Technology

"In a very real way, designers create the human environment; they make the things we use, the places we live and work, our modes of communication and mobility. Simply put, design matters. And at a moment in our history in which the scientific community has issued serious warnings about the negative impacts of our flawed designs-from global warming and water pollution to the loss of biodiversity and natural resources-designers have a critical role to play in the creation of a more just, healthful and sustainable world."

"I think this will be as good a pattern for orders as I can think on. A little thin flowery border round, neat not gaudy, and the Drury Lane Apollo with the harp at the top."

"I think that designers have an incredibly broad creative repertoire. They solve. They create images of perfection for any number of clients. I could never do that. I’m my client. That’s the difference between an artist and a designer; it’s a client relationship. And so, to me, it’s not a hierarchical order; it’s not like artists are better than designers, but it is a particular instrumentality, which makes for a difference."

"People think it's this veneer — that the designers are handed this box and told, 'Make it look good!' That's not what we think design is. It's not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works."

"The more I learnt about this cheeky — almost rebellious — company, the more it appealed to me, as it unapologetically pointed to an alternative in a complacent and creatively bankrupt industry. Apple stood for something and had reason for being that wasn't just about making money."

"I think so many of the objects we're surrounded by seem trivial. And I think that's because they're either trying to make a statement or trying to be overtly different. What we were trying to do was have a very honest approach and an exploration of materials and surface treatment. So much of what we try to do is get to a point where the solution seems inevitable: you know, you think 'of course it's that way, why would it be any other way?' It looks so obvious, but that sense of inevitability in the solution is really hard to achieve."

"I consider my father a proto-designer."

"Honest designs Justly resemble our devotions, Which we must pay, and wait for the reward."

"Design is to design a design to produce a design."

"They float before my soul, the fair designs Which I would body forth to Life and Power, Like clouds, that with their wavering hues and lines Pourtray majestic buildings:—"

"Giannino Castiglioni was a sculptor. His work was realistic, always tied to the human figure, not fantastic or unreal. He had an attitude of constant analysis of people's characteristics."

"If the chief rules of good design were understood by the masses as they might be, nothing would do more to promote beauty, improve workmanship, add to the value of manufactures, and in many other ways further the general welfare and prosperity of the country. They are simple, easy to acquire, and should be taught with the alphabet."

"One of the best ways to economize in building is to economize on ugliness. ...Nothing can be greater service in avoiding ugliness than a knowledge of the principles of design."

"As in poetry and music, even the unskilled ear may be offended by a mistake in measure, without discerning the cause, may not also a mistake in the harmony of dimensions unconsciously offend us in design?"

"Disguise and complication are hindrances, both to good construction and good design, and as complication and disguise are expensive and wasteful... the interests of good art and true economy run on parallel lines."

"When any great design thou dost intend, Think of the means, the manner, and the end."

"As a noun, design is the named (although sometimes unnamable) structure or behavior of a system whose presence resolves or contributes to the resolution of a force or forces on that system. A design thus represents one point in a potential decision space. A design may be singular (representing a leaf decision) or it may be collective (representing a set of other decisions)."

"The urge for good design is the same as the urge to go on living. The assumption is that somewhere, hidden, is a better way of doing things."

"Good design is a Renaissance attitude that combines technology, cognitive science, human need and beauty to produce something."

"The gaming industry has come under increased scrutiny following the December 2012 shootings in Newtown, Connecticut — a tragedy that has reignited the debate surrounding gun control and violent media. Vice President Joe Biden discussed the issue with game industry leaders earlier this year, while the National Rifle Association has taken a more pointed approach, singling out video games as a driver of violent culture. After the Newtown shooting, NRA chief executive Wayne LaPierre described the gaming industry as "a callous, corrupt and corrupting shadow industry that sells, and sows, violence against its own people.""

"Computers also appear to have an effect on visual intelligence. For example, playing Marble Madness, a game requiring children to visualize and manipulate objects in their minds, was found to enhance spatial skill (Subrahmanyam & Greenfield, 1994), although playing a game that requires the visual tracking of an object on a screen also improved this type of spatial skill outside of the computer environment (Greenfield, De Winstanley, & Kilpatrick, 1994); playing the computer game Concentration-a learning game-improved iconic representation skills (Greenfield et al., 1996). Therefore, there is some evidence that computers, even computer game play, can improve visual skills outside of the computer environment. However, for long-term positive effects to occur in the classroom, computers must be integrated into the classroom and not simply placed in it. Similarly, much research is needed on the use of computers in the home in terms of their influence on cognitive and academic growth in children."

"In their narrative review of the empirical literature, Dill and Dill (1998) concluded that short-term exposure to violent videogames increases aggression. Similarly, Bensley and Van Eenwyk (2001) conclude there is evidence that playing violent videogames can increase short-term aggression in young children. Meta-analyses conducted on the research on violent videogames have also supported an effect of game play on aggression. The first such comprehensive study was conducted by Anderson and Bushman (2001). Across all studies included in their meta-analysis, the authors found that exposure to violent videogames was positively associated with increased levels of aggression. Anderson (2004) recently updated with original meta-analysis and concluded that when only those studies with the soundest methodological approaches were used, results showed even stronger effect sizes, suggesting that methodologically weaker studies actually underestimate the true effects of exposure to volent videogames. Another meta-analysis by Sherry (2001) using 25 studies found evidence for a small effect of videogame play on aggression. However, Sherry also found that effect sizes have increased over time, with more current studies producing stronger effects, presumably due to the greater realism of today's games. Game type was also important, as games classified as human violence or fantasy violence were found to be more strongly related to aggression than sports games."

"The research on computer and videogames and children has received considerable research attention in recent years. The earliest work examined the simple relationship between computer game play and aggression, whereas more recent research has utilized an experimental approach in order to test issues of causality between the two. For example, early research found a correlation between overall videogame exposure and real-world aggressive behavior in children from 4th to 12th grade (Dominick, 1984; Fling et al., 1992; Lin & Lepper, 1987). Early experimental work (Cooper & Mackie, 1986; Irwin & Gross, 1995; Schutte, Malouff, Post-Gorden, & Rodasta, 1988; Silvern & Williamson, 1987) also found some support for the notion that violent videogame content can increase aggression; however, technological advances in the field of electronic gaming have rendered much of the very early research in this area all but obsolete. What does more recent research tell us? Violent videogames can influence aggressive cognitions (Anderson et al., 2004; Anderson & Dill, 2000; Kirsh, 1998; Tamborini et al., 2001), as well as aggressive affect, leading to feelings of hostility (Anderson & Dill, 2000; Tamborini et al., 2001), and have been found in survey research to be associated with aggressive delinquent behavior, even after controlling for aggressive behavior (Anderson & Dill, 2000; Anderson & Murphy, 2003; Anderson et al., 2004)."

"Cantor (1994) has used Piagetian developmental theory in order to explain and predict what images frighten children at different stages of cognitive developmental progress. Wilson and Weiss (1991) have also used Piagetian developmental theory in order to understand children's responses to news media. Kremar and colleagues (Kremar & Cooke, 2001; Kremar & Valkenburg, 1999) have utilized Kohlberg's theories of moral development in order to understand how children of different ages respond to depictions of interpersonal violence in the media. Because Kohlberg argues that judgments about right and wrong are based on a different decision matrix for children of different ages, it makes sense that how children interpret violence, a potentially immoral act, may differ for younger versus older children. For example, children younger than age 5 tend to use the guidance of an authority figure in order to determine between right and wrong or may simply consider the outcome of an action in making such a judgement. Older children, in contrast, may consider the motive of the actor in order to decide whether an act was wrong (Kohlberg, 1984). In summary, child development, whether studied in the context of cognitive development, moral development, or emotional or social development, has provided a solid framework-one that focused on the child more than on the medium-to understand the responses of a group that is qualitatively different from its adult counterparts."

"The general aggression model also explains that exposure to videogame violence can increase aggressive behavior both in the short and long term by noting that aggression is largely based on existing knowledge structures or existing mental scripts that are created by the process of social learning (Anderson et al., 2004). That is, individuals can learn new skills and information by watching the behaviors of others, especially if those behaviors are rewarded, performed by attractive actors, or do not cause pain or suffering fort the victim of aggression (i.e., sanitized violence). In the short term, both personological and situational input variables can lead to aggressive behavior. Personological variables include personality variables such as aggressive disposition, current states, beliefs, attitudes, and so on. Situational variables are found in the environment surrounding the person and include factors such as aggressive cues (e.g., playing a violent videogame), being provoked, or feeling pain. Both of these inputs can impact the present internal state of the person. For example, aggression may become more likely if an individual has an aggressive disposition and also plays an aggressive videogame. This may lead to feelings of hostility. Then, given the opportunity to retaliate against someone who has insulted the person, for example, that individual may behave more aggressively than someone without those personological or situational factors in place."

"Several theoretical perspectives explain how exposure to computer games, especially violent games, can lead to imitative behavior. It is clear why these theories of TV violence might easily be applied in a gaming environment. Perhaps the most comprehensive theory to date is the general aggression model (GAM), which comprehensively integrates central elements from several earlier aggression theories. Included in the model are elements of social cognitive theory (Bandura, 1994), which focuses on the audience member's attention to the modeled behavior, retention of that behavior, ability to imitate, and motivation to imitate the behavior. Furthermore, social cognitive theory concentrates on the model, noting that admired and rewarded models are more likely to be imitated. As such, the theory focuses on both the contextual cues (e.g., whether violence is rewarded) and the cognitive structures that lead to imitation. Script theory (Huesmann, 1986) is also integrated into the general aggression model. Script theory focuses on learned and activated scripts, arguing that we might learn to respond to situations in particular ways based on situations that have been repeatedly modeled for us. Therefore, in a new situation (e.g., a conflict), we might draw on scripts observed in the media, such as those containing violence. Also included in the general aggression model is cognitive-neoassociative priming theory (Berkowitz, 1993; Berkowitz & Heimer, 1989), which draws largely on network models of memory. Given that memory is organized through a network, ideas can prime or active related thoughts. Berkowitz argued that exposure to media violence, especially over long periods of time, could serve to create a rich, intricate memory network of hostility and violence for heavy viewers. The result, according to priming theory, is that exposure to media violence could then readily activate hostility and aggressive thoughts. In addition to cognitive-neoassociative priming theory, Green's affective aggression model (1990 explains that increased in aggression after exposure to media violence could result in hostility and negative affect. Furthermore, Zillmann's (1983) excitation transfer model focuses on the mechanism of physiological arousal as the cause of increases in aggression after exposure to violence."

"Medal of Honors "authentic action" is a selling point for Electronic Arts. (Electronic Arts and the other companies in this story did not agree to be interviewed on tape.) To get a military man's take on the authenticity of these games, NPR spoke with Navy veteran, gun owner and war gamer Nathan Zelk. "Games today are very, very real," Zelk says. "It's the weapons; it's the story lines, you know, that people get caught up in — even the optics that are used on the guns, it says L-3 EOTech. It actually has the name of the brand on the side of it so you know which optic, you know, you could go out and buy." But Zelk says not everything in the games is based in reality. "When you get trained in the military, you're taught about [the] use of lethal force. It's a very big deal in the military — you don't draw your weapon on anybody unless there's [an] imminent threat to you, your crew, your ship that you're on, those type of things.""

"I shrink it down by myself, actually. It's up to the schedule, so... If the artists or programmers say "no", then that's the answer. So it's kind of a mix. I always try to push a can-do attitude with them, you know?"

"The occasional awful movie can be chalked up to bad directing/acting/writing/etc., but why have traditional screen adaptations of video games been consistently terrible? I suspect a huge part is simply due to the difficulties of translating across mediums; video games are very different from a show or a movie, and turning a good game into a good show is way more difficult than it seems. Shows and movies do not require any input from the watcher outside of pressing the “Play” button, whereas games are very interactive (and a lot of times the story is also integrated into gameplay). So to turn a video game into a movie or a show requires removing essentially its core element, the “game” part, so everything else needs to be really good to make up for it, especially the writing, as there is no longer gameplay to carry the experience."

"Everything about the games industry sends the signal: ‘this is a space for men’. When players are repeatedly shown that women are sex symbols and damsels in distress, is it any surprise that players go on to treat women poorly in real life?. Gamergate feels like it owns the culture. Women and minorities are only welcomed if they keep their identity silent and don’t try to change the status quo. If I am a feminist, I am an outsider trying to steal their games – even if I am an avid gamer and a developer. I worry about becoming known to people outside the industry. As I gain experience in speaking, writing articles, publicising my game, I am increasing the risk of abuse. I stopped playing online games years ago. I couldn’t see why I was putting myself through the torrent of abuse, and sexual messages. Today, instead of them directing their abuse at a gamer tag, they will be contacting me directly, by email, Twitter, Facebook, and maybe anyone else that associates with me."

"Needless to say, adventure characters should be just one facet of videogaming. In the same way a painting allows us to gaze upon the faces and souls of people from another age, or a book permits us to linger on the thoughts of great figures from history and fiction, videogames can expand our awareness of the world as it is, was, or might be. The medium is still in its infancy, but read this again in a few years and see if this prediction hasn't come true: as videogaming grows, we will grow."

"Videogames? In the sixties, that meant To Tell the Truth and What's My Line? Today, a lot of the apparatus we had in Batman - dressed, of course, in less imposing names - is fact. And we're lucky this is so. My present-day fascination with videogames does not derive from personal affection. I prefer working our and skiing to playing videogames. But that's a personal preference, not a value judgement. I happen to think that videogames are an ideal means to help broaden the imaginations of young people."

"Video games should not interest or impress you. We should scare you. Video games are taking over the world. You haven't even seen a fraction of what we can do."

"When I write a game, I try to make you feel like you have power. Then I try to make you feel the awesome, terrifying responsibility of having power. When I force you to make a tough decision, for a brief moment, I can reprogram your brain and take your thoughts somewhere they've never been before. This is amazing. That is, at heart, what the games we make are. They are tools we creators use to compel and rewrite your brains. We haven't begun to come to terms with the power we've unleashed with these toys, these addiction machines."

"Video games are taking over the world, and they're doing it in style. We're winning because we offer something better than art. We offer Experience."

"Even in Japan, I don't think that the game culture is established. So, probably the users are kids in school, even adults, I'm not sure up to which age they are. For example, my father will watch movies but games don't appear in his life at all, I think that that's sad. Even though we can create something really good, our parents wouldn't be able to understand what we do."

"Games are still considered to be in the sub-culture category, coming under movies, coming under manga or comics or animation, especially in Japan. So, hopefully we'll be able to establish our own position that can be established as a culture."

"In conclusion, we found that, compared with playing low-violence video games for <2 hours per day, playing high-violence video games for ≥2 hours per day was significantly associated with a higher number of depressive symptoms among preadolescent youth. However, the magnitude of the association was small and a causal relationship cannot be inferred. Nevertheless, it should be noted that even these small effect sizes can be of practical importance considering the large number of preadolescent and adolescent youth who regularly play violent video games. More studies are needed to examine the association between playing violent video games and depression in general and among boys in particular. If this association were confirmed, longitudinal studies would then be needed to investigate its causality, persistence over time, underlying mechanisms, and clinical implications."

"In the present study, we examined the association between daily violent video game playing over the past year and depression in a large, ethnically diverse preadolescent sample. We found that playing high-violence video games for ≥2 hours per day is significantly associated with having a higher number of depressive symptoms. This association was consistent across all racial/ethnic subgroups and among boys, and more important, it was observed after controlling for aggression and several violence-related variables. The magnitude of these associations was small (Cohen's d values ranged from 0.12 to 0.25). However, these effect sizes are similar to those reported for the association between playing violent video games and aggression. Overall, our findings indicate that playing violent video games for a substantial amount of time each day over an extended period is significantly associated with depression in preadolescent youth. They also suggest that this association is unique, given that the number of depressive symptoms was not associated either with playing low-violence video games or with time spent playing video games in general."

"Most studies on the impact of playing violent video games on mental health have focused on aggression. Relatively few studies have examined the relationship between playing violent video games and depression, especially among preadolescent youth."

"The game company claims it has the legal right to depict branded weapons in its products, likening its games to novels and other narrative-based media. "We're telling a story and we have a point of view," Frank Gibeau, EA president of labels, said in an interview with Reuters. "A book doesn't pay for saying the word 'Colt,' for example.""

"We know that women gamers face harassment and stalking and threats of violence from other players. When they speak out about their experiences, they're attacked on Twitter and other social media outlets, even threatened in their homes. And what's brought these issues to light is that there are a lot of women out there, especially young women, who are speaking out bravely about their experiences, even when they know they'll be attacked for it."

"It's tough to "buy American" when a video game sold by a U.S. company has been developed by Japanese software engineers and packaged in Mexico."

"That may be possible, but if there is no script, I will be out of a job! It will not be in the very far future that one character in a story will have full artificial intelligence, but I think it is pretty difficult to make all the characters with AI. That's in the very far future..."

"Isn't it scary to think about the impact a game can have on people's lives? That said, I really admire them for the time, energy and money that they spend on their costumes..."

"Video games are meant for you to be immersed in an exciting and creative alternative reality and have fun with friends. Adding present-day political bullshit kills the vibe."

"We always think of the road not taken, of something in the past. 'Wow, what would have happened if I married so and so, or took that job in San Diego…' But you rarely think that each and every second that goes by is one of those moments. Like this second that just happened. And that one. And the one that's going to happen in a second." Potentially, each of these seconds could alter a game in a profound way. Just as they can in life. The easiest thing for us to imagine is that our lives, and the story we are playing, are pre-designed, solid. But neither gaming nor life has to be like that. In both, we can alter and decide in a way that is surprising, ultimately freeing."

"Taken together, the findings of the present study show that an extensive game intervention over the course of 2 months did not reveal any specific changes in aggression, empathy, interpersonal competencies, impulsivity-related constructs, depressivity, anxiety or executive control functions; neither in comparison to an active control group that played a non-violent video game nor to a passive control group. We observed no effects when comparing a baseline and a post-training assessment, nor when focussing on more long-term effects between baseline and a follow-up interval 2 months after the participants stopped training. To our knowledge, the present study employed the most comprehensive test battery spanning a multitude of domains in which changes due to violent video games may have been expected. Therefore the present results provide strong evidence against the frequently debated negative effects of playing violent video games. This debate has mostly been informed by studies showing short-term effects of violent video games when tests were administered immediately after a short playtime of a few minutes; effects that may in large be caused by short-lived priming effects that vanish after minutes. The presented results will therefore help to communicate a more realistic scientific perspective of the real-life effects of violent video gaming. However, future research is needed to demonstrate the absence of effects of violent video gameplay in children."

"The concern that violent video games may promote aggression or reduce empathy in its players is pervasive and given the popularity of these games their psychological impact is an urgent issue for society at large. Contrary to the custom, this topic has also been passionately debated in the scientific literature. One research camp has strongly argued that violent video games increase aggression in its players , whereas the other camp repeatedly concluded that the effects are minimal at best, if not absent. Importantly, it appears that these fundamental inconsistencies cannot be attributed to differences in research methodology since even meta-analyses, with the goal to integrate the results of all prior studies on the topic of aggression caused by video games led to disparate conclusions. These meta-analyses had a strong focus on children, and one of them reported a marginal age effect suggesting that children might be even more susceptible to violent video game effects. At present, almost all experimental studies targeting the effects of violent video games on aggression and/or empathy focussed on the effects of short-term video gameplay. In these studies the duration for which participants were instructed to play the games ranged from 4 min to maximally 2 h (mean = 22 min, median = 15 min, when considering all experimental studies reviewed in two of the recent major meta-analyses in the field) and most frequently the effects of video gaming have been tested directly after gameplay."

"Back in the day, Sega said we couldn't show our real names, thus everyone went under nicknames in the game credits."