The week I broke again

So it finally passed: the bigger deadline of the ones I've had to deal with recently, thus ending 3 solid weeks of stress and heavy workloads. Between last-minute philosophy essays, company promotion videos and this latest horror, I've had just about the hardest month of my academic career - and I doubt I'll get much out of it to show for it.

                First came the essay, a 3,500 word thing with an open question (well, it was more an instruction: to create your own question adhering to Film and Philosophy and then answer it with as much depth and understanding as you can). This I only found out about 2 days before it was due in, while I was back home for a couple days for my sister's birthday. It was horrible, discovering I had to do this with less than 48 hours until the deadline, I had been working on another project for the course instead and had no idea that I had sort of mixed the two together without knowing of the existence of the first one. This I got lucky with, insomuch as I was able to cobble together a half-arsed question on a disturbingly wide topic and locked myself in my room to finish it. I broadcasted the whole thing on justin.tv, which, as it turns out, as a godsend. I had 64 people watching me over the course of those 7.5 hours and each one seemed to spur me on, to help me get it done, and I thank them all from the bottom of my heart, whoever you all were.

                I'm still awaiting the grade for this essay, and while I'm not nervous I'm not expecting a high grade for it. If I make a mid-low 2.2 I'll be happy. A 3rd will be acceptable, necessary, even, as punishment for my foolishness. Lower and, well, I'll have to start again. At least I have that option...

                Then came a project totally unrelated to university. I had recently been picked up as a consultant for a management training company. It was my job to help their advertisement manager in creating a series of promo videos to help promote their company, something they had apparently never thought of doing in their last 30 years of business. The business is located in Ross, the man I'm working with in London, and I'm in Bristol. I've never even met the man, and I've been the company a couple of times but I still, at heart, have no idea what happens there. This all made the task of creating a video very difficult. He didn't want it to look like a cheesy and stereotypical advert, no clips of people in charge of teams of bankers, no camo-clad missionaries running through forests and solving puzzles, hell, he didn't even want any speaking. What I managed to build for him over the course of a couple of days was instantly scrapped for containing parts of each of these things. In return, I asked him what the hell he did want and he gave me a script and a selection of pictures taken from Google and said "do this". So I did.

                While it's not the most amazing of things, I find it quite a triumph. I worked on it for three solid days before it was due to be shown this just-passed Monday. It features a quiet heartbeat sound track overlaid on some text with the occasional inspiring or thought-provoking image fading to-and-from shot. Simple stuff. Took a f***ing eternity to edit... But hey, the stuffy exec-types apparently enjoyed it and I was sent an e mail of thanks telling me to re-edit it. If that makes sense to you, please explain it to me...

                Finally came this week's major horror. I knew about the project for a long time, had even been working on it since December, but things never work out just how we want them, do they? With the madness of the last three cramped-up assignments I had lost all will to finish the project and wound up, yet again, mere days away from the deadline with the whole thing to do. After a rush of getting together a script for the machinima I would make, I sent it off to my tutor for a review and began filming. The response took a long while to get back. After confirmation and editing, I spent a harrowing 14 straight hours switching back and forth between filming, scripting and editing, until, when dawn broke and the hour struck 8, I was done. I hadn't slept or ate in days and I was exhausted, but finally I handed the work in and all was done with.

                I later discovered I may not have done the work right, either, despite confirmation. So I'm not holding out for a good grade with that one.

                Today's blog is somewhat short and rather boring and whiny compared to the last few, so I'm sorry about that, but I'm working on a "Whatever comes to mind first" basis, so yeah. Hopefully something better next time... Still, I can say that after the whole event I am feeling reinvigorated and very good, I needed the purge I got from all that heavy burden and lack of sleep, the last few days have been wonderful and heaped in respite. Hopefully this high will last.

                Thanks for reading. And thanks again if you happen to have been one of the people who helped me out on my work. It's unlikely, but I still owe you a big one!

The Omegle Apocalypse

Two days ago my housemate and I were having a quiet evening of films and Fringe while waiting out the inevitability of time, as you do. Since neither of us owns a hard copy of Fringe, we watch these episodes on my laptop connected through the television in our living room, a handy and simple setup that grants me endless hours of entertainment because it means that between each episode he (and anyone else unfortunate enough to be in the room at the time) are held captive to seeing whatever I'm doing on the computer during this time. Usually this just involves showing amusing gifs or images I had found on the internet, YouTube videos that have recently caught my attention or the odd track of music I think will piss them off sufficiently, but on this Saturday my will found me instead ignoring his viewership in favour of me returning to /b/.

                If you don't know what that is, I'm not going to tell you. I'm not going to inform you how to going about finding it. I'm sure that enough people will be sufficiently angry that I have even mentioned it in this public space, but as a semi-firm believer in the rules I will not go into further detail about it here. I will, however, tell you about an amazing thing we saw on there.

                My eye was passing over posts as it usually does when a small image caught my attention, nothing big, or gaudy, or particularly attractive, just a simple rectangle of white with a few lines of text upon it and a picture down the bottom. The text concerned the chatroom website Omegle. The image was a shotgun. Ordinarily these two things have little-to-no interest for me, I hate Omegle with a passion that can only be measured in the energy expenditure of suns and to me guns are just about the worst human invention since people, but nevertheless I clicked it and before me sprang the full image, in a size I could read. The image explained the rules of a new game, entitle "Omegle: Chat with Zombies", a very simple but ultimately enslaving concept that resulted in the two of us switching between watching and playing for hours.

                The rules are simple: zombies are overrunning Omegle, it is your job, as a /b/rother, to try and survive as long as you can against the hoards. You are given a shotgun with six shells. You begin by asking the question "What is OP?" and the Stranger's response determines the course of your actions. If they reply with anything other than the agreed the response, they are a concerned citizen, unknowing of the apocalypse surrounding them and you may deal with them how you please, usually by informing them of the outbreak, which can lead to some very amusing conversations, an example of which I will post later¹.

                 If they respond with the agreed /b/ answer, which, for those of you who don't know, is "A faggot" (or some such variant, I won't go into the arguments about the homophobic nature of this response, it is something that can only be understood through many hours of exposure to /b/, but for the most part, please don't be offended. It is not used in a derogatory manner in this context) or any deviation on that term then you have found a /b/ro, a fellow survivor of the apocalypse. In this circumstance, both of you reload your weapons back to your original 6 shells. You may briefly discuss your luck in terms of survival², or simply wish each other luck and go about your way, or it may turn out for the worst, if the /b/rother has become a zombie. More on this later.

                The third outcome of the conversation is that the Stranger is a zombie. You will know this if they respond (or post without having read your question) the usual Omegle line "asl". Anyone who asks "asl" is a zombie, regardless of if they have been a citizen to that point of the conversation. It has also been agreed that any references or inquisitions into either of these three categories of your life is an indicator of their being a zombie (i.e. if they identify themselves as a male/female, if they ask "m or f", if they ask where you're from, or any variations to these ends) so even if they have seemed fine, the moment they ask they have been turned and must be eliminated. In this circumstance you fire a shell and kill the zombie. Most people tell the Stranger this, saying "BOOM! Headshot" or "You're a zombie, die" (again, this varies depending on how you play your game, you may say anything to inform the Stranger you have killed them). Once this is done you remove one shell from your remaining shells and leave the conversation. You continue on this way until you either come across a /b/rother, which (as previously stated) allows you to reload back to your original six shells, or, if you have fired all six of your shells, you are killed and become a zombie.

                Once you become a zombie, it becomes your new goal to either die or take out as many /b/rothers as possible. It is now your job to search solely for /b/ros, starting new conversations and waiting for the Stranger to ask "What is OP?".  When you do, you inform them that you have been turned, you may reply with the correct answer, and then either tell them what has happened or ask "asl". It is up to the /b/ro to decide what happens next. Some, true /b/rothers, will not kill you, for the /b/rothership runs deep and it can be hard to do (I have had a few particularly teary interactions with /b/rothers who won't kill me³). The rules are also not entirely clear, but the general consensus is that the surviving /b/rother, if he has not become a zombie already, may reload his shotgun after the encounter and carry on his own journey, knowing what he has done, but better able to survive. If you are killed in the encounter, your play is over and you may stop. You may return as a survivor the next day to begin your journey again.

                So that about covers it. The rules are still evolving, as far as I have seen this is a new game (I had heard about it for the first time only the other day, and have been a regular /b/rother for years) and you can now usually find threads set up about it, detailing people's best or worst encounters, informing newcomers how many are playing and what the odds of survival are. It is a truly spectacular event, and I urge you to take part, or at least check it out. We need to keep the game alive, we need to support our /b/ros.

                It's the apocalypse, only the strong and lucky will survive, and we need to stick together.

Conversation Extracts

¹ Part of an amusing encounter with a concerned citizen

You: What is OP?

Stranger: Game Wise? Over Powered.

You: You game? Then you must be worthy

You: but you have to be careful

You: it's an apocalypse

You: the zombies are everywhere

Stranger: Omfg. :o

You: Yes, get to cover, find a /b/ro, get some ammo

You: or we will all be screwed

Stranger: Lmao xD

You: this is no laughing matter!

Stranger: Neither Is 2012, But People Laugh At That Too. :o

You: Actually, that has been proven incorrect a great many times, so it has officially become one

You: but THIS is SERIOUS

You: ANYONE can become one

Stranger: Answer Me This. If There Was An Apocalypse, There Is No Stopping It So We'd Be Screwed Anyways, Because How Can You Kill The Already Dead? :P

You: Shotguns are the answer

You: every /b/ro has one

You: they are the only thing that works

Stranger: How Do You Know? Hun, Playing A Game With Zombies In It Isn't Going To Work IRL. XD

²Meeting a /b/ro briefly before heading our separate ways

You: What is OP?

Stranger: A FAGGOT

You: Hell yeah /b/rother!

Stranger: fuck yeah i was running outta shells

You: good, Ihave plenty, that was two in a row for me!

Stranger: hopefully i get as lucky as you

You: let us hope

Stranger: happy hunting /b/ro

You: same to you /b/rother

³A conversation wherein I had already been turned and my /b/rother would not kill me

Stranger: What is OP?

You: /b/rother!

You: No, you're... to... asl...

You: kill... me...

Stranger: /b/ro! <3

Stranger: what..

Stranger: oh..

Stranger: Dx

You: please... you were... asl... so close...

Stranger: i can't kill a /b/ro!

You: take... asl... my shells...

Stranger: </3

You: do... go... goo... a...s...l...

Laundering out my mind.

I wear and inordinate amount of shirts... This fact is made funnier by the fact that I only own four. I own four shirts because I own a lot of t-shirts - and I mean a LOT of t-shirts. I love them. Can't get enough of them. T-shirts are a good way of showing off your personality; logos and images of things you like; clever slogans and mildly-amusing riffs on pop-culture show you're aware of the world but don't really care enough to follow it accurately (or you're a mindless drone who has to keep up with the fashion of the times, but won't accept yourself that way and so thinks that shifting it one step to the right, i.e. buying a shirt with the "keep calm and carry on" motif replaced with words such as "now freak out and panic" (or, as in my case, the phrase "The rent is too damn high". Hey, a double-bracketed tangent)), or just the sheer number and variety of them showing you just can't focus on one thing long enough to find it thoroughly amusing, and so must have a new t-shirt for every day of the year so that then next time you wear it you can chuckle gently to yourself in nostalgic glee at that one occasion you did find it funny. Others are just kind of cute.

                Anyway, the point I'm making is that I have reached a sort of laundry-based dilemma. During my mid-teens I went through a particularly soft-core gothic stage (I wore nothing but black all the time, though this only extended as far as jeans, trousers and t-shirts, with the odd black shirt for special occasions) and upon entering my 20's I decided my wardrobe, and indeed my life, needed a bit of brightening up - so I proceeded to purchase a lot of t-shirts. Woot.com has been quite a source of wonder for me over the last three years, and I have contributed to their paychecks no less than 40 time, and I now find myself the proud (and somewhat confusing) owner of quite a wardrobe full of t-shirts, ranging in colours from white to black, actually passing THROUGH the spectrum of colour on its way, and back again.

                Of course, I mention the white tees because I own precisely three of them, and added to my four white shirts (and a handful of white boxer shorts) I find myself with almost - but not quite - enough white clothing to constitute a full load of washing. This annoys me. I don't like the idea of putting on a load of washing when there isn't enough of it to justify the amount of water used in it - I'm not precisely an eco-geek, but given the severity of my last utilities bill I could certainly do with making my life more eco-efficient. Add to this the fact that I won't often wear the white clothing because I have so many other colours that need wearing to justify their purchase, and you find me with a rather long gap between white loads.

                What's more is the shirts. I wear a white shirt over most of my clothing because a) the extra layer keeps me warm in the climate we laughing call "English Weather" and b) the juxtaposition of the white over the colour beneath is pleasing to the eye (and c) because the slight obscuring of the design on the t-shirt beneath causes more people to lift one side up in order to see what lies beneath. If you're going to wear a t-shirt with a funny picture or slogan on it, you'd likely want others to actually wonder what it is). So what I find myself with is a two- or three-week period in which I am wearing the same four shirts for many days at a time while beneath it the pile of whites never quite rises to the point of justifiable washing. What's worse is that I don't wear a white tee and shirt combo, meaning that I have to sort out other shirts to cover them in the mean time (for those of you who ARE actually worried or interested by this fact, I do own a variety of other coloured shirts, JUST for such occasions).

                It's quite a conundrum, one that screams "First World Problems", I know, but an irritating part of daily life all the same.

                And on top of that, the majority of my t-shirts are still black...

Horror Gaming

(This is a post I put up on the Games, Simulation and Media blog for my course, I'm putting it here too since it might be of interest to the two of you that read this...)

Once more the ages-old tradition of Hallowe'en falls upon us and in this day of constant media bombardment we find ourselves confronted with a myriad choice of how to spend our evenings. At our age the prospect of Trick or Treating is somewhat less desirable as it had been during our younger years (though I'm sure I'm not alone in my desire to recapture those days of youth and head out with my treat-bag in hand and terrible handmade costume hiding my true identity, a spring in my step and a hope in my heart that the elderly aren't too concerned with the health of the modern youth and well-stocked up on fruit and sugarless sweets) but we are still open to a whole library of possibilities, a veritable multi-verse of heroes, heroines and monsters at our disposal, for our pleasure and entertainment in the forms of films, books and, of course, games. Which leads me to my question: 

What is your horror game of choice?

Are you an Umbrella Company Insurgent or a survivor of Silent Hill? Do you wish to investigate the strange goings-on of Japanese villages or solve the mysteries of the Scissor Killer? Or is your palate simply satisfied with the hardcore violence of the walking dead found in cities, malls or mining ships?

Present us with a list of your top five horror/hallowe'en games and we'll see how those of us who have no other plans will be screaming away the wee-hours of the horror-night. I shall even supply you with mine.

5.  Resident Evil Series - something I have grown up with since the release of it's first title, though I feel the horror aspect of the recent turnouts of Capcom's most successful franchise have been lackluster, their enjoyment never wanes whether you're facing a hoard of Djini or the unfortunate residents of one of Umbrella's many facilities. From the deserted halls of the Arkley Mountains Mansion to the jungles of Africa and beyond, Resident Evil has managed to span many places since the release of the T-Virus in mountains around Raccoon City and I'm sure it hasn't stopped yet.

4. Red Dead Redemption: Undead Nightmare - An addition to the excellent Western-based adventure game from the company that brought you Grand Theft Auto, Undead Nightmare brings an amazing and surprisingly novel view of the zombie genre by setting it in an age that knows nothing about such things. In addition to protagonist John Marston's uneducated and often hilarious outlook during the apocalypse, UN also presents gamers with a true survival horror challenge, severely limiting ammunition and other helpful items and putting you at risk of not only the walking dead, but also the undead counterparts of RDR's sprawling wildlife and a host of additional mythical beings from the Four Horses of the Apocalypse to El Chupacabra. This has so far been my game of choice over the Hallowe'en weekend and it has presented many, many hours of enjoyment and not a few frights.

3. Parasite Eve - a hugely underrated series that ran in the shadow of Square  Soft's hugely successful Final Fantasy Series (of which I am a huge fan) Parasite Eve is one of those rare concoctions that spans most of the mediums of entertainment. Beginning as a book, Parasite Eve is a Japanese novel from writer Hideaki Sena that tells a tale of our roots in the form of our own Mitochondria given consciousness and power enough to ultimately overrun humanity. A spiritual sequel was presented in a Japanese film a few years after the book's release and eventually continued once more in Square Soft's PSX title of the same name in 1998 (it even spawned two sequels itself that continue the storyline of the game's protagonist in 1999 and 2010) which contained enough shocks and scares that it forever changed the world's view of Square's so-far friendly face.

2. Dead Space - Another recently game from EA, Dead Space sets itself apart from most other survival horrors through its combat system. Set on the supposedly deserted mining ship Ishimura, its dark and foreboding atmosphere, coupled with its host of horrific monsters and edge-of-your-seat scare tactics was taken a step further into the realm of horrifying gameplay when the player first discovers writing on the wall of one room informing them that the only way of defeating these creatures was to remove their limbs. Scarce ammo, unpredictable appearances and precision aiming for the most gruesome killing method makes Dead Space one of the scariest and greatest games released in the last decade in my opinion and its subsequent sequel did nothing to lose this already auspicious position in my top-five.

1. Silent Hill Series - For those of you already familiar with this title I don't need to further my explanation as to its position at the top of my list. Those of us who have braved the world of Silent Hill and come out relatively intact will shudder at the very utterance of that doomed town's name and I'm sure I'm not alone when I awake in the early hours of some mornings after playing them. Silent Hill epitomizes horror gaming, with its spooky locations, its spine-tingling music and its downright disturbing creatures, the stories told of the inhabitants and unfortunate passers-by of this Mid-Western American town will forever hold a special place in my mind: locked away in a box with heavy chains, placed in the corner of a dark room at the back-most part of the must unused areas of my memory.

So please, leave your lists in the comments below so we can see what scares us, and perhaps what draws us to such games.

Bill Gates vs. C'Thulu

The fury that boils within me in the face of WMM's constant failure at publishing my movie is beyond any speakable form B|

My self-restaint as it crashes for a fifth time is truly admirable. My speaking tone is monotonic, my movements slow and careful. If I attempt it once more and it fails on me again, there is a very good chance this restraint will disappear and you'll find me back in the nearest computer store in search of equipment that actually works. [calmface]

Murder might just be the only solution: an unwilling sacrifice at the altar of Microsoft might just be the key to unlocking the torment hidden behind this unbreakable, eternal barrier of so-called technological advancement. Touche, Mr Gates..., I believe you are the spawn of the Dark Lord C'Thulu, or perhaps some other, similar pagan embodiment of madness and despair. Be sure that, should we ever meet in public, I will do all in my power to banish you back to the dark realm from whence you were spawned under the morbid clouds of death and agonised wailing. I hope those who were sacrificed in your honour knew what they were getting the rest of us into, because I'd be happier knowing they are laughing at us in the world beyond and rubbing their hands together with glee at the success of their frustratingly evil plan.

 

These are three posts I put up on my Facebook last night in the face of my attempts to finishing editing a video I had filmed back in May.

 

You see, I had filmed a pretty amusing video to be the third in my series that I have been putting up, but due to technological restraints I was unable to edit it at the time. The video required a moment of interlocking sound that Windows Movie Maker (my software of neccessity, NOT choice... Premiere doesn't work on any of my two laptops and one desktop computer and all the other software I have tried outside of the Adobe range has been even worse) was not capable of, so the video files sat mouldering in my hard drive until I could access better software capable of perfoming the task.

 

Fast forward a few months and suddenly a brainwave hits me (that was pretty obvious, when it came to me) and I discover I CAN perform the neccessary task on WMM and complete the video. An hour of editing later and I play it through and find it every bit as cool as I had hoped it would be (I know, if/when you see it you won't think it so good, but I'm working from a low-standards point of view. Anything slightly technological, like layered sound, is a step in a good direction for the work I have done so far) so I excitedly hit the publish button, choose the file destination and let it go.

 

4% of the way in the whole system crashes.

 

I recover the safely pre-saved file and try again.

 

5% in the system crashes.

 

I recover once more, set it to go.

 

4% and crash.

 

By this point the first two of the three comments have been posted. I have done all I can think of to sort it out, restart, re-edit, copy paste etc... and nothing. The dialogue box says that an update is required. I update. Same thing. So I head online and the service there says to download the latest version, 2011, so I can do it from there. So I do.

 

3 and a half hours of downloading later, the whole thing crashes. No updates are made and it tells me my version of Windows will not allow for the upgrade in software. It suggests I update the software. I try to. It fails. I head onto my other laptop, which does not currently have WMM at all, and attempt to download it there. It is of a new enough version so all should be fine. FOUR hours pass this time and the update completes. Dialogue box appers: an error occurred and not all the programs were installed in the operation.

 

So I restart and take a look. It has updated my system half-heartedly. I now have a program called Live Writer on there that I have no need for and, to further piss into my eyesocket, it has installed the new, terrible version of MSN, thereby ruining my ability to use that software too.

 

The third of  the messages go up now and I give up entirely. I download another, different, un-Windows program to attempt it and discover it is worse the WMM again, so I sit and I ponder. I think, perhaps I can publish the video without the overlapped sound and add it later. I publish the video, sans extra sound, and find it worked. So I draw all the files back and in can no longer match the sound as I need it. I extract sound files, MP3s, video, AVI

 

Wait... No layered sound, no on-clip sound, and it craps out... But it previously published the whole video with sound. I quickly make another video, edit it, and publish it. It comes out perfectly. I look at the published video that has the normal sound but not overlaid sound, then look at the one that won't publish at all.

 

Can the answer really be that simple? Can the software really be so mind-bogglingly idiotic that such a thing could cause it to crash and endure the last few paragraphs of hell? I seriously hope not, but I give it a try, final attempt and all.

 

I replace the audio that I had removed. I unmute all the muted tracks, then lower their volume so they are not audible but still count as unmuted. The I publish.

 

1%. 5%. 10%. 25%. 50%. 100%.

 

I hate you so much Bill Gates...

 

Here is a link to my playlist of the videos so far. They are in the order in which they are meant to be watched (the upload order is different, due to events like what has been described here) so please, check them out if you have 10 minutes spare. They aren't long, nor very good, but when trying to get into the industry one tries to get ones work viewed, and they will get better in time.

 

When I find and murder Bill Gates....

 

(Sorry, another ranting blog, but I have nothing else interesting to say right now. It's all in my videos.)

Only You can kill the internet...

A few weeks ago my housemate and I got into a discussion concerning our choices in Internet Browsers. Now, I admit I don't know too much about them, they all seem fairly similar to me, but his mocking of my use of the traditional Internet Explorer gave me cause to ask exactly why he felt that whichever one he used (which I cannot remember at this time) was far superior. The points he came up with stirred within me a certain mistrust and – yes, I’ll admit - fear at his internet using habits, but at the time I could not correctly articulate my concerns.

His claims that it was easier and quicker to use what he did, through the use of single-click buttons that linked him directly to the sites he used and search engines and generators that provided him with access to websites that contained information, pictures, games, music, etc... that were relevant to his previously documented interests filled me with a sense of apprehension that at the time I could only voice with a series of semi-incoherent snorts and choking sounds, to me the idea of these things was something out of a George Orwell novel, something that I have always read about and hated with an inner burning light, the very kind of thing that I spend my life fighting to eliminate.

Then this morning - some four weeks later - the latest issue of New Scientist drops onto my doormat (much to my annoyance with the postman, who NEVER looks after such mail with the kind of care that it requires! But that's a rant for another day...) and one of the title articles immediately catches my attention. I read the intro paragraph and follow ahead to the main four-page spread that has been put aside from it and suddenly all my fears, all the dread and horror that filled me during that dark discussion all those weeks ago, not only rearrange themselves into a fully-discernable picture, but have been expressed by OTHER people in mass-print.

What most scares me about these things that my housemate was claiming to be great innovations of the internet - and basic ones, at that, for he was calling for FURTHER advancements to simplify his experience even more - is the sense of fragmentation and isolation that this supposedly open and worldwide service is slowly herding us into.

By this I mean: that by using such services as those that will generate for you a list of sites that have properties similar to a set collection of topics and subjects you find most entertaining, you are giving up your own personal right to exploration, you are giving over the freedom you have to wander the ever-expanding halls of the internet, going from room-to-room as you please, seeing what you want to see - whether it is relevant, irrelevant or totally random - in favour of a similarly set list of results that the site/application/program deems appropriate for you to see. In short, you are telling this thing to find you something to look at, and it is decided FOR you what you will see, basing this results on ITS OWN inbuilt prejudices and ideals (and yes, these things DO have those, because the people who created them would have had to set parameters for it - I will discuss this soon) and filtering out the things it does not want you to see.

These things can and are being used to decide what you can and cannot see, and this is on the INTERNET, which is SUPPOSED to be free and open for you. Yeah, you may come across things you don't want to see, everything from slightly off-topic images and writings to things that are downright disturbing and horrific, but that is the beauty and the necessity of the internet, these are the things the internet was made for, for giving us access to this stuff, and suddenly we are now turning over these aspects of it in favour of our own self-appointed censors masquerading as simplifying programs and systems.

Everyone has heard of how countries like North Korea and China have been regulating the internet, disabling and limiting their publics' access to certain sites like Facebook and YouTube in order to control and subdue them, stopping free speech and access and the ability for people to create groups that can express their own ideas and opinions that may or may not be in opposition to their governments, but these things are enforced, wrong as they are, and we sit around and comment and complain and say how we think it's wrong and that they shouldn't do it and yadda-yadda, but WE'RE just as bad, maybe even WORSE when we knowingly employ these technologies that do exactly the same things.

These programs, like Stumble Upon and these Browsers with their buttons and suggestions, are created by people, as all things like this must be, using a set of rules that make it work, algorithms that tell it what it should look for when a certain word is entered.

For example, we'll say that the algorithm tells the program that when a user types in "science" that program will scan the internet for any sites that contain that word, but that would be, in itself, an overly enormous task, so limitations must be set in place in order for it to not simply choose every site with the word "science" in it, so the programmer might put in an order within the algorithm that might filter out any mentions of "science" outside of an educational base, say in blogs, or song lyrics and scripts etc... So that the program only shows the results that are scientific journals and articles and so on. But what if the programmer was to set a filter that told the program to also not show articles written by a certain scientist? Say that programmer set a parameter that disallowed the user to see any results containing references to Mitchell Feigenbaum? Or Albert Libchaber? Or even Stephen Hawking? Then the programmer would be controlling what we see through the program, showing THEIR ideas or beliefs in those areas and attempting to indoctrinate our understanding of these subjects with theirs. This is where freedom and the internet begin to split into widely different paths and suddenly we've gone from UK or US internet to that of North Korea or China, and we've done it not only with our consent but as our own, personal decisions.

Now, I'm not blaming laziness, and I in no way condemn the choices and opinions of those who choose to use these programs and systems, but what I want is for you to all be aware that while it may seem like what you're using is making your life easier, you're also allowing your influences to be controlled, making your vision of the world smaller: you're choosing to close off access to the rooms that could allow you see a brighter or a darker view of the world, to blinker yourself from the things that the people who make these things don't want you to see, and I'm not saying that this is EXACTLY what they are doing, because chances are they have not yet figured out how lucrative it would be, but it won't be long before they do, and WHEN they do we're going to be finding a lot of people who think they were well-informed because they are reading things that these programs and systems are throwing at that are, in fact, only learning the side of things that the people in charge of them want them to see, and I'm sorry but if that world emerges then the fight is lost and our personal freedom is gone, our rights to free knowledge are being wilfully given away because we don't want to sift through detritus of the worldwide community before finding the way to ultimate truth, and the internet is fast becoming our final haven for freedom and mass communication.

I know no one WANTS to have to do that, there are many days when I myself have to look for something and have to go through what seems like thousands of porn ads, people selling stuff that is similar but unrelated or just plain nonsense before I find what I'm looking for, but I've also found that this purer method is not all that bad, who knows, you may come across things during those searches that just might better your own life, different views, opinions, ways of thinking that are similar but fresher to those that have already been the foundation of your own understanding of life, I know I have, and I hope you take something from this too.

The tent is always open, and you are welcome to join me

The Exlamation Point

Over the centuries the written word has evolved many traits to better its survival: from the humble list-dividing semi-colon (;) to the aggressive, argument-ending full-stop (.) and the cacophony of others in-between it is fair to say that our written languages would make little-to-no sense were it not for this handy collection of dots and dashes and wavy-lines and other such utter nonsense and the sense of division, derision and decimation they supply.

But of all these useful tools of language there is one I hate more than any other, more than a great many things, and that is the Exclamation Point.

I vaguely remember as a child, while making my first forays into the world of the written word, that I approached it with such gusto and enthusiasm that it seemed each and every word that I wrote, typed, etched or psychically inscribed upon whatever medium had been set-up for the task of conveying my meaning and imagery was to be expressed with the same amount of positive, explosive emotion that I had set about the task with and so I found (looking back upon my early works) a heavy usage of the Exclamation Point. A monumentally heavy usage. I mean, it was astounding. Were it not for the basic rules of narration and personal preference regarding the nature of description in a non-addressive manner every single sentence would not have ended simply with a full-stop but with an exclamation point. And those that contained implicit or explicit questions would find themselves boarded with the gut-wrenching combination of both Exclamation and Question mark-ation (Or, worse, had I known of it at the time, the Interrobang, which my good friend Snypadub did a brief blog about at an earlier point way-back-when).

And so it was with this severe over-use that I found my taste for this hateful piece of punctuation first wilting, then waning, and finally resulting in my employment of a type-writer that actually pre-dates it and does not contain a key for it. However I still find myself using it in an unnecessary capacity (I had to actually remove one just then -ed.). A large volume of my discourse with others is littered with this abusive and obtrusive form of meaning-enhancement (without any such use! It enhances NOTHING) and I read it back finding myself sounding insincere and over-enthusiastic, as if I am trying to cover up a deep-seated distaste or lack of understanding for the subject at hand. Or worse, when it reads like my voice and actions would reach speeds and pitches only observable by dogs or bats and conveys a sense that I am getting hyped-up over something when anyone who knows me would be able to tell you I am sitting there with very much the same kind of straight face with which I approach many of my day-to-day tasks.

It's not the kind of image I like to convey. It's not who I am. I am not a being defined by excitement, by mark-able enthusiasm, and I don't like my writing, be it career related or simple conversation, to be hindered or misguided by this hateful evolutionary trait of the un-chainable art that is the transmutation of thought to paper (Or data). I shall forever strive to limit my use of it (perhaps to only 10 times a document, or perhaps 1 for every 1,000 words) and cease this unrelenting torrent of needless punctuational diarrhoea.

(This has been an uninspired personal rant, and I apologise for having waste your time, but thank you for getting this far. Your support has been greatly appreciated, and for those of you who have done this, I present you with my favourite word in the French language: "Moue". Thank You.)