Month: March 2014

Call for Papers: Fafnir 3/2014

Call for Papers: Fafnir 3/2014

Fafnir – Nordic Journal of Science Fiction and Fantasy Research invites authors to submit papers for the upcoming edition 3/2014.

Fafnir – Nordic Journal of Science Fiction and Fantasy Research is a new, peer-reviewed academic journal which is published in electronic format four times a year. The purpose of Fafnir is to join up the Nordic field of science fiction and fantasy research and to provide a forum for discussion on current issues on the field. Fafnir is published by FINFAR Society (Suomen science fiction- ja fantasiatutkimuksen seura ry).

Now Fafnir invites authors to submit papers for its edition 3/2014. Fafnir publishes various texts ranging from peer-reviewed research articles to short overviews and book reviews in the field of science fiction and fantasy research.

The submissions must be original work, and written in English (or in Finnish or in Scandinavian languages). Manuscripts of research articles should be between 20,000 and 40,000 characters in length. The journal uses the most recent edition of the MLA Style Manual. The manuscripts of research articles will be peer-reviewed. Please note that as Fafnir is designed to be of interest to readers with varying backgrounds, essays and other texts should be as accessibly written as possible. Also, if English is not your first language, please have your article reviewed or edited by an English language editor.

The deadline for submissions is 31 May 2014.

In addition to research articles, Fafnir constantly welcomes text proposals such as essays, interviews, overviews and book reviews on any subject suited for the journal.

Please send your electronic submission (saved as RTF-file) to the following address: submissions(at)finfar.org. For further information, please contact the editors: jyrki.korpua(at)oulu.fi, hanna.roine(at)uta.fi and paivi.vaatanen(at)helsinki.fi.

This edition is scheduled for September 2014. The deadline for the submissions for the next edition is scheduled at 31 August (4/2014).

Best regards,

Jyrki Korpua, Hanna-Riikka Roine and Päivi Väätänen
Editors, Fafnir – Nordic Journal of Science Fiction and Fantasy Research

ToDiGRA: Nordic DiGRA Special Issue

After some technical delays, the special ToDiGRA journal issue based on the Nordic DiGRA 2012 conference best papers is now online. You can find the table of contents below, and the direct link to journal is: http://todigra.org/index.php/todigra/issue/view/2

Transactions of Digital Games Research Association, Vol 1, No 2 (2014)

Special Issue, Selected articles from Nordic DIGRA 2012

Guest editors: Raine Koskimaa, Frans Mäyrä and Jaakko Suominen.

Table of Contents

Special issue, Nordic DIGRA 2012

Introduction: Exploring Nordic Game Research HTML PDF
Raine Koskimaa, Frans Mäyrä, Jaakko Suominen
Digital Materialities and Family Practices: The Gendered, Practical, Aesthetical and Technological Domestication of Play HTML PDF
Jessica Enevold
Player Types: A Meta-synthesis HTML PDF
Juho Hamari, Janne Tuunanen
Player-reported Impediments to Game-based Learning HTML PDF
J. Tuomas Harviainen, Timo Lainema, Eeli Saarinen
A Practical Guide to Using Digital Games as an Experiment Stimulus HTML PDF
Simon Järvelä, Inger Ekman, J. Matias Kivikangas, Niklas Ravaja
Should I stay or should I go? A Study of Pickup Groups in Left 4 Dead 2 HTML PDF
Jonas Linderoth, Staffan Björk, Camilla Olsson
In Defence of a Magic Circle: The Social, Mental and Cultural Boundaries of Play HTML PDF
Jaakko Stenros

Keynote: Tulevaisuus haastaa oppimisen

[Keynote on the future of learning in Jyväskylä] Olen kutsuttuna puhujana Peda.net-tapahtumassa Jyväskylässä ensi viikolla. “Tulevaisuus haastaa oppimisen ja verkko-opettajan” -seminaarissa 28.3. puhun otsikolla “Pelillisyys ja oppiminen – murrosten aika”. Linkki ohjelmaan: http://peda.net/veraja/tulevaisuushaastaaoppimisen/ohjelma

First issue of Fafnir, science fiction studies journal is out

Spread the word: the first issue of Fafnir – Nordic Journal of Science Fiction and Fantasy Research is now out. Here is the table of contents:

Table of Contents: Fafnir 1/2014

siegfried_kills_fafnir

And Siegfried thought he killed Fafnir. How wrong he was…! (From Wikimedia Commons)

  • Editorial
  • Opposing Forces and Ethical Judgments in Samuel Delany’s Stars in My Pocket like Grains of Sand (Päivi Väätänen)
  • Agents or Pawns? Power Relations in William Gibson’s Bigend Trilogy (Esko Suoranta)
  • What is it that Fanfiction Opposes? The Shared and Communal Features of Firefly/Serenity Fanfiction (Hanna-Riikka Roine)
  • Good and Evil in J.R.R. Tolkien’s Legendarium: Concerning Dichotomy between Visible and Invisible (Jyrki Korpua)
  • Scholars Opposing Forces: Report on FINFAR 2013 Meeting (Katja Kontturi)
  • FINFAR: A Gift from Fandom to Academia (Liisa Rantalaiho)
  • Peeking into the Neighbouring Grove: Speculative Fiction in the Work of Mainstream Scholars (Merja Polvinen)
  • Call for Papers for the 3/2014 issue of Fafnir

The full journal is available at: http://journal.finfar.org/

Windows 8 ergonomics

Mouses and trackpads
Mouses and trackpads

I have been testing and using Windows 8 (and now 8.1) in most of my Windows PCs for some time now, and while I mostly fail to find any real use for the Metro style apps, there are some nice improvements (most of them “under the hood”) that make Windows 8 preferable to Windows 7, for me, at the moment. However, there remains some issues that mostly relate to how to manage the new gesture controls of Windows 8, when only one of my Windows laptops is an actual touch-screen device. Swipes from the sides of the screen need to be carried out by pointing and clicking with a mouse, which is cumbersome, or through a touchpad, which have their benefits and downsides. 

The attached picture shows by current cavalcade of optional pointing and gesturing devices that are connected and available next to the keyboard in my Windows 8.1 desktop workstation. These include the Logitech Touchpad T650, Apple Wireless Touchpad, Logitech Marble Trackball and Microsoft Sculpt Comfort Mouse, the most recent addition. The traditional mouse (with the optional Win8 button/touch area) is the most precise for pointing, the Marble trackball provides overall best ergonomics, and T650 is best compatible and supported in Windows 8 of the two touchpads (no surprises there, really). What really irritates me, is that after using one of them, there is aways some shortcoming which forces me to move to another device for a while: the touchpad is great for gestures and skimming through web pages, for example, but whenever multiple files need to be manipulated precisely, I find myself getting hold of the mouse or the trackball. And when my fingers and wrist get tired of rotating and swiping with a mouse, then I need to move a touchpad back to the mousepad. 

A mobile device does not suffer from similar schizophrenia – you just use the mobile-optimized apps through a mobile-optimized UI. The touch gestures in Windows 8/8.1 desktop mode are a problem mostly since they are almost useful, so that once you have started to use them, it is hard to go back — yet, on the other hand, they do not naturally fit the desktop computer control devices capabilities. You are stuck in the middle.

And my carpal tunnel syndrome gets worse, again.