Disconnected

Where have we gone wrong, as a society?

In a world where we can board a plane in one city, and travel across the world in a day, where we can cheaply and effectively communicate globally, by video, we are becoming less and less connected. We are losing our humanity and our societal bonds that have defined us for generations. We are becoming technological hermits, faces glued to smart phones and computer screens while life moves around us. We travel in the bubble of our headphones, and wander blindly past one another, seeing each other as simple barriers to movement.

There are still places in the world where you can strike up a conversation with a stranger over a shared experience, but more and more people feel ill at ease when someone randomly starts speaking to them. We are growing more paranoid and isolated in our self-imposed exiles from society. And the disconnection of our world is starting to have its effects.

Our children bully others to the point of self-destructive depression. They seek attention in all the wrong methods. They use one another like toys, disregarding the damage to the feelings and psyche of the object of the game. They revel in the dramatic, the traumatic, and the violent. And it is not due to desensitization or media saturation. No, this goes much deeper.

Instead, the reasons why are simple: We have forgotten we are the family of man. We have disregarded humanity. We have stopped taking responsibility for our actions and blaming anything and everything outside of ourselves. We have, ourselves, become disconnected from the society we have built.We view society through a protective film, trying to block ourselves from feeling something about what we see. There are too many issues. Too many problems. What can we do? It's just how the world is, right?

I am all for progress. I know the Internet represents the single greatest achievement in the last hundred years. Yes, it has been built on the backs of several others, but to accumulate the sum of the world's knowledge, allow for instant communication globally, collaboration with anyone, anywhere. It has the power for great social change. But it has also allowed the spread of ideals that should have no place in our modern society.

Of course, this started before the Internet. The Internet simply let it spread faster. No, the start of this madness was to embrace mediocrity. To promote equal treatment for all. No winner, no losers. No child held back a grade for failure. No small disorder without a name beyond bad behavior.

We have let slip that there needs to be leaders and followers, winners and losers, consequences and personal responsibility. We need to realize that the fragile skin of protection, that shell we wrap around ourselves when we slip in our earbuds, live through our PCs and phones, is actually slowly suffocating our ability to do what we were meant to.

We are not islands. We are not individuals existing alone in the universe. We are a great communal mass that needs to seek out contact once more. We need to reach out across the gulfs we are creating. We need to do what we seem to fear most.

Reconnect.

Why I am hammering on Bad Trip

Hey folks!

Yea, I know, random blog entry is super random, but I didn't feel that this warranted another video on the subject. The two up cover the salient points well enough, and unless there's some major jaw-dropping event, I don't feel it's worth the energy to turn my channel into a "DJ KEEMSTAR IS A SCAMMER" channel. However, I do need to cover a few bases as to why I did it.

First, let me say this: I love DJ Keemstar as an entertainer. Him and the others of F@G made me laugh till I cried. I know, trolling can border on bullying at times, but the way they did it show an irreverent love for making games be games rather than some super serious exercise of skill. Since he has left behind that after multiple banned accounts, I feel his latest efforts are a bit lacking in the humour department.

Yes, I liked some of the #DramaAlert stuff, but he's starting to take things far too seriously. I always saw him as the court jester in the Kingdom of Overly Serious Gamers and YouTubers. He was always making mock of the people who took this whole thing as a life and death sort of endeavor. Hell, he even made mock of the King Of The Web video contest, with his Dildos for Africa (something to this day that makes me die laughing). But now, he seems to have drank the Kool-Aid and has started trying to resolve these beefs as some form of moderator. Gone are the snarky comments and smarmy asides. Instead, he is just another overly serious guy in a world of them.

So, is it my disillusionment with DJ Keemstar driving this? No. If he simply lost his whimsy, I would have ignored his videos and likely unsubscribed... had any of the channels I was subscribed to still existed.No, this has more to do with his growing urge to play fast and loose with the truth.

Keemstar has a following, and I feel he is now callously using his subscriber base's trust in a way that is disgusting to me. The court jester has become a con artist, scamming off money to build a product that he may not even be able to deliver. It's poison in the well of crowd sourcing efforts, and to be frank, I couldn't let it slide.

Granted, I could have turned a blind eye and let these fools and their money be parted, but then I just found myself really horrified at the prospect of this actually working. There are many more unscrupulous people who lurk in the shadows of the YouTube Gaming Community. Keemstar has charisma and a mind to use what little pull he has left from his F@G days to try to make this happen.

I get it, Keemstar. You do want to find a way to make money from your efforts, and your earlier, somewhat shadier dealings with your Ad Sense account has pretty much blocked your ability to make cash via YouTube, or at least by and large hindered it. I get that you might even genuinely want this game to be real. And it could be an awesome game. It could be a great community project and if it does finally get realized, I sincerely hope it is everything you dreamed it could be.

But, for fuck's sake, do this right! Don't use sketchy promo videos. Don't make these grandiose promises. Do turn to your community and use your clout the right way. Use your connections to find those developers. Use your charisma to charm the audience into believing in your vision.Be honest, forthright. Just tell the truth and stop with the slimy sales tactics and pandering. Just go out there and make this game the way you want to, but do it above the board. Show that you can do this. I sincerely believe you can pull this off without all that bullshit.

I do want to see this game succeed. I want to see crowd sourcing games to be the wave of the future. I want to see more renegades rattling the triple A market, and showing them that we don't need to rely on them for their glossy, shallow titles for our entertainment. I'd rather 10 Minecrafts and Slenders to every 1 Resident Evil 6. However, when shady, slimy tactics get used and you wind up with a half-hearted train wreck of a game, it falls into the win column for the big studios. It shows that only they can make a truly rich game. And it hurts the trust players have for other such projects, something that is already an uphill battle for an actual good idea.

So, before you judge me harshly, consider all of that.

The New Era of Gaming, Revisited

Wow, so on June 5th, 2009, I wrote about how the Wii would revolutionize gaming.

I... didn't expect to be both right and terribly wrong in the same post.

So, yes, the Wii did bring to the forefront the change of how games were being controlled, marketed and made. However, it didn't do it for the better. At all. I mean really, this is ridiculous.

The PS3 Wiimote, wait, sorry, the Move, is about the only improvement I've seen, and only because it has better motion control. And that's still not that great. One of the biggest applications I've seen for the Move was to mount it in a gun frame... and use it like a light gun circa 1998. That's not innovation, that's... well, retrovation! That's not a word but it should be.

The XBox's "Project Natal"-turned-you-are-the-controller-Kinect is worse by light years. I thought the Wii had tons of shovelware. I think the entire product line for the Kinect is nothing but tech demos and terrible ideas. Yea, it's cool to gesture imperiously at your XBox to navigate menus, or command it to bring up a movie. But how are these applications going to work for gaming?

Quick answer: They don't.

Now, it's not because they couldn't. The Move has a better shot at integration into a more hardcore game simply because it can still be used as a controller. In that way, you can to the light gun rig, or maybe some kind of light saber thing... you get the idea. You can use the gesturing as a part of the action, while leaving some of the control to be done via good old button mashing.

See, Sony, and Microsoft went totally the wrong way. They tossed aside their elegant controllers in favour of gimicks and cheap tricks that are the hallmarks of why the Wii has never been taken seriously as a hard core console, and used them exactly like Nintendo did. That's a really bad move, and one they should stop. Like yesterday.

In my original post, I did state how low the buy-in was for the Wii, allowing anyone able to wiggle the controller to play a game. However, one of the really nice things is that after the initial learning curve, there are other games like Goldeneye and Legend of Zelda, that are more controller-oriented and will slowly get a player accustomed to analog sticks and button mashing.

If Sony and Microsoft wanted to improve on the model, they should have incorporated their respective controllers with the motion controls to enhance the experience. Instead, the motion controls are the only experience, and will eventually fall into disuse to be forgotten.

Let's hope with the new system from Nintendo and its LCD screen that they will not just saddle us with drawing tablets or some other ridiculous item to toss on the plastic junk pile...

Did Jonah lie? Does it really matter?

Yup, I'm going there. For those unfamiliar with the video/controversy, here's the original video:

Pretty fucking heartbreaking, isn't it?

A poor kid, near the end of his rope, hanging on by a thread but determined to struggle forward. It's brutal, raw, thought-provoking and heart-wrenching to watch, but ends with a hopeful message for any one else in this situation.

Later on, he did post another video, one where he appears much happier. So immediately, the Internet embraced his success story... right?

Um, no.

Instead, Jonah Mowry has become a target of harsh comments and accusations that he lied to gain attention and fame on the Internet. You can debate whether or not this is real or fake. You can doubt his pain if you want. But can you doubt his impact?

You see, his one video has become a rallying point for so many who have been bullied in the past, and are being bullied now. If his "lie" saved one life, then it's beyond worth any price. So far, Jonah defends his video, and states that it was made during a dark time in his life, and that it's 100% genuine.

For me, I don't care.

All I care about is that instead of reacting to yet another senseless suicide of a teenager due to their soul being crushed under the weight of bullying, we're talking about how a video is providing hope to others, and getting the discussion of bullying in schools to the forefront without some accompanying tragedy.

You see, we need to stop bullying, plain and simple. The old days where words could not hurt are gone. The relentlessness of today's Internet-addicted teenage culture leads them to take much more drastic steps to vent hate onto someone. And mob mentality rules at that point. Look at the comments on the video above. Really look at them. If even 1% of what he said was true, look at all the hate he now would endure for daring to speak up, even if at some point his life got better.

You know, honestly, I was never one of those people who said that TV, games, or the Internet is desensitizing people. But seeing things like this is changing my mind. Rapidly.

The suicide rate in teens is horrific globally (over 300,000 per this article). Now, keeping in mind that, as of right now, the #2 cause of death in Canada is for teens is suicide. 13 of every 100,000 teens have taken their own lives. So how much of that over 300,000 deaths globally are the problem that lives in your back yard.

Something horrible has grown in our own country. Something has been left to fester and now rots the morals and sympathies of today's youth. Be it absentee or poor parenting, a constant barrage of death and destruction on TV, the Internet or in games, or some other cause altogether, I can tell you this: Of all these things, the Internet is the one that glorifies bullying beyond any other media.

Trolling people is considered normal now. Spewing hate you would never say to someone's face is accepted in text. Websites base their entire being around harassed and attacking others, both online and in real life. Society needs to change. We need to relearn respect for one another, the value of one another's lives. This needs to end, and soon.

This is why I did all I could to stop bulling online. People seem to see it as harmless. But it teaches behavior to the young and impressionable. It rewards them for hating others, and leads them to perform bigger and grander acts of hatred. This is scarring our nation, our world. We need to put an end to it once and for all, to stand up against bullying, anywhere it happens, and punish those who think they are justified to act as though others are their personal punching bags.

Do your part, and I'll do mine. We can change the world, we just have to be willing to try.

WTFriday?

 

I know tons of websites have funny pictures, but these are specifically taken by me. Here's an old one to start off with. I wonder who won it!

How Minecraft will change gaming forever (maybe...)

When I was a kid, I was lucky enough to own an Atari 2600 (and a knock-off Radio Shack gaming system, but that's beside the point). Back then, there were no real franchise titles. It was console gaming's infancy still, and so the market was widely open for plenty of game ideas.

Of course, the technology was such that the variety of those early days was rather limited.

It's a shame that systems like the 360 and PS3 (hell even the Wii) weren't around at that time. You see, this was before there was an industry where new ideas are not only frowned on, but are viciously beaten into submission and reforged into clones of the latest and greatest.

Of course, there's still some really interesting games out there. Spelunky, I Wanna Be the Guy, Super Meatboy and others are still out there, delving into hardcore gaming with a touch of retro flavour. But these are small splashes in a very, very big pond.

One game, however, has done more than create ripples. It's created a tidal wave, one is just cresting before the shore of mainstream gaming. And that tidal wave is ridden not by some AAA studio. It's not directed by someone with a storied history of successful titles. Most shocking of all, it doesn't feature highly detailed graphics or some massive story. Instead, it's about mining, wandering, and making your own fun in a three-dimensional world populated by architecture you'd expect in a two-dimensional game. Yup, this wave is Minecraft, and it's about to rock the development world forever, if it hasn't already.

Unless you have been living under a rock for the past couple years, you've seen and heard about this game. Hell, if you're reading this and didn't wind up here via some random search, you've likely seen me playing this game and play it yourself!

But what does this game mean on the grander scale?

Perhaps nothing. But given that this game made most of its money during, not after, it development. Consider that, as an indie game with no previous titles or backing from advertisement giants, it has sold in excess of 4 million units to date. Sure, compared to Call of Duty's latest entry, Modern Warfare 3, selling 6.5 million units on its first day, it seems small. But consider that for the past 2 years, Infinity Ward made nothing from its game, whereas Minecraft continuously raked in cash as Notch and his team churned away at it. And that's not mentioning the sheer amount of money Activision used to advertise their game, where Notch has pretty much relied on the game's community to get the word out. The game even had a convention based around it!

If publishers don't learn the lesson, perhaps the indie crowd will, and may already have. This year's Humble bundle featured a game in Alpha release. I'm sure others are looking at the model created by Notch with hopeful eyes that they can duplicate it. As it stands, another game, Amnesia: the Dark Descent, had a similar viral rise to fame by people doing Let's Play's of the game.

Right now, if they are wise, the publishers are thinking how this model could help them launch a game a year or more before it's ready, and use the fans that pick it up on the cheap as thousands of testers and sounding boards for new game ideas. As many have said, Notch has adapted items modders have made into the game before (A very Valve move to pull). That's not to mention getting instant feedback on whether or not a feature is popular.

Perhaps in a few years, the next Call of Duty will launch, say, in a barebones multiplayer with only two or three maps, and you can buy it for only 20 dollars, then ride out the entire development cycle as you see it built into the next monster shooter. OK, maybe not, but it a great model for untested ideas. Fund them to Alpha, then sell it and see how it goes. Maybe one day the gaming market will get much broader!

My provincial government is full of crack heads...

The Ottawa Citizen reported that half of all crack users are tossing their city-provided crack pipes into the garbage.

There are so many things wrong with the above statement that it's hard to know where to start.

Each year, the Province of Ontario wastes $300,000 taxpayer dollars on an estimated 5,000 crack users in the Ottawa area to provide them with glass tubes in order for them to smoke crack without the risk of catching HIV/Hepatitis C. In what universe is this justifiable? Why are we, as a province wasting money on supporting the habit of these users instead of, say, helping break their addiction?!?

Yes, yes, I get the liberal heart bleeding nonsense that we want to stop them from being sick so that, just in case they clean up on their own, they return to society as a healthy, productive member of society instead of being infected with some fatal disease. Here's the thing: the bulk of the users, according to the article, are single, disabled men. Right, so they will likely not hold a lot of jobs a recovering crack addict would be likely to get. And, depending on their disability, they may not even be able to pass on a sexually transmitted disease easily.

So why are we just facilitating these people to continue their miserable existence as a drug-addicted, single, disabled but otherwise healthy lifestyle?!?

Sure, infection rates will go back up to the 64-some-percent they were, but the rates are still at 49%... So this very expensive plan doesn't seem to be doing much more than adding contaminated shards of glass to our sewers, streets, parks and landfills. What we need is a treatment program, funded by that $300,000 a year. It may only help a handful at a time, but once their addiction is broken, they are done, finished, over with! Instead we continue to allow people to get high on the government's money.

The only reason, aside from blatant government laziness in getting an addiction treatment center going, is that my provincial government is full of single, disabled men smoking their crack through Government of Ontario crack pipes.