spoons. I have a limited number of social spoons, overstimulation spoons, working hard for too long spoons. There are some splines-to-spoon exchange rates -- reticulating splines can cost spoons, and if I don't get enough sleep, for example, I don't have enough spoons to reticulate many splines at all.

It's just that running out of spoons doesn't lead me to meltdown. Running out of splines can.

There is an upside to having a brain like mine. Once all those splines get reticulate, I have thousands of connected details available to me. That's not to say I have a photographic memory and can actually remember those details perfectly. But I know the parts that lead to the sum, and can look up things up from there. (Thank Google!) If one of the parts changes, I can make adjustments to the entire topic. If a new fact comes in that contradicts the old parts, I can take a look at the parts of the whole structure to quickly see where adjustments need to be made. I think of new ideas quickly because I kept all the bits stored away, not just the unalterable concept as a mushy whole.

It just means it takes a bit longer to load. Even the "easy" stuff like getting dressed or shopping for groceries or talking to humans. All these splines must be reticulated.

To summarize the three complex forces of Asperger's, I've come up with the Three Laws of Thermodynamic Autistic Motion, also known as "Spins, Spoons, and Splines".
  1. Inertial Mechanics, or "The Law of Spins": An autist in motion will remain in motion until acted upon by an outside force, like a barking dog or the need to pee.
  2. The Law of Conservation of Energy, or "Entropy of Spoons": Spoons can neither be created nor destroyed, only washed and placed back in the silverware drawer. It always takes more spoons to wash the spoons than there are total spoons, leading to entropy, and the eventual heat death of the universe and everyone in it.
  3. The Law of Reticulation of Splines: The load time of splines is directly proportional to the number of splines in storage times the distance (in time) since the splines were last loaded times the number of interrupts by other spline-reticulating processes. As implied by the Second Law of Autism, spline reticulation requires energy in the form of spoons, splines, spins, and anger management classes. Moore's Law does not apply.

What do you think about this model? If you're autistic, or know someone who is, does it seem to fit?

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posted by Luna Corbden @ October 14, 2013   67 Comments

Friday, August 31, 2012

Bathroom Bacon PAX (photo)

PAX Prime, 2010, Seattle, WA
It's blurry.  It says "See the bacon.  Catch the bacon."

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posted by Luna Corbden @ August 31, 2012   1 Comments

Tuesday, May 15, 2012

What's So Wrong with Being the Healer?

Today an interesting conversation came up in my Twitter feed.  It echoed a conversation I had with one of my daughters yesterday, about the role of gender and the celebration of fighting over more peaceful activities.  With my daughter, we discussed girl cartoons vs boy cartoons.

Specifically, Jem, who uses science and technology to create music, vs. the Transformers, who use science and technology to cause devastating explosions.  Even though my daughter is female, she thought the girl-shows were lame.  Shooting things was much, much better.

The Twitter conversation was about gaming, specifically related to today's release of Diablo III.
Oestrus is a woman.  For those who might not automatically guess, this statement is potentially controversial in a gender-politics kind of way.  Why?  Because stereotypically, women are healers in games.  Moreover, this reflects real life, in which women are healers, nurturers, and in general, sissies.  (The word "sissy" was invented to describe what weak little girls women can be.  Men can be unflatteringly accused of being in this state.)

One could easily imagine a man mocking a female gamer by making the above statement in a highpiched voice.  "And then my girlfriend was all like, 'Are there healer thingies?  Can I follow you around and heal all the things?  PLEASE?' and I was all line, no ho, get back in the kitchen!" (Cue bass laughter.)

I didn't see the original post first.  I saw the reaction:
This is an understandable response.  i.e. stop acting the stereotype, because you're going to prove what men have been saying about us all along!

This kind of thinking makes a few assumptions that bother me.  It assumes that being a healer is undesirable.

There are simulations of living things flying around on the screen and the healer is not helping them to die.  You're just going around making injured people feel better, and that is not very respectable.

There is a kernel of fundamental sexism rooted in this assumption, so deeply, that most people, even women, miss it.  It is such a basic part of our mental reality that we take it for granted.  The male paradigm of what is important, and what is not, is so accepted as truth that we will not question it.

The question should be: What's so bad about healing?

We assume it's weak.  We assume it is not very hard.  We assume it requires no skill.  We assume it doesn't help anyone win the game.

Yet none of this is true.  In most serious MMORPGs, there are basically three roles (sometimes broken into sub-roles):
  • Tank: Takes damage and keeps mobs (monsters) from attacking other players.
  • DPS: Deals massive damage.  Can be ranged or melee.
  • Healer.  Heals people and buffs them (makes them stronger).
Anyone who has seriously played an MMORPG actually knows, deep down inside, that healing is essential.  It is a difficult skill to master.  A poor healer will cause a party to wipe far more often than a poor damage class or tanking class.  The tank's primary job, actually, is to keep the healer alive.

A good healer can often make up for poor performance on the part of any other class.  Our team is not doing enough damage?  That's okay.  I will keep you alive long enough to kill it.  It just means the fight takes longer, but we will live through it.

A healer in PvP (Player vs. Player, considered some of the most hardcore gaming on MMOs) is golden.  A team with good healers will beat a team with no healers or bad healers any day.

I rarely play a healer.  I rarely feel up to muster.  I know that the tank (who usually leads parties) will chew my hide if I fail as a healer.  Healers get yelled at.  Healers hold the life of the party in their hands.

My lovely girlfriend?  She is happy to take on this enormous responsibility, and I respect her for that.  And she is good at it.  And every time there are open calls for raid parties or in PvP queues, she is first in line.  All healers are.  Because there aren't enough of them to go around.

Maybe there aren't enough of them because the role is downplayed.  Because it's sissy.  That's a character only girls play.  Or the larger picture: The role of healing in our entire society is downplayed.  Who cares about healing when we can build stuff, or better yet, kill things?

So a lot of men don't want to play healers.  And a lot of women trying very hard not to seem like women don't want to play healers.  (I didn't want to give this video airplay by linking, but it is appropriate.)  What we end up with is a shortage of healers.  It should be obvious to everyone how necessary they are, when a party can't even do a raid without them.

Another gaming analogy went around today.  John Scalzi wrote about how being a white male is like playing an MMO on easy, while everyone else has to play on hard.  Games simulate life, and so it only makes sense to bring the metaphors back to reality.  What can we learn about real life from looking at how healers are perceived?

Think about our healing classes in real life: Teachers, nurses, mothers, day care providers, HR managers, psychologists, massage therapists, social workers.

Unless you're lying to yourself, or an alien, your idea of these careers evokes a reaction in you: One Big Giant "Meh!"  Who wants to do any of these things?  Compared to rocket scientist or police officer or lawyer or airline pilot, no one does.  They are weak roles, anyone can do them.  They are boring, at best necessary evils - the kids must be taught, and someone has to clean up after sick people.  Only janitors show up lower on the totem pole, in terms of respected careers.

(Doctors are an exception, a respected healing class.  Perhaps that is because it is still not a female-dominated career.  Many of the above listed careers more respected back when they were male-dominated.)

Is the problem that women act in nurturing ways?  Take nurturing jobs?  Are we too eager to be healers?

Or is the problem that we accept the sexist undervaluing of these roles?

Rearing children is amazingly cool.  It is difficult.  It requires skill, and it helps society win the game.

Psychology is awesome.  It fixes people's brains.  It makes people happy.  It is difficult.  It takes a lot of skill, and helps society win.

Social workers help lift people up, keep people going through hard times.  It is difficult.  It helps society win.

Admin assistants (aka secretaries) are awesome.  Like healers in MMOs, they juggle a thousand different things, run all over the place, get it all done in time, and get yelled at if they let anyone fall down.  It is difficult.  They help a company win.

We could "stop acting the stereotype", but that won't lift the oppression.  If we are reacting against the gender roles by stepping into male shoes, we validate the existence of those roles.  We continue to perpetuate them and allow them to oppress us.

If women are avoiding acting the stereotype so we can be "free" of oppression, then we're no more free than we were barefoot and pregnant.  Sure, it will lift oppression for women who would rather work in male-dominated fields (as I once did in IT, and arguably, still do as a writer).  It will help women who want to be successful tanks and damage-dealers.  And that's great.

But it won't help those people, both women and men, who want to be healers.

What we need to do is not question the stereotype, but question the value placed on the stereotype.  What's so wrong with choosing to be a mother, if that choice is available to you?  What is so wrong with being a nurse or an HR manager?  What is wrong with being a healer?

Women should be able to play whatever character we want.

This goes past gender politics.  This goes to the bedrock of some of the ills of society.  This world is in need of good healers.  Humanity needs more people (men and women) competently doing very difficult and valuable jobs.  If we respected the results of good healing as much or more than we respect skillful damage-dealing, perhaps we'd have fewer lawsuits and wars, and more happy, healthy, functional people.

Gaming shows us it's possible to heal and be competitive.  It is possible to heal and help everyone else win.  It is possible to cooperate and win in a competitive way.  Let's learn from that.

We've been programmed to dis peaceniks (hippies and sissies, the lot of them), just as we laugh at healers.  In the long run, shifting our values could make for a better society, one in which it is valuable to heal and be healed.

If you are a healer, you are awesome.

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posted by Luna Corbden @ May 15, 2012   7 Comments

Wednesday, April 18, 2012

Roll It Up (Prototype)


Roll Up The World

If you have no idea what you're looking at, go get some context first.  Katamari Damacy is a surrealist Japanese video game series that broke all genres.  That tiny little green guy is rolling around that sticky nodule-coated ball, and as he collects items, the ball grows bigger.  You start off in a house picking up bugs and candy, and by the end of the game...

SO FUN.

Yesterday, I got a random idea.  Make a paperclip holder out of Sculpey and rare earth magnets.

While discussing it on Twitter, someone pointed out that the Curie Point might thwart my plans, since polymer clay requires baking in the over to set, and heat can misalign the magic glue fairies inside the metal so they can't stick anymore.


Poly clay bakes at relatively low temperatures, and in theory should be low enough for neodymium to retain its animal magnetism, but someone linked someone else's project where oven-baking ruined perfectly good shiny metal miracles.  So it was clear science needed to be committed.

The above prototype was a success.  It is much tinier than the proposed clip-holder, but in true Katamari Damacy form, the Prince will role up some paperclips now, and grow in size, until in envelopes my pencils, my tea cup, Lorenz the Butterfly, Helga the Skull, the houseplant, Ryuk the Pomeranian, my desk, then finally the children, me, the house, and [SPOILER!] eventually the sun.

As you can clearly see, those paperclips are sticking to something.  I swear it's not superglue.  After heating, the magnet retained its usefulness.  And the resulting product is adorable.

Now I've gone and told the end of the story, so now let's, not-quite-Memento-style, flashback in time to the beginning.

It's actually been a few years since I've done anything with polymer clay.  It's a medium I'm well-familiar with.  I first worked with it as a teen, as I had an infinite supply from my parent's craft store.  Back then I made castles and fairies and dragons.  Aside from the time I tried to make Gir, I've stayed away from replicating licensed memes, and instead stuck to original art, since I had some crazy idea maybe I could make money at it some day.

Freed from my delusions, I now realize the value of the medium for cheap knockoffs of other people's characters. fnord

For supplies, I have a ton of clay I bought in 2005 from my silly Lunafisk urban vinyl projects.  Some of the tools I've had since I was 13, and those are still my favorites.  There are lots of great websites for how to work with this stuff, so I won't go into detail.  Let's just say my favored style has always been to try to do impossibly tiny things, and had I not gotten to do this tiny prototype version, it might have been almost boring.

I stole the magnets from my boy-child.  I'd given them to him in the first place as a Christmas gift, so there.

Most of the clay is actually Premo, not Sculpey, but whatever.  Apparently, it's An Artist's Dream Come True™, but other than that, it's just like Sculpey.

More pics:

Tip: Use tracing paper for a surface - easy cleanup! Also clear acrylic sheets work well.
The Katamari grows bumps. Please ignore the Fimo. Fimo sucks.
I was a bit worried about even placement of the nodules, until I noticed it's simple: One at the top, one at the bottom, then five evenly placed in a row encircling the top one, likewise five encircling the bottom (staggering the top ones), and boom.  Not necessarily in that order.

Obviously when working with poly clay, you have to watch the smoosh factor and do things in order of least smooshy.

The bumps ended up mostly even (don't worry, that link is hilariously relevant; you'll see), but I messed up just a little bit, which is another good reason I'm practicing on a prototype. 

There wasn't much room for the magnet, and I had smoosh-factor to worry about, so I placed it on top of the dark-purple circle, under the light-purple circle.  Since it's a prototype, and I didn't know if the oven would obliterate the magnet's awesome, gravity-defying powers, I only wasted one magnet, on one nodule.

"Hello, I have no legs. teeheehee."
But which one is it?
On the baking tile. "Please don't cut me with that scalpel!"
Time for baking.  The instructions have been the same since 1988 when I first squished my first baby dragon into existence.  (Funny, he was exactly the same shade of green as our Prince here!)

15 minutes on 275°F.  If we are to account for any magnetism loss, we should know the exact temperature and time so we can later make adjustments if nec--

When doing science, always be sure to use precise instrumentation.
So yeah... this is our oven.  I set it to gggbbbbleeerrrghghhhhh and took careful records.

Since I didn't know how hot it was, I set my timer for 8 minutes and waited, checking constantly by opening the door, causing heat to leave the oven rapidly, and when it didn't seem hot enough, I turned it up a little, and then decided to leave it in for less time, because, after all, it's a super-tiny piece, and small bakes faster than large projects.

Five minutes in, my daughter reminds me we have a brand new toaster oven.  With a window.

Oh.

Next time.

When committing acts of science, try to reduce as many variables as possible.  This is an example of all the things not to do.

Nevertheless, after approximately 15 minutes...

Put the "tiny" back into Destiny!
You are my density!

Did I say density?  I mean DESTINY!  Density comes later, when I create the full-size model, and we realize just how dense polymer clay really is.

Now we wait for it to cool, so that we don't end up playing with it too much and accidentally dropping it and breaking his arm off--

Woops.

No cameras please.

Ok, superglue later, The Prince's arm is back on, he's neatly glued to the Katamari in a brilliant case of ironyappositeness, and my fingers have +1 plasti-armor verses ants.

Do-doo-doot-doo doo doo doo doo doot!

Na NA nananana Na na na NA NA nana NAAAA!

Superglue tip #1: Don't let the tube explode when you open it.

Superglue tip #2: If the tube explodes when you open it, under no circumstances should you try to rub it off of whatever it gets on. Especially yourself.

Superglue tip #3: This is because superglue was developed by the army to glue soldiers back together.

Superglue tip #4: If you have leveled up enough in the skill: Superglue, like I have, you lose all instincts to rub your fingers together, EVEN IF THERE'S GLUE RUINING YOUR KILT.  I made my roll. whew!

Superglue tip #5: Superglue is the only kind of glue that doesn't melt poly clay.

Now back to regularly scheduled Katamari Prototype Pix:

Paperclips of Unusual Size

Now, if only there was an evil villain paperclip around here someplace I could roll up!


In the sequel, I will make the larger Katamari with a magnet in each nodule for holding ALL THE THINGS PAPERCLIP.  Then we can safely store paperclips once and for all!

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posted by Luna Corbden @ April 18, 2012   3 Comments