Left 4 Dead 2

So there’s been a lot of controversy surrounding Left 4 Dead 2, and for once I can see the meaning behind some of the claims.  I also can think of a few of my own.

I would consider myself a console gamer – no interest in PC gaming as I don’t have the money or time to spend fixing up a high-end PC to play games on, and my XBOX more than satisfies my appetite. I’m saying this because I don’t really care for the lack of mod support in Left 4 Dead.

Where I feel cheated is not really with one thing in particular but a whole lump of things that add to each other, and this is not me being pretentious and reckoning that Valve owe me anything – they don’t.  As a computer scientist I can see how they’ve got to Left 4 Dead 2 within a year though – well maybe not as quick as a year, but the game has changed quite significantly.  There are three new super zombies, a shit load more guns, 5 new campaigns that can be played through on vs. mode too, other game modes (like the survival modes from the DLC of the first game), AI ‘Director’ who now alters the route you should take every time you play, etc.  All of those things probably warrant enough changes to a game engine to bring out an entirely new game.

Where I think I’ve been put out by Valve was that they didn’t quite meet the expectations of the systems they were being released on.  Take multiplayer on other games for example, Halo 3 – they’ve had four downloadable map packs available which span 11 new multiplayer levels – that is in my opinion a lot of downloadable content for a game which didn’t really need it all.  Left 4 Dead is an entirely multiplayer game with only 4 campaigns.  The way you are meant to play the game means you get about 4 hours of original entertainment and then all the rest is replay value.  £40 for 4 hours of original entertainment + replay value is a lot to ask for from a consumer.  However, I happily paid for the game with the expectation that Valve would support the instant community their game would make by releasing more campaigns as DLC like most other multiplayer games that are released on XBOX 360, PS3 and PC.  Don’t get me wrong, I loved playing those 4 campaigns on Left 4 Dead but after some time I wanted a bit more.

They didn’t completely leave their game in the dark without DLC though, a free survivor map and new game mode was released for free, and sufficed for a while.  They’ve also released a smaller campaign that links two of the other campaigns together, but you have to pay for it, and I’d lost interest in Left 4 Dead by the time that came out.

I understand again, that as a computer scientist their first engine/build of this game might not have been built entirely for expansion in the form of DLC – but that’s hard to digest when you see that they have released DLC – even so, my expectations of Left 4 Dead 2 now are that they have built this up to expand it a lot more with DLC.

As a consumer I feel a little bit cheated – cheated that the first game had so little content with the expectations of having a lot more added to it – and then finding out I’d have to shell out another £40 for the sequal being released only a year later with a just a few new additions; doesn’t seem justifiable to me. What I would have preferred would have been a lot more DLC on the original, and for Left 4 Dead 2 to be released next year – or cut down the price significantly of Left 4 Dead 2, because even after all the changes that have been made, it still looks and feels like an expansion pack.

Shadow Complex

How to do it right eh? Obviously that question only applies to the people who’ve played the game. This weekend I was completely addicted and revitalised to the whole Metroidverse (if it should even be called that). A place I haven’t been for quite some time, well not in the strictest definition of the word I haven’t.  For those of you who don’t know or can’t be bothered to find out, the name takes it’s origin from the original style of Metroid games – a 2D side scrolling platform adventure which requires you to progress by upgrading your abilities and backtracking to reach previously unreachable places with those upgrades.  Metroid games in the past have always been incredibly good at keeping the backtracking from being tedious, and there was a lot of expectation on my behalf for EPIC games to get it right with Shadow Complex.  And I’m glad to say they did.

Why I think you should get this game: Quite simply it is the best game yet to be released on the Xbox Live Arcade.  I spent over 9 hours playing it on my first playthrough (although I did get 100% of the items and the map discovered) – and that’s probably the most time I’ve spent playing all of my other XBLA games combined. The story is action based/arcade-y (note to other reviewers: AS IT SHOULD BE – IT’S ON XBOX LIVE *ARCADE*), has a lot of plot holes, but is generally good enough to warrant the only small thing on your mind when playing it – why is this base here?

The thing that should take up most of your brain processing power when you’re playing it is the gameplay, and for that it must include the graphics and the layout of the game as a whole, because the map and the objectives work with the combat and the action to deliver the entire experience.  It’s fun trying to work out which route you’re going to take, and remembering how different rooms look.  Towards the end of the game when it feels like you really can go anywhere you want, the controls really come into their own, and for me especially, makes you feel naturally awesome at playing the game – bust into a room and let all hell break loose, jumping to dodge bullets, shooting enemies in the distance and beating the crap out of the guy in front of you, only to notice that one of your stray bullets has hit an explosive can going off, throwing a dude right the way across the map.  Most reviews I’ve read of the game ‘only have one criticism’ and that is that the auto aiming control for enemies in the third dimension is a bit flaky.  I agree it is, but it’s not a criticism in the slightest, because it doesn’t happen at all that often, and when it does it’s easily resolved by just moving a bit (I found it very hard to keep still whilst playing).

From start to finish it was amazing because it felt very fluid, responsive and downright fun to play, which is the most important aspect of a game. Not to mention that it was the best anyone could have done to pay homage to Nintendo’s masterpieces (and also a nod to a few other games, namely Metal Gear Solid) – if you haven’t done already, at least pay some respect and try out the demo!

RT vs via

It recently transpired on a twitscussion (http://twitter.com/shepherdnick/status/1870638832) about the difference between RT (Retweet) or using (via @).  This blog (http://blog.atebits.com/2009/01/rt-vs-via-round-2/) was one I found (and one of the main culprits) after searching for RT vs via.  He actually acknowledges the difference between the two, and it’s something that I also wanted to talk about, or when I think would be appropriate to use each.

Okay, so we have Retweet (RT).  Retweet is generally regarded as a re-post of a tweet verbatim, giving all credit to the original author of the tweet.  It might have the following syntax (as is common):

RT @username: <message>

We use via (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/via)

–preposition

1. by a route that touches or passes through; by way of: to fly to Japan via the North Pole.

to reword a tweet (maybe even a link) into our own tweet with our own input into what we think about it, but giving some of the credit to the original poster of the material. Note however, that this doesn’t have to have originated with a tweet, it could be given to you over IM, real life, or magazines etc.  It might have the following syntax (as is common):

<message> (via @username)

Where I would use both

Last week I made two tweets in the same day, both using each syntax differently.  I have two “sets” of friends which I can quite easily say, very rarely likely to meet each other or know each other as well as I know either of them.  Lets look at the tweets:

Retweet (http://twitter.com/shepherdnick/status/1860023107):

RT @bekishepherd: And the degree is done! [weyhey! Congrats BEGGY! ]

4:09 PM May 20th from DestroyTwitter

via (http://twitter.com/shepherdnick/status/1858715453):

Anyone else noticed Saria’s Song and Postman Pat have the same beginning of intro: http://tr.im/lS9t http://tr.im/lS9z [via H]

1:44 PM May 20th from DestroyTwitter

Retweet – I retweeted my sister after she made this tweet (and also added a bit more to the end of it) because I wanted to let all of my friends know (both sets, who she doesn’t follow) know that she’s finished her degree.  The aim was that they would see her user name and reply to her or me to pass on their congratualtions too.  It was something I was sure that most people would not ever have seen if they hadn’t have gone looking for it, but that I would want other people to see.  This is how you appropriately use Retweet.

Via – Here, “H”, a person who I work with, sent me those links over IM in work.  He doesn’t have a twitter account so I couldn’t link to a tweet that he made, however, I still felt it neccesary to include him in the tweet, because it’s quite cool and interesting, and he deserves credit.  I didn’t retweet him because he didn’t make a tweet, and I made up all of the tweet myself with the exception of the idea.  This is the correct way to use via.

It originally frustrated me because the original author of the blog post for tweetie (a Mac and iPhone app) acknowledged the difference between RT and via, and then blatantly went back on what he was saying and left the option out of the app (since writing the blog I believe the app does have the option now but it “very deeply hidden in the settings”).  This is bad because he’s blurring the distinction that he quite clearly made for users of his app and really, not helping the situation.  If he’s going to provide the functionality of re-posting blogs verbatim, leave off the (via @username) on the end of the tweet.  It’s the wrong usage (and the incorrect usage of the ENGLISH WORD) of the word via, and rather than not filling twitter up with RT spam (like he claims), he’s actually filling it up with incorrect spam, which I think is even worse.  If you’re trying to make something better or clearer for a service that a lot of people use, that you would prefer was being used correctly; hiding the definition from them is not the way to do it, education is the way forward.

On a side:

It would be nice, regarding RT’s if it only retweeted back to people who follow you, if they don’t mutually follow you and the retweeter.

For example, say I was to retweet a friend of mine.  If you followed him (and obviously followed me too) then you would not see the retweet because you’d have seen the original.  The only people to see the retweet would be someone like my sister, who doesn’t follow anyone else I know. She follows me, so sees the tweet; and people who follow me and the retweetee, don’t. Simple – a bit less spam for the people who’re seeing duplicate tweets, and more spam for the people who’ve not seen the original.

It recently transpired on a twitscussion about the difference between RT (Retweet) or using (via @).  This blog was one I found (and one of the main culprits) after searching for RT vs via.  He actually acknowledges the difference between the two, and it’s something that I also wanted to talk about, or when I think would be appropriate to use each.

Okay, so we have Retweet (RT).  Retweet is generally regarded as a re-post of a tweet verbatim, giving all credit to the original author of the tweet.  It might have the following syntax (as is common):

RT @username: <message>

We use via

–preposition
1. by a route that touches or passes through; by way of: to fly to Japan via the North Pole.

to reword a tweet (maybe even a link) into our own tweet with our own input into what we think about it, but giving some of the credit to the original poster of the material. Note however, that this doesn’t have to have originated with a tweet, it could be given to you over IM, real life, or magazines etc.  It might have the following syntax (as is common):

<message> (via @username)

Where I would use either

Last week I made two tweets in the same day, both using each syntax differently.  I have two “sets” of friends which I can quite easily say, very rarely likely to meet each other or know each other as well as I know either of them.  Lets look at the tweets:

Retweet:

RT @bekishepherd: And the degree is done! [weyhey! Congrats BEGGY! ]
4:09 PM May 20th from DestroyTwitter

via:

Anyone else noticed Saria’s Song and Postman Pat have the same beginning of intro: http://tr.im/lS9t http://tr.im/lS9z [via H]
1:44 PM May 20th from DestroyTwitter

Retweet – I retweeted my sister after she made this tweet (and also added a bit more to the end of it) because I wanted to let all of my friends know (both sets, who she doesn’t follow) know that she’s finished her degree.  The aim was that they would see her user name and reply to her or me to pass on their congratulations too.  It was something I was sure that most people would not ever have seen if they hadn’t have gone looking for it, but that I would want other people to see.  This is how you appropriately use Retweet.

Via – Here, “H”, a person who I work with, sent me the idea over IM in work.  He doesn’t have a twitter account so I couldn’t link to a tweet that he made, however, I still felt it necessary to include him in the tweet, because it’s quite cool and interesting, and he deserves credit.  I didn’t retweet him because he didn’t make a tweet, and I made up all of the tweet myself with the exception of the idea.  This is the correct way to use via.

It originally frustrated me because the original author of the blog post for tweetie (a Mac and iPhone app) acknowledged the difference between RT and via, and then blatantly went back on what he was saying and left the option out of the app (since writing the blog I believe the app does have the option now but it “very deeply hidden in the settings”).  This is bad because he’s blurring the distinction that he quite clearly made, for users of his app and really not helping the situation.  If he’s going to provide the functionality of re-posting blogs verbatim, leave off the “(via @username)” on the end of the tweet.  It’s the wrong usage (and the incorrect usage of the ENGLISH WORD) of the function via, and rather than not filling twitter up with RT spam (like he claims), he’s actually filling it up with incorrect spam, which I think is even worse.  If he wants to make twitter a better service with more original content, then he has to acknowledge that both RT and via exist in his app, and to his customers/users; hiding the definition from them is not the way to do it, it’s education.

On a side

It would be nice, regarding RT’s if it only retweeted back to people who follow you, if they don’t mutually follow you and the retweeter.

For example, say I was to retweet a friend of mine.  If you followed him (and obviously followed me too) then you would not see the retweet because you’d have seen the original.  The only people to see the retweet would be someone like my sister, who doesn’t follow anyone else I know. She follows me, so sees the tweet; and people who follow me and the retweetee, don’t. Simple – a bit less spam for the people who’re seeing duplicate tweets, and more spam for the people who’ve not seen the original.

Augusta Ada, Countess Of Lovelace

I know I am oh so late in making this post, but who can blame me for making it on exactly a month to the day after I was supposed to?

So to give myself some sort of introduction to this post, I was supposed to write something about a woman in the technology industry whom I admired or thought was important for the industry.  Well after I wrote quite a bit about what I thought about the industry a few months ago, who better than to promote than the woman I actually did some research in.  Below is the chapter I wrote about Ada Lovelace in my dissertation for History of Computation [which you can read by clicking here].

Ada Lovelace, as she has come to be known, first met Babbage at a party in June 1833, at the age of seventeen. Two weeks later, Babbage showed his Engine to her and her mother, to which she was enchanted by. Ada, as it seems was a budding mathematician, and being the daughter of a famous poet, she was often in the public eye.

Shortly after Ada was born her mother separated from her father, and was left to the sole care of her mother. It was her mother who had the mathematical background and is likely to have ignited the passion for the subject that she held through her life.

In July 1835, at the age of nineteen, Ada married William King (the eighth Lord of Ockham, later having his status levated to Earl of Lovelace).

Between 1836 and 1839 Ada and William had three children, adding to the burden of being a mistress of three residences. She had very little time for mathematics during this period, but in 1839 she wrote to Babbage asking him to recommend a mathematics tutor, to whom she was pointed to Augustus De Morgan and restarted her mathematics tuition.

In 1841, Ada wrote to Babbage offering her services as a mathematician to him. Babbage had not long returned from Turin where his Analytical Engine had been successfully appreciated by many of his peers. Her interest in his work must have been very uplifting for Babbage, who was probably thinking that his efforts had been going unnoticed, especially in his own country.

It was on the suggestion by Charles Wheatstone that Ada translated the paper written by Menabrea which had been written in French as mentioned earlier. The paper was successfully translated by Ada from French to English and published in Scientific Memoirs, an English journal specifically for publishing foriegn scientific papers. Babbage asked her why she had not written an entirely new article, having such a keen interest in the Engine, to which she responded by annotating the original paper written by Menabrea.

Ada completely lost herself in her work, going to every length possible to write a most comprehensive description of the Engine. Babbage had mostly completed the large sections of the Engine, and was merely tinkering and tweaking the designs. He was probably glad for the interest and energy the young Ada had towards him and his work.

As the document increased in content, Ada tried to steer away from the spat that had happened with the Government and Peel, but Babbage thought that any published work on the Engine needed some description of the reason his machines were being ignored by the Government. He drafted a letter to be included with Ada’s publication, but requested that his letter remain anonymous, all of this being without Ada knowing. The publishers were reluctant to include his addition, and he asked Ada to publish her document elsewhere. One is able to imagine how Ada must have felt, having completely believed that the translation of Menabrea’s work and her own notes and sketches being taken for granted, and that Babbage could use the paper as leverage in his quarrel with the Government.

Ada refused to publish her paper alongside Babbages letter and eventually the article was printed in August 1843. The author was published as ‘A.A.L’ as it was unusual for a female, a lady of Ada’s social status, to admit to having written a scientific paper. Babbage, being the stubborn character he was, published his letter to the Philosophical Magazine a few weeks later anonymously. Ada took the opportunity to request some ground rules for Babbage if he required her services any longer. Such services as acting as a buffer between Babbage and the outside world – history proves he was not the most adept when it came to public relations.

Throughout history, there are several notions about what exactly Ada achieved and what history has been altered to what we (in the sense of the general population) believe now. The general notion is that Lady Lovelace studied and worked on Babbage’s Analytical Engine and wrote various instructions that could perform some mathematical task and produce outputs, essentially she is named in history as the first programmer.

In The Cogwheel Brain – Doron Swade the author discounts her ability as the first programmer, and merely that she published earlier work by Babbage under her own name. The claims are that historians close to the details of Babbages works claim that her contributions do not align with the recorded chronology of events. History has been confused by misguided tributes to Ada, and as such she has been elevated to a position that she does not neccessarily have the right to hold.

Another source claims:

“[...] if you look through the manuscripts that are left, there
was quite a lot of evidence that what she was not good at is
the routine algebraic manipulation of figure and equations and
understanding geometry. On the other hand, her great skill did lie
in having a visionary view of what mathematics could achieve and
I think that’s why she did become so involved in describing the
Analytical Engine. She understood the concepts and appreciated
the possiblities and the potential in this machine. But at the same
time, I don’t think she was as proficient day to day mathematician
in the sense of being able to juggle equations and solve geometrical
problems.”

Whatever has been said about Ada, she did one thing that no other did in England: to publish the most comprehensive portrayal of computing and machines for the age that the Engines were conceived. She was able to see that the Analytical Engine was not only a manipulator of numbers in an algebraic fashion, but that these numbers mean much more than quantity – for example, numbers can represent musical notes, symbols, or letters of the alphabet – and that Babbage had designed a machine that had a grip on the world, in ways that are independent of arithmetic. “A machine that could manipulate symbols according to rules.”

Ada contracted cervical cancer which was not found until very late into its progression, and died at the young age of thirty-six on the 27th November 1852.

Blogging from my phone

I know I’m not the first person to do this (I believe Kat posted her latest blog from her phone) and it inspired me to have a go. I thought it was impossible to begin with and on most handsets it probably still is, but if you have a smart phone or the ability to do so, you really should install and use Opera Mini (I’ll add the links later when I can get to a computer). [Link for mobiles] [Link for computers].

In the past week, I’ve been to see Watchmen which was a damn good film, the ending especially brilliant. Out of all possible hero/comic book films, this is probably up there with the Dark Knight. Also, I’ve become addicted to Peggle on the DS – I love how they make such a simple concept and gameplay so epic, especially when you hit the last peg. Check out the PC version which is selling for less than £3 now! (also, GTA Chinatown Wars is really good, what I’ve played of it!).

I don’t know what else more I can say on the subject, other than I am sitting here enjoying a refreshing Guinness on St. Patricks Day in the glorious sunshine with some friends, blogging. How anti social of me. Now I’m going to get back to the real world. Ciao B-D.

UPDATE 31/03/2009:

frosty with too much Guinness inside him

 

P.S. It’s really hard to see how many words I’ve typed so far on my mobile, so forgive me if it’s not 250

Dublin

Seen as this week I haven’t had the time to prepare the blog post I said I was going to write last week, I thought I’d instead tell you why.  I have also got to stop starting these blogs.  So a few months ago, Leanne asked me if I fancied going for a weekend away somewhere.  Since we went to Spain in 2004, the people who I went with had such a good time (myself included) that we’ve tried on numerous occassions to try and get some people to go away with us again and pretty much failed miserably.

So I guess a weekend away sounds cheaper and a tad less commital that a full blown week, especially in our busy lives these days.  (I’m not kidding – Hannah showed me her diary I don’t know how she has any time for herself).  So Dublin was decided, and it was an absolutely amazing weekend, not an hour was wasted.

The city itself, had so much charisma to it – it gave the impression (especially around the Temple Bar area) that it is rammed with history and every building felt like it had been there for hundreds of years.  It’s a very clean city as well – there were no cigarette butts or litter anywhere because the fines are pretty high.  So much so that it was even pleasant walking down a bustling street – other cities annoy me and now I know why, they’re very dirty.

One drawback of Dublin and the trip in general was that it was very expensive to eat and drink, and considering we were going for the Guinness it did add up to quite a pretty penny.  The cheapest dring I had was about €4.50 where the most I paid for a Guinness was around €6.00.  Speaking of Guinness however, the Guinness Storehouse was amazing, and really worth its money.  Impressively there is a 7 storey pint glass that goes throughout the entire building, that sits below a 360 degree view bar of the entire of Dublin city.  The brewery is absolutely massive, and really interesting for anyone who is at all interested in beer.

If you ever plan on going there yourself (and I really encourage you to) make sure you go on a boat ride along the river Liffey or take a bus tour around the city.  Ireland is steeped in history and you’d be a fool to pay all that money to get there and not enjoy the history and culture that makes it so special.  That and you’d never be able to live down the amazing catchphrase that came from the ride.  Basically at the docklands area of the river there used to be a place called Misery Mound where they used to scare off pirates with dead bodies hung on spikes after being hung on the gallows, and a red light district, and generally just a very underground area. To lighten the mood, seemingly, the narrator on the boat trip decided to point out to us “and just to the left there’s a big pile of ducks”, which we all found absolutely hilarious.  And then to add more to the hilarity, Misery Mound we found out had a leper colony which Hannah misheard as Leprechaun colony.

The Sunday we spent on the weekend, we visited the oldest pub in Ireland, namely the Brazen Head which was founded in 1196.  This pub had so much character, it was just a sheer joy to be in for the entire afternoon, especially with the local Irish Folk Band playing for free (and being paid with beer).  The food was really good there too.  If you go to Ireland this pub is a must.

Obviously this trip would have been nothing without the people I went with.  And considering I don’t see all of them very often (I hadn’t seen Kim for about 7 years) it was awesome to catch up and have a laugh with them all.  Thanks for making it such a good holiday guys!

You know what they say: “When in Rome, drink Guinness!”

Gaming Corporations

Running out of time to make a blog post again, I am actually going to talk about something different to what I originally wanted to post about.  More on that next time, hopefully.  So instead I am going to talk to you about something that’s probably quite simple and that I haven’t really thought about, so we’ll see how it goes.  

Last week Halo Wars was released.  Since the demo for the game was released I have been anticipating this game very highly, and after a 5 or so hour marathon on the Sunday just gone I am so glad that I was right in how good the game was going to be.  Admittedly the story (or storytelling) is not as good as Bungie’s but the way the story links in with the gameplay is pretty cool.  All of this is conveyed to the gamer through some absolutely stunning pre rendered videos.  If only they would make a film with the same kind of technology it would be along the quality of a PIXAR film.  Anywhos what I did want to say, is that in doing my research (and reading reviews on the game) I found out the makers, Ensemble Studios, were programmed to cease existing after the launch of the Halo Wars game.  This makes me very sad. Not that I particularly have any sort of nostalgic or personal feelings towards the studio or the games that they’ve made, but because I hate the way in which Microsoft Games Studios seem to be glomping down on small games production companies, (or in some cases making it impossible for the studios to exist without being bought by Microsoft), and then “letting them go”.

Basically it’s turning in to a monopoly for the games market and I don’t like it.  Look at the kind of filth that EA historically churn out.  If we don’t let independant studios flourish, the games market is going to just become a handful of popular selling franchises, and your games collection will slowly turn into a mountain of sequels.

On the plus side though, many of the employees of Ensemble Studio that were made redundant or chose to leave after the studio was demolished, they formed their own brand new studio, Robot Entertainment.  It makes me even happier at the prospect of support for Halo Wars and maybe even Downloadable Content (please please please make a covenant campaign! ).  If you want to read the email that was sent to all MGS employees describing the reason for the studio finishing, it’s here.

The Oscars

Yesterday morning I tweeted about the Oscars ceremony. I said:

quite disappointed by what the academy chose for their winners. Seems a little fixed to me. Like it was Kate Winslet’s turn or something.

I would like to elaborate on this for my blog post this week.  Some people agreed with what I said and others would rather me not take a stab at the very highly regarded (if not biggest, annual) ceremony in the world.  I know it has probably been said before, but I am not on my own in thinking that it’s probably true.  This statistic alone it enough to make me wonder: 8 out of the 9 categories that Slumdog Millionaire was nominated for, it won.  Slumdog Millionaire was an awesome film, with a very unique way of telling its story, and with quite a unique story, it deserved to have some sort of recognition.  But, out of the literally hundreds of films that are released each year globally, was Slumdog Millionaire the best at 8 of those categories? I seriously doubt that.  Also, as a quick note here, if the Oscars are fixed, how comes they don’t share the winners out?  For example Frost/Nixon in my opinion is a must see for people of my generation (and hence Oscar worthy).  They weren’t around at the time that the events described in the film, and as far as historical documentaries go, this one is spot on, and almost essential for anyone interested in world politics (e.g. the recent historical American election).  As it turns out Frost/Nixon didn’t win anything.

My personal favourite film of last year was The Dark Knight.  Rarely are we presented with blockbuster films that have not just amazing visual affects but an amazing storyline associated with it.  It was even compared to the Godfather II film, which is a widely critically acclaimed movie – think about that for a second – a super hero movie has been compared to be of a similar standard as Godfather II. That’s some feat by any film’s standard. Yet, the only academy awards that were given were the obligatory Best Supporting Actor award to Heath Ledger (which he deserved anyway) and for Sound Editing.  I think it’s more the fact I was expecting a bit more for the film, and is probably biased, but there is no way that Slumdog is really better than the Dark Knight in all of those categories.  Here is an article that is quite interesting and shares my thoughts.

I’ve also read similar articles online about why animated films like WALL-E are only entered into (or rather are only expected to win) one category.  WALL-E was one of the best films of last year, yet it’s only ever expected to win its Best Animated Film category because it’s animated, rather than for it’s content (which seems like it’s being awarded for technical achievement).  It upsets me because I believe that most PIXAR films (with the exception of Finding Nemo – sorry but that film sucks) have always got a message that is higher than most people actually pick up on.  WALL-E in particular was taking a nod at a) the obesity problem of the western world, b) global warming, c) the fact that we have no real effective waste management set up anywhere on the earth.  Yes, the particular events of WALL-E haven’t been realised yet, but PIXAR have projected what might happen.  I like this.  It’s original, it’s fresh, incredibly creative and deserves credit, but Slumdog took it all.

Moving on to Kate Winslet – well that’s a bit shallow for me to say, because I haven’t seen either Revolutionary Road or The Reader (but my parents tell me that The Reader is hardly her story – it follows a male through a life story rather than her – she seems more of a support actress), but I have seen her other performances – notably her role in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, where she was completely different to the likes of Titanic, in which she played another (probably Oscar-worthy) role.  It really feels like the Academy have awarded her not necessarily for her outstanding performance in the roles she acted for but rather because it was her turn to win an Oscar.  And that makes the whole ceremony farcical.  (I tried to find a very unconvincing gushing interview from Kate speaking to BBC Breakfast News but I can’t find it).

The only winner that made me think that maybe they weren’t fixed was the fact that Sean Penn won the Oscar for best actor over Mickey Rourke for his amazing performance in The Wrestler.  Unfortunately, and I hate to be pessimistic, but I think that might have been his last shot at Academy Acclamation.

It summary, I think Oscars are losing their worth just by the pure corruptness that seems not only apparent to me, but to other people too.  I guess what you should take away from this is to never judge a film by it’s poster, ignore reviews until you’ve seen the film so you have chance to make up your own mind about it, and then see which news/review coroporations are taking back handers to promote films.  Reviews can have a degrading affect on a films success that might otherwise be a film you might enjoy – and what’s more important? What people think of the things that you’re into, or your own self pleasure? I know what mine is.

Twitter Misuse

I am pissed off.  This week was an example of how a popular service can be totally and utterly regarded in the wrong way to different people, and also a charming example of how not to use twitter.  I first heard of the phrase “netiquette” probably about a decade ago, and it was generally the way you should talk with some sort of respect for the other people on chat rooms and forums etc. before trolling became popular.  But this week I took a 2/3 day hiatus from twitter because of a massive work load and my reluctance to use a computer outside of my allocated working hours.  Netiquette always seemed like a bit of a joke, but in some small way, I treat people I don’t know, and people I do know on the Internet in the same way as I would treat them on the telephone, so I guess it works for me somehow.

I currently follow 61 people.  Recently there has been a lot of media coverage of twitter, especially by BBC Radio 1, and with people like Stephen Fry and Jonathan Ross talking about it on popular shows of theirs.  This has meant that twitter has moved places from a normal geeky demographic to futher afield to people who would not normally use a something like twitter; or as I like to call it “mainstream”.  This means there is a hell of a lot more tweets being sent and received.

I was asked this week what I think about twitter-chats that seem to have become all the rage these days, and I am not adversed to them.  I actually think they are quite interesting, and the fact that they are 140 characters makes them feel like you are texting someone rather than than in a chat room or on a forum.  However, where I don’t see twitter being used right is, for example, the recent blacked out icons that have become the latest bandwagon hop of the current twitter phase [I'm only saying that for my point-emphasis, I haven't actually been keeping up with why/actually done it myself].  The information is widely known and retweeted [2], so I must ask, why do people continually ask what it’s all about.  Let Me Google That For You because you can’t seem to be arsed. Well actually, no, you fu*king Google it.

Something else I hate about twitter users (especially of some of the actual real life friends people I follow) is their use of one word tweets.  These are pointless.  Especially when they are swear words.  If you would like to swear, bearing in mind the present company, why don’t you use the hole in your face to express how you really feel, because I sure as hell don’t care, and couldn’t even possibly care if I wanted to because you’ve only tweeted one swear word; cock.  At least with twitter-chats they are all in context to something and to each other.  Only people who are OCD about reading everything they follow are likely to be offended or annoyed by it.  If that is the case, the solution is simple: stop following the culprits, or join in with the debate!

Twitter is a social place where people can get together to share links, thoughts or activities in a predominantly mobile way.  Twitter is a place for social debate. Twitter is a place for friends.

Twitter is not a political tool designed to force ideas upon one another, especially making them feel obliged to jump on the bandwagon.  Twitter is not overloaded with tweets if you use twitter how you want to use it.  You wouldn’t tell facebook users that they shouldn’t post on someone elses wall if the ability to do so exists, so the same applies to twitter.  There is also, an obvious difference between twitter-chats and spam.

Social applications like twitter aren’t written with rules, their definition is written by how the people use them. Twitter is about fun guys, not about politics and pedantics. UPDATE 31/03/2009 – Twitters latest blog post is proof of this fact [LINK].

Tumblr

Last week I blogged about not having anything worthwhile to blog about, so this week I planned a bit further ahead.  A few years ago, I started something called a tumblog (tumbling blog).  Here it is.  The idea of it is similar to that of twitter – a microblog.  But tumblr takes the simple idea of twitter and makes it into something a bit more involving (essentially with more emphasis on the blogging bit).  Over the past week I have been marking down some of the more interesting links or quotes that I’ve experienced that day, and posted them on the tumblog (this was after sorting out the RSS feeds that I’d got the blog to repost).  I have to say that I really like tumblog.  

It got me questioning where abouts does a service like this fit in with a tech-savvy lifestyle.  Well, sometimes writing a full on blog post (at 250 words ) can be a lot to ask of some people, and also sometimes all you want to do is share an interesting link/quote/picture with someone, which would not neccessarily be appropriate for a full on blog post.  Also sometimes, you might actually want to say more than 140 characters in whatever you have on your mind, and would otherwise be unable to.  My intention with my tumblog will be to keep posting my most interesting find of the day, and then hopefully look back on those links later down the line to see what I had found, and what might have become of those links/quotes.

One thing I don’t like about it though, is the syndication of RSS feeds.  You use an RSS reader like Google Reader to do stuff like that, not a blog post.  Otherwise you provide links to those feeds.  Get your own tumblog here.