Month: December 2007

A quote below from David Weinberger on becoming who you are.

I’m suspicious of the metaphysics implicit in the notion of “becoming who you are.” It smacks of essentialism, as if we have a nature or destiny that is fixed. Yet, it is a nearly inescapable perception. There are changes that we can only describe by talk of someone becoming who she is. And even if the metaphysics is off, the process is joyous to behold.

I agree. Believing that your life or destiny is fixed is kind of a bummer, especially for someone like myself who is an explorer and loves discovering the uncharted and unknown. Therefore instead of thinking that we are predefined ahead of time, I instead like to think of ourselves as a chord on a musical instrument which basically defines who we are at our core but with which we can do anything we want with it. Our lives can be a happy pop song, a lively rock song, a brooding heavy metal ballad, or whatever we choose. But at our core, we resonate with this similar chord.

Even more so, this resonation within us is what attracts others to us and us to them. In a sense, our relationships are like instruments in a symphony or band coming together in harmony to make something greater than their individual parts. Therefore, while our inner core may resonate with a unique tone, what we do with it in our lives is up to us.

Just remember to play though, as there is nothing worse than an instrument that is never taken out of its case. To play is to live, no matter if it’s a happy melody or sad one. Just feel the music of your life and express it in your own way.

Wil Wheaton’s Quote of the Day from Friday is an excellent one. He quotes Gabe from Penny Arcade.

I realised I don’t play games for the challenge. I don’t need or want to be punished by a game for making mistakes. I play games for what Ron Gilbert calls “new art”. I play to see the next level or cool animation. I don’t play games to beat them I play games to see them. Coming to that realisation was actually sort of important for me.

What’s interesting is that Gabe’s words are in response to Tycho’s earlier post on the subject which I find even more interesting.

Stars in single player are, for me, irrelevant. I’m sure this makes me a scoundrel. I only care about stars in co-operative multiplayer, where I see them as an index of our indomitable band spirit. I want a measurement of our unity. I’m playing the same game for an entirely different purpose.

And to me it sounds like that “different purpose” is to play games for the simple experience of it, something which Gabe seems to concur with when he says “I play to see the next level or cool animation”. That’s something I couldn’t agree more with. At heart I’m an explorer and I love just wandering through a game seeing what there is to see and experience. For example, when I played World of Warcraft, I would just spend hours wandering the world, crossing mountain ranges, and exploring areas off the beaten track. It also why I enjoyed simple games like Zork so many years ago.

Another important thing that Tycho relates to is this desire to see a “measurement of unity”. When he said that, I felt like a deep chord had been struck within me. We need more games today that relay, teach, and highlight the values of cooperation in a positive way instead of a negative derogatory manner where the end effect is that you almost don’t want to play games that require teamwork (i.e. Team Fortress 2). I’ve still got hope though. I mean games like Warbirds and Allegiance in the past relayed the positive effect of teamwork and didn’t punish you severely if your teamwork wasn’t perfect. That’s because even though you lost, the experience of the game was still enjoyable (and epic at times). Anyways I’m sure there are game designers out there that realize this and will take advantage of this in future games.

Thanks to Sibyllae for pointing out this hilarious and so poignant video song by The Richter Scales.

Looks like Trinity, the new upgrade patch for EVE Online, has done a drop kick on Windows XP users due to a bug in the upgrade which wipes the users BOOT.INI file from their computer, thus knocking it out of action. What I find hilarious though is comments from people like this on the forums.

You only get this problem when you’ve installed EvE on your C: drive

Who in the right state of mind runs games off the system partition anyways?

While this person is correct that you shouldn’t install programs like games to your C: drive, he’s an idiot for stating “Who in their right state of mind does this?” That’s because the average consumer buys their computer from a typical computer retailer or provider (i.e. local dealer or someone like Dell). And most of these computer retailers typically just do a default install of the Windows operating system which means only a single partition, thus just C: drive. That’s it. Thus the typical consumer can only install to C: drive, since they have no other drives available to them.

What this person is really saying is that all computer users should be fully knowledge and learned in computer setup, maintenance, and support. Now who in their right state of mind would expect every consumer to know this level of knowledge just to operate a computer that is supposed to make everything in their computing life easier?  🙂

I was just reading this followup post relating to the Gamespot editor firing from last week, where an anonymous editor comments on the current feelings inside Gamespot right now. It’s sad. I mean money is obviously a requirement in our lives. We need it to survive. But the question is how far do we go to get it? And what are we willing to give up to get it?

I mean I’m sure all of us have seen great sites with awesome content in their infancy but then over time, something changes. Somewhere along the line, something indescribably “good” disappears to be replaced by something indescribably “bad”. And the site that you once thought was great, now only leaves a bad taste in your mouth when you try to say it.

I know many people can’t describe these things but I equate them with the culture of the site and the people within it. For example, a site may start off relaying certain cultural values, only to lose those along the way in exchange for the almighty buck. Thus initially, a site’s content may be original and engaging with a really good design style to make it easy to read and absorb the content. Over time though, the site’s content starts become stereotypical and boring in the quest to cause a reaction (i.e. recycling heated topics every few weeks) and the design becomes more and more cluttered in the effort to fit in more advertisements.

Of course, finally a point is reached where the content itself is altered to appease the advertisers. When this point is reached, the uniqueness and individuality of that site pretty much no longer exists and it just becomes a hollow blowhorn for it’s advertisers. Thus the “soul” or “mojo” as some people like to call it is lost. And when it’s lost, you’ve lost the very thing that draws the people to it in the first place. Thus once it’s gone, so are the people who once came to see and experience it.

A quote from the Globe and Mail, relaying the death of James Barber, cooking-show host of the Urban Peasant.

Mr. Barber, 84, died at his home on Thursday of natural causes. He was found at the dining room table, where he had been reading a cookbook.

A pot of chicken soup was simmering on the stove.

What a way to go. Doing what you love. For those who are into cooking but may not have heard of James, he reminded me of a male version of Nigella Lawson (but way before she appeared on the scene) in that he made cooking enjoyable and accessible to anyone. He didn’t mind getting his hands messy with the food he was cooking, actually revelling in it as part of the experience of cooking. In a sense, he was the opposite of Martha Stewart in that instead of making cooking appear to be for perfectionists, he showed that it could be a thoroughly casual and uplifting experience, something that anyone would want and enjoy doing at the end of a busy day to relax and unwind. Here’s to you James!

You know I’ve always felt that I was pretty decent designer, yet I knew that out there were designers who stood above the crowd and were really truly worthy of the name “designer” (something I’m still not comfortable calling myself). One such designer I’ve noticed lately that utilizes Squarespace exquisitely is Tyler Thompson over at JOB Design. If you get the chance, definitely check out his work (especially his latest work on Edgewater Cottage Community as shown below). You definitely won’t be disappointed.

A quote from Hugh MacLeod from his post entitled Blogging Is Dead? According To Whom?

“…a blog is constantly working, constantly growing. I like that.”

Wow. Well said and so true. What’s interesting about this statement though is that it’s more than just your blog that’s working, it’s every blog that you’ve ever spoken on. For example, I still get a lot of traffic from comments on other blogs from years ago. It’s why I find it funny when people ask me, “How do you get people to visit your site?” Just get out there and start having conversations elsewhere on other blogs. That’s how people will notice you and start coming to your site (assuming they find your writing interesting).

Another thing that I find interesting about how your blog is “constantly working” is that because it is, you don’t have to feel pressured to write on it everyday. In fact, to me it’s more about the quality than the quantity of posts. Are you writing something that is meaningful to you or are you just writing about something, anything that’s in the news, just to get attention? I’ve done this in the past on certain occasions and whenever I do, I always feel like those posts are diluting my site if anything.

I mean think about a great bottle of wine. Do you open it and start guzzling it right away? Or do you open it, give it some space, and let it breathe to let it’s flavours really mature and come out. Same thing with a blog in my opinion. The best ones are those that give each post time to breathe and mature, so that it can be fully absorbed and appreciated by others.