Clearly not working

Months apart, there is no hope for readership if there is no authorship - if that's even a word, I still don't have a dictionary. That was part of the idea (since it was never close to being a plan), create language related rants, sociological rants, philosophical rants - basically ranting. And maybe reviews, as at the time the idea occurred I actually had three brand new games that I would've been able to prattle on about in order to get some hits on search engines and maybe make money from advertising, which you'll be able to see a few posts down as there was really nothing to talk about or at the very least nothing that could motivate me in the slightest to actually apply the effort required to begin let alone complete something that others would consider to be worthwhile reading material that might possibly provoke some semblance of thought or even a little amusement that would idle away a few minutes of an otherwise boring dull tedious monotonous repetitive... awake time... You don't have to read this during the day after all...

Well at least so far I've avoided filling the screen with swear words.

Objective Analysis

Clearly unable to update frequently. Nothing pertinent to say, although apparently I could be classified as having any one of four personality disorders. Rather makes me question whether psychology should be labelled as "science", as it's more like cumulative educated guesses. I suppose if I intend to try to attempt to consider maybe posting here more often I need to actually think of something worth taking the time to work on.

For anyone (really?) who is interested: Borderline, Avoidant, Depressive and Schizoid. None fully, but elements of them all. Typical me, never one of anything, even myself.

Making the grade

Semester and subject over, results finally in. Apparently got a Distinction for my lack of efforts and constant complaining. This world does not make sense.

So as a strange place to maybe start posting here, I thought I'd share something with any random stranger in the world who might happen by:

I feel like I'm waiting for something that I know isn't going to happen. Like the world is going to end but I'm somehow not permitted to go nuts and enjoy myself. So I sit here, stuck, waiting for an end without an expectation of its arrival.

Perhaps that was not as profound as I thought, certainly wasn't as eloquent as I might have liked. Confused? Me too.

Maybe if I start posting crap here people might start reading it, maybe I can "monetise" my entries and make some cash off of idiots willing to click on advertising floating all over the page.

I'm sure everyone is holding their breath...

Week 10 - Better Late?

I doubt it, but anyway as per my threat, as list of links that I will be utilising for the purposes of constructing my essay, just to give me access to them while writing. And yes - I'm lazy.

So lazy that I'm not doing this - I'll just post my essay with reference list after I'm done, which could happen any time, really.

Week 10 - Cyberpunked

Suggesting that fantasy has won is ignoring the wonder of the internet, seeing as how you can find an audience for anything here. Not to mention the fact that the popularity of various genres of entertainment seems to go in cycles - like pirate movies (by which I mean movies about pirates on the high seas of the 16th and 17th centuries, maybe even later) and anyway I did mention it...

Temerity arises when no one is looking so this post will be offensively perfunctory. Other post to be a list of links to sources for the essay, and yes I'm aware of the date.

Week 9 1/2 - Not a reference to that movie as I've never seen it

So here is my lame attempt at a video project - as I found that I had actually made things difficult for myself with the amount of editing that needed to be done and the video became too long and my microphone was acting up so instead of a voice over I put stupid subtitles which means some of the cuts are too brief to read them properly while others are a little too long. Anyway, it's machinima, the theme of the video may not be quite as apparent with the text, so it's about, well, a nightmare, which is about perception of reality and interaction between people and what can seem normal to one person or a group. Well, try to enjoy it, or don't, whatever.

EDIT: Video removed in an attempt to placate the Adsense people complaining about copyright material on this blog.

Week 9 - Fascist Democracy

Post to come later, just didn't want to forget the title. Also video needs to be done. If this is me reading this, why aren't you finishing this?

Because I'm a procrastinator. So depending on what you would consider my polical beliefs to be, one might suggest I can't do any of those and stick to them. Or all of them, as long as I'm the one telling myself to do them... Wait I'm confusing myself. I suppose the main point I'd like to make about "internet democracy" is that is not what it claims to be. Whether it be the coding language to program websites and pages, or the little clique communities that crop up everywhere, someone else will be dictating the rules to you. Even this page you're reading is for people like me who couldn't be bothered learning how to make our own website, so we have to follow the rules of the host. I could rant on but I'd run out of space. As a funny side note - the "Military Entertainment Complex" reading talks about the war in Iraq as being scripted like a Hollywood blockbuster, yet - perhaps due to being published before the war ended - omits the comic twist of the US government's failure to cover up the fact that they never found any WMD, you know, the whole premise of the invasion and all that?

Well, I thought it was funny.

Week 9 - Plots & Plans

Well I think it's obvious that I will be examining whether video games have a negative impact on the player. Not exactly original. However, I do think that a broader definition of "negative impact" is required - popular media loves to play on the "violent video games make violent people" stance. While this cannot be ignored, I prefer to find scientific studies rather than anecdotal evidence. And more than just the violent games breeding violence (which of course the major question is "how") I intend to examine potential negative physiological impacts, resulting from more innocuous situations, such as bad posture leading to neck and shoulder pain, carpal tunnel, eye damage, epileptic seizures and so forth. Beyond the fear mongering, is gaming (not just violent action games, but addictive casual games) having a measurable negative impact on the players? As for my position - hell yes it's having a negative impact, even though that's just my piece at the moment, soon there will be some actual evidence to back it up - I hope.

Week 8 - Ownership

From a legal standpoint, I have no idea whether I can be classified as the owner of the video I'm producing. The specific edit of the clips will be mine, the narration voice over will be mine. Clearly the game that the clips are captured from is not mine - although I own a copy, it doesn't make me the creative possessor of the game's content. This begs the question of whether or not the video will be taken down due to legal copyright concerns. Apparently as long as I use no more than ten percent of the total content of the game in the video, I should be safe. And given how much content there is in New Vegas, I don't think a minute or two of clips will come anywhere near one percent, let alone ten. I still haven't actually explored the entirety of what's available in the game, and I've racked up at least 160 hours playing it. Granted I tend to play most elements repeatedly, but my point still stands - please don't sue me for copyright violations. There will be credits, the producers of the game will be acknowledged as such, more to the point I'm not profiting from this video, I'm not selling it, it's for assessment at university. I'm poor and unemployed, there is no money to be had from me.

Week 8 - Creatively Common

As the Doctorow reading points out, the real problem arising from traditional copyright laws is that on the internet, they are largely unenforceable. I imagine that as an extension of that, the only way to track violators of copyright laws would be to violate privacy laws. Not only as a moral debate but as a legal debate, is the chasing down of what might turn out to be the majority of the population legal or even practical? Big companies that want to sue pirates for millions in damages are ultimately alienating their consumers and also removing their ability to be a consumer. If I were sued into bankruptcy and destitution I've lost my ability to be a legitimate consumer, therefore I've lost incentive to avoid piracy. As a creator however, what concerns me more than the thought of someone else making money off my work (which would be the situation as a published author, if I ever finished anything) I despair at the thought of someone taking credit for my work and ideas, claiming them as their own, so I find that the creative commons revolution is something of a progressive step, as long as the author of borrowed work is acknowledged, we're getting somewhere.