And When the Nerdy Dust Settles On the Geeky Plain, Who Stands?
In the past two weeks my 360 has slowly been descending into the tell tale signs of hardware failure. It keeps sneaking off to climb under the porch and die alone, but I snatch it back. I caught it eating grass in the backyard the other day as I was mowing, but I gave the aged, bloated tramp a swat before it got sick. So, it's working, but it ain't looking good.
Simultaneously E3 (biggest Video Game trade show) was happening. There's always a nice load of headlines to come out of it, but frankly anything worth noting has already been mentioned in a thousand other places. I'll save you the energy now, there is going to be more of God of War, Call of Duty, World of Warcraft, Legend of Zelda, Ratchet of Clank, Metal Gear of Solid, Super Mario of Bros., and Poke of Mon. So no worries there. But there were a few announcements that still caught me off guard, and riddled me with antici... pation.
There's a reason why I make that little mention of my 360 dying. Mainly, because none of them have to do with what Microsoft is doing. Their biggest announcement was Project Natal, as in "A Natal child is little more than a blind and thoughtless lump of flesh rushing towards the disappointment of life in the age of marketing", a disgusting name which doesn't really make me want to take part in your control scheme. No matter how much Los Campisenos you threw in your ad.
I'll say this up front; that technology is the boss's tits. For real, watch a few other less produced videos, and the potential is pretty amazing for casual home computing. I mean, Google Johnny Lee (for real, it's amazing) and see the sorcery he conjured with a Wiimote; Microsoft snatched him up and put him to work. They did what Nintendon't (feel free to groan). But as for how this project is shown to the public, it doesn't make sense to me, a customer who bought a console I hate for the library and the online base. For real, I hate the fucking thing; it's caused so much more grief than anything else in this house.
A few years ago wasn't Microsoft bragging about how they were the "hardcore" console, that they didn't need to sell to children? Did Nintendo's shocking market share finally talk them into trying to out-Wii the Wii? This is a problem for people like me, long time players with cash in hand who haven't turned on their Wii's in almost a year for lack of games. I don't want to get together with the family and waggle my limbs retardedly, and I say this as a Wii owner and a Rock Band fan. But here's a thought, neither do family's. I know this from the time I experienced puberty. I had a fine family life, but the thought of pantomiming skateboarding, or race carring, or fashion shopping, with Mom is horrifying to me.
I game so I can struggle to survive in a wrecked future, or a war torn past, or a more artistically realized present. I game so my free time isn't spent shopping, or hanging out. I play to recognize how nice things are out here in the real life. I play to connect to you and you, not hide away with Adamwolf and ExileonMassSt and Action Jeans.
Any way, here were the announcements that reached out from the noise and slapped my face.
First Scribblenauts looks amazing. You can read about it on lawrence.com's game blog for more detail. In short, word nerds and fans of Drawn To Life and Yoshi's Island rejoice.
Second Team Ninja is making the next major Metroid game. Team Ninja made the current Ninja Gaiden games, but you may have heard of them one being asked for by it's true name, "Can I Get A New Controller Because I Broke This One Trying to Behead A Demon With 18 Flaming Vaginas in Mid-Air?". Metroid is one of my oldest loves, and I was seriously disappointed with the brevity of experience in the last installment. Super Metroid is one of the only games to literally make my jaw drop. To see this installment return to EXACTLY that moment (and you'll catch it in the ad if you've played the SNES classic), pumps gasoline into my veins. Here's the trailer.
Third The pictures that have been scattered through this have been from the trailer for The Last Guardian. It's the next in line from Team Ico, the people that made Ico, and Shadow of the Colossus . To say that SotC affected me is a grave understatement. I played through that game with my girlfriend at the time, trading the controller off and talking our way through it, realizing the details and debating the main character's motivations. As it unfolded, there were moments that in all sincerity hit us as hard as hearing of a friend's death. I don't say that as some super fan hyperbole, it's a genuine statement of how that thing made us feel. It crawled up my spine and skittered across my scalp; our eyes watered to try and blind us.
Watching ourselves make such a perilous trade at such a steep price, and having it sink in so deep, to the point where at a certain moment in the game we both yelled, "NO!!!" and reached to comfort a pixelated character on a standard definition screen is a rare experience. I feel bad for nearly quoting Jerry Holkins in so many game related moments, but the man has similar tastes. Please forgive the me-too-edness.
Please do yourself a favor and watch this.
The fact that there is still a debate over whether or not games are a verifiable art form or method of story telling is laughable when staring into something this beautiful. To continue the Tycho quoting, "If games are not art, then art is poorer for it."
I am also terrified for the ending of The Last Guardians story.
We Gon’ Make Love.
I recently went totally fucking crazy and renewed my Netflix subscription, and then went double crazy and plugged my Xbox 360 into it. I had canceled my subscription before, because I was simply running out of movies to watch. I was single at the time and was rifling through 1-2 movies a day. Then I met my future wife and somehow found a better way to pass the time. Anyway, fast forward two and a half years later, and the Netflix account is set back up. If you've been away for a while, or haven't ever had a Netflix account, they have provided the Devil incarnate with the Instant Queue. There is a shocking amount of treasure on this thing. I know it's a little late, but it's amazing.
But back to my original point. One of the best things I've found is "The Whitest Kids U' Know". If you consider yourself a fan of Monty Python, Kids In The Hall, & The State; you're into this. Here are some clips.
So nice to see some new sketch comedy. Hope you guys enjoyed your weekend.
-m@
Who Watches The Watchmen? A Lot of Gigglers, That’s Who.
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Okay so it's midnight which means that any kind of embargo on talking about Watchmen has lifted. I got back from a preview screening a few hours ago, and as anyone on my recent message list, twitter feed, facebook news feed, or near vicinity knows, there are two major feelings I have.
1) I loved it. There are portions of the movie when my face was literally slick with tears. Weeping like a blind kid who just saw a Monet for the first time. If you're familiar with the source material, I would only hope you'll feel the same.
2) Holy shit, people are going to hate this movie.
Let me explain. I first read Watchmen on my older brothers bed when it was in monthly issue form. He had to drive to a town across the river (Ouchita, not Kansas) to find a shop that was carrying it. The comic shop policy of the day wasn't exactly friendly towards honest to God melodrama. Watchmen, along with MELTDOWN, were what taught me that these little drawn out story boards were more than adventure stories and excuses for shapely ladies in tight outfits. The portion of the book that explains Doctor Manhattan's origins was the first time I ever understood loss in a dramatic narrative, and the idea of a man moving on from that, especially to face self imposed exile, shocked me. The high arching story lines (many of which are simplified in the movie version) showed that time, location, perspective; hell, narrative attitude altogether, can be warped, as long as it is to serve the story. It doesn't matter who is telling the story, or where they are telling it, or what state they are in when they are telling it, as long as they are serving the story. As such, it's not a book about Dr. Manhattan, or Rorschach, or the Comedian; it's about the world around them falling apart. The movie serves that well, flashing between characters, explaining their reasons to don costumes like you would describe the need for a warm blanket after a house fire; to feel safe in a suddenly cold world.
Now, as for the simplified, or eliminated, story lines. The movie, to me as a multiple time book reader, seemed thinner than I would have liked. But I don't know how you could have a movie that fleshed everything out and could have a decent running time. They kept a lot of things that seemed like side notes in the print version, like the musical cues, so you know they tried their damnedest. I've heard in interviews with the creative team that if something was in the book, then they filmed it. And that's promising. I look forward to the Blu-Ray release with the Black Freighter and the newspaper wars added in. However, it's all forgivable, given the scope of the movie. The ending change is kind of the same thing, if they would have keep the original ending verbatim, as opposed to the same motivation with a different; ahem, device, they would've had to have added at least 30 minutes more to the film.
On a special point, Zach Snyder and his team did a fantastic job of dressing the film. I was worried that people who were unfamiliar with the comic and just wanted to go see a superhero movie would be bored with Watchmen. In the book, there isn't a lot of action. Maybe a page here or there; an alley fight, a jail break. But the movie pumps the violence up to an awakeningly gruesome point. You know the old saying, if you're going to explain someone's origins, you've got to dig a few meat cleavers in a few child rapist's skulls. You know, like you do. And it actually cuts back on some of the sexual violence.
Oh yeah, sex! That brings me to point (2). People are going to hate this movie. If I was to take someone completely foreign to this, they probably would either be confused, or laugh at it. For the haters, there are long diatribes that lose you if you aren't already paying rapt attention. So if the movie doesn't grab you within the first hour, you're in for a long ride. And for the those who would laugh, well shit. I guess I should just say it.
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There's a lot of dick in this. Dr. Manhattan? Dick out. All the time. Four at once, at one point, my friends. Apparently when you loose yourself from the constraints of time and material and space, you become a hanger. As a matter of fact, in the bathroom and lobby afterwards, I caught no less than three conversations between guys that were around the lines of, "Was the book, that... uh... dicky?" And simply? No, it wasn't. But the book was also static images, so they could hide the wiener much easier.
The weird thing is that I didn't even really notice all the dicks on screen, there are just other, you know, story things going on, and the other characters don't seem to care, so you're not really cued to it. But damn if there weren't a lot of grossed out guys in that theater that couldn't take their eyes off them sweet, floppy, Taper snouts. On the Daily Show tonight, it was about all that John Stewart wanted to talk about. And that's what I'm worried is going to get talked about, instead of the coverage it deserves. Just dick talk, then no discussion of the movie, eventually killing an great piece of cinema because of it's unabashed display of wang.
No matter what, there are changes from the original story, and purists are going to be bugged. You know what it honestly reminded me of? Dune, by Frank Herbert, via David Lynch. That was a huge story that fans said couldn't be made, and it was confusing as hell to younger kids (like me) that got hold of it. But it got made, and it was unforgetable. Watchmen is at least at that level of quality, and timeless (it's already had 20 years to age) to boot. I wish it the best of luck.
Societal Collapse Worked For Me!
http://media.lawrence.com/img/blogs/entry_img/2009/Feb/19/Yay_Fallout.jpgSo I've been playing a lot of Fallout 3 lately, and the thing that I've been struck by is just how romantic it is. I don't know why. Everything has been shattered by unchecked nuclear war, nearly all food and water has been tainted with radiation, people live in the ruins of cars and planes, and huddle together to protect themselves from a world filled with walking corpses and enraged mutants. But I love it. I go for virtual walks in the country side, and I find it relaxing. Sure I have to blow the head of the occasional gang of Mad Max style Raiders every now and again, but that doesn't sway me from the sheer fascination I have with exploring a destroyed elementary school; seeing the suburban houses shelled and burnt clean, the walls blown out, but the TV still flickering. It's gorgeous, and charges my imagination like nothing else.It's not just the game that evokes it in me. I'm reminded of Fight Club, when Tyler Durden is leaving Jack in his sleep, and describing what his vision of the future is. "The world I see -- you're stalking elk through the damp canyon forests around the ruins of Rockefeller Center. You wear leather clothes that will last you the rest of your life. You climb the wrist-thick vines that wrap the Sears Tower. You see tiny figures pounding corn and laying strips of venison on the empty car pool lane of an abandoned superhighway." Or maybe the first act of I Am Legend, before we see anyone else. The good zombie movies. Anything starring Charlton Heston in the 70's. It's a classic Sci-Fi setting, post-apocalyptic, and it's almost always in America. Why? A friend and I were talking last night about how we're fighting off collapse anxiety. Assigning ourselves value at our work places, seeing how well we fare again the others on our design teams, etc. Basically trying to figure out how many waves of the inevitable layoffs we could survive. And as we worked through the bad to worst cases scenarios, I found that as we moved to the "Holy Shit everything is falling apart" part of the spectrum, I got more comforted. Job hunting and constant performance reviews, feverishly checking the news for relief, saving every penny. That's not living, that's just surviving. http://media.lawrence.com/img/blogs/e...
As we came up with the worst things that could happen (barring accidents and disease, of course), it got, well, appealing. A few samples:
Q: "What if you couldn't find work for a full year?" A:Turns out you can default on a lot of financial obligations, they just disappear.
Q:"What about your credit score?" A: If shit gets that bad, credit scores aren't going to matter.
Q:"What if you can't pay your bills?" A: I guess I'll just have to go back to reading and fucking as entertainment. Fire's easy to make.
Q:"What about food?" A: By then, the farmer's market will have turned into a swap meet, wouldn't it? People would meet for jobs, day labor, skill swapping. It'd be the center of town!Of course, this is the Postman view of things. You know, everything peaceful while nobly desperate, working and building by hand, people discovering what they are truly talented at and making a living doing it, etc. I'm sure everything would be fine until the warlords arrived. But hey, at least then towns would have a booming Ronin market. Hey, maybe that's what I'm meant for! Fingers crossed! Because I'm sure not going to be able to provide for my wife by trading snarky opinions and over blown nerd analysis for groceries.So, is this the where the fantasy comes from? Release from your bills and mortgage and bad habits, at the cost of lonely, back breaking work to survive? And is it always America because we accepts obligations at face value, as the norm? Because the comforting conclusion that we came to was that if it gets a little bit worse, that's going to really suck. But if it gets a lot worse, that's going to kind of rule.http://media.lawrence.com/img/blogs/entry_img/2009/Feb/19/whee-ship
_.jpgUntil I get a craving for a Dr. Pepper and have to sell my babies, that is. That's going to be rough.-m@POP QUIZ: Giving Mankind's current path, what vision of the future do you imagine most likely?a) Worker bee loss of humanity, as seen in Brazil b) Mad Max style neo-barbarianism c) Dense with ads, w/ totalitarian government, as seen in Minority Report d) Dense with ads, wild west living, as seen in Blade Runner e) Destruction through war, nuclear or not f) Dragons! See Reign of Fire
PS: As a palette cleanser, Reign of Fire has my thinking about Christian Bale. Which has me thinking of Bat(man) shit crazy. Which makes me think of this:
A Return To Form
http://media.lawrence.com/img/blogs/e... guys. What's.. up? How are those tricks? What is happening? If it is possibly hanging, how is that going for you? Yeah.... call me tin roof. 'Cus I am rusty.Hoo boy, it has been a while. Let's look back and see when I last posted..... Jesus! Nov. 26th, really? Wow. A lot's happened since then. I mean, wow. Comiculture Vulture has posted in the meantime. That's saying something! But looking around at the "new" layout (remember, I've been away), and the new talent that are posting to the reader and staph blogs, I have to say it doesn't look like many of the old timers are posting either. Now, I know for a fact that there are more blogs on Lawrence.com than Caption, My Caption, Flying Fork, and Scene Stealers (BTW sidenote, are they still having their Oscar viewing party? That was fun last year.). And Godjilla stills posts plenty, from fucking New Orleans of all things, you know, for that real hometown Lawrence feel. I wonder why the people like myself that used to post a few times a week have slowed down, in some cases to nothing? Allow me to float a theory.Back in November, the stunningly gifted comedian Patton Oswalt (I mean that; the man shits Cable Guys) posted on his Myspace blog an entry announcing that he had signed a book deal, and entitled it "A Blog Defeats a Book", basically going through that he was stepping away from blogging in order to focus on a book. As he didn't take blogging seriously, it was still a time sink that could have been spent on his book. And that thought stuck with me (as many of Patton's quips do, just see how many times a day I refer to grabbing "a failure pile in a sadness bowl" when going to lunch). Because think about it, how many hours have I spent hammering away links and images to place them, lovingly have you, in a blog post, when I could have spent that time working on The Adventures of Admiral Seashanty and the Mysterious Mermaid Murders? Holy shit, write that down. I gotta get working on that.That's not to say that I haven't been posting because I've been working on some epic tome. Because I haven't. I'm much more of the Moleskein full of single page treatments type of writer (read: hack part time blogger). In the time between entries, there's been holidays, new years, the whole black President thing, and possibly most importantly, Christian Bale losing his God damned mind (hellooo, new ring tones!) and David coming back from the dentist. 10 points for the high kid!And this is what I'm getting at. The wonder of the internet is perhaps it's biggest curse. There are so many ways to exhibit yourself, and they continue to get smaller and, oddly, less personal. We went from obtuse BBS message boards, to rambling and self important live journals, to Friendster piles of actual friends, to Myspace glut and the introduction of vapid knee jerk shotgun marketing, to semi anonymous Facebook, with it's poking and walls and minor personal information; and now to Twitter, which is purely based around the idea that you are meant to spray thoughts, links, "mini-blogs" (ugh, such an ugly phrase), and jokes randomly into the ether, with no real relevance to your personal life. Sidenote: It's easy to identify the people that twitter about their real life however; they're the ones with 4 people following them, and 2 are their co-workers trying to keep ahead of layoffs. The web based doses of you have been broken down and packed so tightly that it gets harder and harder to get your point across. Facebook and Myspace have become so commercialized that the arena of personal broadcasting has been reduced to status and mood updates. Twitter is basically an isolated status update, limited to only 140 characters (I've permanently changed my other updates to a link to my Twitter account, saying "This is where you will find that part of me", in a sense. It is ridiculous to do it three times.). In the face of a challenge like that, it gets near impossible to really express yourself. You're left either posting things like, "I want to go back to bed.", or something random, and hopefully entertaining, like, "Vivica A. Fox: a lady AND a sentence. Mmm hmm. I know I have." (®Lonely Sandwich). Wonderful.That's not to mention how our distractions have learned to travel with us. Right now, within 5 feet of me, there are 5 devices that will allow me to check my 3 email accounts. A phone, a computer, an iPod, a PS3, and a Wii. I got an iPod Touch for Christmas, and let me tell you, it is fucking amazing. There is so much technology is this thing, it gives me a genuine feeling that I live in the future. However. The Apple app store is the definition of a drain, both on time shopping, time using, and on the ravenous beast that is the wi-fi on your battery life. It is thick and meaty with potential productivity destroyers.What if it dies?! Heaven forbid! There may be a solid 12 minutes where I'm not entertained!Basically, dear, sweet, beloved readers (that's right, all ten of you); I'm sorry I've been so absent. I allowed myself to get sucked into the new communication methods without discipline, like a young man with an open tab on his 21st birthday. Please refer to the picture at the top of the page for my self opinion. There are so many tools at our disposal right now to stay in touch with each other, it's hard to know what standard to march under. Are you a Myspacer, or a Facebookie? Do you Tweet? Do you stand by your man and still e-mail and IM? It doesn't matter in the long run. All of these services are just fighting for our attention right now to see what becomes the next standard; see who's venture capitol lasts the longest. And in this market, that's a short ledger to take advantage of, I'm sure. Personally, I think this may be a step to permanent, instantaneous publication that futurists have been predicting for so long. That could be a beautiful thing if it's handled right.Thank's again for keeping my lazy ass around.-m@
Is anybody else feeling a cash grab?
Here? http://www.cnn.com/ Nope.Here? http://www.msnbc.msn.com/ Kinda. A little bit buried in the business section. They do have a headline story on "Am I my avatar" though. Jesus Christ, the new Xbox Experience comes out and basically reveals the worlds aspiration to play with dolls of ourselves. Here? http://www.foxnews.com/ Not even a mention.Here? http://www.c-span.org/ Wow! Nothing! I've never ever visited C-span's webpage. Holy shit, what a boring space. They've really found their way to carry the un-impressive, un-biased high jinks of their broadcasting to the web. I have never been so completely under whelmed by news.Here? http://news.bbc.co.uk/ Damn! Not even the Brits?!?Here? http://www.guardian.co.uk/ There it is! "US pumps another $800 BILLION into Mortgage and Credit Markets"Hot damn! Coverage that makes me seize with anger! For real, have our attention spans gotten that short? Has anyone noticed that all the photos of Paulson are creepily reminiscent of that scene in Menace II Society with the Crack Head and the Cheeseburgers? (spoiler alert)Here he is begging for money:http://media.lawrence.com/img/blogs/e... then:Not SIX weeks ago, we as a nation were draped in the news of worry and hand wringing that we couldn't handle a $700 billion buyout. And now today, only reported in the morning news and then passed on for more reviews of the new Guns & Roses album, we learn that we're going to throw another $800 billion at consumer credit and mortgages and students loans, with a smaller chunk going directly to any company in the nation with the surname Fae, Mae, or Mac. The Fed knows that more than doubles our responsibility to pay that back, right? Because their behavior reeks of 18 year olds with new credit cards. Have we forgotten the worries of just a few weeks ago? Is this a result of the 24 hour news cycle? I truly don't understand how the 700 package can freak people out, and then the 800 version can fly by with no notice.Basically, I have two theories on it:1. The Bitter (It's a cash grab for companies who have destroyed themselves through their own failed business models.) They sold student loans and houses to people that had no ability to pay it back, the bank's caught on and drove them out of business, so they're trying to get as much money as possible before leaving their post, to possibly retire and get out of the game. And we will be left, dick in hand, to ashamedly pay the tab.2. The Optimist (It's all just going back to before Bush, just click your heals three times and go home to the 90's version): Using This American Life's terms (see: http://www.thisamericanlife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?episode=355), the global pool of money went from $35 Trillion dollars in 2000, that being humankind's total combined saving and spending, and then ballooned up to $70 Trillion dollars by 2006. Where did that money come from? Easy; it was imagined, and lied about. By swindlers, and security managers, and sinners from the lowest circle of Hell. The world is just simply deflating, literally, and we will be back where we started. In '98. Just with a lot more people learning how to rent. And Obama will be smart enough to not get fired for getting a blowjob. And Shutter To Think will release another record. And it will be good.I'm probably completely out of touch on this. I'm not an economist. But it seems weird to me, that we'll freak out as a populace for a few weeks about one buy out and then just completely ignore the other one. I literally brought it up to work people, and they had no thoughts about it, at least not at the moment. But I've been incensed about it, feeling like we're being fucked out of more money by the people that just failed to run their businesses responsibly. How am I mistaken about this? It makes absolutely no sense to me, so I simply must be mistaken, right? Because as it sounds, anyone could ask for money (except the homeless, or people that got wrecked in New Orleans, or 911 wives, or the people of Iraq or Afghanistan * ), and they would get it. I'm just saying, as long as people are throwing that money around, I have a existing loan with that salty old Madam Sallie Mae, so if they could throw me about $7,500, I'd appreciate it. You know, since they're throwing money left and right these days.-m@: Have you figured out that I haven't learned how to hyper link with coded text on the new page? Sorry for all the copy-ing and pasting, or if they link through anyway, the jump'n'git'ya links. Bear with us, we're becoming, ya know, current. * : That being said; we're bombing the living hell out of those nations. But haven't they always... kinda... lived... shittily? I mean compared to us? If we were to ruin ourselves, as some of the people in New Orleans have been through, aren't we treating our own citizens worse than them? Because of adjusting your own citizens from one standard of living to another? Just throwing it out there.
Everything Is Going To Be Okay, I Promise.
So I voted today, giving in after I realized that you didn't have to mail your ballot back and forth; just walk in, verify that you are registered, fill in the bubbles and drop it in the box. Two years of pressure melted off immediately. At this point, there's nothing more I can do, outside of posting blog entries and bulletins urging people to do the same, and ASAP. I can only wait for the results now.But now that I'm done, the news has taken an interesting turn. Here on the post-voting side of things, it turns infinitely entertaining. From all sides, the media reports wild speculation about what could happen to us after the election; and if you take the press releases from the campaigns directly it swings into complete madness, with promises of socialism, terrorism, patriotism, liberalism, fundamentalism, and I think one cannibalism.But why stop there? If we as Americans can do anything right, it's digesting the news, and proudly thumping our chests, crying, "Bullshit"! But what if they're right? Surely there's something good to to be found in each scenario, as well as the obvious bad news. Let's explore, shall we?Scenario #1: McCain wins, sticks to his promised policies. Good: The US continues to spend money as fast as they can get it. More banks fail, we borrow money to "bail them out", only to see more banks fail. Slowly, as foreign nations realize that we've taken most of their money, the U.S. reveals itself as a brutal highwayman. As the most buyin'est mother fuckers on the planet, we have taken most of their foreign investment money, our competiting nations collapse, and we return to our original "power-top" position in the market place. Bad: Using a hatchet to stop federal spending, it's obvious that he's not going to cut Military or Defense spending. What goes first is health care, it's a core party platform that the government shouldn't pay for anyone's well being. The elderly and infirmed die off quickly. In an unfortunate turn of events, McCain's support of Yucca Mountain leads to the irradiation of Mid-American soil, and the dead quickly rise again to stalk our streets. The new undead Zombie minority swings votes towards whomever courts them (already being registered by ACORN). The healthcare problem goes away with the promise of undead renewal, and the American workforce regrows with a new standard of automatons doing all the old work at unheardof levels of productivity. The 20 person ragamuffin group of people running America from a 100 story skyscraper rake in new amounts of influence on the world stage. Scenario #2: Obama wins, sticks to his promised policies. Good: Inclusive government welcomes talks with nations posing threats. Public trust rebuilds in the American future, foreign nations begin to re-invest in the U.S., the market climbs with technology leading the way... Congratulations! It's the 90's!!! Bad: Obama takes his oath on the Quran, only to stop halfway, waving his hands and declaring, "Nah, nah, nah, I'm just fuckin' witcha." Obama reveals himself to be a silly, silly man with no experience, who will creepily chuckle after making a dooms day statement, and spend money wildly towards supporting his friends. Wait a minute... Scenario #3: McCain wins, goes back to the way he was in 2000. Good: He forms a Lincoln-esque cabinet, stacking enemies in his cabinet and the Supreme Court, and piling friends in the Senate and house. Pushes against torture. Protects the rights of women. Slowly, oh so slowly, we progress. Bad: He dies months, if not weeks after the election. Palin appoints her children & siblings to her cabinet, & disbands the Congress, because "I've never heard of anything they ever did." Scenario #4: Obama wins, reveals himself as a salutin' shootin' socialist. Good: Social programs skyrocket, single mothers have the help they need and the transportation for work, students entering and leaving publicly funded colleges have support they need to establish satisfying careers. Unequaled healthcare for all. Limitless unemployment insurance. Malik Zulu Shabazz states, "Hey! Cool! I'm done here!", and goes to try one of those latte things. Later, he renames the New Black Panther Party (NBPP) to the New Prince Buster Party (NPBP), and the revival of Kingston Dancehall singlehandedly revives the American recording industry. Bad: Upon learning that in order to support these programs Americans have to pay "French" (read: 50%+) levels of income tax, an angry mob descends upon the White House. On the south lawn, during an Aerosmith concert and fireworks display, Obama's head is sawed off by unemployed machinist's that simply chant anti social-service mantras. The new socialism collapses like a flan in a knife drawer, and as we slide into communism Guantanamo is remembered as "America's First Gulag". Scenario #5: Obama wins, turns out "Oh Shit, he's a terrorist!!" Oopsie! Good: You will kiss your wife goodbye harder. You will hug your friends goodbye when they leave the bar, because you do not know when you will see them again. Living in America will feel like there are fucking dinosaurs roaming our streets. We learn to think strategically, and we survive. Wolverines! Bad: Every Muslim American will be rounded up and locked away, ala Internment Camps during WWII. Daily news of bombings and the fallout of our government lead us to quit our jobs, because staying home is just safer. The GDP tanks, and the Midwest becomes a smoking wasteland. Scenario #6: In the face of staggering early voter turn out, Bush declares martial law, and cancels the election in the name of National Security. Good: We get to go camping! Bad: The end of the five dollar footlong era. Pundits, far into the future will argue about just when this whole "Totalitarian Regime" thing will pass over as we watch over dinners of whatever we could kill in our backyard. Rachel Maddow is assassinated on the air.Feel free to add your own! It's a thought experiment! -m@
It’s a Close Race, Huh?
This is stunning, just stunning. Let's just look at the rally attendance numbers, from two recent appearances by both candidates. Remember, it's hard to get an accurate count in crowd situations like this, so take it for what it's worth. Counts via ABC news, Kansas City Star, Anchorage Daily News, and NY Times.[
][1]Obama in St. Louis= approx. 100,000 Obama in Kansas City= approx. 75,000 McCain in Kansas City= approx. 6,000 McCain in Columbia, MO= 15Holy shit. Think about it this way, people who come out to rallies are just the ones motivated to travel and wait in line. You know, like you do on election day. I wonder what the fund raising has been like this month? Lemme check real fast. Whoa! Last month: Obama= $150 Million McCain= $66 MillionIn my tease I referred to articles reporting that it's still a close race, but just now trying to find anything recently reported comes up dry. Is it time to start replacing that ass clenching terror of losing with exhausting excitement? How does Obama leaving the campaign trail (which even with these numbers surprises me) effect the next two weeks?-m@ [1]: http://s10.photobucket.com/albums/a127/matt1276/?action=view¤t=r-OBAMA-ST-LOUIS-huge-1.jpg" target="_blank
Super Bonus Debate Round!
Something that came to my attention this week (through the [New England Skeptical Society's][1] interview with one of their spokepeople) was a movement called [Science Debate 2008][2]. In their words, "We have noticed that science and technology lie at the center of a very large number of the policy issues facing our nation and the world - issues that profoundly affect our national and economic security as science and technology continue to transform our lives. No matter one's political stripe, these issues pose important pragmatic policy challenges." Basically, science is kinda important, and it's not being talked about at the debates or in national coverage. During the primaries, there were more questions about [UFO's than climate change, and preferences for diamonds or pearls.][3]When the race had boiled itself down to 3 candidates, the Science Debate team sent invitations to ask them to join in an extra debate, focusing on core scientific ideas, and how the candidate would use that understanding to influence policy. None of them accepted, which is a little bit of a miss for Hillary. It could have given Clinton a much needed bump when she needed it, since Obama was being a little bit hazy on his stances then, still defining his campaign on the main stage. Either way it went, it also would've taken a bite out of McCain's campaign, since it risks his already shaky holding on fundamentalists (than being said, I wonder how many of the undecided voters are the hardcore fundies? Anyone have any numbers, I'd like to see them).Now that it's just down to Obama and McCain, they've concentrated the planned debate down to [14 questions][4] (from 3,400!), and both have responded with their answers. And they're pretty well thought out, without direct confrontation of course, and without word limits. The questions run from the expected like Climate Change and Stem Cells, to more future building, like maintaining the U.S.'s place in science education and how to maintain scientific integrity in the world of sponsors with very specific interests. Check it out, and let us know what you think. Were the questions about the most important topics? Anything else you would have liked to see? How did both do? I thought the question on Oceanic Health was interesting, with Obama using terms like "Stewardship", where McCain just kind of wants to keep an eye on things (belying ignorance, IMO). I keep expecting some kind of haymaker punch from one or the other candidates, and in person they just don't do it. But answers like Obama's on Stem Cell Research, that's about as close as I can get.-m@ [1]: http://www.theskepticsguide.org/index.asp [2]: http://www.sciencedebate2008.com/www/index.php?id=2 [3]: http://thinkprogress.org/2007/11/29/cnn-debate/ [4]: http://www.sciencedebate2008.com/www/index.php?id=42
In the Future, Internet Browses YOU!
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On Tuesday, Google released the beta version of it's own browser, the awkwardly titled, [Chrome.][3] It came as a surprise announcement, maybe to Google above all, as it was a reaction to an accidental release of a comic they had produced explaining how it worked. From Google's [general blog][4]:_"As you may have read in the blogosphere, we hit "send" a bit early on a comic book introducing our new open source browser, Google Chrome. As we believe in access to information for everyone, we've now made the comic publicly available -- you can find it [here][5]. We will be launching the beta version of Google Chrome tomorrow in more than 100 countries."_Whoops. The announcement came on the first, and the beta came out the afternoon of the second. That's a pretty amazing turnaround, if you ask me. They must have been very, very close to finishing it. By the way, that comic they released was by none other than [Scott McCloud, and you can find it through him.][6] It's a very cute, and more than a little hipster-y way to explain how a well-run company of thinkers works.I grabbed it when I got home (it's only available for PC right now, dammit), and have been putting it through a few paces. Here are a few impressions.The install went totally smooth, even for an organizational nut like myself (You ever seen that part of The Wall when Bob Geldof organizes all the trash in his hotel room? Whadda beginner.) It handles itself well, grabbing your preferences and bookmarks from Firefox (or, I'm assuming whatever else you may be running), doesn't ask to be made the default browser, and opens up to an instructional page. Nice.It's... kind of ugly, but kind of cool. Mainly because there is no command menu, you know, the thingies up top of the window (file, edit, blah blah blah...). Come to think of it, there aren't any buttons, except forward, backwards, reload, and a star to bookmark whatever you're looking at. Everything else is in contextual menus, popping up where your pointer is. Nice, if a little daunting at first.
It's also extremely blue. Until you move your window into "incognito" mode, when it turns into some dark side, Darth Browser looking thing. What's cool about it is that the computer stops recording everything you're doing, from browsing history to cookies to filled blanks. You have slipped on the [one true ring][7]. As in, you're invisible.What's funny is that Google, when talking about what it's for, they use the example that you might want to keep a surprise gift a secret. Yyyyeah. Gifts, not looking for Brazilian Fart Porn. That's the ticket.Also, it's crazy fast. I've never believed a browser could really improve speed, going so far as trying Opera, Firefox's ugly older sister that has all her old scantrons for your classes. But day-yum. The multi-threading approach to application processing has a lot of potential.Chrome is also capable of learning. When it is tracking your activity, it assembles a virtual profile of your habits, to the extent of when you open a new tab, instead of a blank or your home page, it gives a heads up view of your most common sites and actions. This is reflected in the new address / search / do-it-all bar, filling in all three for you.And that's where I hit a stalling point, and the critiquing begins. I'm not the type to be paranoid about gathering data about my personal life. I mean, c'mon, really. Try to rob me. Enjoy your $17 and Subway punch card. But the thought of a browser, or any software, learning to predict my moves gives me a slight feeling of disappointment, and not in any thing but myself. I like to think that I'm a treasure hunter on this ocean of information, and that some software can figure out how I work and display it to me so blatantly leaves me a bit clammy.
On the other hand, this exposes Google's spine, really. It's how they work at their very core. Google gathers your habits, and generates ads, just for you. It's also their line in the virtual sand against Microsoft, who are building Internet Explorer 8 with such stringent security protocols that Google won't be able to gather said information, thus injuring their ability to do business. You also won't be able to download and install privately or independently developed software, since it will be labeled as ["Suspicious"][8] in the name of "Security," but that's just my private hatred for MS speaking. And, you know, the truth.Chrome's promising. Not just as a web browser, and not just as another threat to MS's [relentless pursuit of dominance][9], stagnation, and consumer abuse. But as a model of the paradigm shift that we are facing in computing. We have to move beyond RSS feeds, well, feeding us and accepting it as peak technology. We must develop new standards and modes of thought, and then build tools to work upon that new way, instead of the other way around, failing to innovate because the leading consumer product can't keep up. Smarter operating and smooth integration with the user is something needed since the software was imagined, as well as applications written specifically to deal with today's new standards, not just building on top of code from 1995, two internets ago. Other applications are following this trend, like [Quicksilver][10] and [Cloudkit][11], contextualizing our input, gathering our digital lives and offering it up politely when we need it, listening to our commands intellegently. This dog is finally looking trained. Also, they totally should've called it [Icewolf][12]. Man, that would've been awesome.-m@ [1]: http://media.lawrence.com/img/blogs/a... [2]: http://media.lawrence.com/img/blogs/a... [3]: http://www.google.com/chrome/index.html?hl=en&brand=CHMA&utm_campaign=en&utm_source=en-ha-na-us-bk&utm_medium=ha&utm_term=google%20chrome [4]: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/09/fresh-take-on-browser.html [5]: http://www.google.com/googlebooks/chrome/index.html [6]: http://www.scottmccloud.com/ [7]: http://www.tuckborough.net/onering.html [8]: https://windowshelp.microsoft.com/Windows/en-AU/Help/074f84cf-d303-4f62-ad3c-a1fb6434ae491033.mspx [9]: http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0324-02.htm [10]: http://www.blacktree.com/ [11]: http://technorati.com/tag/cloudkit [12]: http://www.costumesinc.com/p9443/Shadow-Ice-Wolf-Ninja-Costume-Child-Ninja-Costume-Ninja-Themes.html
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