[HN Gopher] In the '80s, she was a video game pioneer. Today, no...
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In the '80s, she was a video game pioneer. Today, no one can find
her
Author : rbanffy
Score : 127 points
Date : 2021-02-23 11:45 UTC (11 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.polygon.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.polygon.com)
| forgotmypw17 wrote:
| http://archive.is/CFrRo
| pjungwir wrote:
| One of my favorite games, _Below the Root_ , has not one but two
| named playable female characters: Genaa and Pomma. It's from
| 1984, so only 2 years after the game in this article. I played it
| on a Tandy 1000.
|
| It was a trailblazer in all kinds of ways: a side-"scrolling"
| adventure type game where you have to explore, talk to people,
| gather inventory, raise your skills, and solve puzzles. You can
| play as either of two rival factions. As you play you can really
| feel the depth of world-building and backstory. There is no set
| order to do the various things required to win. You can play any
| of five characters, who have different levels of strength and
| "spirit skill". And it did it all with four colors and a single
| joystick button. It is at least as innovative as King's Quest
| (also 1984), maybe more.
|
| It has an intro sequence that explains the goal, but it's quite
| terse, so you might want to read the Wikipedia page. The game was
| commissioned by a fantasy author and intended to be a sequel to
| one of her books.
|
| You can run it on dosbox. I highly recommend trying it out!
| rabidrat wrote:
| I love this game! If you haven't read the trilogy that inspired
| the game, I recommend it. I only got to reading it a few years
| ago, but was impressed by how much of the book world and the
| game world naturally intersected. I assumed that the shuba (a
| garment that allows you to glide between trees) was an offhand
| item in the books that became a central game mechanic out of
| necessity, but it turns out that it's a major part of the books
| too!
|
| Anyway, yes, it's a great game. The C64 version is better than
| the DOS version (better graphics, polyphonic sound), but a
| little harder to get hold of. Worth playing on any platform as
| a piece of adventure game history (and much better than the
| original King's Quest in my opinion).
| kbelder wrote:
| This is a strong memory. Very sophisticated, compared to other
| games of the time.
| dudleypippin wrote:
| I have a visceral memory of a jump that I Just Couldn't GET
| and the joy of finally hitting it. Looks like you can play
| online here: https://classicreload.com/below-the-root.html
| WarOnPrivacy wrote:
| This should be safe to post. There was a Ban Thi Tran who died in
| Dallas on Aug 4 1984. No other info given.
|
| Apollo was in Richardson, just N of Dallas.
| dleslie wrote:
| There's not a whole lot of marriages with the Tran last name
| between '82 and '90, in Texas; it could be that "Ban" was a
| pseudonym and her given name was something else.
|
| IE, my grandmother received, and signed, checks as Doris and
| yet her given name was something else entirely.
| jonathankoren wrote:
| Is everyone forgetting the part where "Ban Tran" is a very
| common name?
|
| I keep thinking about when my wife searches for herself, she
| found a over a hundred people with her name in Santa Clara
| county alone.
| MisterTea wrote:
| Apt handle for the type of poor behavior you are condoning.
| ihuman wrote:
| Don't obituaries make that info public?
| renewiltord wrote:
| Post-mortem privacy is such nonsense. The privacy rights of
| the surviving members of the family are relevant, as well as
| anyone involved with the dead but dead people are not people.
| The idea that they have rights is ridiculous.
| exporectomy wrote:
| Can't see what you're replying to but how we treat dead
| people is important because it influences our behavior
| knowing how we will be treated once we die. What if all our
| online history known to Google/Facebook/ad networks/etc. is
| suddenly dumped on our Facebook page and turned public so
| the day we die, everyone who knew us can see what naughty
| things we searched for in our entire life? People will
| alter their behavior if such non-privacy was expected
| because people do care about how they will be perceived
| after they die.
|
| Once you're so far back in history that nobody knew you
| except from your post-death public record, then maybe it's
| not the same?
| clankyclanker wrote:
| I don't think that reposting a thirty year old public death
| notice really counts as a privacy invasion.
|
| I'm not sure where the line is, but I don't think that's it.
| MisterTea wrote:
| My point is why the need to hunt someone down? And yes,
| that is how I view it, a hunt. That isn't a comfortable
| feeling. I get that the info is harmless but the OP just
| couldn't help themselves but join in what I consider is a
| gross invasion of someones life, regardless of the persons
| state of living. And many here share the same opinion.
|
| If I were on the receiving end of such a manhunt,
| discovering that numerous random strangers on the internet
| crowd hunted me, I would be sick to my stomach.
| david_draco wrote:
| Back in the 80s, I was a very famous video game pioneer ... I'm
| Ban Tran, Ban Tran the geek don't act like you don't know
| andi999 wrote:
| Wait, she is now Diane?
| anotheryou wrote:
| I'm confused about your and the parent message...
| ev1 wrote:
| It's the opening theme to a famous series, Bojack Horseman.
| Fiahil wrote:
| Was she part of the inspiration behind _Halt and Catch Fire_'s
| Cameron ?
| Jeema101 wrote:
| The atariage.com forums might be the place to go if the author
| hasn't tried that already. There's a number of old-timers who
| occasionally pop in on the forums, as well as a bunch of people
| who just seem to know a lot in general about the history of Atari
| games and the companies who made them.
|
| Edit: Nevermind, as I see one of the links in the article is
| actually to a forum post there!
| argvargc wrote:
| As per article comments, Wabbit is playable online here:
|
| http://playoldgames.org/wabbit-a26
| armandososa wrote:
| I gotta say, women losing their names when they get married is a
| pretty backwards practice. My wife is not my sister, nor my
| property, why should she take my name and lose her identity?
| undefined1 wrote:
| no one has to do that. whether you want to share a last name is
| a discussion for you and your wife. if you decide to, it can be
| hers, yours, a combination, or even a made up name that you
| both like.
| rossdavidh wrote:
| Well, given that it is entirely optional and plenty of women
| choose one and plenty of women choose the other, I don't think
| it's something we need to call "backwards", if a woman chooses
| to do it (as plenty of women still do).
| cat199 wrote:
| clearly the women choosing to do this are simply not 'woke'
| enough, and OP knows better, obviously
| jandrese wrote:
| It's not great, but the alternatives aren't much better.
| Hyphenated last names don't scale and are awkward to begin
| with. Having the man take her last name has all of the same
| problems. Coming up with a completely new family name is more
| fair but also more work. Marrying only people with the same
| family name is too incestual.
| Jweb_Guru wrote:
| Having children take one name or the other does not require
| changing one's own name.
| jandrese wrote:
| Having different last names comes with its own problems.
| One of which will be people asking you when you're going to
| be married. The other is forms that assume married couples
| have the same last name.
|
| There's that awkward moment where the announcer goes "Mr.
| and Mrs... Uh. <both their names>"
| swaits wrote:
| Being married to a woman with her own last name, and a
| stepdaughter with her own last name, I can tell you that
| none of what you describe is really a problem.
|
| In fact, it's worked well enough for us that if we were
| to have another child we'd consider giving him or her a
| different last name again instead of picking one of the
| three we already have.
| cmrdporcupine wrote:
| Indeed we haven't run into many problems. Maybe an
| annoyance now and then such as a relative (usually one of
| hers, ironically) that assumes she has my last name and
| sends cards or letters to Mrs XXX. In fact some of them
| know she kept her maiden name but are conservative enough
| to find this somehow offensive enough that they give her
| my last name. (Again, weird, what's wrong with the last
| name she shares with them.)
|
| (The only reason we sometimes wish she'd change her name
| is that hers is extremely common, and so she's constantly
| getting mixups with other people with the same name and
| has to sign things every time we buy a house or get a
| loan, etc. to say she isn't that other XXX YYY that has
| the bad credit rating or outstanding loan or criminal
| record, etc.)
| michaericalribo wrote:
| Wow! I'd argue it's offensive--or at least quite rude--to
| willfully ignore someone's name. What gives someone else
| the right to determine what's best for me? How
| patronizing!
| cmrdporcupine wrote:
| Yep. And her own father was a bit put off by her choice.
| Weird, as its his own name she's keeping. Okay, well,
| probably the name of a slaveholding ancestor in the
| south, actually, but I doubt that factors into any of his
| thoughts.
|
| What's weird is these are people with generally left-wing
| political views, and socially liberal on most things. But
| on women's issues, pretty backwards. It weirds me out.
| michaericalribo wrote:
| I'll admit that I consider myself "generally left-
| wing...and social liberally", and it was a real cognitive
| disconnect when my wife didn't want to take my
| name...It's such an ingrained tradition, so it required
| serious self-reflection to get to the bottom of my own
| reaction.
| michaericalribo wrote:
| Frankly, why would I care if it confuses someone else? My
| spouse and I don't make important decisions vis-a-vis our
| relationship, on the basis of other people's convenience.
|
| The "problems" you describe are just...nonexistent, and
| really not a big deal. I have literally never encountered
| confusion about our marital status, problems with forms,
| or difficulty being introduced.
| M277 wrote:
| What's wrong with the wife not changing her last name? Why
| does there have to be change?
|
| Islam does it, and there are no issues at all.
| zamadatix wrote:
| Nothing "wrong" with it and there aren't any "issues" in
| that you won't drop to the ground scratching your head on
| what to do in a certain situation if you don't change your
| name. That doesn't mean there aren't advantages to
| normalizing last names in a household though.
|
| I'm currently engaged and plan on taking her last name
| after the wedding. Life would go on very large the same way
| if I didn't the same way it will if I do. The whole problem
| is overblown.
| bipson wrote:
| There are several issues in real life if you live in a
| society where it is the norm.
|
| The very least when you have kids and their teachers or any
| official you encounter _assume_ that the parents have the
| same name as the kids. (This can 't be your kid!)
|
| We know a couple where she had hyphenated surnames. Almost
| always confused the officials, colleagues and friends when
| they lived in Switzerland.
|
| We decided against my wife _not_ changing her name, since
| it was not worth the troubles.
| M277 wrote:
| Oh, yes, I understand now.
|
| The original post was talking about changing surnames in
| general so I thought that it was criticising the norm,
| and my reply was in similar fashion - "why does the norm
| exist?"
|
| Should have clarified, sorry. It [not changing names]
| really wouldn't work out well if it wasn't the norm in
| place as you say, there are plenty of issues that could
| happen.
| michaericalribo wrote:
| Likewise, women in China typically / often do not take
| their husband's name.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| Do they ever? There is a female title that applies to the
| husband's name rather than the wife's name -- when Song
| Mei Ling marries Jiang Jie Shi , she can be referred to
| as Jiang Fu Ren , but not Song Fu Ren -- but that's a
| fact about the usage of the title, not the woman's name.
| michaericalribo wrote:
| I can't claim to be authoritative on cultural practices
| in China, so I hedged my language so I wasn't
| overreaching :) And there's usually _some_ exception to
| _every_ rule...
|
| That's really interesting! Can you explain it a little
| more? I can't read Chinese, so it's a bit opaque what's
| going on...
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| I can't claim to be authoritative either, but it's what I
| read. I feel fairly safe in claiming that there is no
| tradition of women changing their names on marriage,
| though.
|
| For the example, I used the names of two historical
| people who did historically marry; I picked them based on
| Soong Mei-ling being mentioned in
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_titles#Women ,
| under the title I wanted to talk about.
|
| For Chinese address in general, the example posits a
| woman named Song Mei Ling (
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soong_Mei-ling ), whose
| family name is Song and whose personal name is Mei Ling
| , marrying a man named Jiang Jie Shi (
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiang_Kai-shek ), whose
| family name is Jiang and whose personal name is Jie Shi
| .
|
| Chinese titles appear after the noun being titled, not
| before. So the ordinary address for Song Mei Ling
| (before or after she marries[1]) is Song Xiao Jie ("Ms.
| Song"), where Xiao Jie is the courtesy title for women,
| and the ordinary address for Jiang Jie Shi is Jiang Xian
| Sheng ("Mr. Jiang"), with Xian Sheng being the courtesy
| title for men.
|
| The Fu Ren ("Lady") title is unusual; it is applied to
| the name of the woman's husband, not to the name of the
| woman herself. (Compare an American letter addressed to
| e.g. "Mr. and Mrs. John Smith".) Thus, Jiang Jie Shi 's
| wife can be referred to as Jiang Fu Ren , regardless of
| what her name might be.
|
| Wikipedia suggests that the title Tai Tai ("wife") is
| also applied to the husband's name.
|
| [1] I'm following the convention of government forms
| here, in which Xiao Jie and Xian Sheng are opposed
| options for how the form addresses you, and Nu Shi
| doesn't appear. The wikipedia section linked above states
| that Xiao Jie applies to unmarried women and Nu Shi
| applies to married women. My -- limited -- understanding
| is different; I see Nu Shi as being used to convey a
| higher degree of respect, such as in professional
| communications. For example, I was once advised by a
| Chinese person to address the mother of a child I was
| tutoring as Meng Xiao Jie ; I can only assume that the
| use of Xiao Jie did not convey the fairly insulting
| impression that I believed she was unmarried.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| > I gotta say, women losing their names when they get married
| is a pretty backwards practice.
|
| The traditional practice as I learned it doesn't involve this.
| Instead, where boys are given three names at birth, girls are
| given two in the expectation that they will one day marry.
| Then, when Susan Floyd marries John Robert Sinclair, she
| becomes Susan Floyd Sinclair.
|
| Compare Mary Ann Maxwell marrying William Henry Gates to become
| Mary Maxwell Gates.
| recursive wrote:
| > why should she take my name and lose her identity?
|
| You should probably ask her. No one is forced to change their
| name, but some do.
| adamredwoods wrote:
| I told my wife she did not have to change her name, but she
| chose to because she wanted to feel part of a family, and
| enjoyed a new identity.
| abraxas wrote:
| Reminds me of that time in the 90's when Matthew Smith of the
| Manic Miner/Jet Set Willy fame went "missing". Unfortunately his
| life story post JSW wasn't a happy one as he spent most years in
| the throes of drug addiction.
| kleiba wrote:
| ...and there's not much more in that story than there is in the
| headline.
| the_af wrote:
| I found it to be a pretty interesting article. I wasn't aware
| of either the documentary project itself or of the game.
| NelsonMinar wrote:
| except a brief history of female characters in video games, and
| screenshots of a game I'd never heard of and detailed
| descriptions of what made it interesting. Also commentary on
| the difficulty of doing video game history. And a full focus on
| women game designers.
| exporectomy wrote:
| When the emphasis is on her gender, it's hard to tell if she's
| actually significant for her work - Wabbit which itself is
| significant mainly for having a female character? Or just for
| having an unusual body type. If the latter, then does it really
| matter? The world is full of engineers and entrepreneurs who
| nobody knows about and don't get their credits written on the
| things they build.
| the_af wrote:
| Interesting article, and I always find the history of early
| computer games fascinating (also see: Halcyon Days, freely
| available online: https://dadgum.com/halcyon/)
|
| However, what strikes me the most of this article is actually in
| the comments section...
|
| ... people don't know who Roberta Williams is, or what Sierra
| Online was!? In a videogame website?
|
| Wow. How quick we videogame fans are to forget our own history.
| This reminds me of the multiple times I've seen people here on HN
| ask who Carmack was and why it mattered what he had to say about
| tech.
| sleepybrett wrote:
| Danielle Bunten Berry
|
| MULE, Seven Cities of Gold, Heart of Africa > the entire sierra
| catalog
| the_af wrote:
| This isn't a contest. Yes, I know who Dani Bunten (RIP) was,
| and it was a huge deal. I suspect that, similarly, these
| people who don't know Roberta Williams don't know about Dani
| either.
|
| > _MULE, Seven Cities of Gold, Heart of Africa > the entire
| sierra catalog_
|
| Those are awesome, groundbreaking games, and the technical
| limitations they had to work around are _very_ interesting.
| However, the entire Sierra catalog, and in particular the
| first two Space Quest games (text interfaces!) hold a special
| place in my heart. I learned English with them. So I must
| respectfully disagree :)
| rbanffy wrote:
| > ... people don't know who Roberta Williams is, or what Sierra
| Online was!? In a videogame website?
|
| A lot of these people are interested in playing games, not on
| history. Sadly, lots of people seem to be unbothered by being
| ignorant of the history of their own favorite pastimes.
| treis wrote:
| Why is that sad? Can't I just mow down some pedestrians in
| GTA without a guilt trip?
| giobox wrote:
| Time marches on. There's a similar phenomenon in the "top n
| games of all time" articles - its always what matters to the
| generation writing it.
|
| Your John Carmack example betrays our age. His most important
| contributions to gaming (at least from a history perspective)
| was arguably early 90s Shareware/Apogee/Id era almost 30 years
| ago now, I don't expect my kids to know who he is. Heck, why
| would a young gamer even know what "shareware" was? The idea of
| sharing and distribution at large scale via end users cloning
| physical media (floppies) is pretty much absurd in 2020s and of
| little use to know, despite being hugely important to Carmack's
| early successes.
|
| People just want to play fun games and that's fine. We
| shouldn't discourage it on basis you "don't appreciate the
| history properly" or be ashamed of this.
| the_af wrote:
| I get your points, however:
|
| > _Your John Carmack example betrays our age. His most
| important contributions to gaming (at least from a history
| perspective) was early 90s Shareware /Apogee/Id era almost 30
| years ago now, I don't expect my kids to know who he is._
|
| First, Carmack is still relevant today. He still writes about
| tech, and he still takes part in groundbreaking tech
| developments. Here is for example a headline from 2019:
| https://www.engadget.com/2019-11-13-john-carmack-agi.html
|
| It's relevant because he is a proven achiever, not just a
| "visionary" like we're used to in this industry. I'm
| similarly starting to read about people in tech/software who
| don't know who Stallman is! And I suppose eventually this
| will happen to Torvalds as well.
|
| Second, are readers of HN "kids"? I used Carmack as an
| example of someone who readers here on HN occasionally don't
| know.
|
| > _People just want to play fun games and that 's fine. We
| shouldn't discourage it on basis you "don't appreciate the
| history properly" or be ashamed of this._
|
| That's ok. However, this happened in the comments section of
| a website which also has commentary and articles beyond "just
| playing games", and specifically in an article about
| videogame history. And Roberta Williams was a _huge_
| influence. I suppose in 30 years people will similarly ask,
| "Nintendo _what_? ". It's sad, though I suppose inevitable.
|
| ---
|
| edit: giobox, I don't know why you got downvoted, yours was a
| polite response. I upvoted your comment because I value the
| conversation.
| doc_gunthrop wrote:
| John Carmack's contribution to the field of video games was
| _revolutionary_. He was the pioneer who brought smooth side-
| scrolling to PC gaming (e.g. Commander Keen) as well as 3D
| graphics to video games (e.g. Wolfenstein 3D, Doom).
|
| Seeing as how FPS games are one of the biggest (if not the
| biggest) genre of video gaming out there, Carmack has had an
| immeasurably massive impact on the industry.
|
| It's fine if people want to just play games, but don't
| belittle the titan whose shoulder countless subsequent
| developers have stood atop.
| gedy wrote:
| Many/most? Viet immigrants also take on English first names,
| which could also complicate this search.
| flohofwoe wrote:
| Reminds me of this story (not gaming but music related):
|
| https://pitchfork.com/thepitch/how-a-long-lost-indian-disco-...
| WalterGR wrote:
| To get to the point in the article where it introduces the
| subject, scroll about half-way down or search for "Why look for
| Ban Tran in the first place?"
| MayeulC wrote:
| Yeah, this article is badly written. It doesn't even explicitly
| says that Ban Tran worked on Wabbit, unless I missed it.
|
| And that's the gist of it: someone making a documentary on
| female video game protagonists went looking for a developer of
| Wabbit, which can be considered (one of) the first of that
| category.
| dlvktrsh wrote:
| I'm so sick of people making Blog posts/articles just for the
| sake of it or with some alternate motive like promoting
| something they're working on or trying to sell.
|
| almost everything I read is of similar nature, it's getting
| quite exhaustive
| HeyLaughingBoy wrote:
| > just for the sake of it or with some alternate motive
|
| What other possibilities are there?
| MayeulC wrote:
| I feel like most of these articles want you to remain on
| the same page while you are scrolling so that they can
| display more ads to you.
| KaiserPro wrote:
| If she wants to be found, she'll let us know. Lets not unleash a
| bunch of obsessive weirdos on her, she's probably got good
| reasons to not be about in "public"
| simplicio wrote:
| I don't think there's much reason to think she's aware anyone
| is looking for her, or that she's particularly trying to
| "hide". It sounds like she just dropped out of the industry 30+
| years ago and none of her former colleges kept in touch.
| jgrahamc wrote:
| Maybe she doesn't want to be found and has a different life now
| and wants to live that life. Without people on the Internet
| obsessing.
| ev1 wrote:
| Seriously, why is this kind of harassment and stalking
| acceptable in any way? Why on earth is Polygon encouraging this
| BS?
|
| Go look at virtually any female video game (staff, developer,
| etc) on Twitter and you'll immediately see numerous reasons
| based on the type of audience they get.
| the_af wrote:
| > _why is this kind of harassment and stalking acceptable in
| any way_
|
| I don't think someone making a documentary about pioneers in
| any given subject -- in this case, women and female
| characters in early videogames -- would be engaging in
| "harassment and stalking" because he's trying to contact said
| pioneers who might still be alive. Now, if once contacted the
| subject said she didn't want to appear in the documentary,
| her wish must be respected. But without contacting her, how
| can the documentary maker know?
| undefined1 wrote:
| why are you assuming harassment and pushing a damsel in
| distress narrative?
| LocalH wrote:
| Documenting that someone did something pioneering in their
| field is not harassment and stalking, good lord.
| andi999 wrote:
| But they put the bar really low. Of course you can try to
| find that person, and have an interview, but a public
| search? I mean if Wozniak would have disappeared in the
| 80s, ok, but a random computer game designer?
| the_af wrote:
| So is your argument that this particular person, Ban
| Tran, is not noteworthy enough and therefore not worth
| tracking down for a documentary about women in
| videogames?
|
| What part of the article in particular do you think puts
| "the bar really low"? I don't see it. It seems respectful
| and not at all intrusive, well within the subject matter
| and not including extraneous or irrelevant personal
| information.
| ivanbakel wrote:
| How is the behaviour described in the article stalking or
| harassment?
| Cerium wrote:
| If someone want's a public presence they can have one. If
| there is not an obvious way to contact someone it can be
| assumed to be on purpose.
| ivanbakel wrote:
| But there _is_ an obvious way to contact all the people
| who are being sent letters - they are in the white pages.
| What part of sending someone a letter to a publicly-
| listed address constitutes stalking or harassment?
| embeddedsystems wrote:
| The white pages should not even exist. You're using an
| unwanted, non opt-in, forced privacy violation as a
| reason.
|
| You exist in Experian, does that mean that automatically
| gives me the right to bother you and tell people online
| to bother you on socia lmedia?
| dleslie wrote:
| People without landlines were never listed in the white
| pages; you opted in by purchasing a phone, and could opt
| out at the time of purchase and any time thereafter.
| Perhaps it was a bad default, but avoiding being listed
| was an accessible option.
| embeddedsystems wrote:
| Unfortunately, this isn't the case in 2010+, where the WP
| site purchases tons of info from data brokers to sell.
| You don't need a landline or to opt in.
| dleslie wrote:
| That sounds like it might be prohibited by EU and
| Canadian law.
| embeddedsystems wrote:
| I do a bunch of stuff in the gaming space, and WP has
| been one of the bigger causes of pain for streamers.
| Often separate 2FA-only - to prevent account hijacks -
| cellphones that are paid monthly and used nowhere else
| still show up, and the result is attempted murder (via
| swatting). This happens so frequently it's absurd.
|
| None of this is opt in, all of it is extremely unwanted,
| and those companies really should not exist.
| dleslie wrote:
| How are the swatters getting access to the phone number
| if it's used nowhere else?
|
| Disclaimer: I also work in gaming, and deal with streamer
| security.
| embeddedsystems wrote:
| WP's site helpfully tries to show "this person's other
| phone numbers". My guess is it's acquired via credit
| institutions when you use that number for 2FA with a bank
| (since honestly, what the hell, virtually no bank
| supports U2F/TOTP 2FA and demand phone numbers, ugh)
|
| I don't know how they match it in the backend, often it's
| wrong (and results in innocent parties being attacked).
|
| I usually recommend completely prepaid lines for this to
| prevent hijackers from using the good old social
| engineering trick to hijack their accounts via customer
| service by providing last 4 of various identifiers. But
| these still eventually show up after you add the number
| to enough 'traditional' accounts. One of my friends
| (female, streamer) has gotten police at her house at 3 am
| with guns drawn so many times it's ridiculous. At least
| in many parts of, if not the entire US, trying to swat
| someone is legitimately trying to do your hardest to
| murder them.
|
| This honestly should be made illegal, there is no reason
| for these services to exist, or for public records to be
| made available at all other than rate limited, in person
| without the ability to take a copy. Exceptions can be
| made for elected officials.
| dleslie wrote:
| That's... Wow, kinda absurd.
|
| I checked and it appears they lack Canadian data; and so
| perhaps I was correct in presuming that such egregious
| breaching of personal privacy would be troublesome up
| here. Or maybe WP just doesn't have the data.
|
| FWIW, there are cheap providers of SMS over SIP, now. I
| have a DID through voip.ms that can send and receive SMS,
| and it's cheap.
| embeddedsystems wrote:
| Yes, these are blocked at most services already.
| Definitely blocked by banks. Need short code ability to
| be used too.
| tssva wrote:
| Opting out usually involved having to pay a fee.
| whatshisface wrote:
| Journalists have a social norm that it's okay to investigate
| people and publish their details, and as the rest of us come
| around to seeing that as invasive and rude, they're lagging a
| bit behind. (See also: The slate star codex guy.)
| the_af wrote:
| The author of the article didn't really publish any details
| about Ban Tran's life except she worked at this videogame
| company about 40 years ago and took part in the development
| of this game Wabbit. Doesn't seem intrusive to me. There's
| no real personal information, and I'd like to think this
| documentary maker would ask Ban Tran for permission to
| publish more details if he ever manages to contact her.
|
| Let's not go for the pitch forks so readily, shall we?
| mcherm wrote:
| No, journalists do NOT have that norm. Which is why the NY
| Times' behavior in the case you refer to was criticized in
| many journalism circles.
|
| [1] https://www.newyorker.com/culture/annals-of-
| inquiry/slate-st...
|
| [2] https://reason.com/2020/06/24/slate-star-codex-dox-
| scott-ale...
|
| [3] https://arcdigital.media/slate-star-codex-and-the-gray-
| ladys...
| chokeartist wrote:
| No, journalists are parasites. Nothing different than a
| Chatty Cathy in high-school.
| dspillett wrote:
| If I ever get unwanted press attention (not likely, they
| would be _really_ dredging the barrel if anything in my
| life was deemed interesting enough!) and that "peoples
| right to know" argument is used as a defence, I'm
| immediately hiring PIs to investigate the "journalist"'s
| life in detail and publishing the results. The people have
| a right to know about the lives of the people defending
| their right to know about people's lives...
| chrisco255 wrote:
| That's odd, because one of my favorite game designers from
| the 80s was Roberta Williams, of the King's Quest series, who
| still has a fond group of fans despite being out of the
| industry more or less for the past couple of decades.
|
| https://www.sierragamers.com/roberta-williams/
| mcguire wrote:
| This is an excellent argument if you are trying to deny that
| women were in involved in video games in any way.
| ev1 wrote:
| Trying to get as many people as possible and asking on
| social media to help you "find" someone these days is
| practically a death sentence, regardless of gender.
| Especially in gaming. I legitimately don't understand how
| that kind of ask is _not_ harassment. You know the type of
| people that will surface when you put that ask out there.
|
| I understand the part where they would like to know a bit
| more about it, but sending pages and pages of physical
| letters, at least to me, I find this creepy and
| weird/obsessive
|
| The people that are accusing me of trying to remove women
| or some 'damsel in distress' thing don't seem to understand
| that in the gaming space, people calling in threats or
| attempting to kill you in person because you made a
| disliked game balance change is real, applies to males, and
| is a baseline behaviour, or that females in gaming are
| subject to significantly worse harassment by orders of
| magnitude; look at the cesspool that is/was pokimanehot.
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| Since there's a clear lead to this search, sending a message to
| the lead would probably accomplish that.
| zero_deg_kevin wrote:
| Right? You'd think that not having any kind of internet
| presence and making no discernible effort to take credit for
| the work would be enough of a hint. It's hard to be that low
| profile unintentionally.
|
| What does it take to be left alone? What does a person have to
| say/do for it to be taken as anything but an invitation to
| search for them?
| jonathankoren wrote:
| Take credit for what? A 40 year old game that almost no one
| remembers, and even fewer bought? I don't run around arguing
| for credit for scratching "COWS" with a compass on the inside
| of my high school locker 30 years ago.
|
| I one time found the author of the book that got me
| interesting in programming as a kid back in the 80s, and
| after sending her a message on FB she was happy to find
| someone remembered it, let alone kept the book on their shelf
| as a memento.
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| > It's hard to be that low profile unintentionally.
|
| On the contrary, it'd be hard not to have an extremely low
| profile with such a common name.
|
| Add in the fact that it's been 40 years, and nobody has cared
| one single bit for the first 35 of those years.
|
| Add in the fact that she probably didn't get any author
| credit for the game, so probably didn't even realize people
| knew her name.
|
| Remember that the internet didn't exist in the eighties. I
| wrote a few video games in the 80s, and this is probably the
| first acknowledgement on the internet ever that the Bryan
| Larsen that wrote games for T&D software is this Bryan
| Larsen. And I'm much easier to find than most, since I'm the
| type of guy who uses my real name on forums like this.
|
| I highly doubt anybody is going to care about my games, and
| I'm sure she never thought anybody would ever care either.
| She was wrong, but I'm sure I'm not.
| crunchyfrog wrote:
| And maybe she thinks she's been forgotten and erased but would
| be happy to know her contribution is being recognized?
|
| We'll never know which it is if we don't ask. If she asks to be
| left alone, people should respect that but they shouldn't
| assume that.
|
| As an example, I recommend the documentary Searching for Sugar
| Man.
| tetris11 wrote:
| He was extremely famous in Australia, and that documentary
| deliberately failed to mention that
| soperj wrote:
| He obviously didn't know that though, since he was living
| pretty rough, not playing, and not seeing any money from
| that.
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