I've always been sensitive to the criticisms of a critic. Those that say that a critic who cannot write fiction should not react so vituperantly or virulently to the finished product of a process they don't understand.
However, the critic is a reader. Ideally, he/she is a very good reader. And ideally, when reviewing something (rather than studying it), the critic will be communicating to other readers the value of the work to them. Or at the very least, he or she will make clear any bias, and better reasons will be given for disliking or liking a popular piece than can be had in simple rhetorical flare.
It is difficult to do these reviews. It is also rewarding. Rather than giving such a one at this time, I'm going to review the first two books of the Dresden Files, by Jim Butcher. Quick and dirty.
The Good
Well, if you like a good, gripping, engaging story, the Dresden Files are good at generating them. With a wizard, a supernatural alternate modern Chicago, a detective story frame, and tons of charged build-up, the pacing is good, a page-turner, so to speak.
The first story was predictable to me, mystery-wise. There were really no surprises at all in the plot after the first hundred pages or so. The second story was much better at obscuring tiself for the most part, except that I figured out what one of the characters was early on as well. Maybe not a bad thing, but don't read expecting excellent mysteries here. They work well. The action helps them work.
Ah, yes, the action. Dresden is an impulsive wizard, even as he constantly says he should be wise and tricky. This gets him in a lot of trouble, and through the book he gets increasingly bruised, grizzled, and sleep-deprived. His magic is conducted under rules that mean it isn't the deus ex machina cure to every situation, a reassuring constraint which makes Dresden more endearing, because like Indiana Jones he takes a lot of hits. The magic is fairly traditional; chants are Latin gibberish used to focus, circles help focus the magic, and the magic itself comes from feeling, from the soul.
Harry Dresden is a good character. Murphy is a good character. So is Susan, and others as well. When the characters are in the foreground, they are fairly stable, and it's easy to become obsessed with their interactions. When the police chief (Murphy) tries to arrest Dresden over a misunderstanding, I want to take them out of the story, set them aside, and explain things. Good characters, good intentions, a mixed up world where trust is always an issue.
The Bad
The minor characters become more one dimensional. I know, this is like saying the odd numbered pages are on the right in a book. But there is one bigger problem I spotted with some of Jim Butcher's characterizations.
Dresden is a very gendered soul. He is a self-professed old fashioned man. This is fine. However, there are frequent times when the narrator (Dresden) is describing a woman. Of course he goes over the more attractive features. But then he uses that shortcut word that irks me, "feminine." She is so feminine when she does that. So on. The trouble for me isn't necessarily that the women are feminine, but that he's using such a shortcut word. Feminine can mean a lot of things, and the literary part of me would prefer if he tried evoking more specifically what he meant instead of loading a lot of it into this word.
That's the most major problem, and it can probably be chalked up to it being popular fiction. In the sense of descriptions and thought-provoking writing, it's about average. Yes, the modern world is crazy. Okay, another woman has lipstick on and is feminine, and you find her hot, Dresden. If you can get past that (I could), then it'll turn out to be a pretty good read.
Mar 27, 2008
Mar 24, 2008
I critique someone else's paper
I wish I could post the paper (so you could critique my critique), but it's an assignment for someone else's class, and to reprint it like that without their permission would be tricky. Also, that would mean anyone entering a query in a search engine (like a professor checking for plagiarism) could see it there. I can e-mail it if anyone is curious; I certainly saved it.
The story? I'm looking for a handout for another class that I didn't recover during spring break, and now I don't know where it is. I thought I had saved it online, but it must still be on a computer around here. I won't be able to find it. I've been working all afternoon. I need a break.
I will try to keep my critiques of argumentative style and my personal views separate. The latter are parenthetical.
The paper's title?
"Everyone has a right to life."
Now, first, in general, it isn't a good idea to cite websites typically. In the case of a hot-button current topic like abortion, it is allowable. However, the person must keep in mind how biased their sources are. Citing from a site like "infoplease.com" is tacky compared with all of the subscription data sites we have available in the library, but I'll be lenient with that. However, he chooses to cite from this website, "abortionfacts.com", to make the argument that a lot of promoters of abortion call an unborn baby "just a glob of tissue."
I checked out the website, because I was interested in seeing what crazy person would try to argue for their cause with "just a glob of tissue." It turns out the website has links on the sidebar for people who are Pro-Life (anti-option, but that's my personal view) and Pro-Choice, detailing their positions with links that discuss those position points. Except that the pro-life arguments are always affirmed by the links, and the pro-choice arguments are always denigrated. "What, you think abortion is safe? Bam! It isn't!" And of course he pulls that quotation from that part of the website, summarizing the pro-choicers' errant assumptions to be corrected by links that pretend to be operating in an unbiased manner.
I'm not sure what I'm more perturbed by: the website itself, which gives little direct cue (but tons of indirect ones) to its taking a side on a divisive issue, or the student that chooses to use it, not simply to make a lazy argument, but to put words in the mouth of pro-choicers. He could've cited from a better source, and it would've been much more effective to find quotes (not just one) to that effect from pro-choice websites. This way, he's just making a strawman that he proceeds to burn.
The same goes for citing medical facts from "www.nrlc.org". They may indeed be facts, or may not (I didn't check), but try to get them from an unfiltered source. If I'm running a group or organization site, of course I'm going to make my position sound as good as possible.
As for the time he neglects to cite a doctor's quotes altogether, what am I supposed to assume?
And finally, when using a dictionary, use the best dictionary available. That is either a paper dictionary, good old faithful ____ (in my case being the American Heritage Dictionary), or the online one that the university has access to (Oxford English Dictionary). Compared to either of those, dictionary.com, while decent in middle school or high school, is unacceptable at a college level.
As far as rhetoric goes, he is loaded for bear with the baby cannon, whatever that means. He uses the term baby to refer to an unborn fetus, which is alright when he justifies it with reasoning that I would tear apart in parentheses. But he also uses it in the introduction to claim that over one million babies are murdered each year. Both are quite loaded terms, ones that I would justify in the introduction rather than over a quarter of the way through the paper. Otherwise, he is just preaching to the choir and alienating the rest. (I was sure alienated.)
Oh, and when he is writing an argument or position, he should never refer to it so boldfacedly. I know he's making an argument. He should never say, "Let me give you an example to further aid my position." He is supposed to acknowledge that his position isn't the only one out there, but to refer to his position, and to actively seek to bolster it is bad form. rather, his argument should stand apart from him, and he should say, at the very least, "Here is an example of _____," _____ being what he is trying to demonstrate.
And then arguments from the Bible are valid. However, when you're trying to make interpretations of Bible verse, it is good to bring in, again, more than one example. It is not enough to cite separately points at which babies are brought up and then murder is brought up, and then say that God condemns abortion.
Finally, it is not good to end any paper with "Plain and simple." It's like one's brushing his hands off as he gets up and walks away. There is no epiphany there. No enlightenment.
Now, personal views.
A lot of what goes on here is a lot of what I'm dismayed with in general, argument-wise, and more specifically with some more vocal pro-lifers. What he does is echo or tap into their arguments, which go about like so:
1. Assert or affirm that anything unborn is a baby, a child, a sentient human being.
2. Assert or affirm that the killing of any human being is murder.
3. Call abortion murder.
4. Cue the outrage.
Now, okay, fine. That's an argument. What I have a problem with is when I'm made, in the introduction and conclusion, to understand the first point of the argument before I can comprehend the abortion issue. "What we have to realize before we make our decision on how we feel about the issue is that a baby is a human being whether born or unborn." "In my opinion," he says. An honest acknowledgement. I comprehend him. But I don't agree with him.
If he had justified that point within the paper, I would have a lot of questions to be asking myself. However, his arguments are weak. Yes, a fetus's heart first beats at a certain point. A brain starts to function at a certain point. But he can't tell me that a fetus is self-aware at that point. He can't tell me whether they feel, and whether they interpret those feelings as any sense of living at all. Memory is practically nonexistent. He establishes that a fetus is a living thing, but he doesn't make a convincing argument that it is fully and independently human. I haven't seen anyone make that point yet. I can't. In that case, why can't the mother make the decision on whether the fetus is human? (1)
And he does not do a good job addressing other concerns, such as what carrying an unwanted child to term means for a woman. He does not explain how he knows that contraceptive failure is rare and a non-issue. He does not explain how the people who want abortions available are simultaneously ignorant teenagers and rich disinterested people. (2)
All in all, he characterizes his opposition without really knowing them. I don't think fetuses are globs of flesh, or whatever the charming term was. They are fetuses. They are living, but they're also dependent. To me, they do not yet have a soul imparted to them. They have no breath of life. They are a potential, one that can come into being or not. Certainly it is devestating for people to want children and to experience miscarriage, but that is with respect exclusively to what they (the possible child) might have been, and not what they are.
No one is a murderer. If someone feels that they need an abortion, I am reasonably certain they are not happy about it. I don't know why they want one; it can be for a variety of reasons. i want them to take the time to think through about whether this is the right decision. If I meet someone going through it, I will certainly give my kindly input, and request that they ask others as well. But I won't condemn. That is just what I do, and even if it weren't, that is in the Bible.
(1) I've always favored the argument that a fetus becomes a human being at the quickening, or at the point where a mother can consistently feel a baby kicking and such. This was the old way they would judge pregnancy, back in the 1800s and before, because before then many pregnancies would end in the first few months, and a fetus's viability only became high when they demonstrably moved. Abortions were available before the quickening set in, but were much more suspect afterward. But there's no good universal reason for me to favor this, which is why I'd still favor the parent making the decision. In this sense, the pro-life arguments for banning abortion seem to be admitting that women and couples cannot make a decision for themselves and that they alone have a valid view on the matter. And I've dealt enough with people to know that, in general, I'd rather make my major decisions for myself.
(2) To counter other arguments is especially important in his stance. To wish to outlaw abortions (abortions being murder), he should recognize that pro-choicers are not people that want others to have abortions. Abortion is an option, one of many. Not a commandment. He argues against the commandment, not the option, and misses considerably.
The story? I'm looking for a handout for another class that I didn't recover during spring break, and now I don't know where it is. I thought I had saved it online, but it must still be on a computer around here. I won't be able to find it. I've been working all afternoon. I need a break.
I will try to keep my critiques of argumentative style and my personal views separate. The latter are parenthetical.
The paper's title?
"Everyone has a right to life."
Now, first, in general, it isn't a good idea to cite websites typically. In the case of a hot-button current topic like abortion, it is allowable. However, the person must keep in mind how biased their sources are. Citing from a site like "infoplease.com" is tacky compared with all of the subscription data sites we have available in the library, but I'll be lenient with that. However, he chooses to cite from this website, "abortionfacts.com", to make the argument that a lot of promoters of abortion call an unborn baby "just a glob of tissue."
I checked out the website, because I was interested in seeing what crazy person would try to argue for their cause with "just a glob of tissue." It turns out the website has links on the sidebar for people who are Pro-Life (anti-option, but that's my personal view) and Pro-Choice, detailing their positions with links that discuss those position points. Except that the pro-life arguments are always affirmed by the links, and the pro-choice arguments are always denigrated. "What, you think abortion is safe? Bam! It isn't!" And of course he pulls that quotation from that part of the website, summarizing the pro-choicers' errant assumptions to be corrected by links that pretend to be operating in an unbiased manner.
I'm not sure what I'm more perturbed by: the website itself, which gives little direct cue (but tons of indirect ones) to its taking a side on a divisive issue, or the student that chooses to use it, not simply to make a lazy argument, but to put words in the mouth of pro-choicers. He could've cited from a better source, and it would've been much more effective to find quotes (not just one) to that effect from pro-choice websites. This way, he's just making a strawman that he proceeds to burn.
The same goes for citing medical facts from "www.nrlc.org". They may indeed be facts, or may not (I didn't check), but try to get them from an unfiltered source. If I'm running a group or organization site, of course I'm going to make my position sound as good as possible.
As for the time he neglects to cite a doctor's quotes altogether, what am I supposed to assume?
And finally, when using a dictionary, use the best dictionary available. That is either a paper dictionary, good old faithful ____ (in my case being the American Heritage Dictionary), or the online one that the university has access to (Oxford English Dictionary). Compared to either of those, dictionary.com, while decent in middle school or high school, is unacceptable at a college level.
As far as rhetoric goes, he is loaded for bear with the baby cannon, whatever that means. He uses the term baby to refer to an unborn fetus, which is alright when he justifies it with reasoning that I would tear apart in parentheses. But he also uses it in the introduction to claim that over one million babies are murdered each year. Both are quite loaded terms, ones that I would justify in the introduction rather than over a quarter of the way through the paper. Otherwise, he is just preaching to the choir and alienating the rest. (I was sure alienated.)
Oh, and when he is writing an argument or position, he should never refer to it so boldfacedly. I know he's making an argument. He should never say, "Let me give you an example to further aid my position." He is supposed to acknowledge that his position isn't the only one out there, but to refer to his position, and to actively seek to bolster it is bad form. rather, his argument should stand apart from him, and he should say, at the very least, "Here is an example of _____," _____ being what he is trying to demonstrate.
And then arguments from the Bible are valid. However, when you're trying to make interpretations of Bible verse, it is good to bring in, again, more than one example. It is not enough to cite separately points at which babies are brought up and then murder is brought up, and then say that God condemns abortion.
Finally, it is not good to end any paper with "Plain and simple." It's like one's brushing his hands off as he gets up and walks away. There is no epiphany there. No enlightenment.
Now, personal views.
A lot of what goes on here is a lot of what I'm dismayed with in general, argument-wise, and more specifically with some more vocal pro-lifers. What he does is echo or tap into their arguments, which go about like so:
1. Assert or affirm that anything unborn is a baby, a child, a sentient human being.
2. Assert or affirm that the killing of any human being is murder.
3. Call abortion murder.
4. Cue the outrage.
Now, okay, fine. That's an argument. What I have a problem with is when I'm made, in the introduction and conclusion, to understand the first point of the argument before I can comprehend the abortion issue. "What we have to realize before we make our decision on how we feel about the issue is that a baby is a human being whether born or unborn." "In my opinion," he says. An honest acknowledgement. I comprehend him. But I don't agree with him.
If he had justified that point within the paper, I would have a lot of questions to be asking myself. However, his arguments are weak. Yes, a fetus's heart first beats at a certain point. A brain starts to function at a certain point. But he can't tell me that a fetus is self-aware at that point. He can't tell me whether they feel, and whether they interpret those feelings as any sense of living at all. Memory is practically nonexistent. He establishes that a fetus is a living thing, but he doesn't make a convincing argument that it is fully and independently human. I haven't seen anyone make that point yet. I can't. In that case, why can't the mother make the decision on whether the fetus is human? (1)
And he does not do a good job addressing other concerns, such as what carrying an unwanted child to term means for a woman. He does not explain how he knows that contraceptive failure is rare and a non-issue. He does not explain how the people who want abortions available are simultaneously ignorant teenagers and rich disinterested people. (2)
All in all, he characterizes his opposition without really knowing them. I don't think fetuses are globs of flesh, or whatever the charming term was. They are fetuses. They are living, but they're also dependent. To me, they do not yet have a soul imparted to them. They have no breath of life. They are a potential, one that can come into being or not. Certainly it is devestating for people to want children and to experience miscarriage, but that is with respect exclusively to what they (the possible child) might have been, and not what they are.
No one is a murderer. If someone feels that they need an abortion, I am reasonably certain they are not happy about it. I don't know why they want one; it can be for a variety of reasons. i want them to take the time to think through about whether this is the right decision. If I meet someone going through it, I will certainly give my kindly input, and request that they ask others as well. But I won't condemn. That is just what I do, and even if it weren't, that is in the Bible.
(1) I've always favored the argument that a fetus becomes a human being at the quickening, or at the point where a mother can consistently feel a baby kicking and such. This was the old way they would judge pregnancy, back in the 1800s and before, because before then many pregnancies would end in the first few months, and a fetus's viability only became high when they demonstrably moved. Abortions were available before the quickening set in, but were much more suspect afterward. But there's no good universal reason for me to favor this, which is why I'd still favor the parent making the decision. In this sense, the pro-life arguments for banning abortion seem to be admitting that women and couples cannot make a decision for themselves and that they alone have a valid view on the matter. And I've dealt enough with people to know that, in general, I'd rather make my major decisions for myself.
(2) To counter other arguments is especially important in his stance. To wish to outlaw abortions (abortions being murder), he should recognize that pro-choicers are not people that want others to have abortions. Abortion is an option, one of many. Not a commandment. He argues against the commandment, not the option, and misses considerably.
Mar 18, 2008
Arthur C. Clarke
NOOOOOO!
He had to die eventually of course. But now the last big three author of science fiction is dead. The one that wrote many good books, and then co-authored many books with other people which I didn't dare touch.
He had to die eventually of course. But now the last big three author of science fiction is dead. The one that wrote many good books, and then co-authored many books with other people which I didn't dare touch.
Mar 17, 2008
I listened to/watched Witness this evening. It's a movie with Harrison Ford, a very talented actress named Kelly McGillis, and several other people. Witness protection in the Amish country. I love it. ^_^ A few fun facts about it:
- It's Viggo Mortensen's film debut, though I didn't watch the part he was in.
- Alexander Godunov, the strapping young Amish man that gets ice cream wiped on his face, was a ballet dancer who became an actor after he defected from the USSR.
- When Scott walked in and saw the movie, the first thing he said was, "Hey, it's Harrison Ford." Then he asked if it was Indiana Jones. Then he asked if it was Star Wars. The third one was a joke. I overreacted to the second one, but only because I've seen the Indiana Jones movies up, down, left, and right. That's not Indiana Jones.
Now, because I don't feel like sleeping yet thanks to a dose of liberally chocolate hot cocoa, I'm going to highlight another video game. Or two.
Legend of Legaia (Playstation RPG, 1999)
So, I ran across this one first at Josh's house. He lives on the street next to ours, and there were times that I'd go over there fairly often to play football with the neighborhood kids, hang out, and do what middle schoolers typically do. Sometimes we'd go up to the pantry or stuff like that, or play video games.
It must've been near the end of 7th grade. His dad liked video games. Sometimes he would have Josh read from a strategy guide while he played. I came over when this was going on. It looked pretty for the time. Three different characters were fighting monsters. They were fairly well rendered. The input for commands was fairly sophisticated, with you entering up, down, left, or right to represent different punches or kicks. You'd string a number of these together, and some of the combinations would perform special moves.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pzpYJ-I4VnU (An example of battle.)
So I was intrigued, but I didn't know the name of the game.
Cut to a couple of months later. Mom had taken us to Hickory Hollow. I can't remember the exact occasion. Perhaps it involved Katie and prom. Perhaps Mom just wanted to shop. The advantage of going to a mall like this is that it had a wide array of stores, including two video game stores. I'd gotten a Playstation last Christmas, so I was eager to spend my limited money on some game.
So I started looking through the used games. Okay, okay... nothing good yet. Then I saw it. Legend of Legaia. It looked familiar. It was for less than $20, so I considered it a bargain. It looked RPG-ish, so I bought it.
I'd played RPGs before. There were a couple for the C64, but those were very difficult. Most of my exposure came from Jarrod, my best friend, who always seemed to have the hottest RPGs for the SNES. Earthbound, Final Fantasy, Secret of Mana, Zelda... I wouldn't have traded my Sonic games for those, but it would've been close. This was the first RPG I would play and beat on my own.
So, the story. It wasn't until talking with some other enthusiasts several years later, including someone I respect who also played this as their first RPG, that I realized how good the story was. It's gripping without being very cliched, and it just works.
Several years ago, in an era of otherwise unparalleled prosperity, this mist started spreading across the land. Its origins were mysterious, and it brought with it madness. The Seru, a group of creatures that were otherwise tame and took care of human life, were frenzied, and often attached to human hosts, corrupting them into a blank and bleak existence. Pockets of humanity survived, either by being above the mist, being near the ocean where the mist could be kept at bay, or by going underground.
Vahn is a young man that lives in Rim Elm, a village near the ocean. Two things seem to keep the Mist at bay. First, there is a network of walls and windmills. Second, there is a tree in the middle of the village, a Genesis tree. It lies dormant currently, but village legend holds that it is very important.
Rim Elm ends up getting attacked; the wall is broken down, and the Seru attack. In desperation, the people of the village crowd near the tree, which seems to protect them. Vahn goes there himself, and finds that the tree talks to him. There is a Ra-Seru inside... a sentient Seru that can resist the influence of the mist. It activates the tree, which then gets rid of the mist in a certain radius of the village. They are saved.
Vahn and the Ra-Seru bond. Then they go out, trying to find the other trees and discover where the mist comes from. Along the way they will run into Noa, a girl living alone in the northern caves who is aided along by a Ra-Seru bonded to a wolf, and Gala, a monk in a monastery that finds a Ra-Seru while guiding the others through a forest to find a Genesis tree. When he comes back, he finds his monastery ransacked by a man consumed by the power of an evil Seru. After that they journey together.
From here, the game is a long one. It spans three continents. It's an emotional ride, as the characters learn about how they are interconnected with the Seru, which are interconnected with nature, and the great disruption that occured, how the mist was formed, and how people struggled to survive despite it.
During the course of the game, characters can defeat Seru and use them for magic. This makes all of the characters effective spellcasters, an unusual but good move where games normally play down spellcasting outside of boss fights. The battle system otherwise was as the video shows.
Outside of battle, the graphics were about par for the time. Blocky polygons. Interesting scenery and layouts, decent texturing, but by today's standards they don't stand up. Not a game you'd play for eye candy today... though there are but a few games from 8, 9, 10 years ago that fit that classification.
And... I don't know. For my first full-length RPG without anyone's interference, it was... quite a good introduction. I got the feeling I was exploring a world. The characters were solid. Battles were challenging without being impossible. The graphics for the time were pretty. You would meet people, and you'd care for them. If it weren't for that game, I might not have played many others that I like. Like...
Lunar: Silver Star Story Complete (Playstation, 1999)
Oh, I'd been seeing previews and reviews for that game for a year or two in the game magazines I would occasionally pore over at the store. I had no clue what it was, but it had anime cutscenes, and that intrigued me. It got released, but it was too expensive for me. Then I saw an advertisement near Christmas of 1999. It was never going to be produced again. Soon, it would be the sort of thing you could only get on Ebay, the advertisement claimed (what was Ebay?).
So I wrote it on my Christmas list. Then I forgot what I had put on my Christmas list. The game had left my mind, but Santa pulled through. That Christmas, I opened up the package, and was shocked by the insight Santa had had.
It was a large box, the size of four Playstation game cases stacked on one another. Two of those were for the two game discs, the "Making of..." disc, and a soundtrack. The third one was for the 100+ page color hardback instruction booklet. The last was for the goodies they included with the game, including a cloth map and other fun things. It was complete. And it completed me.
It's not a long game. If you know what you're doing, it'll take as little as 15 hours. 10 or less if you rush. I didn't rush.
You are Alex. You want to be a Dragonmaster just like Dyne, your hero who has a monument in the village. You live on the Silver Star, with the Blue Star looming overhead. The Dragonmaster is the protector of Althena, the goddess who lives atop her temple overseeing the inhabitants of the Silver Star. But for now, you live in a village with your friend since babyhood Luna, an accomplished singer. Then there's Ramus, the enterprising chubby other friend, and Nall, the flying cat-like creature.
Alex and Ramus hatch a plan to get a Dragon Diamond from the nearby White Dragon Cave. Luna comes along with Nall to make sure that they don't get in any trouble. Along the way, Alex passes the White Dragon Trial, one of the four needed to become a Dragonmaster. Going back to the village, they hatch a plan to head off of their island for Meribia, a port city where they can sell the diamond and where Alex can start his journey.
Along the way, you will meet Jessica, a tomboy who often skips out on her priestess training to spend time exploring and traipsing across the countryside, to the dismay of the governor of Meribia. There is Nash, an enterprising overtalkative student in Vane, the floating magic school. Mia, the daughter of the Premier of Vane (Lemia), is shy and knows something is wrong, but doesn't know how to stand up for herself. Ghaleon oversees the school, searching for members of the Vile Tribe who seek to attack Althena. Kyle is a thief in Nanza, a rogue who has his way with the ladies and doesn't mind dressing in drag to get the job done. And there is Laike, a kindly adventurer that shows up sometime with a lot more wisdom than meets the eye. Lively characters, and that's just a small handful. Minor characters' dialogue is often entertaining; I spent (and spend) lots of time just talking to different ones to hear what they say. Page-turner, indeed.
My first playthrough, I had to start over because I got to a certain point without any healing items and didn't realize I could double back. About 5 hours in. But I liked the game so much I could put up with that. There was another point when I'd gotten about halfway through the game, maybe a bit more, and I lost the save to the game. But after a little bit of setting it aside and pretending I hadn't, I had to play through again. I beat it.
And if Legend of Legaia were the game that got me interested in RPGs for sure, this was the one that became my RPG ideal for years. I joined a web community of fans of the game series, one I'm still a part of today. And though we'll all make fun of the different cliches that it falls into (hero saving the world, the hero being 16 with the old timers being above, what, 23?, Kyle getting drunk off of innocuous substances, etc.), it deeply affected us in ways that have big spoilers stamped all over them. It's a story of saving the world, of saving a goddess... a story of love, and again of interesting people along the way.
It's not overly angsty. Angels aren't gratuitously thrown in. I like those stories. If I could get away with it, I would make a career out of analyzing these kinds of games. But that'd be the equivalent of writing on a poem that no one could get a hold of.
What I Want to Write to the Paper
But it's over 300 words, and I refuse to cut it.
Liberals, conservatives, and moderates. The three grand placeholders. Support one, tolerate another, villainize the rest. This has been the pattern of the letters [to the Leaf-Chronicle] in the past few days. I'm speaking as someone that doesn't fit any of those labels fully, and I know that doesn't mean I can't be criticized either.
I'm addressing the charges that liberals think they know what is best and that liberals are racist.
First, don't many people think they know what is best on both sides of that worn-out aisle? Presidents from Washington to Bush have signed legislation and vetoed it based on them assuming they "know what is best." How could someone propose to stand against homosexual marriage or sexual education unless they assumed that they knew what was best for those couples who choose to make either choice? How could someone possibly stand for surveillance and wiretapping unless they believe they know better what privacy rights are worth than the people who have those rights taken away?
Second, and more controversially, most people are racist. It isn't a white-only problem, but it's as much theirs as anyone else's. Most of us consciously try to not be racist or try to ignore racism with our silence on the subject, but it shows up. That examples of liberal racism come up does not make the ingrained examples of conservative racism go away. Nor does it excuse our day-to-day judgments and assessments based on race. Racial profiling? Done, even though it's a terrible way for a police force to function. Surveillance? Second-generation non-white citizens already have many of their rights against surveillance taken away by the Patriot Act. It's fine because our safety is secured, right? Even if it's at the expense of others' freedoms?
I find it amusing that conservatives like to make that charge, that the Republican party is not racist because they stood up for African-Americans 140 years ago. Truth is, when Reconstruction ended in the South, even though the Republican party held political control of the country, their leadership kept silent on the issue. A blemish on both parties' records then, one that President Truman's integration of the military and President Eisenhower's enforcement of integration into Little Rock's schools sought to correct after over 70 years of injustice. Echoes of such policies remain in socioeconomic data and personal experiences today.
So stop with bashing different groups with this "I caught you!" mentality. Let's stop with those attempts to wittily put down the other group. (I know why you say "Barack Hussein Obama" or "John McCrazy." It's not funny. It's depraved.) Let's discuss important issues with one another, and give more in answer than the token, "Because I/random pundit/God think it's right." I want solutions, not self-infatuation.
... these letters give me a good heaping of "piss me off" at 8 AM. I've written about that before. But there was this recent rash of "Look here! Liberals!"
I don't consider myself a liberal. Not really. If we were to use that word to describe me, it would be extremely true for social issues. (Either homosexuals should be allowed to marry or government regulation of marriage should cease; abortion should be allowed but not encouraged, and compassion should be given to a woman no matter what choice she makes; sexual education is good for both encouraging abstinence and telling people how to take care of themselves should they have sex both within and outside of marriages; sacrificing a little liberty for a little security is a bad move; regulate immigration, but don't block it; sexism and racism are bad and things should be done about them; education for the win.)
On the other hand, I tend toward conservatism for economic issues. (We should be reducing gov't spending to balance the budget, so slash farm and industry subsidies; free trade agreements are good, with some given for retraining to those that lose their jobs as a result; why are you dropping interest rates and increasing spending with your stimulus package, even though your recommendation to all other nations going through such troubles is to decrease spending, as enforced by the World Bank and the IMF?; we should never enter into a war without a complete plan for how much we're willing to spend on it; reform Medicare and Social Security, and stop waffling on the subject.)
And on yet another hand, I don't know where I fit with some issues. (Foreign policy should be "common sense," that is, diplomatic solutions and not military threats in all cases but genocide and the use of military force; take care of the environment, and be open to suggestions about ways to reduce energy dependency (biofuels aren't necessarily the answer, nor is hydrogen, nor is nuclear, nor is reorganizing ourselves into a less travel-cumbersome nation, even if I like some of those suggestions); don't regulate our internet.)
There's more than that. But I haven't found a candidate that fits these really well. I'm too liberal on the one hand, a shade too conservative on the other. But thinking through the "liberal/conservative" spats makes my head spin. I don't say conservative as a dirty word (though I often sigh afterward). How can they do so with liberal (though I often sigh afterward)? Because I know what they're most fired up about are issues that I happen to disagree with them with. Which means that I'm a dirty word. And I don't want to be a dirty word.
I just want the letters section of the paper to be better than a YouTube comment page, or a facebook group message board. That's all. If people were pulling off the wit that thoughtful people 300 years ago could pull off (Jonathan Swift? Alexander Pope? Aphra Behn?), I would be pleasantly surprised. But there were fops then, there are fops today, and the good wits aren't writing into the Leaf-Chronicle.
And, on a more personal note, I find "John McCrazy" funny as a name, even though I like McCain and don't call him that, and wouldn't do so to discredit him.
Liberals, conservatives, and moderates. The three grand placeholders. Support one, tolerate another, villainize the rest. This has been the pattern of the letters [to the Leaf-Chronicle] in the past few days. I'm speaking as someone that doesn't fit any of those labels fully, and I know that doesn't mean I can't be criticized either.
I'm addressing the charges that liberals think they know what is best and that liberals are racist.
First, don't many people think they know what is best on both sides of that worn-out aisle? Presidents from Washington to Bush have signed legislation and vetoed it based on them assuming they "know what is best." How could someone propose to stand against homosexual marriage or sexual education unless they assumed that they knew what was best for those couples who choose to make either choice? How could someone possibly stand for surveillance and wiretapping unless they believe they know better what privacy rights are worth than the people who have those rights taken away?
Second, and more controversially, most people are racist. It isn't a white-only problem, but it's as much theirs as anyone else's. Most of us consciously try to not be racist or try to ignore racism with our silence on the subject, but it shows up. That examples of liberal racism come up does not make the ingrained examples of conservative racism go away. Nor does it excuse our day-to-day judgments and assessments based on race. Racial profiling? Done, even though it's a terrible way for a police force to function. Surveillance? Second-generation non-white citizens already have many of their rights against surveillance taken away by the Patriot Act. It's fine because our safety is secured, right? Even if it's at the expense of others' freedoms?
I find it amusing that conservatives like to make that charge, that the Republican party is not racist because they stood up for African-Americans 140 years ago. Truth is, when Reconstruction ended in the South, even though the Republican party held political control of the country, their leadership kept silent on the issue. A blemish on both parties' records then, one that President Truman's integration of the military and President Eisenhower's enforcement of integration into Little Rock's schools sought to correct after over 70 years of injustice. Echoes of such policies remain in socioeconomic data and personal experiences today.
So stop with bashing different groups with this "I caught you!" mentality. Let's stop with those attempts to wittily put down the other group. (I know why you say "Barack Hussein Obama" or "John McCrazy." It's not funny. It's depraved.) Let's discuss important issues with one another, and give more in answer than the token, "Because I/random pundit/God think it's right." I want solutions, not self-infatuation.
... these letters give me a good heaping of "piss me off" at 8 AM. I've written about that before. But there was this recent rash of "Look here! Liberals!"
I don't consider myself a liberal. Not really. If we were to use that word to describe me, it would be extremely true for social issues. (Either homosexuals should be allowed to marry or government regulation of marriage should cease; abortion should be allowed but not encouraged, and compassion should be given to a woman no matter what choice she makes; sexual education is good for both encouraging abstinence and telling people how to take care of themselves should they have sex both within and outside of marriages; sacrificing a little liberty for a little security is a bad move; regulate immigration, but don't block it; sexism and racism are bad and things should be done about them; education for the win.)
On the other hand, I tend toward conservatism for economic issues. (We should be reducing gov't spending to balance the budget, so slash farm and industry subsidies; free trade agreements are good, with some given for retraining to those that lose their jobs as a result; why are you dropping interest rates and increasing spending with your stimulus package, even though your recommendation to all other nations going through such troubles is to decrease spending, as enforced by the World Bank and the IMF?; we should never enter into a war without a complete plan for how much we're willing to spend on it; reform Medicare and Social Security, and stop waffling on the subject.)
And on yet another hand, I don't know where I fit with some issues. (Foreign policy should be "common sense," that is, diplomatic solutions and not military threats in all cases but genocide and the use of military force; take care of the environment, and be open to suggestions about ways to reduce energy dependency (biofuels aren't necessarily the answer, nor is hydrogen, nor is nuclear, nor is reorganizing ourselves into a less travel-cumbersome nation, even if I like some of those suggestions); don't regulate our internet.)
There's more than that. But I haven't found a candidate that fits these really well. I'm too liberal on the one hand, a shade too conservative on the other. But thinking through the "liberal/conservative" spats makes my head spin. I don't say conservative as a dirty word (though I often sigh afterward). How can they do so with liberal (though I often sigh afterward)? Because I know what they're most fired up about are issues that I happen to disagree with them with. Which means that I'm a dirty word. And I don't want to be a dirty word.
I just want the letters section of the paper to be better than a YouTube comment page, or a facebook group message board. That's all. If people were pulling off the wit that thoughtful people 300 years ago could pull off (Jonathan Swift? Alexander Pope? Aphra Behn?), I would be pleasantly surprised. But there were fops then, there are fops today, and the good wits aren't writing into the Leaf-Chronicle.
And, on a more personal note, I find "John McCrazy" funny as a name, even though I like McCain and don't call him that, and wouldn't do so to discredit him.
Mar 11, 2008
Games and Wanderings!
So this evening I went to play games at Bo's place.
He's one of the people that came to Card-board club (the gaming group), but stopped because of a class scheduled at that time. He always had some pretty unique games, and knew far more about the good ones. A good player, someone who wants to win, will grill you a bit playfully, but handles losing and winning alike gracefully. It took a bit to find his apartment, but I got there around 7, and Dylan arrived right after.
So it was Bo, his wife Amy, Dylan, and me. What did we play?
First, we played an interesting game called Pandemic It's a cooperative game where you're a CDC team trying to crack down on four separate outbreaks of disease. Each of you is a character (Medic, Scientist, Researcher, Operations Specialist, Dispatcher) with a certain special ability, and you are trying to keep the diseases suppressed until you research all four cures. Every turn, you move around a map of the world, stopping diseases and so on. Then you draw your two cards. Then you draw two, three, or four cities to put more disease in. If you drew an infection card from one of the decks, then there is a new pocket of disease to take care of. And... if a disease gets too much disease, it spreads to other cities, an outbreak. 8 or 9 outbreaks and you lose. If there's too much disease on the map, you lose. If you run out of cards to draw, you lose.
The first game, we had too many outbreaks. They just started cropping up faster than we could suppress them, caused partially by two infections in a row.
The second game was much better run. I was the scientist, which meant I could concoct cures faster. The game finally came down to the last four cards in the draw pile. We needed one more cure. So we had to work out a way to get the cards we needed to me, in a certain number of actions. Finally it worked out. Barely. All of Africa was diseased. North America wasn't much better off, and Europe was being overwhelmed. New York was on total quarantine and recovering, but Milan was a festering wound.
Anyway, then we played a recycling game, which Bo won in a tiebreaker with Dylan. Then Amy got tired and retired, and we played this German Yahtzee-like Bingo game. Bo beat me by two, because he had a phenomenal second round.
And finally we played Ticket to Ride, which I've played before. This time though, instead of using the continental United States, we used Switzerland! It's a game of building trains and connecting routes that fulfill your tickets to gain more points. Very simple to learn, but also quite strategic. And excellently made. I got lucky with the tickets I drew (a lot of them were part of the same route, so it didn't take much to fulfill them once I had one route finished), and so I ended up fulfilling ten of them, more than anyone else. My score was 113, compared to Dylan's 90-something and Bo being in the... high 70s, I think.
But yes, it was fun. Why "Wanderings" as the title, though?
Well, to get to Bo's place, I took the interstate. To go back, I went on roads, trying to reverse-engineer the directions he had provided. I didn't, but had an interesting ride anyhow. Things I saw:
A train crossing closed because a train was going across it.
A man on a bridge in a jacket blowing in the wind, lit by a spotlight, giving a news report.
Another campus of Pellissippi State.
A brief one-way street which required me to detour through a park to get around it.
... that's about it, actually, but it was interesting. I knew what direction I was going, and there were points (like when I hit S. Concord or Western Ave.) when I knew where I was, or at least the street I was on, but then I would try going my meandering way again. I ended up going around to the far side of campus and coming back, but it was fine. And fun.
He's one of the people that came to Card-board club (the gaming group), but stopped because of a class scheduled at that time. He always had some pretty unique games, and knew far more about the good ones. A good player, someone who wants to win, will grill you a bit playfully, but handles losing and winning alike gracefully. It took a bit to find his apartment, but I got there around 7, and Dylan arrived right after.
So it was Bo, his wife Amy, Dylan, and me. What did we play?
First, we played an interesting game called Pandemic It's a cooperative game where you're a CDC team trying to crack down on four separate outbreaks of disease. Each of you is a character (Medic, Scientist, Researcher, Operations Specialist, Dispatcher) with a certain special ability, and you are trying to keep the diseases suppressed until you research all four cures. Every turn, you move around a map of the world, stopping diseases and so on. Then you draw your two cards. Then you draw two, three, or four cities to put more disease in. If you drew an infection card from one of the decks, then there is a new pocket of disease to take care of. And... if a disease gets too much disease, it spreads to other cities, an outbreak. 8 or 9 outbreaks and you lose. If there's too much disease on the map, you lose. If you run out of cards to draw, you lose.
The first game, we had too many outbreaks. They just started cropping up faster than we could suppress them, caused partially by two infections in a row.
The second game was much better run. I was the scientist, which meant I could concoct cures faster. The game finally came down to the last four cards in the draw pile. We needed one more cure. So we had to work out a way to get the cards we needed to me, in a certain number of actions. Finally it worked out. Barely. All of Africa was diseased. North America wasn't much better off, and Europe was being overwhelmed. New York was on total quarantine and recovering, but Milan was a festering wound.
Anyway, then we played a recycling game, which Bo won in a tiebreaker with Dylan. Then Amy got tired and retired, and we played this German Yahtzee-like Bingo game. Bo beat me by two, because he had a phenomenal second round.
And finally we played Ticket to Ride, which I've played before. This time though, instead of using the continental United States, we used Switzerland! It's a game of building trains and connecting routes that fulfill your tickets to gain more points. Very simple to learn, but also quite strategic. And excellently made. I got lucky with the tickets I drew (a lot of them were part of the same route, so it didn't take much to fulfill them once I had one route finished), and so I ended up fulfilling ten of them, more than anyone else. My score was 113, compared to Dylan's 90-something and Bo being in the... high 70s, I think.
But yes, it was fun. Why "Wanderings" as the title, though?
Well, to get to Bo's place, I took the interstate. To go back, I went on roads, trying to reverse-engineer the directions he had provided. I didn't, but had an interesting ride anyhow. Things I saw:
A train crossing closed because a train was going across it.
A man on a bridge in a jacket blowing in the wind, lit by a spotlight, giving a news report.
Another campus of Pellissippi State.
A brief one-way street which required me to detour through a park to get around it.
... that's about it, actually, but it was interesting. I knew what direction I was going, and there were points (like when I hit S. Concord or Western Ave.) when I knew where I was, or at least the street I was on, but then I would try going my meandering way again. I ended up going around to the far side of campus and coming back, but it was fine. And fun.
Mar 1, 2008
So That's the Catch
So I wanted to stall before I got started on some of my work (I'd already been doing some, so it qualifies as a break). I saw on the side of a website an internet ad, advertising a free Nintendo Wii, DS Lite, and game for participating in product research. Uh-huh. Sure. But I decided I'd experience the scam anyway.
First, the website was pretty well-designed. I mean, it was sleek. It constantly kept the images of those game systems tantalizingly on top of the screen.
A fake name, address, phone number, and age later, I was in.
First, it explained that I would have to completely fill out six online offers. Before that would be a product survey, which said it would be 12 questions.
Wrong. There were at least twice as many, because on many of the questions, they would double up, triple up, ask six questions in one. And all the questions were clearly not of a survey basis. "Are you looking for car insurance?" was the most innocuous, embedded amongst questions like, "Do you want to try this free trial of ______?"
Okay, I say. It isn't making me agree to any of these, so where's the cost?
Then it starts out with the offers. It looks like you have to pay a dollar here, some postage there, no big deal. Then the second one comes up. Again, there are a few offers that look a little costly, like about $10 or so, but you're getting a package that is probably valued at around $450. You're still making off good.
Then you have to accept two out of three of the third offer. Two of them are mattresses or furniture that cost at least $1000. Oh. I see now.
Now, let's assume for a moment that they fully intend to keep their promise (something I inherently doubt, but nonetheless...). They would have me pay that much for some expensive furnishings that I cannot even properly look over before I buy them? And then, even if the furnishings were were that much, and I were planning to buy them anyway, they don't make the exchange clear up front, and instead require you to sell out your address, phone number, and some consumer data, not to mention what their cookie gets off of this computer (which is fortunately a lab computer).
I would have to wonder about the profitability of such a venture briefly, but I guess it isn't that strange, because they are probably making money just from royalties getting people to fill out offers in the first two steps, who when they see the outrageous priced items turn away. That way, the website owner seldom has to furnish a Wii, which may indeed be an unattractive option for them, because they're probably not getting that much for the $2000 total cheap furniture.
It is a crafty scheme, and the only good way to avoid it is to not fall for the lure in the first place. Do we really think our statistical data is worth that much? If it is, do we really think people will offer that much to get it?
In another way, what are we paying in order to get something? Until someone comes and puts the system into my hands, leaves, and never asks for anything ever again, it's not free. Benevolence, when it does happen, happens on better bases than giving me something for free. And when they demand that you pay even a pittance for it after calling it free, we should be more wary.
I wonder about this entire setup now. They frame it so that the only logical response to such a high cost suddenly introduced - to break the contract by not filling out the last offer, results in them having to give nothing, when the other side has already given quite a bit and comes away with a loss. It isn't ethical.
I suspect that these sites are run by either opportunistic individuals that see no reason why they shouldn't take advantage of the unwary, or small firms that revel in the shady side anyway.
First, the website was pretty well-designed. I mean, it was sleek. It constantly kept the images of those game systems tantalizingly on top of the screen.
A fake name, address, phone number, and age later, I was in.
First, it explained that I would have to completely fill out six online offers. Before that would be a product survey, which said it would be 12 questions.
Wrong. There were at least twice as many, because on many of the questions, they would double up, triple up, ask six questions in one. And all the questions were clearly not of a survey basis. "Are you looking for car insurance?" was the most innocuous, embedded amongst questions like, "Do you want to try this free trial of ______?"
Okay, I say. It isn't making me agree to any of these, so where's the cost?
Then it starts out with the offers. It looks like you have to pay a dollar here, some postage there, no big deal. Then the second one comes up. Again, there are a few offers that look a little costly, like about $10 or so, but you're getting a package that is probably valued at around $450. You're still making off good.
Then you have to accept two out of three of the third offer. Two of them are mattresses or furniture that cost at least $1000. Oh. I see now.
Now, let's assume for a moment that they fully intend to keep their promise (something I inherently doubt, but nonetheless...). They would have me pay that much for some expensive furnishings that I cannot even properly look over before I buy them? And then, even if the furnishings were were that much, and I were planning to buy them anyway, they don't make the exchange clear up front, and instead require you to sell out your address, phone number, and some consumer data, not to mention what their cookie gets off of this computer (which is fortunately a lab computer).
I would have to wonder about the profitability of such a venture briefly, but I guess it isn't that strange, because they are probably making money just from royalties getting people to fill out offers in the first two steps, who when they see the outrageous priced items turn away. That way, the website owner seldom has to furnish a Wii, which may indeed be an unattractive option for them, because they're probably not getting that much for the $2000 total cheap furniture.
It is a crafty scheme, and the only good way to avoid it is to not fall for the lure in the first place. Do we really think our statistical data is worth that much? If it is, do we really think people will offer that much to get it?
In another way, what are we paying in order to get something? Until someone comes and puts the system into my hands, leaves, and never asks for anything ever again, it's not free. Benevolence, when it does happen, happens on better bases than giving me something for free. And when they demand that you pay even a pittance for it after calling it free, we should be more wary.
I wonder about this entire setup now. They frame it so that the only logical response to such a high cost suddenly introduced - to break the contract by not filling out the last offer, results in them having to give nothing, when the other side has already given quite a bit and comes away with a loss. It isn't ethical.
I suspect that these sites are run by either opportunistic individuals that see no reason why they shouldn't take advantage of the unwary, or small firms that revel in the shady side anyway.
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