Computers are terrible things, and I speak as someone who has enjoyed making use of them for thirty years now. The problem, essentially, is not the machines themselves. Nor is it really the software that is used to run them and instruct them in tasks. No. That would be too easy. The real problem is the people who create the softwares (and a lot of the hardware).
“Everything must be online” culture
If you know the kind of people who insist that everything you buy must be downloaded and converted into a digital format even when it results in a horribly overcompressed, tinny-audio, unwatchable and unlistenable mess, then you know what inspired this category.
My first contact with the Internet, or rather the version of the Internet that was available to the public, occurred in 1995. That is, eighteen years ago as if this writing. I am not going to do stupid things and go on about how it has changed or how I prefer the Internet as it was, or that kind of shit. Things change for a reason, regardless of whether they change for good or ill. And trying to stop change is like trying to stop death. Continue Reading
I will tell you this much right off the bat, in case you have not already noticed it or this is your first visit here (in which case, welcome): I am not a fan of Blizzard Entertainment or the stories they put into their products. I have found that the Horde’s leaders mainly consist of dickheads with whom Blizzard play a game of seeing how much obnoxious, arrogant shit they can get away with whilst maintaining slavish devotion from fanboys. I am finding the current implementations of the game so irritating in so many ways that I am starting to feel that Dave Kosak should be fired. So with that frame of reference, let us explore my opinions of the latest World Of Warcraft expansion, Mists Of Pandaria. Continue Reading
As much as I gripe about the business and programming practises of the software company known as Blizzard Entertainment, I have to hand it to them where marketing skills and revenue stream diversity are concerned. Like any good company in a deregulated economy, Blizzard are well aware that they cannot make anywhere near the profit they do if they restrict their trade solely to software. So novels, keyrings with authenticators, novelties based on the games, and even digital pieces that can be added to the games, are offered in their online store. Continue Reading
So, as luck and a bad script would have it, I went to Googoo and searched for information concerning whether there was a limit to the number of Monk characters one could have when the new expansion for World Of Warcraft goes live in a couple of days. That led me to this article by Carmelo M. on the Clever Musings site. Continue Reading
Some time ago now, the great but ailing media pundit Roger Ebert wrote a statement to the effect that videogames are not art. He gave some reasons why. And the whinging from fanboy idiots who were clearly too young to even know what the word Atari means in this particular context was precious to behold. Not because Ebert‘s critique of videogames as an industry was especially well-informed, but rather because the near-illiterate responses betrayed a simple fact about the people making them. Specifically, they had no idea what the word art really means. Continue Reading
I have two things to tell you before we begin. One, this essay will contain repeated and very precision-intended uses of a derisive word for dark-skinned Americans that they themselves often use to deride other dark-skinned Americans who behave in a manner that they find objectionable. Two, this is necessary for making the point that I ended up circling around in this essay. If you do not like it, the door is in that direction. *makes a pointing motion* Continue Reading
I Still Find It So Hard... 