How the iPod is Killing Political Discourse
Posted: December 7, 2012 Filed under: Culture, Internet, Politics | Tags: America, compromise, culture, digital media, internet, iPod, life, media, politics, society, technology 1 CommentI was discussing gun control with My Not So Humble Wife the other night, and something strange happened. She’s mostly libertarian like me, but unlike myself, she actually believes in putting certain limitations on gun ownership. Tanks, for example, are straight off her list for private ownership (no, I am not kidding, this was a serious part of the discussion). I personally see no problem with it for several good and sundry reasons that I won’t get into now, so she upped the ante to nuclear weapons. I couldn’t name even a theoretical reason why someone might want a nuke (self-defense? sport? cocktail party conversation starter?), and I had to concede that even my tank argument didn’t apply. Let’s face it, if you need a nuke to defend yourself against the government, the situation is already well beyond salvageable.
This is when things got weird: we talked it out and came to a reasonable solution we could both be okay with. She conceded that the government didn’t need to have gun registration laws (it’s no business of theirs who owns which guns), and I conceded that certain classes of people (namely felons) shouldn’t be allowed to buy guns, so background checks are acceptable. I couldn’t get her to budge on non-violent felons, but my big beef there is with drug laws, and that’s a different issue anyway, so I was willing to concede the point. We also both agreed that waiting periods should be abolished, because the technology exists to do immediate background checks, and those checks should be done everywhere, including gun shows.
What’s so weird about all of this? Watch fifteen minutes, or even five minutes, of political television and then ask me that question again. Granted, we came from roughly the same starting place, but we still had some strong views that we disagreed on, and we both gave a little to get to something we could agree with. It’s called “compromise”, for those of you too young to remember what it looks like. And I blame the iPod for its absence in contemporary politics.
Sounds crazy, right? Bear with me for a little while and you’ll understand. When I was a kid, we had one TV in the house (well, two, but the one in the basement was tiny, black and white, and got crap reception, so it doesn’t count). It got exactly two channels: whatever my sister and I could agree on, and whatever Dad decided to put on when he got home. Occasionally, when I was very lucky, my sister would be at a friend’s house before my folks got home and I would have a few hours of TV to myself, but that was a rare luxury and one I didn’t count on.
Growing up like that I had to learn the art of compromise. Granted it usually involved a lot of yelling, screaming, cursing, and more than a little hitting, but that’s politics for you. What I didn’t learn was an attitude of entitlement, one that said I could have whatever I want whenever I want and everyone else could go suck an egg. That all changed when the iPod came along.
Don’t get me wrong, the iPod was and remains one of the greatest inventions in human history. The chance to have your music, your way, whenever you want wherever you want is a glorious thing. But it shapes expectations; people become accustomed to having what they want, without having to negotiate with others. It’s not like the boom boxes and ghetto blasters I had as a kid, when “sharing” music was a very immediate and sometimes involuntary experience. Facebook and other social media have only exacerbated the phenomenon; people choose the stories they want to hear, and they shape the media they are exposed to before and as much as the media shapes them.
This sort of “a la carte media” has expanded into all aspects of life. If you can’t find a cable channel that caters to your specific tastes, there’s a YouTube channel that will. Streaming radio will introduce you to new music, unless you skip past a song you decide you don’t like in the first few beats. And there’s a website out there dedicated to every conspiracy theory known to man, and a few that aren’t.
What is the net result on politics? The politicians we elect reflect the media of our time. It used to be that politicians were like mass media: they appealed to broad demographics, even to the point of being criticized for chasing “the lowest common denominator”. But hey, at least they were accessible to everyone. Now every politician is like a personalized playlist, narrowly targeting key demographics with a hyper-partisan message, and who can blame them? The electronic graffiti that litters the walls of our social media pages screams for it, begs for it, demands the same hyper-partisan rhetoric they are only too happy to deliver. If we aren’t getting the politicians we want it’s only because we’re getting the politicians we’ve been asking for, and maybe deserve.
Tuesday Bonus Post: The Dark Side of the Wall
Posted: November 20, 2012 Filed under: Culture, Internet | Tags: culture, Dark Side of the Moon, digital media, entertainment, internet, language, Nick Montfort, Pink Floyd, poetry, pop culture, popular culture, Taroko Gorge, The Wall 1 CommentFor those who might be interested, I’m taking a class on rhetoric and digital media, and as a class project had to create a piece of digital art. I decided to do a digital poem that was a riff on Taroko Gorge by Nick Montfort. It’s my own mash-up of Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side of the Moon and The Wall, rather appropriately titled The Dark Side of the Wall. Fell free to have a look, critique it, love it, hate it, just tell me what you think in the comments.
WTFMMOFPS?
Posted: November 9, 2012 Filed under: Culture, Internet | Tags: culture, entertainment, FPS, gaming, internet, MMO, pop culture, popular culture, reviews, video games 8 CommentsIt’s not like I’m some sort of newb: my first gaming console was an Atari 2600. I’ve played most of the consoles since then, and I’ve owned every iteration of Playstation and Xbox that has ever existed, as well as most of the Nintendo consoles. I’ve had a computer since x86 was even a designation, and “baud” was a word. I get gaming. Believe me. I’ve loved it, hated it, and been thrilled and frustrated by it. I just don’t think gaming gets me anymore.
For those of you who only started playing video games in the mid to late nineties (or heaven forbid, since Facebook and cell phones made video games acceptable), let me describe to you what gaming used to be like. You would sit in a room, usually by yourself, and you would put the game in. It would start up, you would play for anywhere from a few minutes to a few days (depending on your endurance and the size of your bladder), and then you would pass out. If you were really lucky and you were playing the right kind of game, you might have a friend to play with. If you were unlucky, you had a sibling you had to share with (hi, Jen). That was about it.
Somewhere along the line somebody got the idea of creating multiplayer games in a very real way. I’m not clear on exactly when this happened (I blame Doom), because they didn’t dominate the world of gaming for a long time. They coexisted, out there but not overshadowing traditional gaming. At least to the best of my knowledge not before Everquest came along (colloquially known as Evercrack). I lost a lot of good friends to Evercrack, mostly because I just never saw the appeal. It seemed more like a job than a game, spending all of your time “grinding” (that would be doing senseless and boring tasks for in-game currency to buy in-game items or achieve other in-game objectives) so you could get to a point where you could, I dunno, play the game. And it was always a matter of keeping up with the Joneses.
Then I discovered City of Heroes. This is a massively mutiplayer online game in which you get to play a super hero, and it was tailor made for me. My wife became a gaming widow for about a year. She finally got me back when she lured me into World of Warcraft, which had taken over from Everquest as the fantasy MMO equivalent of crack. She got tired of it; I didn’t. At least, not for a long time. It took a lot of grinding, foul language, and downright immaturity that I would be shocked to hear from an 11-year old boy to finally get me to quit. Two years of that later I finally went cold turkey. I’ve been clean for about six months now, and I’ve discovered something: there’s no games left for me.
See, here’s the problem. I never liked first person shooters (Doom, I’m looking at you again). I just never got the whole “twitch-twitch-flinch-twitch-this is fun!” thing. And I’m done with MMOs. It’s not the games; it’s the players. I just can’t tolerate their bullshit. For the right game I’ll pay every month (although that did grate on me, I won’t lie), but as City of Heroes found out, the free to play model isn’t enough to keep you going when the content isn’t there and the jerk-to-fun ratio is jacked up to 11.
But when I go to look for a nice, simple game, something like the games of my youth, they all seem to be gone. Note I didn’t say “easy”. Anyone who wants to claim that Metroid or even Super Mario World was easy has either a short memory or way too much time or their hands. But I don’t want to have to invest three days learning the control scheme. I don’t want to have to do mental and physical gymnastics to control my character (Wii, Kinnect, I’m looking at you this time). Even the franchises I used to love have confused added complexity for improvement. I loved Civilization. Civilization II may well have been the pinnacle of game making. Civ III was so convoluted and confusing I couldn’t even finish a game on the easiest setting. I hear they’re up to 5 now. Good for them. I wouldn’t even give them 5 bucks for it.
How about a basic platformer with some deep story? I’d love to see a great RPG that I can sit down and play for hours, not sit down and watch for hours a la Final Fantasy 13, which was so painful I couldn’t get through the first two hours, which translated to roughly fifteen minutes of actual gameplay. How about instead of adding bad multiplayer, you take the time to program the game such that I can choose between playing it FPS or strategic (Fallout 3, I’m talking to you). How about just once, you deliver a game experience that maybe isn’t all about the hottest graphics and coolest sound, and instead rewards me with gameplay so compelling, so rich, so intuitive and fun that I want to come back again and again, and I’m actually willing to pay twenty dollars more for extra content, because the original game was JUST THAT GOOD?
Oh, and how about not forcing me to be online just to play a single player game, Blizzard? ‘Cause, yeah, that’s bullshit.
Why Can’t Johnny Read a Job Listing?
Posted: October 29, 2012 Filed under: Culture, Internet | Tags: advice, culture, etiquette, internet, jobs, technology 3 CommentsI’ve noticed a disturbing trend in hiring lately, and I feel it is my job, nay, my calling to bring it to the attention of you, my faithful readers. I believe that this is a challenge that we need to address as a nation, else we will never be able to rise out of the economic mire we find ourselves in. That challenge is the apparent inability of our working age youth to actually read a job listing.
What leads me to this conclusion is the never-ending wave of applicants I have been getting lately who are under the impression that they can (a) work remotely or (b) work in a full-time position while attending school full-time. While I admit the latter has been done before and will be done again, the fact is that none of the people who I have interviewed thus far have been looking to attend classes at night, on the weekend, or in any other capacity than the way they always have, during the day and on their campus. Let me note, for the record, that the job listings in question have two commonalities: they are for PAID internships, and they explicitly state that they require the candidate to be present during normal business hours. (Yes, we do list the address of our business on our website. In several places. On every page, in fact.)
So can someone please explain to me why it is that almost every applicant makes a point of the fact that they want to work remotely, and almost every one of them seems to want to work in this role while attending school full-time on the same schedule they always have? I understand the world is moving toward “telecommuting”; point of fact, it has been doing so since I first started college… twenty years ago (I just recently had my high school reunion). There are some things that have not yet changed, are not likely to ever change, and if they do change that change is not going to start with an intern, especially if I’m paying them. If you happen to know someone, or even ARE someone looking for an internship or other entry-level position, please share the following tips about why telecommuting isn’t in the cards in the near future.
- Sometimes things come up that I need you physically present for. Even in jobs that deal with “teh interwebs” there are things like meetings, strategy sessions, or even just the occasional random task that I will need you to be present for. Yes, I have heard of Skype. I’ve even used it a few times. Perhaps you’ve heard of “limited bandwidth”. We pay for what we have, and I don’t want to spend it on you.
- Showing up every day proves I can trust you. Right now I have no reason to, because I don’t know you, and I’m taking a risk on you. This is the case with any new hire, from the CEO on down. The difference between the CEO and you is somewhere in the vicinity of twenty years of work experience and a few pages of references. And she shows up every day, usually before you do.
- In the same vein, when you show up, I get a sense of your behavior and demeanor. I am entrusting you with tasks that I expect you to handle in a professional manner. In order to build confidence in your ability to do so, your professional dress and behavior go a long way toward that. Showing up on time and staying all day also help. When you work remotely, it is a sign of trust; for all I know you’re sitting around in your bathrobe playing “Angry Birds” all day.
- Finally, and I can’t emphasize this enough, it doesn’t matter why I want you to show up. I am hiring you, not the other way around. Even if this were an unpaid internship, if you want the job, you get it on my terms. If you like what you are getting out of it, you take it; if not, you don’t. That logic is the same whether you are a cashier at a grocery store or the president of a Fortune 500 company. And quite frankly, in this economy I really don’t see someone going out for an internship being in a position to negotiate, especially not on this essential point.
Maybe I’m being too unforgiving, maybe I’m expecting too much. Certainly if I can’t find someone to take the job as offered I’ll have to re-evaluate my expectations and decide if I need to change the offer, or if I even need an intern that badly. But that’s for me to decide, not you. Until I do, you’re not doing yourself any favors asking for a job I’m not offering; you’re just getting yourself a one-way ticket to Trashcan Town, population: your resume.
Life Is A Game. What Achievements Have You Unlocked?
Posted: September 10, 2012 Filed under: Culture, Humor, Internet | Tags: achievements, comedy, culture, games, humor, internet, pop culture 1 CommentH/T to Barnaby Felton. He posted this on Facebook a while back and it got me thinking. If life were a game, what achievements would it have? Even better, what achievements SHOULD it have? And which ones would I have unlocked by now? Which ones would I be looking forward to?
Below is my list of achievements, first the ones I’ve already earned and then the ones I’m still working on (or never intend to get, but just love the idea of). They’re not always things I’m necessarily proud of, mind you, but sometimes survival is an achievement all its own. I encourage you to submit your own in the comments, but please do your best to follow form. Give it a title and a description, and where possible be creative.
Unlocked Achievements
Level 20 – Turn 20 years old
Level 30 – Turn 30 years old
Man’s Best Friend – Own (or be owned by) a dog
Cat’s Cradle – Own (or be owned by) a cat
Full of Pride – Own (or be owned by) more than one cat at once
Yakety Yak – Do chores for your parents
Let’s Do the Time Warp Again – See the Rocky Horror Picture Show in the theater at least twice
Up the Creek – Go camping
Drinks Are On Me – Turn the legal drinking age in your country or state
Fade to Black – Drink so much that you pass out
You Can’t Handle the Truth! – Get caught in a blatant lie
And the Oscar Goes To… – Make a scene in public
Wage Slave – get a job
Tithing to Uncle Sam – Pay income taxes
Hate the Playa – Badmouth an ex
Hate the Game – Swear off dating for at least six months
I Put a Ring On It – Get married
Hey Mo(hawk)! – Have a mohawk
In the Midnight Hour, She Cried Mo(hawk), Mo(hawk), Mo(hawk) – Have more than one color of
mohawk at some point in your life
Bob Dobbs – Be accused of being a slacker
Part of the System – Vote in a government election
I Demand a Recount! – Have your candidate lose in a government election
Y’ain’t From Round Here, Are Ya? – Move at least 500 miles for work or school
Under The Bridge – Deliberately troll someone online
Achievements I’m Still Working On
Level 40 – Turn 40 years old
Level 50 – Turn 50 years old
Level 60 – Turn 60 years old
Level 70 – Turn 70 years old
Level 80 – Turn 80 years old
Level 90 – Turn 90 years old
Level 100 – Turn 100 years old
Older Than the Hills – Turn 101 years old
Leader of the Pack – Own (or be owned by) more than one dog at once
I Got Music, I Got Rhythm – Learn to play a musical instrument
Rob the Cradle – Date someone at least ten years younger than you are
Rob the Grave – Date someone at least ten years older than you are
Romero – Be personally responsible for a worldwide zombie apocalypse
Resource Hog – Have a child
Breeding an Army – Have more than two children
Jailbait – Spend the night in jail (including the drunk tank)
Macgyver – Improvise a mechanical devise to get yourself out of a jam, preferably one involving
terrorists
Gilligan – Join the Navy or Coast Guard
The Skipper – Have command of a boat (civilian or armed forces)
The Millionaire and His Wife – Marry into money
The Movie Star – Get a lead role in a motion picture
The Professor and Marry Ann – Create an item out of common objects that completely defies the laws
of science using only the help of your lab assistant, a simple farm girl from Kansas
Script Kiddie – Hack a computer system
Haxx0r – Hack a computer system using your own code
Neo – Hack a government computer system using your own code
White Hat, Black Hat, They All Look Good On Me – Work computer security before or after hacking a
computer system
I’m With the (Rubber) Band – Go bungee jumping
Lunatic – Jump out of a perfectly serviceable airplane in mid-flight (parachute optional)
. And be sure to leave a review with your not so humble opinion!
My Not So Humble Opinion 