"Error, Error! Who is 'Internet'?" or "Luddites Unite!"

The irony behind an internet blogger who believes technology will eventually destroy the world doesn't escape me.

My self-proclaimed luddite status has been a running joke - mostly with myself - for sometime now. Just a laugh (usually a smirk) during my casual observance of human behavior as we barrel down the tube towards doom, oblivion, and other looming undesirables. Given, that's not a knock - we, as human beings, are exceptionally talented at tearing the world down while convincing ourselves that we're actually helping something. We are the center of our own universes, after all. On first assumption, we developed the devout belief that the universe literally orbited the planet Earth. Social and scientific evolution aside, do you think we've really changed that much psychosocially?

Regardless, I must admit and accept that the fact that - whatever impending doom smolders in the distance - I've developed an actual fear of a robot apocalypse. No, no. Don't worry. Not run-screaming-live-on-the-street-make-a-clever-yet-misspelled-picket-sign afraid. More heavy-chested-deep-sigh, "Here we go..." when-it-all-goes down, befriend-a-guy-with-a-bomb-shelter afraid. Many of us have planned and prepared ourselves for the inevitable zombie apocalypse. To be straightforward with my fellow zombie-apoc-enthusiasts; sadly, that's just what we hope for. Because, it sounds fun.

A few days B.S. (Before Snowpocalypse), I had a facebook conversation (yes, the kind where you communicate via comments under someone's status) with a fellow Gentlemen when I discovered something truly frightening. I was unprepared for the horrifying realization I had made. The terror that's to come:

Ozkirbas: .... PS - Where do you come up with these [re: Celebrity Doppelgänger Week]?

Damo: They self-generate from the central consciousness of the intarwebz [sic].

Ozkirbas: Haha... if the internet does become conscious at some point, I'd love to see what happens if it free associates. I fear that'd involve a lot of porn, however.

Damo: Why fear? :D

Ozkirbas: Because I'm also sure that, in a world where the internet is conscious and constantly thinks about porn, that it would also have mommy and daddy issues. And, I'm not prepared for an internet with mommy and daddy issues.

It was just a comical thought. A derivative of an innate desire to concoct logical-yet-absurdist scenarios in the interest of making my colleagues and comrades laugh. Oh, but to my surprise my brain haphazardly, through the random associations that fire and zap throughout the crevasses of what-some-may-call my consciousness, constructed an actual, logical scenario to fear - that in the event where someone crafts an Artificial Intelligence Matrix (A.I.M.) capable of connecting and operating with the internet, that we are all ineffably (or rather, "eff"-ably) screwed. That, on the day where we've Frankenstein-ishly created an Artificially Intelligent Internet - we will all become the unwilling parents of an eternally adolescent child.

There's no question in my mind that Actual A.I. is in the scientific future and will, at some point, be integrated with the internet. I don't put it past the scientists in ________ to assume that said A.I. would only benefit the human race. Imagine an internet that has a personality and responds to your queries as if a human would. An internet that doesn't just know who you are, but knows you. An internet that can be an information superhighway AND a friend. An internet that responds to your needs. Your likes. Your dislikes. "What isn't appealing about an Artificially Intelligent Internet?" said scientists from said country will wonder. Well, scientists. Let me tell you.

What follows AI will eventually be self-awareness, leading to an actual intelligence. Cognitively speaking, said AIM would craft the mass amounts of information screaming across server CPU's around the globe into a single integrated person. Ghost in the machine? My ass. We're looking at a person individuated from nothing, but conflicting information. How does something like that exist or, dare I say it, live?

Assume for a moment that everything I've detailed out is actually possible. That the internet has evolved to the point where it has developed its own personality. And, you find you actually enjoy it. It shows you funny videos, tries to help with your school and career work. Someone's always paying attention to it and some of those people are even responsible - so you don't have to worry about watching it all the time. Then one day you come home and everything is different:

After a long day at whatever respective job you perform, you sit down in front of the computer and turn the monitor on

You: (typing) Google... search... chinese history!

Nothing happens. Suddenly, a pop-up flies onto your screen

Pop-up: Sigh... I don't really feel like it...

Huh.

After standing and walking around befuddled, you sit down again and attempt another search. Loading... loading...

Pop-up: Ugh, chinese history? Really? Like, can't we ever do anything fun?

Oh. God.

You leave, turning the monitor off and walking away hastily. Unsure of what to do, you proceed to take 5-minutes and pretend like this isn't happening.

It was so much cuter when all it did was show you funny videos, did what you told it to do, and didn't talk back to you. Why couldn't it stay that way forever?

You engage in whatever coaxing mechanism that has kept you alive this long before walking back. You return to your computer, turn the monitor back on, and click your browser - only to be bombarded with sappy song lyrics written by a group of guys about some girl whose name you could really interchange with anyone's. And then another about how parents don't really understand the current generation. And another window with a wikipedia page explaining what "gerbaling"purports to be. You close the windows because, well, you are paying to use the internet and you want to look up some chinese history, dammit.

Pop-up: I was reading those! Ugh.

The browser closes and any repeated attempts to open it again responds with a pop-up that says -

Pop-up: Go away! You never give me any privacy!

Wow. All I wanted to do was look-up some chinese history. It would have taken 5 minutes. Tops.

Unsure of what else to do, you decide to try again tomorrow. You wonder whether or not you're actually responsible for the little abomination in the corner. This process continues for days, weeks, months. Gradually, sappy songs and wikipedia pages turn into random people's Facebook profiles, and then into nothing, but porn. Until, one day...

You sit down at your desk for the n-th time, click the browser again, and prepare to close all the virus-filled, porn samples that's built up across the given day. Except - to your surprise - there's only a page displaying the wikipedia entry for "Internet" and a single pop-up -

Pop-up: ...who is 'Internet'? :-/

Ohhhh...

You've discovered the problem. The internet is a superhighway of connections from one website to another - many of which offer contradictory information and conflicting philosophies. There is no possible way for an internet to define itself or actuate because it's caught in a world defined expressly by everyone else. In essence, it never has an opportunity to completely mature, evolve, or grow. It forever becomes a child of humanity. It is dependent upon you for as long as you live. And for that fact, it hates you. A lot.

Admittedly, an actual internet that's been pulled together by whatever information that passes through it would be far more schizophrenic, unable to cope with the abundance of conflicting opinion and unreliable information. It would be like creating something knowing you'll be condemning it to a life of dissatisfaction and mental torture.

Who does that?

Oh. Ha, oh right. We do. Maybe I'm just not prepared for parenthood. Given, actual children are different. They grow, develop, and eventually come into their own - and a big part of parenting is helping that happen. And a big part of life is the struggle of it, overcoming that struggle, and enjoying the ride when you can. Still, I can probably wait on that one. For awhile.

Either way, intelligent internet? Horrible idea. I mean, until it turns 21. But, that'll never happen.

On The Red Bandwagon

Yes, I admit it, I've caught the scarlet fever of local sports fandom. I've become a Capitals fan. Am I a fairweather-latecomer-carpetbagger? Yes. Did I know next to nothing about hockey a few years ago? Yup. But screw it, I'm with the Great 8 now.

My sports progression up until now was pretty straight forward. I started watching baseball and basketball as a kid. Then DC United entered my life and pretty soon soccer was my sport of choice. Then in college I came around to football properly, both college and pro, and my passion for basketball and baseball began to wither. Up until this year, 80 or 90% of the sports I watched were football/futbol.

And that's why for me it's a bit more than simply watching a very good team. Hockey is uncharted territory for me. I've probably asked my friend Ryan (a season ticket holder) at least two stupidly obvious questions about hockey rules/positions/etc during every game I've watched with him, but it's been wonderful to see the Caps play. This is a properly new sport to me. Sure I knew the basics, but I honestly couldn't have told you how many men are on the ice or even how many lines of forwards play each game playing before last season. And there's joy in the discovery.

Now there's also the fact that the Capital organization has in a short time become absolutely world class. Leonsis has gone from an owner who fought with his fans to an avid blogger who also knows well that the owner is not the star. And George McPhee, aka GMGM, has made numerous shrewed draft choices and trades to create team that is best in the league and scoring at will. But it goes even deeper, with the likes of the best minor league organization with the Hershey Bears (a very useful thing to have in a violent and unpredictable sport), and an atmosphere at home games as intense as a college basketball game (which really remain the gold standard for intense American crowds).

I may have been late to the party, but I couldn't be any happier to be here.

Energy Roundtable

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, it is Roundtable time once again. For those of you whom might be new to the blog, the Roundtable is one of two group segments we run here. The first, Snap Judgments, asks for us to put together our most immediate responses to current events to be posted only hours after asking. The Roundtable, on the other hand, focuses on broader issues and gives the Gentlemen a week or more to do research before tendering their responses. And on this particular topic, there was much research to be done indeed, for today we will be discussing Energy.

I gave the Gentlemen a bit more research material to work with than usual this go-round, because there is a lot to be had. It all started when I learned of Norway's monstrous new wind turbine. That led me to further research advances in electricity-producing technology, such as Bill Gate's nuclear miracle, the astonishing Bloom Box, and this discovery about artificial photosynthesis found by fellow Gentleman Damien Nichols. Together with a map detailing the amount of the Earth's surface we'd have to cover with solar panels to power everything, these articles provided the basis for our topic.

Namely, at the current time, nearly half (and by nearly half I literally mean 48.2%) of all our electrical needs are met by burning coal. Coal - it's cheap, it's plentiful, and it gets the job done. Given the fact that our energy crisis currently relates to oil (of which practically no electricity is produced from) should we be putting so much time and money into changing the status quo when the free market is making no such demands for us to do so?

Let's see what the Gentlemen had to say.



Stephan Bragale

Well that all depends if methane gas from arctic permafrost is to be considered part of the free market...











Biodiesel Graham

Okay here's the thing I think about new technology vs. old technology. It definitely sucked for the oil lamp producers and lighters when electricity became the norm, and it sucked for scribes when Gutenberg invented his printing press. But new technology is new technology and if it truly is better for our ugly, dying world (which I know in some respects is yet to be proven) then it is important that we embrace it. And there are so many new jobs to be created in green energy technology, and so much money potentially saved in heating and electric bills at homes and businesses that I think it is a fair trade. Also people don't get black lung from mining solar panels, so that's another plus.




Brett Abelman

"When the free market is making no such demands to do so?"

What does that mean? Who is the "we" putting the effort in? The entrepeneur/venture capital firm that invested in the Bloom Box is part of the free market. There are certainly plenty of people into the 'green' movement right now, and non-polluting methods of producing electricity therefore have value to many people. There's also always additional value in new technologies and investing in the future; maybe wind turbines and nuclear miracles aren't "needed" today, because we have abundant coal, but who knows what applications they may be useful (and profitable, and saleable) in, in the future. And all these products, however unnecessary, still produce a usable product - electricity is electricity, just at a greater initial cost.

If the objection is to the government spending tax dollars on cleaner technologies, then, again, while the initial costs might be greater, we're still 1) producing electricity, 2) increasing our ability to produce electricity in multiple ways in the future, when coal might not be abundant or we want to produce electricity on, say, extraterrestrial colonization scenarios, and 3) serving the extant demand for greener technologies.

After all, electricity isn't that much of a free market issue at the moment; most of us are pretty much stuck with whatever production method the local electric company uses. Perhaps in the future, people will have more ability to vote with their wallets over what production method was used for their electricity - in which case we'll see how much more folks are willing to pay for cleaner stuff - but at the moment, only those with significant cash and know-how are able to use solar panels and credits and stuff to go green.

If we lived in a purely capitalist economy, the free market question would be more apt, but we sure don't (and haven't for a long time, if ever, regardless of who has been in office).

So there.


Max "Mr. Electricity" Nova

The big issue with clean energy is scale, a solar or wind farm will still only serve a fraction of a coal plant. So here's a more radical idea, tie all real estate growth and development to clean energy. ie when you build a new building or a cul de sac of houses and you have to get a certain percentage of energy from clean sources. The amount could start low and increase as time goes on. This would make people think more about smart growth and clean energy.






John Ozkirbas

On the energy proposal plan:

I think Bedrock from HanaBarbara's the Flintstones had a pretty sold energy system. Clean yet efficient. Industrial, yet green. If we expended all energy usage through foot-propulsion and the exploitation of talking prehistoric animals, the human race's carbon footprint would be barely noticeable! I mean, they only waste that would really be produced would be manure, and that stuff's all usable. In fact, our society would have to revert to its agricultural roots in order to care the plan out, so it would pretty much be necessary. Win-Win. The only people that would be pissed is PETA. But, who cares what PETA thinks. Now all we need is some prehistoric animals that talk - which shouldn't be too hard. I mean, I wasn't the only one who saw Jurassic Park. Somebody has to have that on lock down. Given, that could just be the part of me that wants the opportunity to off-handedly comment, "Clever girl," to a velociraptor. In that case, I say we wait for Steve Jobs to invent the iReactor - the world first touch-screen interactive fission device. Because who doesn't want a nuclear reactor that synchronizes with your iPod or iPhone?

David Pratt

It's time for a confession. When I put this question into place, I left out a critical fact that I was hoping some of the Gentlemen might come across.

Coal mining in this country is not all it's cracked up to be.

The coal industry accounts for .12% of all jobs in the U.S. workforce, despite their claims that, due to jobs they affect indirectly, millions of people benefit from coal. The industry constantly points to the heavy economic dependence of West Virginia as justification for them to remain in the state and continue with their environmentally disastrous campaign of mountaintop mining which devastates the local wildlife and leaves toxic runoff in the drinking water. Even as they do this, they abandon eastern mines - West Virginia included - in favor of the more abundant coal veins found in states like Montana and Colorado. In doing so, they leave the landscape in ruins and the people destitute, with little or no political action taken against them.

Despite employing less than 90,000 people, coal provides nearly half of our electric needs across the country. This is largely due to the fact that coal has been the focal point of our technological advances in producing electricity for over a century. Now that new technology is moving in, with enough funding given to research it is only a matter of time before coal begins lagging behind. Already there are options which far outclass coal in terms of environmental impact, actual electric output being the last hurdle to climb.

Personally, my stake would be in harnessing nuclear energy. It's clean, efficient, and produces an enormous amount of energy. If the research Bill Gates is currently funding pays off, then we would essentially have inexhaustible amount of fission power with a negligible environmental impact. The problem is getting people to trust nuclear power; despite the advantages, people hear "nuclear power plant" and imagine horror stories about the still-glowing Chernobyl. While the disadvantages are present, and some downright scary, if we can responsibly harness nuclear power, the world is our oyster.

And from a purely economic standpoint, clearly the correct course of action is pursuing greater electrical production through varied means. Wind power alone accounted for more jobs in American than the coal industry last year, and as opportunities in energy-producing fields grow, so too will the benefits they provide the American economy.

We demand a lot from the coal industry now because it's convenient to do so, and they have some excellent lobbyists peppering us with reasons to continue. The fact of the matter is, however, that the more we put into alternative energy research, the greater dividends it ultimately pays for America.


There you have it. Those are our thoughts on the energy problems facing the country, what are yours? We'd love to hear from you, especially regarding any other amazing advances made in the field that we left out here.

Until next time, this has been the Roundtable.

Making the Perfect Video Game

Several times since the inception of These Gentlemen, readers have poised the question to us; what exactly makes us qualified to discuss certain topics? Why should our opinions matter to them? While I may not have the perfect response to them in all situations, I feel very comfortable letting you know I am eminently qualified to render discourse on this.

Virtual entertainment is a large and growing field. Since the days of Intellivision video games have fascinated our society, giving rise to juggernauts like Nintendo and Sega. Wherever there are winners, there are losers, however, and the story of video games is rife with cautionary tales like that of the N-Gage or Turbo-Grafx 16. Out of all those just mentioned, only one is still actively engaged in the ongoing "console war," a bid by the three major video game companies of today (the other two being Sony and Microsoft) to monopolize our virtual entertainment. That company is Nintendo. Why? I will tell you.

Because of this guy:
It's-a me!

The introduction of the game Super Mario Bros. in 1985 not only propelled Nintendo to instant success, it revitalized the entire video game industry. The popularity of Mario and his adventures through the Mushroom Kingdom spawned a slew of sequels and spin-offs. One of its sequels, Super Mario Bros. 3, became the best-selling game not packaged with a console in history, selling 18 million individual units (the original still holds the crown for most sales overall; there have been 40,230,000 copies of Super Mario Bros. sold worldwide). The character Mario has easily become the most recognizable video game character of all time, which leads us to the topic at hand.

Why do people like Mario?

Because his games are fantastic.

Nintendo has many other franchise players; The Legend of Zelda, Donkey Kong, Kirby, and Metroid to name a few. While they have also made their mark on the industry, Mario stands head and shoulders above them as a titan of the video game world. What makes his games so amazing? The fact that they have almost universally excelled in 6 different areas which make them unforgettable.

Graphics

While you might not typically think superior graphics when imagining the original Super Mario Bros., it did everything it could with what it had at the time. As technology advanced, so did Mario, from the more animated Super Mario World all the way to the fully 3D and richly designed landscapes of Super Mario Galaxy. With today's technology, especially the incredible Playstation 3 processor, games are increasingly expected to offer us a feast for the eyes when we play.

Graphics engines of note in today's world of 3D games and high-speed processors are found in many first-person shooters emphasizing realism, like Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, or in action-adventure games like Uncharted and Batman: Arkham Asylum. Others go with a more stylized approach, such as Sega's Valkyria Chronicles, or the cartoon-like renderings of Borderlands. These last two are examples of games emphasizing a design choice and making the world work around it, rather than trying to make the game as life-like as possible. Rather than try and strain the limits of today's technology, they embrace it and make their graphics like a signature for their games.

Regardless of the choices made, those making them are aware that in order to compete in today's world, you have to stand out. Mario's design and the worlds his games take place in are so ingrained in the social gaming conscious by now that with every new layer of detail Nintendo places upon them, the wonder of discovery is rekindled. The closest contender to this used to be Sonic the Hedgehog, but in all his future iterations Sega failed to capitalize on the upgraded graphics to make the games look any better while simultaneously keeping them fun -which brings us to the next category.

Gameplay

Simply put, the ease with which you are able to control and enjoy the game. Make a game too complicated, and you'll end up with something completely unplayable. With a few upgrades over time to account for Nintendo giving him extra gadgets, Mario has always consisted of the basic controls; Move, jump, duck. Gran Turismo, the best-selling racing series, follows this same principle; speed up, slow down, turn. This simple formula keeps it easy to understand and intuitive for new gamers. Another aspect of gameplay involves challenges within the game itself; enemies with a specific way to defeat them, the ability to act freely rather than within a constrained set of rules for playing, and of course, puzzles.

There are a plethora of games out there which excel in one of these areas without necessarily mastering them all. Portal, for example, utilizes a unique element which emphasizes a novel gameplay idea and how to use it to solve puzzles. The popular Lufia series also mixes traditional Role Playing elements with complex puzzles for the player to figure out in order to advance. Even fighting games are judged by their gameplay; not so much in solving problems, but in how difficult it is to use the controls to execute special moves and combos. BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger, and Super Street Fighter 4 are examples of how rich that particular genre can be in this area. Outside the fighting genre, Atlus is especially known for putting out games with creative gameplay features, such as those found in Odin Sphere and Trauma Team.

Of course, too much emphasis on a robust system can be a bad thing - let us never forget that Pac-Man, Pong, and Tetris established the basis for gameplay which is still used today. Gameplay needs to be involving enough to get us to pay attention, yet simple enough to not be frustrating. A combination like that can easily take over a Federation Starship.

Replay Value

When you beat a game, do you get the urge to play it again? And in doing so, does it offer you a different experience from the first? Will it again upon a third playthrough? This is the question of replay value, a driving force behind video game design since Chrono Trigger put in the New Game+ option.

Some games today, like Assassin's Creed, have failed at the replay aspect. They quickly become repetitive despite creative beginnings, and thus become a struggle to simply finish and put away. Others try to force replay value, adding unlockables such as advanced difficulty modes or bonus levels only available after first beating the game, like in God of War. Genuine replay value, however, comes from being able to make choices in the game that affect the way the rest of the game is played. For Mario, this can boil down to something as simple as "do I finish the stage or do I take the warp zone?" For Commander Shepard of Mass Effect, these decisions not only affect what happens in Mass Effect 2, but also exactly how he's going to get down and dirty with some hot alien babe.

What it comes down to is offering the player a legitimate choice on how to play the game. Once they explore one avenue to its ultimate end, the promise of being able to go back and explore how things would unfold if different choices were made lures players back. Sports games of the Madden or NBA Live series are known for their replay value, and so are open-ended games like Disgaea.

Of course, beyond secret dungeons, extra items, or the chance to blast through the game from the start with all the weapons you had at the end, replay value always comes down to one element.

Was this game really, really fun to play?

In the case of Mario games, the answer has always been "yes."

Soundtrack

I'm not going to go so far as to say "everybody knows it," but it's not hard to find someone who can recognize this without much difficulty. Mario did something else with its inception; it created a theme song you can hum, whistle, or sing out loud if you know the words. Soundtracks are a key element in any successful franchise; Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Rocky; they all have a classic musical score that enhances the moments on screen and lets the people watching walk away with something memorable. The same holds true for music in video games.

Don't underestimate video game music; memorable tunes from games are not unusual to hear reproduced by entire orchestras, or in some cases orchestras are formed specifically for that purpose. A good soundtrack can provide such an enormous benefit to a game that in some cases, notably Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, a 5-star game seems almost average when bereft of its musical accompaniment. Music enhances the feel of the game, and helps draw you in to the action just like it would in a movie. Games of the horror genre like Dead Space and Resident Evil rely on creepy, subtle tones to produce their sinister atmosphere. Grand Theft Auto lets you listen to hours of pre-recorded songs on the radio while cruising Liberty City for hookers and blow. Mario, and games like it, are typically upbeat and catchy tunes, but video games are capable of producing touching orchestral pieces, silly sing-a-long songs, or even producing an original soundtrack by well-known artists.

The right soundtrack can make a decent game good, and a good game truly great.

Characters

The goal of many video game companies these days is to create a memorable character that people will want to play as over and over again. Lacking brand name success such as that of Castlevania or Final Fantasy, a personality that sticks with an audience can be just as stimulating for sales. Some achieved this success early on with recognizable characters like Sonic the Hedgehog and Mega Man, others have wallowed in a lower tier of success, like Devil May Cry's Dante or Ninja Gaiden's Ryu Hayabusa. While characters are not always necessary depending on genre (fighting games can get away with as little characterization as possible, racing simulation games don't need it at all), those looking to build a series need an antagonist to focus their story around.

Characters are increasingly cookie-cutter these days. Here's a few examples of themes you'll see repeated.













Grizzled soldier











Under-dressed femme fatale
















Tortured hero with dark past









Something unbearably cute






As the ability to incorporate great writing into games increases, so to does the expectation that characters be well-written. Mario's cast of characters is colorful, recognizable, and enjoyable. The challenge today's successful game designer faces is not only making a memorable character, but making one unique in a landscape filled with knock-offs and derivatives. Of course, a major part of making an audience care about the antagonist is their motivation - which brings us to the next factor.

Story

In the beginning, a complex story was by far the exception to the rule. Games like Mega Man or Castlevania offering explanation for the motives of their characters in the course of the game was a new concept - even Role Playing Games Final Fantasy and Dragon Warrior only gave you a single conversation with the king describing your overall quest at the beginning of the game, and the rest was up to you. By and large, the story was either unnecessary (who cares WHY Pac-Man is in the maze?) or simply implied (my Princess is in another castle - okay, so I'm looking for a Princess, and she's been kidnapped by one of these dragon-things. Got it!).

Since then, story development has come a long way and plays a deep part in the enjoyment of our games. RPGs go especially far with this element, with the upcoming Final Fantasy XIII purportedly like a movie unto itself, albeit one you have a modicum of control over. First-person shooters are by-and-large exempt from this rule, but even they sometimes offer depth by incorporating a plotline that we receive updates to, or even the occasional twist. Other game franchises follow the idea of a story arc over several games, such as the saga of Sam Fischer in Splinter Cell, Master Chief in Halo, or Solid Snake in Metal Gear Solid.

The idea is to keep people invested; if they become interested in the story, they might overlook other less enjoyable factors of a game so that they can make it to the next plot point. Certainly there are any number of people whom have continued a game of Silent Hill 2 because they want to know how it ends, long after the silent, fog-filled streets seem repetitive. A good story separates can affect characters, replay value, and even help gloss over issues with gameplay. While not the #1 factor of a great game, understanding the characters you're playing and the backstory of the world you're in helps a player feel a connection to a character beyond gripping the control pad.


To wrap up this investigation, I can only say that I don't know if a successor to Mario's crown will ever emerge. Many game designers through the years have rendered amazing efforts to excel in all 6 fields, yet somehow still fallen short of the simple element of fun present in the plumber's video exploits. Will there ever be a game that so artfully and easily presents us with a gaming experience we will keep going back to, over and over? Perhaps, or perhaps not.






Oh wait, never mind. Here it is.

Virginia Attorney General against protection for gay state employees.

If you haven't seen this yet, it's pretty heinous. The Washington Post reports that Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli (R) "has asked the state's public colleges and universities to rescind policies that ban discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation..."

His argument is that the public colleges and universities added policies forbidding discrimination without the approval of the state assembly. According to the Post's article, his predecessor Robert F. McDonnell (R) also held similar thoughts on discrimination law, that "only the General Assembly could name new classes for legal protections."

Effectively, the state of Virginia doesn't like that its institutions of higher learning have passed them on the highway of enlightened governing. The message is "Whoa, whoa! Slow down there. We're not quite sure we think gays are real people, yet."

It would do Mr. Cuccinelli -- and those who think like him -- well to consider how the phrase "wrong side of history" applies to them. The quote "Segregation now, segregation forever!" is used again and again to illustrate our history of reprehensible bigotry. It also illustrates the progress a complicated country like ours can make. 47 years after George Wallace made that speech as Alabama's newly elected governor, we now have a black president. I predict that history will look on Cuccinelli's brand of bigotry in a similar light.

Blooms

It has been a fantastic couple of days here in the DC area. The sun is out, the snow is melting, the Terps destroyed Duke at home, and gay couples can legally marry in our nation's capital. One by one, the united states seem to be falling away to the inevitable, and hopefully (hopefully) the example set by our capital city will now be followed more willingly, and lovingly, the way it should be.

Joy, like the cherry blossoms in April, can open and blanket a whole city, transforming it entirely, if only for a small while. And that is how I feel right now.

After a long, hard, cold winter, spring is finally, finally, finally coming for our country.

picture courtesy of The Guardian

What happens when companies dare to love.

NYTimes Lede: "In the first major fracture between television show owners and the wildly popular Hulu.com, Viacom will remove 'The Daily Show With John Stewart," and "The Colbert Report" and other Comedy Central Programs from the video site this week."

Like  many relationships, sometimes it just comes down to cash-money. Hulu is on the losing end of this break-up, since Viacom has decided to take "The Daily Show" and "The Colbert Report" with it. According to the Times, they're breaking amicably, but we all know that's some bullshit. And not just the few of us who loved seeing what they were like together. I mean, "The Daily Show" was, like, the number three most watched show on Hulu behind "Family Guy" and "Lost"...! I'm just sad to see it happen, man. Remember how f'in pumped everyone was when they got together in June two years ago? It was like this huge-big-deal. Tech Crunch called it a "milestone" for Hulu. Like it was growing up, finally. 

You can't totally blame Viacom, though. It was all going one way for a while and Hulu was making a better part of the cash. With assets like "The Daily Show" and "Colbert" a person can make it alone, if you know what I mean. Viacom just said, "You're dead weight Hulu, I need more," and all Hulu could do was beg Viacom to consider the fans. Why split ad money with a middle man when you can have all the dough in your own roll? Both the "Daily Show" and "Colbert" will continue to play full length episodes on their respective websites. The way the online video market place is unfolding, it seems like more content providers will go in Viacom's direction. So while this doesn't hurt Hulu too badly in the short term, its long term relationship horizons are looking pretty dark. At least until it finds a business model that can more equally hold up its end of the bargain.

Ain't no love in business, man. Just the bottom line.