"Only a Sith deals in absolutes" - Obi-Wan Kenobi
Disagree?
It's not too hard to figure out, you see it everyday
And those that were the farthest out have gone the other way
You see them on the freeway, It don't look like a lot of fun
But don't you try to fight it; "An idea who's time has come."
Don't tell me that I'm crazy
Don't tell me I'm nowhere
Take it from me
It's hip to be [chat]
So last night a few things pissed me off in World of Warcraft and, as always, Glenn Beck said idiotic things on his show. This morning I've tried to mix these two things together to, in a manner similar to Voltron, form a more significant and powerful rant than the two piddly rants I could form using either part. After grappling with this for a while, though, I realized that no one pays me to write these things and I'm not beholden to anyone but myself in writing them. So today I'm going to rant about some things which piss me off and if you don't like it then you can write your own little structured, organized, engaging rant.
Show me your Stats!
You know how in Pokémon there are a plethora of hidden stats which drastically influence gameplay? You know how one has to inductively guess at them to maximize one's Rattatta? Well, World of Warcraft has that same enraging problem. Unlike Pokémon, however, in World of Warcraft one may install addons which display these hidden stats and so allow a player to better understand their class. While most Pokémon players would give their left bidoof to see these hidden, useful, meaningful stats many World of Warcraft players obstinately refuse to allow their self access to them.
And fuck-all if I can understand why.
Omen is an addon which displays a user's threat. Threat is, generally speaking, what determines whether or not a mob tries to beat the living shit out of you. So, seeing one's threat would be useful, right? Well, last night when I suggested to some people that they install Omen they got pissy and said that if an addon is required then the game itself is somehow flawed.
Which, if you didn't notice, completely misses the fucking point. When discussing addons we are not critiquing the game itself. We're talking about gaining access to hidden stats which influence gameplay; we're talking about learning.
You know how Disgaea was awesome because it displayed everything? Do you remember how great it was to be able to see pages of stats regarding damage, character abilities, past accomplishments, etc.? Well, addons basically do that; addons transform World of Warcraft from Pokémon into Disgaea.
And hell if I can understand why someone would choose to play the Pokémon version of WoW over the Disgaea version of WoW.
Glenn Beck vs. Academia
I really like it when a Glenn Beck or Bill O'Reilly take issue with academia and spew forth puny little tirades about how liberal academics are indoctrinating our children with "the views of the terrorists".
Think about it. On one side you have professors who spend their lives reading, writing, teaching, and learning who attempt to educate young adults and instill in them a sense of curiosity and open-mindedness. On the other side you have recovering alcoholic Glenn Beck. That right there, to me, ends the debate.
Last night Glenn Beck was upset. Upset because liberal academics are on the side of the terrorists. Liberal Academics do not want us to indiscriminately bomb brown people as a result of our being terrified by something that happened seven years ago. Liberal Academics want us to treat captured terrorists well, to maintain a sense of decency and not stoop to their level. Liberal Academics want their students to be aware of the world in which they live and understand nuance.
And, sure, professors are human and make mistakes. Professors are not infallible. But it still seems foolish to advocate Glenn Beckian ignorance and terror over, say, nuance and understanding.
What confuses me the most, though, is how inharmonious these views are.
Liberal academics, to use Glenn's term, want the policies of the United States to be subject to the ideals to which we as a nation supposedly cling. Liberal academics do not want to torture people because torture is bad; we have defined it to be such. Liberal academics want the policy of the United States to be subject to rules which are in accord with ideals.
People like Glenn Beck, though, want that same thing. Only the ideals to which Glenn Becks cling are more focused on men fucking other men and women being homemakers.
Each group want to subject their self to ideals. But what they disagree on are the ideals to which they must be subject. One thinks we must uphold our ideal of foreign policy but may release our ideal of heterosexual marriage. One thinks we must release our ideal of foreign policy but must uphold our ideal of heterosexual marriage.
And both seem to be completely oblivious to the fact that they're each making the exact same arguments. They're just using different nouns.
Bringing it together
What I wanted to do was combine these rants to show how context matters, how context is basically the thing from which all others operate. A proper understanding of context would allow Glenn Beck and Liberal Academics to agree. A proper understanding of context might spur far more WoW players to install addons.
The problem is that we have different views of these contexts. There is a context in which torture is good and a context in which torture is bad. There is a context in which homosexuality is good and a context in which homosexuality is bad. There is a context in which Disgaea is better than Pokémon just as there is a context in which Pokémon is better than Disgaea.
Our job as human beings constantly subject to the human condition is to assess these context, to forever effort towards understanding them. It does not behoove us to pick a context and stop, to become entrenched in our own self-supported Dogma. We need to question ourselves and rethink what we are doing. We need to accept contexts for what they are and so engage them in an effort to better ourselves. We need to be aware of ourselves and learn.
And we really need to stop being dipshits and take care of our puppies rather than treat them as pieces of furniture with which we occasionally play fetch.
So, Apple made the SDK (Software Developer's Kit) for the iPhone and iPod Touch available to everyone for free. The only catch is that to use the SDK you need OSX and then, you know, to lower your standards to the point where you can tolerate using OSX. But the program itself is free. That's something.
It's up on apple.com or at least the link is. When I go there it says "Internet Explorer cannot display this page". But I am not on OSX. Because OSX sucks.
While I think it is keen that the SDK is available for free I am a bit upset that it can only be used on OSX. Not because I want to use it, mind you. Rather I'm upset that the only people who can write programs for the iPhone and iPod Touch are the effete fucks still belaboring their grudges about Windows ME while sitting in yuppie coffee shops being shitheads.
Admitedly, though, the majority of people who actually own iPhones and iPod Touches are those same effete yuppies.
And me.
Cause I like being able to browse the internet while I'm shitting.
On Wednesday afternoons when a new Zero Punctuation bursts into the world like a fornicating teen's unwanted fertilized egg shortly after taking a "morning after" pill I like to hop over to the related Kotaku thread to lurkingly frolick in the fanboy idiocy.
Whenever "Yahtzee" releases a new rant there will undoubtedly be irritated fan boys who decry the "review" and hurl insult at "Yahtzee" like bricks sent aloft by Christians lovingly embracing the message of Christ by destroying abortion clinics. And just as the Christians miss the point of their Holy Text (Don't Be A Dick!) so too do the fanboys miss the point of Zero Punctuation:
It is fun to find fault with things.
Ranting, nit picking, critiquing, and generally berating things is an enjoyable activity both for the individual and the audience. People like George Carlin, Lewis Black, and Denis Leary have made careers out of simply finding fault with things and so, too, has "Yahtzee". And while I can understand the reasons for which, say, John Hagee would not appreciate George Carlin I am somewhat perplexed by why a fanboy would dislike Zero Punctuation.
In a convoluted way players become personally invested in the games they play. If a person plays WoW for months on end, grows up playing Mario games, or reaches a new level of excellence in Guitar Hero there is a degree to which these games become a part of who that individual is. So in this way it would be sensible for a person who enjoyed The Witcher, due to some brain abnormality, to be upset by "Yahtzee"'s review of The Witcher. But what this situation fails to capture is the self-awareness gamers need to have.
I think it behooves an individual to be aware of their self, to understand their self. If, for example, an individual is obsessed with an ex-girlfriend it behooves that individual to acknowledge this even if that individual can internally justify the obsession based upon their completely objective assessment of past events. If an individual really likes, say, Devil May Cry 4 it behooves them to have the self-awareness to acknowledge that the game has flaws, that it is not perfect.
And this is the aspect of reality upon which Zero Punctuation focuses: nothing is perfect.
There are always nits to pick, always flaws to exploit and focus upon. And doing so, finding these flaws and picking this nits, is an enjoyable activity which both entertains and reminds us that we ought to have a knowing sense of awareness and humor about our hobbies. While an individual may be personally invested in a game that same individual must also acknowledge this investment and step away, so to speak, from the pastime and realize that while to them it is enjoyable it is also, in so many ways, a waste of time and a subject ripe for mockery.
All this to say that I really like Zero Punctuation and if you don't then you suck.
So there.
So, this is brilliant. NASA can finally harness the power of Emo via a one person, one way mission to Mars.
Alone on a spaceship headed towards Mars with the knowledge that you will never return? Man, that would be awesome.
Maybe they can power the rocket with the blood gained through the individual constantly cutting their self.
