Monthly Archives: August 2023

Bill

Business, Computer Games, Memoirs, ,
licensed from Adobe Stok

I’m starting to get old. Don’t get me wrong; I don’t mind getting old. What I do mind is the inevitable. And, honestly, I never thought I’d be ready for it.

Recently, I wrote an article about my roommate in college who passed away. Tom was a good friend of mine, and he was always my greatest advocate.

Bill was also a great friend of mine. But he and I had kind of simmered on our friendship for the only reason that I now lived in Texas, and he lived in California. However, whenever I got the opportunity to travel back to California, he and I returned to our friendship almost as if we had never parted. A short while ago, I received a message that he had passed away, too.

One of my recent plans had been to make it back to California so he and I could hang out again. Now, I don’t have a single reason why I would make the trip. Bill’s no longer there.

So, let me tell you about Bill. He used to work for a bunch of computer gaming companies. When I was working for Maxis (and then EA), he would be working for companies like LucasArts and Microprose. He was an actual pilot, so when those companies were designing flight sims (like Xwing, Tie Fighter and F-15 Eagle) he was always there testing out those types of games.

One of my favorite stories was when he was testing X-Wing, and the producer had told him that it was impossible to destroy the Imperial Star Destroyer that was producing all the enemies in the game, he spent days flying missions against it until he turned off the damage on his own vessel and finally destroyed the Imperial Star Destroyer. After a couple of days, the developers indicated that it was impossible to destroy the Imperial Star Destroyer.

Having felt like he had laid down the law, the developer thought nothing of it as Bill spent days flying endless sorties against the Star Destroyer, and then he destroyed it again. But this time on the hardest level.

The developers, after discussing it amongst themselves, decided to add a readme file on the main disk indicating that “if you destroy the Star Destroyer, you might not be able to finish the game.”

One of my other favorite stories of his exploits was the origin of his ecology degree from UC Berkeley where he had gone to college after his time in the Army as an Army pilot. He was on the original GI Bill, and the way it used to be structured was you could continue your education until you graduated, and then it was over. So, Bill being like Bill was, continued until he was about finished with one degree and then he would change his degree to something else. He did this for a very long time until the Department of the Army sat down with Berkeley, and an offer was made that he could choose several degrees (of his choosing), and they would confer it upon him. So, the ecology degree ended up being one of the ones he chose, just cause it sounded kind of cool.

My other favorite story was one that everyone wished they had done themselves, and it involved the pettiness of a ticket he received from the city that was for several hundred dollars. And add to it that they had sent him a threatening letter if he didn’t pay it immediately.

So Bill took the train to downtown and walked in to pay his bill. And he brought a handful of dollar bills to pay it.

So, the clerk took the money, counted it and determined there were several dollars missing. Bill swore there was an exact amount, so the clerk spent quite a while counting it again. This time, she came up with a different amount, but not the amount that was supposed to be there.

So, this went on for several more rounds until a supervisor came over, grabbed the money and counted it himself. He came up with a number far below the amount required. So he told Bill he’d have to get the proper amount and return.

Bill swore the amount was correct. He’d counted it a bunch of times before coming in.

The boss started counting again, got about a third of the way through and then just shoved the money into a drawer, saying: “Fine. He paid the right amount. Give him a receipt.”

So Bill walked out of their with a happy grin.

Now, these are all stories told to me by Bill over the years, and the one reason I believe him on each story is because he told me these stories over and over, thinking he was telling me them for the first time. So, if they didn’t really happen, at least he believed in them. And that was all I needed.

Bill was one of those people who had brilliant ideas that were completely out of left field. I remember when I had a theory about how gravity was a physical property, not just an action on something else. I thought it was completely original, but the second I told it to Bill, he started analyzing how my theory might actually exist and exactly how we could test it. Unfortunately, neither of us had an actual spacecraft needed to test it, but we discussed it late into the night, throwing theories back and forth.

The point being: A guy with his degree from Berkeley in various disciplines was capable of going toe to toe with a guy with a physics degree from West Point. And his analysis was good.

We’re a couple of months away from the actual release of Starfield, and as much as I long to play it, I really wish it would have come out earlier, because this is the type of game Bill would have loved. And he would have found a way to break it, too, cause that’s what he did.

And no one did it better.

Is the United States Heading Towards a Civil War?

News, Politics
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As someone who did his doctoral work in political science (and then subsequent graduate work in communication), let me tell you a secret that people almost always miss when it comes to the concept of civil war: No one EVER sees it coming. No one.

During the US Revolutionary War (which could be considered a Civil War as it involved fighting amongst Americans against Americans (as well as the outsiders who were theoretically in charge of the insiders at the time). For the sake of this essay, I’m referring to the people who fought against neighbors. And to make things even more complicated, most neighbors may not even known they were in the middle of a revolution until it was practically over. They were living their normal lives, farming or making products, and their only brush with the knowledge there was fighting might have been Revolutionary soldiers or British conscripts who crossed their lands at one time or other.

Forward just a few years after our conflict, and the French were in the middle of a civil war, often called another revolution. Some say it started because they had seen what had happened to the United States, but regardless, when it happened to the French, most were taken completely by surprise. Even the people who should have been knowledgeable. You know, the people who ended up getting their head chopped off for being in the parties of the people who lost. When Marie Antoinette said: “Let them eat cake,” she was not suggesting a desert choice for dinner. She was oblivious to the fact that things were going to come at her and come at her fast.

That’s kind of how I see things happening right now. The United States has had the luxury of nothing truly bad happening on its shores for over two hundred years. Sure, a bunch of religious fanatics, with connections to ideologies in foreign lands, flew a bunch of airlines into some or our largest buildings. But that’s not what I mean by bad happenings on our shores.

For over a hundred and fifty years, we’ve had nothing serious consume our homeland that threatened the very nature of what we stood for. Other than World War II, which was basically a challenge to Europe and the Pacific Rim, we’ve had it pretty lucky with most of our conflicts stemming from U.S. attempts at enforcing Marshall Plan-like proclamations. But those rarely threatened the daily lives of American citizens.

However, right now, we seem to be heading for conflicting territory in our future, the kind of mixed narrative where no one knows where it might end up, and any guess might just be more dangerous than saying nothing at all. In most civil wars, and I’m talking about a history of them from all corners of the globe, they happen for reasons you can never predict, and they explode in ways that no one can be sure they won’t end up under a guillotine or at the end of a firing range.

Civil Wars in Africa and East Asia have resulted in some of the worst atrocities imagined where common citizens were picked out of common groups and executed. Sometimes, people are killed for just looking one color or for having an occupation that someone believes to be a future threat.

But here’s the secret: The usual response is that “oh, that’s just in Africa and East Asia!” But here’s the thing: It’s not about where these things have happened; it’s about how they’ve gone from military targets to civilian targets. And what people don’t want to believe is that it’s not relegated to Africa and East Asia.

The United States’ citizenry has a unique history of murdering its own. In the United States, we have gangs that coordinate racial, ethnic, racist, religious and sometimes just local bullies. Historically, they have targeted less defended populations and harassed and/or killed them.

What is to stop anyone from thinking that these types of organizations, once there is rationale for the elements of civil war, won’t take it upon themselves to target those same demographics now that they have a justification for going after them? That’s pretty much how it’s always happened in the past. There are documented cases during a 19th century Civil War in France where shopkeepers used their ties to the leaders of a winning side (at least during two year periods of control) to target shopkeepers who were in competition with them, killing them so that they would no longer have to compete. That’s pretty much capitalism at its worse attribute.

Right now, the United States has split down the middle in a way not seen in the 1860s. Sadly, most people don’t realize that this isn’t new. The U.S. has always had this division. We just didn’t have the capability of recognizing it with some amount of immediacy. Up until now, we had mass communication, but that mode of speed was contained mostly by media and academics. Now, everyone, through social media, has instant communication. People who hate other people are now in contact with people who feel the same way, and they’ve become quite vocal.

For a few decades, we were generally okay because at least our politicians weren’t stupid enough to exploit this hatred Americans have towards other Americans. Now, that cat is out of the bag. And I don’t think anyone can figure out how to put the cat back into the bag, or even if America might bounce back to the way it was before the bag was opened.

We’re heading for a Civil Awakening, and whether that leads towards a Civil War is anyone’s guess, but from what I can see, NONE of the politicians trying to lead the country are capable of keeping it from happening. What we need right now is a completely different voice from what we’ve been hearing. We need someone who has a future vision of America where everyone benefits, not just one group of people rather than another group of people.

Our political parties are part of the problem. The Republicans represent a party that’s only desire is to benefit very rich citizens. Pretending to be for the people, specifically Rednecks that drive pick up trucks and wear baseball caps, has been dishonest for the last 60 years when they might have had an argument to make. Unfortunately, the Democrats have a similar problem. They advocate that they are for the lower classes, the middle class, and every disenfranchised demographic that is conceived by all sorts of parameters, but once elected to higher office, they immediately enact laws that protect specifically banks and very rich people. Meanwhile, a minority of their party still tries to advocate for the downtrodden, but not enough of them do in order to justify the appeal for 50 percent of the available votes.

The problem is that the people ONLY have a choice between these two parties. And this leaves a lot of people truly feeling disenfranchised when they become smart enough to realize what is really going on. Sure, they could vote for third parties, but in a two party system our country was built around, most of us are screwed.

And when people recognize they have no voice (and never will), the idea of revolution or civil war starts to sound appealing.

But like I said: If someone new with a completely different vision comes along, and at least one of the parties buys in, we might have a chance. Otherwise, we’ll exist on co-pilot until someone like the orange bufoon comes along with a more serious agenda that takes us right into the arms of an autocracy. And then it’s too late to care because those who do will end up being rounded up.

That’s how it usually happens. And you’ll never see it coming.