Face Value or Sub-Text?
After finishing the Mass Effect Trilogy and filling my head with the Indoctrination Theory, I kept thinking about the idea of the face up value vs sub-text. A lot of games that are available today are simple games, what you see is what you get. Monsters are overrunning the Earth and you need to kill the Devil, ok no problem. Seems pretty simple. And you can find some games whose stories takes a few twists and some things are not as they first seem, for example… [SPOILERS AHEAD! If you see the name of a game you don’t want spoiled, skip it! But there is another section after this.] Portal 2 – One of the more obvious examples when you start out fighting your previous villain only to discover you’ve helped a worse villain. Star Control 2 – You start out thinking you’re fighting to stop this evil race only to find out that they are doing what they are doing because they were burned pretty badly in the past, burned so bad that galaxy wide domination or annihilation is the only choice. Borderlands – At the beginning, the vault is this huge treasure trove but at the end you realise it was a prison. Knights of the Old Republic – You go hunting for a malevolent Sith Lord only to discover that you were the villain that lost his memory. One Must Fall 2097 – You fight through all the tournaments to face the big boss and he’s not piloting his robot, he is his Continue Reading →
Posted in Gaming, Practice, Thinking Out Loud by Eran with comments disabled.
Evans Blue
Are a band I got reacquainted with during my rerun of my favourite songs. I don’t know how they got there but I suppose I found them through the “radio” feature and decided they were cool enough. And after listening to all their albums, I have to say they are very cool. If you like hard rock with a tinge of thrash, you’ll like them. Here is a sample of my favourites among them.
Posted in Art, Reviews by Eran with comments disabled.
Imagine if there were no pirates…
NetFlix will have to write their own subtitles… Ubisoft will have to disable their annoying copy protection on their own… They will also need to convert their own audio files… Artists will have to be sought out for their music… It will be a tragedy. On the other hand: Music sales will go up… People everywhere will pay to watch TV shows… Authors will be much more well known for their work… And every form of media we wish to consume will be readily and easily available… It will be a utopia. (Hint: No, it won’t).
Posted in Gaming, Less Interesting News, Practice, Thinking Out Loud by Eran with 3 comments.
Kids and Strangers
I’ve been reading the Free Range Kids blog for a little while now. This blog came out of a book, written by the blogger Lenore, about the idea that kids are not unsafe if you leave them alone and when you give them responsibility, whether they are 16 years old, 11 years old or even 6-7 years old, you’re not endangering them but empowering them. And on top of that, the fact that current society sees all of these activities as dangerous to kids is borderline psychotic. It has been interesting so far, but the first post I would really like to talk about is this one. The story actually starts in this post (linked inside the new one as well) about the Virgin-Air Airline who forced a man to move from his seat just because he was seated next to two boys, 8 and 10 years old. The 33-year-old firefighter was immediately suspected as a secret pedophile just because he was male. This is a great blow to this man’s honor and to human decency in general. After that story was posted, Lenore posted two letters she got in response. One stating how right Virgin Air is of their action because 99% of pedophiles are male (so, by obvious “logic”, 99% of males are pedophiles, right?) and another one, which I linked to first, that tells an interesting story by a reader who says that when she was 4, she, her mother and her 1-year-old sister where going cross Continue Reading →
Posted in Humanity, Practice, Thinking Out Loud, Weird by Eran with comments disabled.
Eclipse, Tomcat and MySQL for Java Web Development
I am currently working on a web development project for school. Eclipse is pretty much a given. Tomcat is required by the guidelines and I decided to go with the MySQL as my database server. I took the instructions from this page. But here is my “Pro-Version” synopsis for savvy people who just want to get going. My system is a Windows 7 64-bit but this should be valid just about anywhere because these are platform independent bundles. Install the latest JDK if you haven’t already. (I am working of 7u5) Install Tomcat. You can lay it down anywhere, it’s just an unpack. (I use 7) Install Eclipse. It’s also an unpack. Unless you’re not doing Java at all (and here you are) there is no reason not to go for the JavaEE version which contains just about everything. (I use the Juno version) Make sure Eclipse knows where you’ve put your jdk. (If it’s not automatic, I’m sure you can figure it out by yourself) Install MySQL Community Edition (I have 5.5.27). Check in as new user and then select to skip the process. The installation itself is pretty straight forward. You’ll most likely want the developer install. And don’t forget to grab the connector/j library (Mine is 5.1.21) as well. Put connector/j library in a place you can find it. Like in the Java main directory or with your project. Go into your MySQL command prompt and create a new database (“create database something;”). Go back to Eclipse and open Continue Reading →
Posted in High-Tech, School by Eran with comments disabled.
The Mass Effect Finale
[SPOILER WARNING!] Every thing in this post is under a heavy spoiler warning. I am discussing Mass Effect in its entirety from start to finish but mostly how the trilogy ends. If you ever want to play it with out bias and haven’t yet, close this tab right now. However, if you haven’t played it yet, or just not the third one, there is a suggestion for you at the final paragraph. You should check it out. There was some hubbub on the internet regarding the ending of Mass Effect 3. I haven’t played the game with out the Extended Cut and from this I understand that there were some problems with it. But most of them have been solved to some extent. For me, looking at the endings according to the Extended Cut, I think they were good. There were some problems with them, I didn’t expect the “Fuck You” option to be the “You Lose” option and the added slideshow at the end really seems tacked on but I still thought the ending was epic. Honestly, throughout the second half of the game I was hoping it would get a Star-Control-2-Class ending. And I’m glad to say it did. Really. Beautiful. There were some hitches I can snag on but overall, I liked it. But after you step away with a sweet and sour taste in your mouth, you go online to see discussions of the endings and the entire trilogy and you come across the Indoctrination Theory (The Full Continue Reading →
Posted in Gaming, Reviews, Thinking Out Loud by Eran with 2 comments.
Is Autism a Bad Thing?
Judging from this, autism mostly means a critical failure of communication inherent in the person’s mind. And from another video I saw, it appears there are some other mental symptoms that accompany it but it’s mostly the fact that autistic children perceive the world through a completely different matrix than other people do. And maybe it’s because of that literal, direct-only perception that some can be incredible savants. What Michael Barton says in the article is that with his part of the spectrum comes, with some failure to grasp idioms and analogies, a heightened ability to focus, stick to things and better analytical skills. Which, to some definition, makes him a nerdy super-geek! And my first thought is that sounds cool. Wouldn’t you wish you had the ability to just focus on one task for hours with out a break, to grasp and hold complicated design and mechanics in your head? I think that’s awesome. My second thought is that maybe some of the great minds of history, all the way from Einstein down to Newton and Aristotle, were technically undiagnosed autistic people. That would explain a few things, like Tesla and others tendency to isolate themselves from society to focus on their projects, and then producing leaps and bounds of technological breakthrough. My third thought is that, although it might be cool to have unlimited technical potential, it seems you have to sacrifice some part of the human connection and some artistic understanding. I’m a high tech person, basically Continue Reading →
Posted in Humanity, Less Interesting News, Philosophy, Thinking Out Loud by Eran with comments disabled.
Mass Effect: Books, Gender, Emotions
I’m not gonna write a review for Mass Effect 3. I don’t think I need to. If you care about it in any way, you probably heard all you needed to hear if not already played it yourself. And if not, what will it matter anyway? I do, however, wish to impart some thoughts upon it and the Mass Effect universe in general. So today I will stress three points: The Books, Shepard’s Gender and Why it Matters, and How This Game Triggered Some Serious Emotions. The last part contains what are probably heavy spoilers for the third game and at least minor ones for the second so you can skip it if you don’t want that segment ruined. I am talking about after the second Priority: Citadel. The Mass Effect Books. There are currently three Mass Effect books (The fourth has been pulled for serious inconsistencies): Revelation, Ascension and Retribution. It’s always a problem when you adopt a property from one medium to another. You rarely get it perfectly right. The books do get the benefit of having one of the writers of the game (not the lead one, though) writing them so that is something. And I listened to them – and read the comics – because the universe was so awesome I didn’t want to miss anything. Same reason why I go for every mission I can find in the game. And I was hoping for some extra info on the universe that maybe explains some things that Continue Reading →
Posted in Gaming, Reviews by Eran with comments disabled.
David Chillag R.I.P.
I didn’t really know him except through his video lectures and a few live ones I sat through but he truly was a phenomenon. In the Technion there is a running joke that David Chillag is the king and Eliza Malek is the queen of the Mathematics department. It’s a joke that is filled with truth. And I think the sadder part is that future generations will know what they lost. Because every possible Math course in the Technion’s video library is lectured by David Chillag. And I suspect that won’t change unless the material will have a serious overhaul, which won’t happen any time soon. It’s not easy, especially these days, to find a teacher with such an impact that it colours your studies through and through. But Chillag is one of those people whose kindness, attention, social flow and plain old educational skill couldn’t help but leave a mark on so many students. I really do suspect thousands or maybe even tens of thousands mourn his loss even though maybe a quarter of them actually met him in person. He was like Sagan or Feynman. Even though they are long dead, their teachings and strong drive for education still accompany us today. I’m sure Chillag’s spirit will be with us for a while longer. And in the afterlife halls where you stay until you’re forgotten he’s sitting next to those two right now. Maybe calculating the odds on which of them goes first.
Posted in Less Interesting News, No Category, School by Eran with comments disabled.
University Sues Student for Graduating Early
This has been sitting in my to read queue for a few days now and I want to say something about it but I don’t know what. It just seems totally weird. So, when you don’t have anything to write, write about not having anything to write. Here’s the deal: A student enrolled in a private business and economics university in Germany. By an act of sheer genius (both for planning and execution) he managed to finish 11 semesters worth of studies in just 3, completing 60 exams in 20 months. If I met the guy, I would probably shake his hand vigorously and then maybe carry him on my shoulder and parade him around the town. The university had other plans; they are demanding 3000 euros as missing fees for his studies. That is, they want him to pay up for the rest of the year even though he only needed half of it. So… The university says the fees are for all the studies, which means they are probably charging all in advance. If not, why say that? If so, why are they only asking now and why only for the remainder of the year? The payment shouldn’t be for studies, the payment should be for access to university property (material, instruments, etc…) and the privilege of taking the tests and passing them, getting a degree. He should only pay for the time he used. The Technion charges per semester, which seems fair to me. But what if Continue Reading →
Posted in Geekdom, Less Interesting News, Weird by Eran with 1 comment.