Monthly Archives: December 2011

The Evolution of Writing in Online Computer Games

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Recently, I started playing Star Wars: The Old Republic, often shortened to TOR. Up until this time, I was a huge fan of World of Warcraft, as was practically every other computer geek on the planet. However, having always been a fan of Star Wars, I figured that when it came out, I would have to try it out. But part of me intended to pass on it until I found out my friend Jason was going to be trying it out, so I decided on a whim, so was I. After buying the Collector’s Edition for somewhere around a million dollars, I installed it, updated the patches and then listened as the infamous John Williams music started up, announcing to the world (you should hear my sound system on my computer) that I was now playing a Star Wars game, as I really like this type of games and other games I play online such as  Casino games which are easy to find in the olympic kingsway casinos online.

And I did. And still am.

What I did want to say about the game is that because it is made by Bioware, a company well known for some of the best games in the past, but also known for games with great storytelling, it should not be surprising that this MMORPG was one that focuses specifically on the story. Now, having said that, I should make a disclaimer. Not all the stories in this game are alike, meaning that some are better than others. I’ll get into that in a sec.

The game takes place thousands of years before the known Star Wars universe, which means that whiny Luke Skywalker won’t be born for many years to come, and the brooding Anakin Skywalker, badly acted by the lousy actor who played him, also won’t be along as well. This means that they have somewhat of a fresh universe to play around in, just keeping in mind that they can’t really become too inventive because it a) is part of the Star Wars universe and George Lucas would have a cow if you veered too far off from his IP, and b) it is based off a series of games created by Bioware called Knights of the Old Republic, which means that some of the elements in the game are based on events that have taken place in that IP. But having said that, they do a good job tying all of that together.

As a new player, you get to choose which side you want to be on, either the Republic or the Empire, which if you are familiar with the Star Wars movies, isn’t really all that different from the latter day period of the movies. Instead of the Empire of the movies, the Empire is one of the old Sith and the Republic is, well, the Republic. Except that in this Republic there are jedis. LOTS of jedis. Not just Luke, the old guy with the lightsaber and the Muppet guy.

So you get to choose your class then. Now, if you’re like every other Star Wars fan, you’ll choose a jedi, which is what I did. And a few days into it, I realized it was a mistake. The reson it’s a mistake is not because a jedi is not fun to play, because they are a great deal of fun. It’s a mistake because the story is exactly what you expect. You’re a jedi, you’re learning the Force, and you’re doing good for the Republic. Not much of a stretch. I can see how some people thought the story was kind of stilted. Because it is. It’s still better than 90 percent of the stories in other games, but it was still stilted.

So I then rerolled as a trooper, which is a fighter for the Republic, someone without jedi powers. And immediately, the story became Bioware’s and not George Lucas’s same old story. And it has turned out to be really decent, full of intrigue and betrayal, the kind of thing Bioware does extremely well. Let’s just say that I’m not looking forward to the rest of the story lines that don’t involve me being a jedi.

What I did want to talk about, however, is the whole concept of storytelling in games. Sadly enough, games don’t do these very well. Especially MMORPGs. World of Warcraft is a great game, and it has a huge backstory to it, but to be honest, every time I hear a bit of the story, I feel like I’m listening to something written by a ten year old who is trying to keep your attention while you’re driving and you’d rather listen to the radio. Every game I’ve ever played with Bioware has been one with a great story, even if the game wasn’t that great, although even that hasn’t been the case. Their games have generally been very good.

The problem is that it’s very hard to keep a gaming community based on storytelling alone. One reason WOW does so well has nothing to do with story but because it does gaming well. It’s a lot of fun, and it keeps people wanting to come back to the experience. With a game that is based on story alone, there’s only so long you can keep the player interested, especially if the story doesn’t change multiple times into the game. If you hit 50th level, and you have no new content to play through, the chances are pretty good you’re going to become very bored with the game, which means they either have to become like Blizzard and create a great gaming experience, or they’re going to have to keep reintroducing new story elements into the universe to keep up with their players. And keeping in mind that some of these players play 24/7, that’s a big order to fill.

I have great hopes for this game, mainly because I love the IP, and I love their storytelling elements. But if they can’t sustain it, then it will be one of those great footprints in the history of games, and that will be truly sad. So, here’s hoping they can keep it up, because if they do, they’ll always have me as a customer.

Coming Across the Spitting Image of Your Long-Lost Love

Relationships, Social Networking, Writing, , , , , , ,

Yesterday, I was waiting for a friend to pick me up outside of where I work so we could drive to Zeeland for a work-related film shoot. Where I was standing and waiting, the shuttle bus for work stops every few minutes and drops off employees. I wasn’t paying much attention to the latest shuttle bus when it arrived and deposited a new slough of passengers off on their beginning of a new day of work. But then I looked up, and one of the women getting off the bus was the spitting image of a woman who is still imprinted deep on my soul. Strangely enough, I hadn’t thought much about her in the last fifteen minutes (aside from the other 23 hours and 45 minutes of the day when I think about her constantly) but at that moment, I was thrown back over a decade to a time when seeing her walk off a bus in front of me would have sparked wonderful feelings of happiness and joy.

And for that instant I was there. I wasn’t in Grand Rapids in 2011, thinking about a movie shoot in Zeeland, but I was back in San Francisco, thinking about how all I cared about was this one woman to whom I pretty much pledged my entire being and future, thinking that there would be no other place in the world I would rather be than at her side. I was brought back to the times we’d walk around the lake in Oakland, talking about such mundane things but things that seemed so important at the moment because they were shared with her and no one else. And even more important, she was sharing those thoughts with me.

For that instant, I was back on my track towards medical school, thinking about how I was going to be the greatest research scientist in the world, almost completely because I knew how much that would have pleased her, being the wonderful person that she was (and wonderful people wanted you to help other people because they were just that wonderful). I had no other cares in the world, and the future looked so bright and open. I was in my 20s again, or was it my 30s? Either way, I was sure of the choices I was making in life, and I could stand up against anyone with the greatest of confidences because the woman at my side was the Goddess herself, or at least someone blessed by Her, and for me, that was more than good enough. It was perfect.

And then, instantly, I was brought back to 2011, standing in front of a woman who looked like the woman I once loved. She stared at me inquisitively and then somewhat suspiciously. I mean, this strange guy she never saw before was staring at her like she was her long-lost lover from years ago, which was exactly what was happening. So, she turned away, quickly, and rushed into the building.

I was left on the sidewalk, waiting for my ride to Zeeland. And then it arrived. And I went to Zeeland.

The memory then started to fade, and I was left with a sense of loss, realizing that I had seen her again, even though it wasn’t really her. And as we drove, I realized I would never see her again. And then the moment faded, and the conversation turned to other mundane topics.

Life can be like that sometimes. And there’s really nothing you can do about it.

The Amazon Kindle Fire…first impressions

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Over the weekend, I went to Best Buy to purchase a new keyboard that I didn’t actually need. It was to replace a gaming keyboard I have that works great, but I decided that because their new gaming keyboard (by the same company) was on sale, I wanted to buy it. It does absolutely nothing new that the old one doesn’t already do, nor is it more stylish or have any extra buttons the old one lacked. But it was on sale, and it was new. So I went and bought it. Yes, I am aware that I am Best Buy’s proverbial wet dream of a client, and I understand that.

To make matters worse, I found my keyboard I didn’t need, started walking to the register and then decided out of the blue that I was going to buy a brand new Kindle Amazon Fire. Already owning a Kindle and having the Kindle app on my Ipad 2, I obviously didn’t need one, but it was there at the store, staring at me, so I felt I had to buy it. So I did. And then I bought the extra pack with it, that cost me an extra $100 for a $50 Amazon gift card, a case and ear phones, all of which I didn’t need either. But happy with my purchase, I took it home.

I’ve had the weekend to play with Amazon Kindle Fire, or the Kindle Amazon Fire, or the Amazon Kindle on fire, or whatever it’s actually called, and I can say that it’s kind of cool. It lets you access the Internet, like my computer and Ipad 2 already do. It lets you download your music library, which Amazon first forced me to upload to its “cloud” first, taking about a day and a half to do so. But then I got to download my music, which I already had on my computer and Ipad 2 in the first place. I mean, convenience knows no boundaries, right?

Then I downloaded some of my books which I had already bought on the previous Kindle and put them on my new Kindle so I can ignore them and not read them there, much like I did with my original Kindle. Then I sat down and read a hard copy book (Haruki Murakami’s What I Talk About When I Talk About Running) that didn’t need the Kindle or the Ipad 2 at all.

Joking aside, the Amazon Kindle Fire is kind of nice. Negatives: It doesn’t have 3G, so you have to use it over wireless only. Kind of a down side. It also makes it difficult to do certain things, like add my Amazon $50 gift card. I had to actually sign onto Amazon with my regular computer to have that $50 gift card registered. There really should have been a simplistic way to do it on the Fire, but there wasn’t. Granted, there may have been some convoluted and difficult way to do it on the Fire, but that sort of defeats the purpose of having the convenient device in the first place. I certainly couldn’t figure it out, other than using their web browser, which isn’t really the greatest browser of all time, even though they called it Silk.

Positives: It can finally read comic books on the Kindle. I downloaded several issues of  Y: The Last Man and was pretty satisfied with it. Down side to that? Yeah, the text is really small because of the 7 inch screen, so I had to really struggle to read the text on the screen. Not a very comfortable way to read a comic book (or graphic novel), but sometimes you get what you get.

Overall, I think it’s pretty cool if you don’t already own an Ipad 2. If you do, then the only real advantage is that there are some magazines and newspapers that refuse to release on anything BUT the Kindle Fire, which is a travesty of an economic plan. In the end, it’s going to kill those magazines because people aren’t going to buy the Amazon Kindle Fire just because Macworld refuses to let Amazon release it to the Ipad 2 Kindle app (which CAN read it just fine). Again, the biggest draw back to the whole Amazon Kindle model is that book publishers aren’t playing along. I refuse to buy a book published by a major publisher that plays games with the Kindle at their outrageous prices of $14.99 and up. Instead, I often choose not to buy the book at all, which is why I haven’t bought the new biography of Steve Jobs, even though I wanted to read it. The publisher is being a complete asshole to readers, so they can go screw themselves, and I’ll buy it when it gets released as remainder issue stock.

Instead, I’ve been buying books that are showing up at the below $9.99 price, unless I can find it cheaper as a paperback, like is happening with The Girl Who Played With Fire, which is still being priced as if it’s a brand new hard back book for the Kindle. As long as publishers refuse to do proper business with Kindle customers, then I say they can go screw themselves and their legacy models. Instead, I bought four other books that were decently priced, and I’ll avoid reading them (due to laziness)  instead of the books I would have bought and avoided reading as well.

How the Kindle Fire Will Actually Hurt Amazon Instead of Help It

Business, Economics, Technology, , , , , ,

Today, I was thinking of buying a graphic novel for my Kindle reader on my Ipad. Ever since I bought my Ipad, one thing I’ve always cherished is that I can still read e-books made for Kindle on it because of my Kindle app. However, when I went to buy the graphic novel, the first thing I noticed was that it wouldn’t let me complete the transaction because Amazon determined that I did not yet own the Kindle Fire. Apparently, in order to buy the e-book, you can ONLY buy it for the Kindle Fire. If you don’t own the Kindle Fire, you’re kind of screwed. I then started to notice that some of the magazine subscriptions were exactly the same way.

In the past, one of the cool things about having the Kindle reader on my Ipad was that I could see color books on my Kindle reader, which I couldn’t do on my actual Kindle device. However, Amazon, in their infant wisdom (not infinite), has decided it wants to force an Amazon Kindle Fire on you if you want color books of any type.

What this is actually going to do is force readers who might have continued to buy Amazon e-books into not buying them any more. Sure, it might get a few gullible people to buy a Kindle Fire, but for people like me who don’t want to lug around two devices, and seriously have no intentions of trading DOWN to a Kindle Fire from an Ipad 2, Amazon is forcing itself out of its own business.

At one point, I even thought of picking up an Amazon Kindle Fire, just cause I always liked the Kindle. But this has actually sullied my desires, and now I want nothing to do with them. I’ll actually buy the books I wanted in hard copy now, as they’ve never been available on the limited choice available through Apple’s walled garden choices.

It seems that ever company that involves itself in ebooks these days is doing everything possible to screw themselves over in hopes of achieving profits that they’re never going to get. Instead, we’ll destroy the market and leave ourselves living back in 1980 again.

Thanks, Amazon. You suck.

How Legacy Publishers Are Killing the Future of an E-reader Market

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When the Kindle first came out, I thought it was the greatest thing ever. Actually, that’s not completely true. I was apprehensive because I was a believer in having a hard-copy of the book with me while reading it, but eventually I started to see that this could be a good thing. I went out and bought an Amazon Kindle, and shortly after that I gave up my newspaper subscription and subscribed to an online version of the newspaper (delivered over the Kindle). Then I ended up with an Ipad 2, and with the Amazon Kindle app, I have been able to read the Washington Post every morning by paying for it with that subscription.

But for books, it hasn’t been as wonderful an experience. As a matter of fact, the e-reader experience has gone from “hopeful” to “dismal” and the fault of this situation rest solely on the backs of the publishing industry itself. You see, in the very beginning, Amazon was offering books at the rate of $9.99, which was probably the perfect point for paying for a brand new book on an e-reader. The publisher wasn’t losing out because the manufacturing costs were practically nil, and their books were getting to their readers almost instantaeously. But publishers didn’t like not having complete control over their market, so they forced Amazon to allow the publishers to set the price for books. Now, an entry price is anywhere from $14.99 to $25.00 on an e-reader. As expected, owners of e-readers have practically discontinued buying books as e-books.

So, you’d get the impression that publishers won. Not really. What actually has happened is that two markets have opened up, and this was an occurrence that a smart publisher probably should have seen coming, but like the music industry before, this is an industry populated by egos who are convinced that they are infallible, and that their product is so great that it cannot be replaced or done without. Well, they were wrong.

It seems that Amazon now has two lists of bestsellers, and they are becoming completely exclusive of each other. In the old days, bookselling lists usually listed the highest selling books (physical copies) but because the legacy publishers refused to budge, Amazon has discovered that its bestsellers are actually e-books that have never been published as hard copy books. As a matter of fact, in 2011, only 3 of the top sellers actually were originally published as “normal” books. The rest were dedicated e-books only. What this means is that more and more books are being sold without ever crossing the desk of publishers at all.

Let’s unpack that. What that really means is that more and more publishers are losing out on their own marketplace because they decided they were too elite to participate in it. Instead of working with Amazon and other such e-book companies, they acted with hostility and marginalized their own market. Readers have gone out and started buying books that other readers recommend, and quite often those recommendations have no affiliations with legacy publishers whatsoever.

What this means, or could mean, is that the future for publishers is even worse than if they had participated with e-readers in the first place. Like the music industry, major publishing companies are being seen as in the way and as leeches rather than as particpants and designers of the industry. An example is the simple mathematics of a publishing contract that attempts to give a writer about 2% of the sales for a book, whereas a deal with Amazon gives the writer either 35% or 70% of the sales (depending upon which publishing deal the writer chooses for charging for books). The selling point of using an established publisher was that you got their name behind your book and their marketing team, but with most publishing contracts these days, a writer is usually left to fend for himself/herself after publication because a publisher will spend most of its resources on already established names rather than someone who is up and coming. So, essentially, you end up with a crappy contract, and you end up with a publisher that doesn’t actually do anything for you other than potentially get books into bookstores (which, in my experience, doesn’t always happen). A further example is the publishing company that handled one of my earlier books. It keeps “offering” to make my book into an e-book, and then offers me that same crappy publishing rate royalty as if it was a hard copy book. What they don’t want to reveal to me is that our contract with each other indicates that they don’t own the e-publishing rights, meaning they’re trying to get me to sign with them for e-publishing when in fact I can actually do that myself and get a 70% royalty without ever asking for their help in the first place. The dishonesty factor is the reason I’m mostly pissed at them, because they’re doing everything possible to make it seem like they’re on “my” side, even though they KNOW they can’t publish the book as an e-book without me signing over MORE of my rights that they don’t physically have right now. Again, another publisher doing everything possible to piss off a client in hopes of gaining short term gains in profit.

So, how can publishers regain the upper hand? Well, first they have to realize they lost it in the first place. If they don’t, we’re going to start to see more and more publishers go under in the next few years because they won’t have the money to keep operating. Right now, all they have is their reputations, but they’re being beaten badly by unknown writers who are making names for themselves without actual publishing companies. Once publishers become irrelevant, they’ll disappear.

But publishing companies are probably not going to go down without kicking and screaming. Realizing that they’re not going to do the smart thing, like announce that they’ll adopt the $9.99 model that Amazon first put forth (which would have probably ushered a new age in publishing), they’ll probably respond with legal action, using whatever clout they have left to hire attorneys who will submit confusing lawsuits that will bog down the system for years, further eroding their success in the industry. I wouldn’t be surprised to see a direct legal assault on both Amazon and Barnes & Noble by the publishing companies, as those are the two entities making the largest impact against them. I also wouldn’t be surprised to see it fall into some kind of patent war over technology, where some publishing company gets smart and buys up a patent that allows them to claim ownership over a certain “idea” of e-readers, even though patents were originally designed to NOT be used for that purpose. We’re seeing a lot of this kind of action on the behalf of software companies and the social networking sites, so it would not surprise me to see some enterprising legal maneuver like this.

Because they’re not going to win by going after the hearts and minds of writers and readers. They’ve already demonstrated they don’t have our interets at heart. It’s all about profit and maintaining a dinosaur of a publishing model. Therefore, expect trench warfare and years of interesting battles that lead to an industry that collapses on itself.

Netflix is the like that abusive boyfriend who thinks it’s okay to hit you because he’s sober the next day

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I’m going to let you in on a little secret. I’ve been in an abusive relationship for many years now. I just recently got out of it, but my partner keeps calling me back, telling me everything’s okay now, that after counseling the abuse is never going to happen again. And almost like always, I go back, and a few weeks later, the abuse starts all over again. Like most abused partners, I never learn, which is why it is so easy to keep slipping into this type of relationship.

In the beginning, things were great. Netflix told me I was the only one and that we’d be together forever. Then out of nowhere a few years back, Netflix told me that I had to start paying more money to get the exact same features I was receiving before. Netflix told me it was really my fault, that I was expecting too much for how much effort Netflix was putting into the relationship, and that it was really stupid of me not to have expected the increase in fees. So, I decided that I wouldn’t see Netflix as much any more, telling Netflix, “I think we need to spend more time apart, and possibly see other people.” So, without warning, I switched from the three dvds at one time plan to the one dvd at a time plan. This took Netflix completely by surprise. He claimed I was being emotional, overly judgmental and unfair. But backed by all of my friends (who for some reason seemed to be in the same relationship with Netflix, too…why don’t we ever see these things?), I stood my ground. I figured if Netflix didn’t love me as much as I loved Netflix, then we didn’t need as exclusive of a relationship.

After a few bouts of overnighters and even a couple of nights where Netflix had to sleep on the couch, Netflix gave in and lowered his prices again. He said, “Baby, I’m on the wagon now. I know I hurt you, and I promise never to do it again.”

So, stupidly, I took Netflix back. I raised my dvd amount to three again, and we had a pretty good relationship for the next few years. Then, Netflix started drinking again. Well, that’s the only explanation I can come up with because he went right back to his abusive ways.

Out of the blue, Netflix announced that he was doubling his prices, and then as if that wasn’t enough, he decided outright that he was going to become two people, and I’d have to pay each one of them for the pleasure of his company. Right then and there, I decided, Netflix sucks, and I no longer want to be in this relationship. So I dumped him. Sent him to the curb and moved in with my mother and her three cats.

Ever since then, Netflix has been emailing me, saying, “Aw, come on Babe. I’m sober now. I mean, I’m still going to charge you twice as much, but I decided to stop pretending to be two people. So take me back. You know we had some good times together. Do you want to end up alone with your mother’s three cats?”

Like most abusive boyfriends, Netflix just doesn’t understand that when someone moves on, someone actually moves on. I’ve started dating again, having gone on a few blind dates with iTunes, Redbox and an Amazon Prime membership. But that doesn’t stop Netflix from hounding me every other day with a “hey, Babe, I’m still the best deal you’ve ever known. Stop screening your phone calls and pick up the damn phone!”

But I’m never going back. While it doesn’t mean I’ll never be in another abusive relationship again, it just means that I’ll never be in another one with Netflix. You have to live each day as it comes and relish the victories, no matter how small or how inconsequential.

Heating Up the Winter While Communicating With NORAD

Business, Technology, Uncategorized, , , , ,

The other day, I bought a programmable thermostat. You see, this is kind of big thing for me, because you don’t know the half of what I went through to actually get this thing and then to get it installed. A few weeks ago, I honestly didn’t know anything about them. Actually, I really didn’t know they existed.

I should point out that I’m somewhat of a dunce when it comes to heating. I’m from California, and I love hot weather. I’ve tended to live in a lot of very warm climate areas, like Arizona, the desert, the surface of Mars. Until recently. Now, I live in the opposite, a few miles south of the North Pole, in some place called Freezing City, Michigan. Okay, it’s not really Freezing City, but it’s located a few miles west of Freezing City. It’s Grand Rapids, and for someone from California, that means Freezing City or any variation thereof. I think I’m getting the point across. It is cold here sometimes. And I don’t like that.

Sure, it’s not Minnesota, or Canada, or the inside of someone’s walk-in freezer. But it can be cold. When I first moved here, people told me: “Me, you’re not going to believe how cold Michigan can be. You’re leaving warm California for very cold Michigan.” Okay, no one said that exactly, but they could have. However, a lot of people in Michigan when I first moved there said: “Me, do you realize you left a very warm place to come to a very cold place?” Those Michiganders, always filled with great moments of logic.

Anyway, my first Winter here wasn’t that bad. As a matter of fact, it was the mildest Winter Michigan had in decades. I thought immediately, wow, these Michigan people are wimps. This was nothing. I’ve had Winters in San Francisco that were colder than this. And then the next year was one of the worst Michigan had in decades. I immediately bit my words and never uttered such insults again.

Getting back to my subject, I was talking to a co-worker, and she mentioned that perhaps I should get a programmable thermostat after I told her my usual habit of trying to leave my heat on all day so my house was actually warm when I got home. She kind of thought I was wasting a lot of heat (and money) by doing this. When I discovered they made such an item, I immediately decided that I had to have one. So I went to Best Buy to look for one, and of course, they didn’t have any. They could order it and have it delivered to their store in a few days, but they didn’t have any in store. Realizing I can have it shipped to my own freaking house, and not to Best Buy’s store, I walked out of Best Buy pissed off at Best Buy like I usually do whenever I go there to get a specific item that I would figure a stupid brick and mortar store would actually have on its premises (NOT SO I HAVE TO ORDER IT ONLINE).

Then it started to dawn on me that even if I got one, was I going to be able to put it into my apartment? I live in one of those management complexes that does everything for you, except anything you might actually need done. So, I called them and asked them if I was allowed to have a programmable thermostat installed. The response was as follows:

Them: Um, let yeah that should be okay. Let me contact our maintenance guys so they can set up a time to install it.

Me: That would be great.

Them: You do realize that this would have to be after hours because we can’t be held liable for that sort of thing? And I’d have to contact them to see if they could do it.

Me: What exactly does that mean?

Them: He’s not answering the line, so let me investigate this and then get back to you. Can I call you right back?

Me: (realizing where this was going) Um, sure. I’ll await your call.

Then I hung up. That was two weeks ago. Still awaiting his return phone call.

So, I contacted a friend of mine who knew someone who could put one in. Then I decided to buy one so he’d have something he could install when he showed up. That was when I read a great article in the New York Times about a programmable thermostat that was becoming all the rage.

This one goes to 11

Now, supposedly this thermostat learns as you use it, so it would do all sorts of things that you tend to do and then learns from it. The only problem I saw with it was that it wasn’t all that interested in letting you program it, but it wanted to learn from what you did, which meant instead of setting it for turning off the heat at midnight, it would want me to get up in the middle of the night (at midnight) and turn off the heat and then it would learn from my actions. Not exactly the kind of education I want to teach a thermostat, but I’m sure it has features that work around that.

 
The biggest problem with this thermostat is that it is sold out for a year, so don’t expect to actually buy one, which for me is usually one of the worst selling points. I mean, I’m willing to buy something as long as someone is willing to sell it to me, but don’t tease me with a great product and then say, “oh by the way, you can’t have one because we weren’t smart enough to manufacture enough of them.” I almost didn’t buy an Ipad 2 because of that. I ended up buying a Motorola Xoom, and boy was that a stupid mistake. Companies need to compensate for buyers like me, who makes stupid decisions because you have a horrible manufacturing deficiency.
 
So, I went to Lowe’s, and I found another programmable thermostat. This one, however, was just as good (except it doesn’t learn anything other than what I put into it) but you know, I’m okay with that. Sometimes, I don’t really want my thermostat being smarter than I am.
 
So, I got this one:
 
 

This one actually works and exists in real life

So, I had the guy install this one, and now I’m working through its minor details, like enabling certain functions that I find to be important, like actual heat. The other day, I pressed buttons over and over, launching two space shuttles, picking up three shows on HBO, relaying something called a “go signal” to some strange group in Iraq called SEAL Team 5, and changing the date from BC to AD at least twice. But “heat” seemed somewhat elusive. So I went back to the manual, read it through twice, realizing that this was the original Rosetta Stone they used to translate English to Sumerian cuniform, and then managed to finally get the heater to start putting out air conditioning, and then finally HEAT.

 
So, now I think I have it working, as I managed to get the heat to run this morning, just in time for the program to effectively turn it off for the day. But fortunately, I have tonight to play with it again when I get home from work.
 
I’m hoping to use it to communicate with NORAD this evening.

 

The Alternative to the Run up to War with Iran

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A couple of years back, I remember posting on a number of message boards that I suspected we were being led towards a war with a Middle Eastern country. I pointed out that our intelligence was HORRIBLE in that area of the world, and that most of our evidence and analysis came from people who were hearing everything second hand from other people who had an actual stake in causing problems between our countries. And then there was a whole bunch of “evidence” presented that I indicated only proved that there were buildings that looked like they had stuff in them, but we didn’t know what was in them, although we were being told weapons of mass destruction were in them because trucks drove up to them. Even Colin Powell stood in front of the UN and told everyone that there were definitely weapons of mass destruction because he had a Powerpoint presentation, which obviously had to be true because Powerpoint has never resulted in incorrect information being relayed to viewers. Anyway, people told me I was full of crap, while the other half of the people told me to shut up. And then shortly after, we went to war. With Iraq. But saying, “I told you so” is so deflating after the country has gone to war, so let’s just say that I commiserated with everyone else, once they stopped celebrating that we were at war and realized that we were, in fact, at war.

Well, it’s kind of happening again. Although people will probably say that they don’t see it. And others will probably tell me to shut up. But I see the exact same signs happening again, in that we’re leading towards a war with Iran because they’re some evil axis of power that does, well, evil things. And they hate us. So, we really will eventually have no choice but to go to war against them and change their evil ways by killing lots of their people, occupying them, teaching them government corruption and then spending the next decade figuring out how to get out of there and leave their new regime to their newly found corrupt ways.

But I wanted to write this to say that we should be concerned because this doesn’t have to happen. Sure, Iran hates us, as they probably should. I mean, we’re all infadels that sleep with our goats, or whatever it is they think we do. Basically, I think it can be narrowed down to the idea that they hate us because we don’t worship out of the same book that they do. Meanwhile, we feel we should invade them and educate them because they don’t worship out of the same book that we do. Of course, our Constitution says we really shouldn’t be discussing that book any way, but we haven’t really read that document in awhile, so we’ve kind of forgotten that. But suffice to say, we’ll probably go to war with them because we don’t understand them any more than they understand us, and neither one of us is really patient enough to sit down and listen to the other long enough to realize that we’ve both really stupid and believe really ridiculous things, which if you think about it is something we actually share in common.

Which is really what we should be focused on: What do we have in common? I’ve been talking about this for years, from my original thesis, Friendship Over Time, which basically means that as cultures start to develop similar customs with each other, they build friendships. And as we create more shared customs, our friendship grows until we have an allied partnership. We’ve seen how this can happen over centuries with nations that once hated each other but are now comrades in arms (and without arms…weapons). People learn to get along because they realize they share too many things in common to want to risk those shared activities. It’s why playing Ping Pong with the Chinese during the Cold War probably kept us from firing missiles at the Chinese during the Cold War. Yeah, it’s a lot less simple than that, but you get the idea.

That’s what we need with Iran right now. Build friendships with the people around them. Find the things they like to do that we like to do and see how we can build off of those shared traits. Think about it. What do we share with the Iranians right now besides a desire to build nuclear weapons? Do we both like to fish? Play soccer? Baseball? Stone virgins for talking to men in public? Or what? Are there activities we COULD share with each other if we found some forum to do so? Granted, we’re probably not going to want to approach each other through religion because those are our failings at friendship. So, we’d look for things we both like to do. If we want to employ State Department people to actually pursue peace, THAT is what they should be looking at, not trying to find some way to negotiate for things that neither side wants to talk about. The ways of peace that existed in the 18th century shouldn’t be the way we pursue peace in the 21st century because somewhere back in the 20th century, we discovered that those methods actually led to nonpeaceful things, like war.

So, as you start to hear the run up for war, I’d like to share with you the basic idea that we do have another way. We just have to be active in trying to pursue it. And honestly, it’s never going to happen from our government because our government is populated by people who have all trained in the same Kool Aid for decades of Cold War failures. Peace can be achieved through the people who aren’t in government. And we already have the vehicle to do it.

It’s called the Internet. We’re already conversing with people in countries that used to hate us. The other day, played World of Warcraft with someone who lives in Vietnam. He speaks English, but he plays on a US server because he wants to know more about America. So, he and I went and beat up demons together. Look. We shared something in common. We both liked casting spells against demons in a game that both of us play. Look how hard that was.

The Internet completely makes this possible if we’re interested in actually using it to do just that. Sure, we can text each other about how outrageous Snookie and The Situation are, or we can start communicating with the people out there who are interested in actually talking.

Or we can let the responsible adults lead us to war and kill them instead. I mean, really. It’s your choice, although history hints at which one you’ll make. So as you suit up to go play soldier in some Middle Eastern country, I’ll be suiting up to go on a quest with my friend from Vietnam. There are demons to kill, and we’re just the guys to do it.

The Demise and Failure of Sears Should Be Taught in Every Business Class in the Future

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A couple of years ago, I was interested in buying a Lifecycle exercise machine, or at least something similar to it. As I was wont to do, I wandered into a Sears store and took a look around. The salesperson met me at the exercise equipment and shortly after I told him what I was seeking, he somehow talked me into a treadmill machine instead. I think the selling point was that they didn’t have to put the treadmill machine together, but the bicycle machine would have required me to assemble it. Moral of the story is that somewhere down the line I ended up with a treadmill machine that ended up becoming a piece of furniture to put stuff on as I never used it more than the one time after I bought it. I would have used a bicycle machine, but a treadmill was a useless investment for me.

But at the time, Sears actually did a pretty good job of delivering the machine to me, and the purchase wasn’t seen as a bad one by me at the time.

Fast-forward a few years, and Sears has become a shadow of its once great self. Years back, every holiday season was seen as special because it usually culminated with the arrival of the infamous Sears catalogue. This was a sought after book that practically everyone in a household wanted to flip through, even if to imagine all of the great things that were offered, even if, like me as a child, you knew you could never afford them. Some years ago, Sears stopped sending out the catalogue for free (and may not even send it out at all, for all I know), which probably should have been the first of many signs that Sears was turning into a company that was nothing like it used to be.

Today, even though a lot of Sears stores exist in most major malls, it ends up being that one big store that people recognize as being there but people generally pass around on their way to the better stores. At some point, Kmart bought Sears (or they bought Kmart, or whatever), but the quality of Sears has been going downhill ever since. In today’s business news, it was reported that Sears has changed its online policy of upselling its warranty service when not requested by customers. This comes from a company that made it a policy to tack on a warranty service to high ticket items bought on its web site, causing customers to buy something they generally never asked for. When a customer reported them to ConsumerWorld.org, their response was that few customers had complained in the past. However, due to the outrageously negative response they have received (the different message boards covering this case have been nothing but a nightmare for Sears and its non-existent customer service), the procedures have completely changed for the future.

This is not the way a company should be perceived when trying to make its way into the 21st century. The response from former customers (and I emphasize “former”) has been overwhelmingly hostile and negative. Reading the 296 comments on msnbc.com’s response to their article about this story shows a massive onslaught of negativity towards Sears for the way it has changed over the years from a company once touted as the nation’s retailer to one that people are embarrassed to mention in the same sentence as our nation.

What needs to be said is that if there’s another company out there that is attempting to see profit as numbers rather than customer service, their future is exactly what can be expected for a company that is more interested in padding CEO pockets than serving customers. I’m looking at you, Best Buy, which seems to be on the cusp of almost the same type of transformation as it becomes one of the only major electronics retailers left, yet treats customers like Mac users are treated by its genius bar (where Mac products tend to be user friendly until they actually have something go wrong, and not a single tech person at a Mac store has a clue what’s wrong with your computer or tech device because they’re not trained in technical stuff, just responding by scripted dictates). I went to the Geek Squad the other day to ask about having a programmable thermostat installed, and the “geek genius” (or whatever they call themselves) couldn’t figure out how to answer the question because it wasn’t something simple like “do I need virus protection for my computer?”.

Part of the problem of our future in technology is that more people major in business these days than they do in anything dealing with technology, which means that way too many people are interested in separating us from our money without actually being able to do anything to earn that money. Too often, the focus of companies these days is on how to maximize profits, often at the cost of doing business to get profits. Sears recently announced it is fixing its current money woes by shredding staff. Never a good sign. You’ll notice that the Post Office is doing the exact same thing. They’ve announced that they’re going to improve their bottom line by offering less service, slower service and possibly fewer days of being open. It’s almost like the one person they never hired (even though their problem has always been they hire too many people and keep incompetent ones) was someone who sat down and thought, “wait, is that really a way to build business?”

But who am I to say anything? I’m just a customer, and as I’ve already pointed out, companies don’t need me. They just need my money.

Has Dating Turned Into Some Kind of Weird Non-Televised Reality Show?

News, Relationships, Social Networking, , , , , , , ,

 

There’s a story that’s been making its way across the Inter-tubes published on Business Insider, where a young woman indicates that dating made it possible for her to save a whole lot of money on daily living expenses, like food because men she was dating would pay for her meals. Now, while this sort of story isn’t all that new (women have been using men as potential mates as free meals for a long time now, about as long as commerce and dating has been around), the story makes the point that she did most of this in Manhattan, and she and her roommates specifically used Match.com in order to do it.

Since then, I’ve been reading a whole bunch of different articles on different sites where readers have chimed in, and basically everyone pretty much admits that this is nothing new, and that using various men on dates to get free food and tickets to movies (or the theater) has been a commonality for quite some time. On some of the sites, the commentary gets so crass as to project that certain “benefits” are expected after a certain amount of money spent, or a certain number of dates have been attended. The woman in the article indicates that she only dated men 5 times before dumping them (or moving on), so I’m not exactly sure where that fits into the calculations, but something tells me that that number has a LOT to do with that specific calculation, so I’ll just leave it at that and let you fill in the rest without having to say more.

What I do find intriguing is that dating has gotten into this whole “who pays for what” situation while in 21st century gender politics there has been a huge move towards equality of the sexes. As a commentary example, let me just mention that recently I finished off my schooling in which I did a Ph.d and a couple of MAs, and when I was dating in that pool of individuals, I found it quite intriguing that the women were demanding of equality at all times (whenever discussing rights, politics and academic rigor) but when an actual date occurred, there was an expectation that regardless of education, current state of gender politics or anything else, the guy was still expected to pick up the check for dinner. That included movies, or any other shared experience as well.

Now, keep in mind, when it came to “between friends” that changes a lot as in most cases a guy rarely ever has to shell out any money for a “date” when the “date” is being shared between friends, not two people thinking they are on a romantic date. So that’s a whole different dichotomy completely.

Now, I should also point out that way too often I’ll pick up the check regardless of the mindset of the adventure (be it romantic or friendship), but that’s just me. But what really gets me thinking more than I should is how many women actually walk into such an experience “expecting” certain things paid for. That includes drinks at a bar. I was at a group outing one night not too long ago when a young woman I casually knew sauntered up to where I was sitting and joined me. Within a short bit of time, there was an expectation that I was going to pay for her next drink. And I started to think to myself: “I’m not dating this young woman, nor am I probably ever going to be dating her, yet she has every expectation that the next set of drinks will be paid for by me, just because our genders are different.” At that moment, I was amazed at the brazen expectations people have, based off of ancient customs that have carried over into dynamics where they generally don’t fit any longer.

The whole dating scheme has gotten so that it’s very difficult for someone who is tired of playing a lot of the games that get played in this atmosphere. As one who abhors bars and drunk people, I avoid those places or people who frequent those kinds of places. Therefore, that leaves me with very few choices to find someone, other than venues like Match.com or Okcupid.com. As this article has shown me, and a lot of conversations with others have revealed to me, a lot of the women a guy is likely to find on Match.com or Okcupid.com are going to be very much like the entrepreneur in the original article, who sees any date with me as a chance to save money on her dinner bills. Whenever I go through the rankings of people advertising in my area on Okcupid, I’m left thinking that they’re really not looking for me, but for some weird fantasy of a guy who only exists on episodes of Gossip Girl or as a creature of the night in the Twilight movies. Recently, I found one woman who looked exactly like the down-to-Earth girl I was looking for when I read the last line of her profile, indicating that if the reader of her ad was someone who has EVER played World of Warcraft, she wasn’t interested. As those who know me know I’d be lying to say otherwise, I hid her picture and continued searching for that elusive someone who I began to realize probably didn’t exist.

Which is probably why I don’t date any more. I’d like to say that as a writer, I spend a lot of time alone on purpose, but sometimes it goes a little further than that. Somewhere down the line, I really got tired of the dating atmosphere and probably should have married years ago, but I never found the right person, so I realized at some point that I would have to go through a lot of the wrong people in order to finally find the right person, and just writing that is tiring enough. So, I tend to find solace in writing, reading a newspaper, and maybe a bout of magecrafting in World of Warcraft.