I like playing video games, board games, and any other type of game because games foster an environment of friendly rivalry with others in a way that would enable you to connect with them by sharing a certain passion.

In games, you can unleash your inner competitive side without having drastic consequences, most of the time. However, there are times when people overstop the boundaries and that's where games can become toxic spaces instead of fun ones for people to enjoy.

In the book Woke Gaming, several essays explore the various dimensions within gaming, intersecting it with issues like social justice, oppression, discrimination, and domination.

Woke Gaming contains fourteen essays and is divided into five main sections: (1) ethics, violence, and oppositional gaming; (2) the political economy of gaming; (3) feminist gaming; (4) gaming and resistance; and (5) inclusive gaming and empathy—a lot of sections considering the total number of chapters.

The book wishes to move “beyond the critical examination of the virtual pedagogies of racism, sexism, and homophobia” (p. 13) to explore video games as spaces where violence and domination are normalized, “as sites for the consumption of worlds that privilege the American empire, militarism, and white male heroes” (p. 14).

This perspective is particularly focused on a US context, building upon a US history of video games, game design, and game cultures. This US-centric approach somewhat limits the book’s applicability, though it does provide two chapters that explore gaming in Asia and a critical reflection on Western imperialism.

(Image credit: Amanda Weiss)

For many who have seen medical drama on TV, reality is nothing like that. Or perhaps, there are certain scenes or events that may actually have happened in real life but it's not the norm.

Being an ER doctor for example isn't all about the blood, the untimely deaths, or the grieving process. It's not all about these stressful situations that happen round the clock. The most difficult part of being an ER doctor, according to Dr. Rada Jones, is a simple one. And it's something we all probably face each day. It's just for ER doctors, it's on a much higher intensity.

“What’s the hardest thing about your job?”

That’s a hard question. I stumble. I mumble. I try to come up with something intelligent to say. I fail. They see my discomfiture and try to help me.

“Is it being a foreigner? You have an accent. Since "immigration" is a dirty word, is that the hardest part of your job?" 

“Is it being a woman? Dealing with the glass ceiling?” they ask.

“Is it the abuse you get? Is it people swearing at you, throwing feces at you, keying your car, and threatening to rape your daughter? Is that the hardest part?" 

“Is it people dying?” they ask. 

In fact, it's none of these. If you want to know her answer, check out the article on OpMed.

(Image credit: JC Gellidon/Unsplash)

As he looked up at the ceiling of his girlfriend's house, Vine star Michael LoPriore noticed something about the lighting fixture attached. It was in the shape of a bowl and was fastened to the ceiling by a button driven at the center of the bulb. It looked like a female human breast. And a thought came to him, inspiring a song that would go down in internet history.

Over the last six years, LoPriore’s Vine has given a name to virtually everyone’s bedroom light. On Instagram, there are more than 1,200 #ceilingtitty posts as people identify the boob-shaped lamp in the background of their photos — and record their own covers. (LoPriore’s six-second track is a true earworm.)

On TikTok, users remix LoPriore’s video, adding their own #ceilingtitty to a long chain of musical light fixtures.

(Image credit: Mel Magazine)

Taking medical tests can be tedious, cumbersome, annoying, and awkward not just for the patients but for the personnel who administer them. In this funny little anecdote, Dr. J. Lane Wilson shares a story of when he was an intern and had to conduct a test for chlamydia and gonorrhea on a young man.

It should have been an easy procedure with the new urine test however, due to their circumstances, they opted for the swab. And here's where the issues started to pop up.

Upon opening the drawers for the swabs, the naive intern had no idea which among the myriad of swabs was the correct one. A frantic search and inquiry ensued. What followed was a series of mishaps that, eight years later, the now-MD (and perhaps the young man) still couldn't forget.

(Image credit: OpMed Doximity)

Various cultures have different customs, traditions, tastes and preferences when it comes to food, cuisine, and dining in general. Mexican food and other food from Central America have been part of the plethora of cuisines in the US, particularly in San Francisco, but there came a time when the open-air kitchens serving these cuisines struggled. What helped them survive that period and even experience a boom was La Cocina.

Financial backing, business planning, moral support. La Cocina has worked now with dozens and dozens of ambitious, talented women and people of color in food, to get them the tools to make it in the Bay. Their grantees are, as Emiliana put it, are eating awards like candy.

Emiliana is incredibly well-suited to her role because she was there herself, a La Cocina grantee who took the love of food she got from growing up in Venezuela and turned it into a career, then a business, and now a calling. We drank Negronis and talked about it all.

(Image credit: La Cocina)

Man lives to tell how he fought off a shark in New Smyrna Beach @news6wkmg https://t.co/KrG5DPSiay pic.twitter.com/3H4YQCkqsl

— Erik Sandoval (@ErikSandoval) August 28, 2019

Don Walsh just wanted to relax and go surfing on New Smyrna Beach but as he was trying to throw an air, he fell off of his surfboard and landed on a shark which bit him.

“I never really try to throw an air but I tried to throw one. I didn’t land it; landed on a shark instead and he decided to take a bite out of me,” Walsh told Orlando News 6.

“It felt like a freight train hit me and the first thing I could think of was to literally push him away from me and as soon as it happened. I grabbed my board and started to paddle as fast as I could.”

(Image credit: Erik Sandoval/Twitter)

Bees can sometimes be annoying and at other times, they could be scary when they get in your face. But they are a natural part of the environment and as one movie illustrated, removing bees can disrupt the dynamics within that environment.

Every creature living in an ecosystem plays a role in maintaining the balance and stability of the natural world. And though we may be tempted to swat or even kill those we consider pests, there could be great consequences in doing so.

Learning more about the importance of bees in pollination, Chaney Kwak gradually grew to love and care for them until he became a beekeeper himself.

I had no eureka moment or activist manifesto. Over the years I read about the bee’s crucial role in pollination — and therefore human survival — and slowly began daydreaming about lending them a spot to live: my idea of low-commitment community service, perhaps.

I read a few beekeeper blog posts, fell into a YouTube rabbit hole, and took a weekend class. Once I was reasonably confident, I answered a call to adopt a hive.

It's a small gesture if we think about it but it makes a big impact on the world we live in. He tells more about his journey of becoming an amateur beekeeper on the Saturday Evening Post.

(Image credit: Chaney Kwak/Saturday Evening Post)

Love to constantly take personality tests (whether it’s the classic MBTI test or Buzzfeed’s ‘Which Dog Are You?’)? Have you ever wondered whether there is an exact explanation as to why the majority of the current generation have a certain fondness for these tests? Refinery29’s Molly Longman went deep into the rationale behind our love for taking personality tests: 

According to Dr. Dana Dorfman, Ph.D., psychotherapist and co-host of the podcast 2 Moms on the Couch. “Interest in personality tests is not necessarily narcissistic,” she says. “It is reflective of our inherent curiosity about human nature and our innate desire to explain the complex processes of personalities." Basically, Dorfman says that these quizzes and tests help us categorize and summarize who we are based on specific attributes. They assist us in making sense of the ourselves and our place in the world. 

According to Dorfman, it’s human nature. She says we’re constantly trying to balance between individuality and tribalism. That is, we want to be recognized for what makes us unique, but we also need to feel a sense of belonging to a larger "group" of people who share similarities. “Personality tests satisfy both ends of this continuum,” Dorfman says. “They offer an opportunity to reflect on our individual character styles and tendencies, while also providing reassurance that our styles are shared by others.” 

Dorfman says these quizzes give us a lens through which to understand ourselves, and help us achieve a sense of belonging. They help us "anchor the randomness and unpredictability of our lives and relationships," she explains. “We find great comfort in knowing that we are not alone in our preferences. We appreciate similarities with others — this enhances our sense of belonging and connectedness.” 

Whether you take these personality tests to pass the time, or to know what dog breed are you (seriously), there’s no harm or narcissism in taking these tests. Take them if you want to! Now if you excuse me, I need to know which Twice member I am. 

image credit: Ana Larruy via Refinery29

A study by American researchers found that certain eco-friendly habits (such as using a reusable shopping bag) are perceived as a “feminine” behaviour. According to the meta-analysis by Pennsylvania State University researchers, gender stereotypes extend all the way to environmentalism - and men are less likely to adopt behaviours viewed as “feminine”. The Huffington Post has more details:

The authors found that certain “eco-friendly” habits, such as using a reusable shopping bag, were perceived as “feminine” behaviours. Others, such as installing insulation for greater heating efficiency, were viewed as “masculine.”

“We were surprised that it was only women who experienced being avoided if they engaged in nonconforming gender-role behaviours,” Swim said. “We can’t say why this is happening, but it is a social consequence.”

The authors of the study emphasized the importance of further study related to gender stereotypes surrounding environmentalism and how they might block the adoption of more ecologically-friendly lifestyles.

image credit: wikimedia commons

Evie Farrel got tired of the usual cycle of keeping a job, paying the bills, and ensuring her daughter would have a wonderful childhood, and when she felt disconnected to her daughter, that was it: she quit her job and took the young woman on an adventure.

"I'd saved some money and I was like, 'right, I'm going to do a kitchen reno, or I'm going to get a swimming pool ... then I'm going to be equal to everyone else around me'.

"Luckily I realised that that absolutely wasn't the way and I spent that money on travel instead.

"The benefits to myself and to Emmie and our relationship and our growth have just been huge."

The adventure they took didn’t only improve the relationship of the two, but it also helped her daughter gain more confidence which allowed the little one to adapt to different environments very quickly. Farrell also empowered her daughter to be decisive and wise by allowing her to decide on some of their travel plans!

Photo Credit: Evie Farrell

The Wizard of Oz premiered in August of 1939, making the classic movie 80 years old. What better time to learn some trivia from the film production? There are enough behind-the-scenes "secrets" to fill books (and they have), a few that Neatorama readers already know, and some that will be new to you. Here's a taste:

1. Remember Dorothy's infamous ruby slippers? Well, they were originally silver.

Just like in the book, Dorothy's shoes were really silver. But because Technicolor was a new and exciting thing during this time, MGM studio head, Louis B. Mayer, thought it would be cool to test it out...ultimately changing the color of her shoes.

22. Dorothy and Scarecrow were originally supposed to be romantically involved.

In earlier versions of The Wizard of Oz scripts, Dorothy and Scarecrow form a love connection. Obviously, the film went in another direction. Maybe that's why Dorothy said she'll miss him most...or maybe it's because he was her first friend in her Emerald City journey. I guess we'll never know.

Read a roundup of trivia from The Wizard of Oz (with links for further reading) at Buzzfeed.

This interactive fluid simulation by Pavel Dobryakov is beautiful. And a lot of fun! If you ever get tired of just dragging your cursor around the screen, you can adjust the parameters and create a whole new world to wallow around in. -via Boing Boing

Drilling a hole in the skull of a living person is a serious tactic that is only used out of medical necessity. At least, that's case today. While surgery can be dangerous, it was much more dangerous in the 19th century, when archaeologist Ephraim George Squier was presented an ancient skull in Peru. It showed not only a hole deliberately cut into it, but evidence that the previous owner had survived the surgery! For some time, that prehistoric case was considered unique.     

When the skull was presented to a meeting of the New York Academy of Medicine, the audience refused to believe that anyone could have survived a trephining operation carried out by a Peruvian Indian. Aside from the racism characteristic of the time, the skepticism was fueled by the fact that in the very best hospitals of the day, the survival rate from trephining (and many other operations) rarely reached 10 percent, and thus the operation was viewed as one of the most perilous surgical procedures. The main reason for the low survival rate was the deadly infections then rampant in hospitals. Another was that the operation was only attempted in very severe cases of head injury.

While modern medicine has improved since then, archaeologists have found plenty of evidence that trepanation has been practiced in all parts of the world going back at least to the Paleolithic era, with surprising survival rates. Literature on the practice goes back to the fifth century BC. The prevalence and longevity of the technique suggests it must have worked, at least some of the time, for some ailments. Read an overview of what we know about the history of trepanation at the MIT Press Reader. -via Digg

An unmanned, solar-powered military plane has now spent more than 719 days in orbit around Earth. This space plane is the US Air Force X-37B, on its fifth mission (Orbital Test Vehicle 5). The nature of its mission remains classified, and the US Air Force uses very general terms when they talk about the space plane. ScienceAlert detailed what is known about this mysterious space plane: 

Some things we do know - X-37B looks a little like a smaller version of NASA's old space shuttle, and the US Air Force has at least two of the solar-powered aircraft, which were built by Boeing.

According to the Air Force, the X-37B's primary objectives are to research reusable spacecraft technologies for America's future in space, and to conduct experiments that can be returned to, and examined, on Earth.

Beyond that, officials haven't given up much actual dirt on the specifics of its orbital experiments.

Regardless of what the plane's mission is, it was initially only designed for an orbit window of 270 days, so the fact that it's been able to more than double that time is a pretty big win for solar-powered aircraft.

image credit: Boeing via ScienceAlert

Researchers from Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU Singapore) has revealed through their study the effects of stress of parenting in the brains of both mothers and children. Brain activity of 31 pairs of mother and child were analyzed by the researchers of the study.

They found that mothers who reported higher levels of parenting stress had less synchrony in brain activity with their child (all aged around 3 years old) than those who reported lower levels of parenting stress.

The specific brain region monitored for synchrony was the prefrontal cortex, which is associated with the ability to understand others' point of view.

In general, when the parent and child show highly similar brain activity in the same area(s) of the brain (i.e. greater synchrony), it suggests that both are highly tuned in to each other's emotional states.

Parenting stress occurs when the demands of parenting exceed the coping resources that a parent perceives they have available. Excessive parenting stress can block maternal sensitivity, lead to reactions that punish the child and negatively affect the parent-child relationship for the long term.

Head over at EurekAlert to know more about this study.

What are your thoughts on this one?

(Image Credit: NTU Singapore)