Captain America

Captain America. Traditional boy scout comic book superhero. Boyscout by profession. There's little to not like about this particularly naive boy scout, and the movie itself does not disappoint.

Cap is sufficiently well known that it's fairly challenging to spin a reimagination of his origins. This movie serves that purpose, and throws in oodles of humor to boot. The acting was good, and the story was build up with sufficient context to please even non-fans. It is also refreshing to see how the romance ends in this movie (those knowing me will know what to expect), and that scores points as well.

On the flip side, there really is little going against it. I suppose you could regard the usual comic book physics as implausible to impossible, and one who's a stickler for realism should steer clear of this one. Then again, the over the top action and true Cap patriotism are adequate to more than make up for it.

I'd say the movie deserves a 7.5/10. Ok maybe at least 8 since the female lead is pretty darned cute.

Steam

Steam, the digital distribution application by the Valve Corporation, is an evil money spinning wonder. First question: Who the heck likes to view ads? Not me. Would I like seeing Valve ads? Hell yeah!

Now, I've known for some time that Steam is evil. I know this because of the hundreds of games on my Steam account, for example. But what fascinates me the most is how Steam has managed to convince people to like ads. Those in advertising will know that the holy grail is to get peoples' attention, turn that attention to sales and then everything's nice and sunny. Steam does precisely that.

The beauty of a highly specialized distribution system is that everyone getting on it has the same goal: To acquire and play video games. Then comes how their ads are laid out: The top bar has game ads (which everyone expects) and the popup has the highlight game ads. It's easy enough to ignore the unobtrusive top bar ads, and to close the single popup.

Now, how does this differ from the average ad popup? Well for one they tend to show up in ways that prevent you from getting at the product. Youtube ads prevent you from watching a video to get you the advertiser's message. Pron sites spam you with shitloads of popups to the same effect. And everything else has ad bars that show stuff that may or may not be related to what you seek. All in all those just serve to turn eyes away, which translates to lower hits and even lower conversion rates.

Taking a page from Steam and Amazon, it seems that customers react best to very tight ad integration that brings them the information they seek, and in a timely manner. It doesn't obstruct user consumption either. I suppose the next thing is to wonder how one may elegantly advertise on a site that isn't selling stuff...

The Lure Of Gambling

Gambling is the scourge of mankind. How is it possible for people to be hoodwinked into playing a well known losing game, while irrationally hoping against hope that they'd come out ahead?

The obvious answer is well...everyone hopes to win and nobody really expects to come out the big loser. Fair enough. But while watching people react to the outcome of gambling results, I actually see some really good game design behind the whole shebang.

The first principle here is feedback. It's very clear in the case of winning and losing. You win, you come out ahead. You lose, you lose. Simple enough. They even threw in a reward system that way (punishment doesn't count since the bet is already acknowledged as a loss at the beginning).

Then comes the heroin content: You, sir, have nearly won! Nearly won? What does that mean? In this case, betting on numbers...oh man, I've scored 4 out of the 5 required numbers for the winning ticket. Dude...if I just rolled my numbers differently, I'd be taking home tens of thousands of dollars right now! That nearly won effect is fantastic in keeping people playing. If they simply put tickets through a system and it told them...Win/Lose, the motivation to continue playing would fade pretty quickly: There's no lure. Actually, I see the game in win/lose terms, which is why I refuse to play.

Finally...you've played, you've won. Hell yeah! The next question: Do you cash out and walk away for ever, or play for more money? Yanou...that money I just won? It's easy to come by. I didn't earn it, it's the house's money... Well that's the House Money Effect. Throw everything in and you've got a game that everyone wants to play, are fairly happy losing money at, and really winning only gets them coming back for more. So, friends, would you like to ante up now?

Harry Potter: The Deathly Hallows 2

This is the end of the Harry Potter series. Seeing as how virtually everyone who watches is a fan (myself excluded), I suppose there's little worry of spoiling anything with the comments here. Newsflash: Prof. Dumbledore is an asshole. But then I suppose everyone knew that beforehand anyway =p

So...am I impressed by this particular installment of the Harry Potter series? Did it go out with a bang? Well not really. Frankly, as a non-fan, I found the overall movie to be somewhat lackluster. For one, the magickal duel between HP and Tom just wasn't all that spectacular. There were funny moments in the assault on Hogwarts, but everything in between kind of turned into a somewhat amorphous mush. Hermoine's still hawwt, by the way.

Overall I'd say the movie's something like a 6.5/10. It reveals something of the series that fans already know, but from a non-fan's perspective it really is mediocre at best.

Camera Love

I am a firm believer that a photo's compositional quality comes not from the gear, but from the photographer. If the photographer's good, she'll pop out superior stuff relative to a more inexperienced photog given the same gear. That much is true.

However, when it comes to the gear, sometimes it really can make a big difference in one's shooting style. Take for example the compact camera vs the EVIL camera vs the DSLR. The compact camera is small, and can take shots from virtually any vantage point. It's easy to squeeze that little thing through a gap in a fence and snap shots. For the EVIL, it's got image quality comparable to a DSLR, but with speed that is somewhat faster than the compact's. It's good for slow, considered photography. Not so good for anything faster. Then comes the heavyweight DSLR, which is zippy in performance and changing settings. But of course, its primary disadvantage lies in its sheer bulk.

I was taking photos at a railway just yesterday, and I was frankly getting a bit tired of my EVIL misfocusing shots. It's doing that by giving me false focus confirmations. After thumbing the DSLR for a bit, I realized that it really was all that much faster than my EVIL (I was burning that one in previously, so I had to use it continuously). The feel was so different, and the handling on the device did make me feel a lot more confident in taking shots with it. Odd shots, too, that may involve holding the camera at odd angles.

Overall, I'd say I can now understand why I originally wanted the DSLR as my primary shooter. If there's something worth shooting and I'm lugging my gear along, I might as well carry the DSLR. It isn't really worth it going on a dedicated shoot armed only with the EVIL...it currently isn't zippy enough to do the job.

Corporate Inefficiency

One thing that constantly amuses me in game development is how a big company can be inclined to stick to completely arbitrary deadlines. I say big company, because small companies do not necessarily have the resources to be able to say it's-done-when-it's-done. If anything, a smaller company saying that is effectively betting the entire game, whereas a big company will be betting shareholder value.

I find it inefficient because the sunk cost for a project is already there at the arbitary deadline, and extending it by a tad would result in significant gains in quality. There is always the argument to strike while the iron's hot, and to have the project shipped on schedule to take advantage of the holiday season and whatnot for sales. Yet, I find that other companies have successfully sat on their project for sales period after sales period to ship a truly quality product way beyond the typical 2 year dev cycle.

To me, a company may do well to incur an additional 10-20% of production costs from improving quality, such that first impressions do not get the already expensive project crushed from poor reviews. It is the image from poor reviews that can severely damage a project's sales, after all...

Super 8

Goonies meets ET. If you liked the old Spielburg classics, I think you'd really like this one. It's certainly a throwback to the old stuff, and strangely anachronistic for our current film styles. I say anachronistic because it gives more of a sense of forced nostalgia in an era of totally different film styles, even though the piece itself is indeed rather good.

So. We have an intrepid squad of film-making youngsters turned investigators when they start to look into the strange goings on in their small town. Set in the late 1970's to early 80's, it does invoke a certain nostalgia for those who remember the era.

What's there not to like? The alien here doesn't talk, it's seriously pissed off, and the rest of the movie is effectively the Goonies with moviemaking thrown in. In fact, even the movie they made was endearingly slapped together kid-style without trying to go all Blair Witch on our asses. To boot, the kids are quite good with their acting, portraying rather convincing characters (not that I could really tell, since I'm that bad with body language and all)

Overall I'd say I liked it, though it broke no new ground. That's not to say that it really had to, but it is what it is. 7.5/10

Command And Conquer 4

Yup. I finally got down to actually trying that monstrosity. And I don't mean it in a good way, as much as I like some monsters. Command and Conquer 4 is what appears to be a rather poor attempt at reimagining the gameplay of the C&C series. Simply put, Tiberium Twilight makes me sad. I'm officially calling it the equivalent of Twilight (the movie) in the C&C series.

Ok good things first, because the rest is just upsetting. I find it awesome that the designers decided to try to reimagine the RTS gameplay, with a mobile base and different unit paths depending on the player's current class. In fact, they made a clear effort to emulate Relic's capture point centric gameplay. Overall, the high concept had quite some potential.

Now the bad. Which is practically everything else. Command and Conquer has always been about tech tree climbing and massed armies. In fact, it's what sets the franchise apart from the other RTS with population caps and hence limited squads engaging in combat. Nobody will ever forget the tank rushes and their equivalents. What came out of the mix was combat that felt pointless. In lieu of resource gathering, there was the forced gathering of tiberium crystals on the map for upgrades while moving small squads of troops that just didn't feel particularly differentiated (they were, btw) and really no sense of omgsomeone'sstealingmygold.

The campaign was unpardonably tepid, and the game was clearly made for multiplayer...which the C&C franchise wasn't really optimal for. The missions in 4 were even worse than in 3, failing to deliver the sort of FMV goodness that made the early games in the series. After hearing about what happened to Red Alert as well...I'm just sad.

Kung Fu Panda 2

Po is back, and he's funnier than ever. It's rare for me to see a sequel that's actually better than the original, and this one is it. It also means I'm bracing myself for disappointment over its sequels, as mean regression will set in sooner or later. I'm gona enjoy this high while it lasts.

So. What's improved? Everything. Storyline, art quality, lighting, action. It's all over the top and just as implausible as it was before. It's even thrown in a touching rendition of Po's history and how he came to be adopted by a silly old goose. All I can say is that his journey of self discovery continues, and is every bit as meaningful (perhaps more so) than it originally was. Awesome sauce! (And there's no charge for awesomeness)

I'd say if you haven't watched it already and it isn't on the big screens anymore, rent the gorram thing. It's totally worth it. 8.5/10.

That Strange Bag

I had a rather weird experience today, so I suppose I shall document it, as is customary. I bought a tripod today. It came in a regular thin plastic bag. Usual stuff. I'm quite excited about the tripod, by the way. My mom is egging me to get rid of the junk in my room, but that's another story for another day.

Well anyway this morning, I realized that the stone from my bracelet was coming off, but I figured it'd hold so I wore it out and planned to fasten it later in the day. As Murphy's Law dictates, I suddenly decided to check my wrist and found that the gem was gone. Bummer! I dumped my bracelet in the bag since it was largely useless without the center piece.

As I was getting off the bus enroute home, I saw something black sticking to the bag. Turned out it was my pocket knife. In fact, the knife's pocket clip somehow got stabbed into the bag and the bag effectively stole my pocket knife from my pocket. Bad bag!

Then when I got home, I wanted to take the bracelet out and fix it with something else I had lying around. Well what the heck...there was something shiny rolling about in it, along with my bracelet. Turns out my bracelet's gem actually fell into the bag as well. *looks at bag suspiciously*

Creators, Players And Followers

All systems come from somewhere. There are rules either created or derived, and everything follows from there. In people systems, there are three main categories, as there are in other participatory systems: Creators, players and followers.

Arguably, a creator in a system is the most creative, if not necessarily the most powerful. They are the ones who helped set up the system, though sometimes systems create themselves and are purely procedural. I would also consider a really high end player to be a creator, since the player seeks not to play within the rules anymore, but to change the system itself.

Then we have the regular players who understand the system to varying degrees, but will operate primarily within the confines of the system without attempting to change them. Some players may become sufficiently adept to actually become a quasi-creator. A true player works the rules to their advantage, or to the advantage of those whom they wish to benefit.

Finally, we have the sheep known as followers, who play exclusively within the rules without making any special effort to maximize their personal benefit from the rules. Indeed, a follower may even operate through hearing of the rules from others, and thus have an indirect understanding of what they are.

Karma Does Not Exist

I am a karma skeptic. I do not believe that there's a cosmic force of fairness out there, which will punish evildoers and protect the good. As far as I can tell, that does not happen. Bad people get away with the bad things they did, good people get bullied, the world trudges on.

Actually, if it does exist, it is currently patently unverifiable. There's no objective way to measure karma. Everything can be claimed to be attributed to something unknowable. Oh that bad guy will have his just desserts in his next life. *BZZZ* Unverifiable. Something bad will happen to the person sometime in the future for what he just did. *BZZZZ* Doesn't always happen, and if it happens it seems like something that could possibly happen to anyone anyway. Ok so I murdered someone and someone I love gets into a car crash a week later. Would that necessarily mean that my actions caused the car crash somehow? Can it be verified? *BZZZ* Nope.

Despite all this, people believe in it anyway and look out for the signs of karma in action. A dictator starts having deformed children. Karma. An evil businessman who ripped everyone off gets arrested. Karma. It gives people a sense of comfort in the illusory innate fairness of the universe. I've learned that this matter is one of belief, and no amount of rationality will serve to debunk it. I've challenged others on the matter and only received an unverifiable challenge in return: Why don't you do something bad. You'll see what happens. Well no. I won't see what happens, 'coz it doesn't happen immediately after, I can't predict when it'll happen and even if it did I can't be sure that it wouldn't have happened anyway regardless of my actions.

In my view, the universe is as fair as the humans make it. Nothing more, nothing less. And as things go, humans make it unfair. Big deal. I accept that something bad may happen to me at some undefined point in the future and there's nothing I can do about it. But that isn't karma. That's just how life is. It's unfair. Live with it.

New Games

I've been observing the Western game industry and am frankly quite saddened by the fact that they're stagnating in design ideas and seem to view improved graphical quality as an "upgrade" of old franchises. If there are any major gameplay differences, chances are they are incremental at best.

With the introduction of more atmospheric games like Arkham Asylum and Bioshock, I'm wondering at the untapped pool of design ideas. It is truly difficult to come up with something new, but there's always something that many people can relate to. And that would involve mashups of what they have experienced in one way or another. Here, I am thinking of childhood experiences and games.

One thing that truly appeals to players of atmospheric games is the novelty of the experience. What I am considering is what would it be like to abstract a childhood experience, with the fears and fantasies and make a totally different gameplay and atmosphere with it? As a child, everything is new. There is joy in discovery, and fear in the unknowns. Everything is just bigger out there. Can a game be made out of it?

It is a shame that I have precious few childhood memories. I barely remember my past and I don't even recall childhood games...if I played any at all. I probably did, I think. Ah, well. That would throw a wrench in the works should I try to tap my own experiences for this endeavor, but I'm sure a sufficiently savvy game designer would be able to pick up from here.

Sucking Up

Everyone hates a suck up. It's often painfully obvious that someone is sucking up to a superior, and oftimes the superior seems to be quite oblivious to it. And then there are those who take it to another level, and actually masquerade as hard workers.

I had a discussion with a friend on the matter some days back, and he pointed out that these brown noses are disguising their sucking up efforts as initiative rather than hard work per se. Simply put, the strategy here is to volunteer for as many non-work gigs as possible as long as they're visible to the superior in question. This creates the impression of an outgoing worker full of initiative. It is especially insidious with highly social suckups, because they really do genuinely enjoy participating in such activities, and will have an air of genuine enthusiasm for them.

Herein lies the problem: while these activities have little bearing on actual productivity, they are often in line with management's goals of "team building" and other similarly social-oriented management objectives. It is therefore not hard to see how such people will appeal to the managerial bunch, and indeed may wind up in management themselves.

Of course, this raises some evaluation dilemmas. For one, can someone be regarded as a suckup for actively participating in activities that management likes and endorses when one genuinely enjoys them (regardless of ulterior motives)? For those who do have ulterior motives, is the time and effort spent in such activities justified in terms of the gains? And finally, while visibility will let one be honestly evaluated in a superior light as far as the manager is concerned, is this unfair to other less social but equally effective (often the case, given that they're focused) and genuine hard workers?

I think the general consensus is that performance evaluation is broken and is likely to stay broken for the forseeable future given the limits of human cognition: it is unlikely for a manager to be able to really focus on objective performance evaluations on top of other duties, and humans do rely heavily on things they can observe to make judgments. The optimal solution in this case for less-social employees seems to be to have a token participation in such activities (preferably one that the employee favors). Alternatively, going for high visibility assignments can have a similar effect without involvement in non-productivity related activities. Ah, the joys of working within a broken human system.

The Night Shift

People are generally resistant to radical change, and that does prevent certain more radical considerations from really taking root. I was pondering the merits of the night shift some days back, especially in relation to the fact that it's awfully hot in the daytime and frankly not a very enjoyable work experience in general.

Background. It's mighty hot in the daytime, especially in the tropics. The daylight hours are like clockwork and the temperature never varies greatly. Given these conditions,the air conditioning system of office buildings will be working overtime to cool the place and that takes quite a bit more power than it would were the temperature several degrees lower. In fact, a goodly number of people actually do want the night shift, but it's rarely considered as a true possibility in most companies.

Given the facts, it should actually be feasible if the night shift were implemented at a national level. Amongst the concerns of such an implementation include difficulty in adapting to the new hours, and inability to socialize with friends. Kids, too. But if it this thing were to be the norm, I seriously doubt that would be as much of a concern. As a side effect, I forsee that street crime at night would go down some, as more people are out and about so there are fewer secluded places during the dark hours.

Of course, given how the day shift has been so ingrained in societies everywhere since time immemorial, I'm not sure I'd see a normative shift anytime soon. Well, one can wish...

On Busty Boosters

In this current generation, women are made to feel small if they are...well...small breasted. There is an unrealistic expectation of wasp waists combined with melon assets. But that's not the point of this post. It is about the widespread scam of breast enhancing supplements.

I've been thinking about the matter a lot, and pondering the science in addition to personal reviews. The general consensus is that these things either work a "little bit" or not at all, but it seems that new (and veteran) fools will try the latest product anyway in the hope that this time it'll be different.

I especially liked one observation by a skeptic on the matter. She pointed out that menstrual cycles play a part and can color the observations of bust enhancer users. From my perspective, the matter of bust size is highly salient amongst the growth seekers. That means they will most certainly be watching any changes very carefully, and consequently any changes that are noticed will be magnified in their perception. Throwing in the cycle thing, basically they're going to observe enlargement when the cycle comes. It's also called water retention. Interestingly enough, the leaflets boast being able to effect changes precisely within that time frame. Hmmm! And the "changes" are said to subside after some time. Hmmmmmmm!

Well there's the physics behind it. Unless those supplements are able to channel fat into the area one way or another, it's quite unlikely for the changes to be permanent. Most likely the stuff just has minimal effectiveness if at all, and most likely induces water retention or other sorts of swelling instead of real growth. Bummer, eh?

Maturity

I live in an ageist society. This means, culturally speaking, one is privileged if one is viewed as "old" in some way. Something like seniority from hanging around a job for a long time, just dodging death for a number of decades or just plain acting as if one's older than one really is. Yes, that means "maturity", in a completely arbitrarily defined sense.

Now, I surmise that a goodly number of the locals seem quite intent on projecting that air of maturity. It can be seen from how they religiously show their intolerance of anyone who acts contrary to their idea of maturity (ignoring how that may in itself be conduct typical of somewhat immature high school children) and an emphasis on how those younger than they are...are "children". Or kids. Whatever.

I suppose I could regard this as a socially motivated attempt at soliciting the social benefits associated with age. To me, however, everything within reason is permitted and I am perfectly happy to accept any sort of goofy behavior on the condition that it does not disrupt the bottom line. That also means I have no qualms about tolerating staff goofing about at a sit down restaurant as long as my food comes to me on time and is prepared properly, and that I wouldn't hesitate to take an elderly person to task for being rude. They should really know better, and I have no tolerance for senile delinquents.

On Ghosts And Superstition

I heard a most interesting phrase from a friend today. Someone asked her if she believed in ghosts. To which she responded "Of course I do. I'm Chinese." It was then that it occurred to me: it is possible for superstitions to form part of an ethnic identity. Of course, it should've occurred to me earlier given how certain ethnicities regard certain religions as an integral part of their shared experience and whatnot.

Regarding this sort of (if I may say so) Chinese take on the supernatural, I do still wonder if there is a common thread to the superstitions of the various peoples. The Chinese have a very specific world view, full of taboos and hostile spirits. In fact, anything supernatural seems to be viewed as invariably hostile by the Chinese (with the exception of deities, which are generally benevolent). It is something to be guarded against. In some American (and European) takes on the issue, a number of supernatural presences may be benevolent in addition to the usual pantheon of goody two shoes.

I am largely a skeptic when it comes to the supernatural, primarily because 99% of what people report can be relatively safely regarded as hooey since the phenomenon may be common and/or really easily explained. Take for example the way expansion and contraction of in-wall piping can contribute to the sound of marbles being dropped on the floor (often attributed to the actions of a playful child spirit). Yet, given the ubiquity of the belief in the supernatural, I'm always curious as to whether there's truly a kernel of truth to these beliefs and if so how it may be systematically controlled (or at least predicted). At this point, however, I am mostly of the belief that there may well be something out there, but it remains unproven at this point. I'll put up my I Want To Believe poster sometime. I promise.

Pirates: On Stranger Tides

First things first. I don't care what people think, but I think Keira Knightley to be rather hot, and therefore am less than happy to watch a Pirates flick without her in it. That said, I think the rule of sequels is pretty much true: The longer the series gets, the more tired it tends to become. This particular movie is no exception.

Good things first. There's Jack Sparrow. With Johnny Depp playing as Jack Sparrow. And Geoffrey Rush as Cap'n Barbossa. Good stuff. It's got the usual humorous (and sometimes downright absurd) action sequences. Par for the course. In short, it's like Another Episode in the Pirates series. Nothing truly outstanding. Quest for something, get disrupted along the way, humor injected here and there like Botox, end of tale.

Now, the thing is I really really really really ^ as many as I like...hate the way they incessantly inject romances into shows. Hmm looking back at my movie reviews, I'd say...how many of them have actually appealed to me? None. No Keira Knightley. Ok. That's another minus. Put the two together and then I'm ignoring most of the show that doesn't have Barbossa or Jack Sparrow in it. These remaining bits just lack the sort of oomph they had in Pirates 1 and 2. Well...more like in 1 only, since 2 was getting sorta tired already and I honestly thought 3 spelled the doom of the franchise.

What would I say about this on the whole? Well it's fine for Pirates fans who know what to expect of the series and will most certainly get it. Not so fine for everyone else who would expect something new, groundbreaking or with at least a serious touch of originality. Oh, and fewer loose ends in the story. I'd say...6.5/10, you savvy?

The Panopticon

The internet seems to have become a panopticon of sorts for world leaders. Undoubtedly, one may argue that a country's leadership maintains a stranglehold on information in and out of a country, and can therefore restrict internet access as it pleases. Yet, it is also undeniable that the internet technologies have become sufficiently pervasive that it is now exceedingly difficult to completely silence the peoples' voice short of becoming something of a hermit country much like North Korea.

It cuts both ways. Clearly, the people are being monitored, but this time the panopticon permits the prisoners to stare back. The question now is who the watchers are, and who is watching. In the grand scheme of things, I'd say the leaders are approaching parity with the people. More interestingly, the sheer speed and volume of information dissemination has served to magnify issues the world over. Where only major earthquakes would've made headlines in the days of print media, now even comparatively minor tremblors or even minor tremors may make the peoples' news, massively increasing the salience of issues and events that may have been passed by in the old days. As always, I would find it interesting to see how all this shapes up in the decades and perhaps centuries to come.