Notes from a training

Day two of training is complete; it's going fine so far. I can already see there are some things I'm going to love about the new database software and other things that will cause us serious problems. But that's not why I'm posting.

The database contains several different types of records, one of which is called an "mfhd".

This is pronounced "muffhead".

It's been two days, and it has yet to stop being funny. And at this rate, I doubt it ever will.

Actual research on actual videogames

Two psychologists do some research on kids who play violent video games, and the results are not what they expected. (Thanks to bottle_of_shine for pointing me at this article!)

http://www.openeducation.net/2008/03/17/author-reveals-the-surprising-truth-about-violent-video-games/

“Video game popularity and real-world youth violence have been moving in opposite directions. Violent juvenile crime in the United States reached a peak in 1993 and has been declining ever since. School violence has also gone down. Between1994 and 2001, arrests for murder, forcible rape, robbery and aggravated assaults fell 44 percent, resulting in the lowest juvenile arrest rate for violent crimes since 1983.”

Our survey of more than 1200 middle school students found that 29 percent of girls who played video games listed at least one M-rated game among the games they’d ‘played a lot’ during the previous six months. One in five specifically listed a Grand Theft Auto game. In fact, among these 12- to 14-year-old girls, the Grand Theft Auto series was second only to The Sims in popularity.”

They've written a book. I think I know what I'm ordering for the library when I get back.