Month: January 2007

I’m back from my short trip to Sydney. I was there for a brief (4 day) intense training course for a company I expect to work for. I wasn’t sure if I was allowed to take photos, so I didn’t end up taking any. (That’s my excuse anyway).

On very short notice (and in my few hours of spare time), I managed to catch up with John (from ViSLAB), as well as my sister and brother. I also managed to catch up with being sick (which I haven’t done for quite a while) and I’ve still got some sort of cold/flu/cough (a lot of phelgm is involved at any rate).

Righteo… back to convalescing.

I’ll be away for a week… but I promise to return with photos. 🙂

Barack Obama has announced his intent to contest the US Presidency in 2008. Officially he is announcing his intent to form a Presidential Exploratory Commitee, but this is just the American way of saying he plans to run for President:

(Transcript also available.)

Preemptive Fox propaganda after the jump.

Continue reading “Barack Obama announces”

David just called me with this incredible news: Konami has just confirmed that Hideo Kojima will be speaking at the GO3 conference! No details are yet available on the GO3 website, but a picture and bio should appear shortly after they are received from Konami.

This is huge news for the conference and Perth as Kojima is a prominent figure in the game industry. Many western gamers probably came to know of Kojima after playing Metal Gear Solid, which was a landmark title for the original Playstation. I’m ecstatic! This is a unique opportunity for game developers (or aspiring game developers) in Australia to see Kojima speak.

Note: In related news, a preliminary schedule for the GO3 conference is now online (not yet including Kojima), and the Early Bird registration period has been extended to February 15. There is also a new Student Budget Pass available (made possible by making catering optional).

It was too much of a time commitment for me to keep writing for Aeropause, so I stopped. Shane, the editor-in-chief, is very personable and was very understanding. If anyone reading this has the time to write for a gaming blog, I’d recommend sending your details to Aeropause.

It was a great experience, but I’m not sure that I’m cut out for the blog-style reporting. I think that the most successful gaming blogs relay information on a very tight schedule. Ideally, contributors should be posting multiple times a day and offering recent news coverage with a unique angle.

Of secondary importance (at least for new blogs) is new content such as editorials and considered commentary. These establish the site as unique and can further solidify the community of readers. Unfortunately, new content takes time to write and can sometimes be lost within the tidal wave of news stories.

My favourite posts

My posts to Aeropause were generally unique content because I wasn’t really interested in news reporting. Not that I think it isn’t important! The other Aeropause writers do an excellent job reporting on up-to-the-minute news, but I chose to focus on articles. Here are a few of my favourite posts (including various comments from readers).

Generic Video Game Blog Post!

Christ, you got that blogosphere down to the smallest detail.

The Wii is Obviously Not Just A GameCube

You’re pretty much the only site covering it this way. Good on you for an original presentation

Nintendo Viral Marketing Conspiracy?

I have it on good authority that Reggie helped plan the faking of the moon landing…

The Colour of Next-Gen Gaming?

This article should be deleted, at least thats my point of view… still it is making us think a bit more about it… mmm

The Colour of (A Lot of High Profile) Next-Gen Games

i think the topic shouldnt be about the colortones of these games but rather the “setting” of the game… cliche’ “post apocolyptic” or “desolate future

My article series

I wrote two article series for Aeropause, each discussing how games are changing and where they may be headed. My first series, The Changing Face of Gaming, was fairly alarmist to jarr people into considering what is happening in the current marketplace. It was made up of three articles:

• Death of a Salesman: What happens to retailers when most games are distributed online?
• Death of a Collector: What happens to casual game collectors when old games are emulated and new games need to be patched?
• Death of the Disconnected Gamer: Is offline play really possible in future? Will stereotypes die if gaming becomes truly mainstream?

My second series, An Alternative Future, was kind of a call-to-arms for the gamers (consumers) to assert themselves in the conversation with producers that happens everytime they decide to buy a game. I wrote it almost as a response to how futile the first series felt.

• Don’t Buy Horse Armour!: Online distribution is a new market without established price points. Consumers need to assert their position to negotiate reasonable terms.
• Don’t Give Away Your Content: If they want to charge you for their content, expect something in return for your content.
• Why Do We Always Play At Your House?: Is it a good idea for gamers to be dependant on servers run by console manufacturers or game publishers? (What happened to community servers and peer-to-peer?)

I wish all the best for Aeropause. They have a great team of writers who are all true gamers. They also have a number of dedicated readers who have made my efforts feel appreciated and worthwhile! Thanks! 🙂

Share the truth is a website that aims to get An Inconvenient Truth DVDs into the hands of as many people as possible. You can either register for a free DVD to be sent to you or donate money to help send DVDs to registrants. I haven’t seen the film, so I registered for a free copy.

It seems that demand is much stronger than supply, but the project organisers reckon that this is a visibility issue. I’m not entirely sure… I’d assume that it’s simply that people are more eager to register for free DVDs rather than donate money.

I wonder why the idea is to send people new DVDs? Wouldn’t it be cheaper and produce less waste to getting people who have received DVDs to return them so they can be sent to other people? It doesn’t have to be mandatory, but I’m sure that a fair amount of people would be happy to send the DVDs back.

Found via reddit. Keep reading for a trailer for the movie.

Continue reading “Share the truth”

Sometimes in order to get people to act against an injustice, one needs to demonstrate how it affects them personally. I’m not talking about “what if something similar happened to you”, I’m talking about “you’ll really feel the effects of the war when petrol prices go up”.

It’s not usually something as trivial as petrol prices. You might have to say things like “the invasian of Iraq will fuel hatred and aggrevate would-be terrorists” indicating that it will ultimately make life less safe (rather than asserting that invading and occupying another country is simply wrong). Or maybe “intensive farming methods could result in contamination of our food supply” (rather than asserting that animals should not have to endure such appalling living conditions). It seems that we are more easily swayed by arguments that something is impractical or unwise, rather than simply unethical.

It’s selfish and prejudiced to make a moral decision based on how it affects you. You also shouldn’t assume an alterior motive when someone makes a moral argument (in order to deride the argument as self-serving). Arguments should be judged on their own merit, not by what someone wants to get out of it.

Are we really so immoral that injustice needs to have clear negative implications for us before we do anything about it?

On the other hand, is scare-mongering (rather than presenting an argument based on ethics) offensive to our potential for moral character?

Wikipedia is “the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit“. As a result, it has at times come under pretty heavy criticism for being very subjective compared to traditional encyclopedias. To counter this argument, many Wikipedia die-hards assert that opinions and inappropriate content are quickly removed.

I’ve collected here a few screenshots, links, and fake quotations (my guess as to the thought process behind various Wikipedia contributions) illustrating the introduction and subsequent removal of casual subjectivity on a Wikipedia article.

Hmmm. I’ll add my personal opinion to this article… is that wrong? I know I’ll add a smilie so that people aren’t offended.

>

What’s with that smilie? How immature. I’ll fix this article up!… that’s how you spell definitely right?

What the hell is that?! Stupid immature people screwing around with my Wikipedia! If this happens again, I’ll block their asses!

So it seems that for every person who wants to write “OMG! He is so totally awesome!” on the Wikipedia page of their favourite celebrity, there is some finger-wagger waiting to pounce! Let’s hear it for the finger-waggers! (Seriously)

A number of the members of OneTwenty are working on a simple video game entry for next year’s Nullarbor Demo Party and Game Development Competition (which we are also helping to organise). Minh recently made a Call to Arms on her new blog.

The game is (tentatively) called “Spider” and will be a simple 2D game in which you control a spider, keeping it alive (hopefully) long enough for it to reproduce. The design document is pretty (okay, very) sparse at the moment. I have to send Minh the drawings I made for the Nullarbor Mixer last month.

Here’s a spider video for inspiration. It explains the effects of various drugs on the types of webs that spiders make… and it’s very insightful. This phenomenon is detailed on the Wikipedia spider web page. Photos of various webs are available here.

Video found via reddit.