Tag Archives: personal

Naval War: Arctic Circle

19 April 2012

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I’ve been looking forward to this game being released for a long time. And I therefore have to give a little personal rant before talking about the game:

I’m a huge fan of Turbo Tape Games. They’ve done so much excellent work in bringing the computer games industry into the spotlight in Norway and doing an excellent job in preaching the value of the industry. These guys have opened so many doors and broken down so many barriers for the future of game development in Norway – I hope that we can do it justice. I remember meeting Fredrik Sundt Breien (Managing Director) at a First Tuesday event about games (OMG! 7 years ago!). He has the charisma and enthusiasm to charm any audience into believing that games are worth investing in – which he’s done! And continues to do so as he’s speaking at (Bergen’s new innovators and The Nordic Media Festival). In many ways I guess I’m kinda jealous, cause I’d like to do the exact same thing some day.

I met the technical director, Jan Haugland, at the Industrial Gaming conference, which was also one of my first presentations of Machinima hungover – thankfully come a long way since then! We had an indept conversation about game mechanics and the genious of Tetris, the details elude me, but I remember the happy feeling of meeting a good friend that day.

As for the rest of the gang – we still haven’t reached the threshold where hugs are a natural greeting. 

So when Turbo Tape Games was established, it was only natural for me to invite myself and the cHixOrs (pre Spillpikene) to visit the headquarters at Pixel Park. My what a long way they’ve come! I remember spending a good hour in their cramped office and still having absolutely no clue what Naval War was about. All I saw was a lot of code I did not understand and a lot of indication that this game was going to be just a tad too complicated for my taste.

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But as you may have understood from the long personal rant and reminiscing – I adore them and on launch day of Naval War: Arctic Circle – I wanted to stop by and wish them good luck. I incidently had a meeting next door and thought I’d stop by with the gift of coffee and wish them good luck. They were surprisingly calm and relaxed and I felt like such a fan girl being so enthused and excited for them.

And then … I was allowed to try the game and I was scared.

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To be or not to be a girl geek

17 April 2012

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A little personal reflection …Image

If your reading list is like mine, you may have noticed the controversial (or tedious) blogpost in Forbes about Fake Girl Geeks. I initially hadn’t thought to comment it, but alas – I can’t seem to help myself. I remember our first Girl Geek Dinners Bergen meeting and when we started discussing who was allowed to come to our events and who was not, the brilliant Hilde Corneliussen just simply said “Why should we have to exclude anyone?”. And so began our policy that anyone who wanted to come to our events was welcome.

I sometimes felt torn about this decision. I relished every moment I had with these great women. It was so fun to talk about so-called geeky subjects at the same time as I could giggle foolishly without seeming insincere. But there was just no way that I would turn anyone away that was interested in coming. The word “girl” has also been an issue that’s been discussed on the subject of girl geeks. Some have felt that in order to be taken seriously we should call ourselves “women” (which we are). But for me, I loved the relaxed atmosphere and the unseriousness of the word “girl”. I desperately needed a venue to chill and talk about geek issues and could never think of these events as business networking opportunities. If we used the word “women” I feared that the atmosphere would become too serious and businesslike. But this is for the next generation og girl geek leaders to decide – I’ve stepped aside.

My geekdom

Another hinder we kept coming across were girls and women who wanted to join our dinners but feared that they weren’t geeky enough or that we weren’t geeky enough. I was constantly asked to define exactly what a geek is and this is the line I usually came up with:

“A geek is anyone who’s extremely fascinated about something and wants to share it with us. The subject can be anything from a favourite knitting pattern to a space shuttle design.”

I’ve always felt very pleased with that, although I never seemed to gather large swarms of crowds – but it felt right to me.

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I, journalist, again – in Oslo

15 January 2008

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Well – by golly. I’m off to Oslo to work as a journalist for five months. Dagens It, were kind enough to offer me the position – and I instantly jumped at it! Just think of all the stuff I’m gonna learn! I’m quite pannicked about writing quickly in Norwegian for such a serious business oriented news organisation and I’m foreseeing a bunch of stress right away. But I think it’ll be worth it! There’s so much I want to learn about the IT industry in Norway, in particular the game development community – I’m hoping that what interests me, will be in unison with the paper.
It’s all happening rather fast, however – so I feel like I’m stuck in some “We’re not in Kansas anymore” whirlwind. I’m starting by covering a conference here at home, Digitale Hverdag where there’s gonna be a lot of stuff on robots, which I’m all giddy about. Don’t know why, I never really cared about robots that much – but now I do. They’ll be talking about robots in the workforce which I think is quite interesting. I may have been asleep the last few years, but I haven’t really heard that much ado about robots since the 80s (yes – I was VERY young then). It’s my impression that it all became rather dystopic – robots taking away jobs a.s.o. So does this mean that we’re warming to robots more? Have we entered an age of positive technology? I suppose we have, really – which I guess I’ve known – so why am I suprised that robots in the workforce have become a positive force of discussion?

Things to do when I get home from work

17 December 2007

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  • Snoop in the e-grapevine as to what on earth is going on at Linden Labs. Corey Ondrejka leaves? Because of differences with Philip Rosedale? – oh my oh my! I feel like my juicy gossipy needs are bursting! It’s funny – but I wonder if we all have a favorite of the two? I hadn’t thought about it before now, but they’re not very similar are they? And, well, I can’t lie, I definitely have a favorite – do you? And what does this mean for Second Life? A Second Life without Cory? It just seems wrong somehow – but then again, who am I to have an opinion – I’m hardly ever there!
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My phone is lost forever!

15 November 2007

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So…dearest future employers checking out this blog – my phone number won’t be working until the weekend. I’ll give you a call tomorrow and we can set up an interview for monday afternoon!

Gorr – it’s fun to sound confident! Hehe

And machinima enthusiasts or artists (yes – that’s right – I hate the word machinimators – I call you machinima artist – deal with it) – just drop me an e-mail and I’ll get in touch!

 

You know, suprisingly I’m quite calm about the whole experience. I mean there are several numbers lost forever – or did I remember to upload them all to my computer? I can’t remember. Either way – it’s quite refreshing actually! Ofcourse a little bitter since I had updated memory a.s.o. But I’m not at all worried about the phone numbers, sms’, pictures or anything. I’m quite suprised by that. I guess it just feels like I’m about to start a new in some way! Anyways – just to let you know – I’m unavailable on the phone!

Have an absolutely brilliant day!

The Language thing and some heavy duty rambling on time management issues!

17 October 2007

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I woke up this morning with an intense desire to blog – so at this writing moment I’m thinking today is going to be a great day!

I think absolutely everyone in my social network has been hassled with hard questions like “How do you translate game mechanics to Norwegian?”. So many excellent suggestions, but I never seem to be satisfied. I’m not happy with the direct translation which would be spillmekanikk. I’ve been trying to write some articles for the mainstream media and at the moment half of the articles I’ve written have been published. I’m quite chuffed and proud about that. Firstly because the content isn’t always considered newsworthy and second – I’m no freakin journalist!
P1240513

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Good Golly, I’m published!

28 August 2007

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Will you look at that? My name published in a Norwegian financial paper (well…the IT section, at least). It’s all a bit scary. And by golly I’ve promised to come with a series of articles! The pressure is on!

To be honest, I’m quite frightened about the law of it all, I’m still not sure I comprehend all that was talked about at the conference. Will have to dig deeper, I think. And I’m suppossed to be on holiday?! Naw – no use complaining – I’m lovin’ it!

I, journalist

13 August 2007

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Huh…exactly one week from today I’ll be prancing around the Marina Mandarin Singapore with a press badge! Yup – that’s right! I’ve actually been commissioned to write about the State of Play conference! So apparently, dreams really do come true!

It’s very bizarre being all proffessional. I’m so used to waving my arms franticly in the air only to be ignored and disappointed again and again, which then is followed by a lot of bitching and complaining about how negative and stupid the Norwegian industry is. Now, I’ve actually managed to get an audience which I have to admit has got me a tiny little bit freaked. It’s just so much more easier and comfortable sitting in the backseat complaining, than actually well…doing something constructive. So now that I have the attention, what is it really I want to say? Why exactly have I been franticly waving my hands in the air for attention?

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Is the Second Life hype brought on by overly eager marketing types, killing Second Life?

31 July 2007

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Yesterday my feed reader was bombarded with Norwegian articles and blog posts about Second Life. Now, being a ‘job hunter’ who wants to continue working within the virtual world field, I get quite excited about such days! When I hardly have time to read all the Norwegian news about a virtual world – that means my future job prospects are looking up, right? Ssshhhh – don’t answer that – let me continue being deluded, sometimes ignorance is bliss and hopeful! ;)

The attention, it seems, comes from Wired’s “How Madison Avenue Is Wasting Millions on a Deserted Second Life” by Frank Rose about how most places in Second Life are deserted and businesses aren’t finding the consumer wealth they were looking for. I’m not certain what to make of it all. Two thoughts spring to mind: 1) Refreshing to see Second Life getting som critical press coverage from Wired 2) Do I really care enough about Second Life to go defend it on the different critical Norwegian blogs and websites? Not really.

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