Fooling Digg

As much as many of us involved in New Marketing would like to think that the web is a self-policing system, it is still a system that can be gamed. From someone at my office (via Digg itself), an account of buying Diggs and creating popularity with money.

I can tell you exactly how a pointless blog full of poorly written, incoherent commentary made it to the front page on Digg. I paid people to do it. What's more, my bought votes lured honest Diggers to vote for it too. All told, I wound up with a "popular" story that earned 124 diggs -- more than half of them unpaid. I also had 29 (unpaid) comments, 12 of which were positive.

It's interesting to note that while the writer was initially able to game the system, it did - eventually - begin policing itself to the point where the story was buried (see page 2 of the article.)

I'm undecided if that's simply because she didn't pay for enough Diggs, and all the Diggs she paid for happened at the same time, or because the community really is self-policing. What I do know is that even if a story like that were eventually buried, it would only take a couple of hours of it being "popular" before it started showing up everywhere. I don't see this as a flaw in Digg's system (which, let's be fair, is flawed.) It's a flaw in the blogosphere than many bloggers - and commentors - simply don't bother to check their facts. It's the same philosophy that lands emails with the subject line "FW: FW: FW: FW: FW: BILL GATES WILL PAY U $1 FOR EACH PERSON U SEND THIS 2" in my inbox every now and again.

But outlets like Digg make it worse, because bloggers assume that Digg's (clearly flawed) technology is safeguarded against these kinds of efforts - so there's a basic level of trust inherent in linking to stories from Digg.

Oddly enough, there are many in the blogosphere who view their work as more "pure," simply because they're not dealing with traditional PR and marketing/advertising-influenced publications (like newspapers, etc.) And yet samples like this show that a minimal investment - far less than sending a single press kit to the New York Times, and following it up to get it noticed - show that it may be even easier for New Marketers without scruples to manipulate the system. I could cite another instance I know of (where it was done TO us, rather than BY us), but I'm not sure if I'd be breaking confidentiality, so I won't.

But this kind of thing is sadly more common that you might imagine.

Meet Leela

Puppeteers, meet Leela. We pick her up on Saturday.

We Need Standards, Damn It!

The boys at Joystiq.com have created a manual of style for video game journalism. I can only hope it becomes a widely-adopted industry standard, because frankly we could use one (is it "video game" or "videogame?" The question has not been answered satisfactorily.. yet.) Maybe it'll even be adopted by the APA or MLA.

The Crazyness of Weight

If you want evidence of just how bipolar our culture has become, look no further than today's CNN.com headlines. On one hand, we have a 196-pound eight year old whose parents might be charged with child abuse because they let him get so tubby. Then there's a link to a video story (sorry, it's a javascript link so I can't link to it directly from here) about a sorority that's being accused of kicking out members who aren't thin enough. The United States has one of the highest rates of obesity in the world, but we also have one of the highest rates of "thinning" eating disorders, and a subculture that is trying to redefine anorexia and bulemia not as diseases but as lifestyle choices.

In the words of David Lynch, it's a strange world.

It's almost like a perfect microcosm of our culture. Americans strike me as kind of like teenagers; we're still trying to figure out what clique works for us. Do we like the wholesome, goody-two-shoes Britney Spears? Or the sex kitten, drug-using Britney Spears? That conflict is one of the things that leads to people shaving their heads and going into rehab; motherhood is an ideal, but so is going out without any panties and partying with Paris Hilton.

Someday we'll make sense of ourselves. But these growing pains are a little, well, painful in the meantime.

Can We Clone Dinosaurs Yet?

Or at least can we have an awesome, cartoony sandbox game like Crackdown featuring an island full of dinosaurs you can interact with?

Really people, why is this so difficult?

The Pitter-Patter of Little Feet (Paws)

The Mical-Griffin (or is that Griffin-Mical?) household is about to get larger by one. Pictures to come.

Responsible Lights

I mentioned that PSE supplied me with five $2 off coupons for CFL light bulbs, so I ran by Home Depot today to pick them up. CFL light bulbs consume far less energy than regular light bulbs (about 23 watts per bulb, depending on how bright you get - my CFL 100 watts are 23 watt bulbs, and I believe the 60 watt ones are as well), and last approxim We'd purchased CFL bulbs before, but the light they gave off was pretty sallow. I'm happy to report that Home Depot has a much larger selection of CFL bulbs. You have "soft light," "bright light" and the awesome "daylight" to choose from. As a test, see if you can tell which lights in the attached graphic are CFL bulbs and which are "normal", wear out in one year, consume 3x the power bulbs. Can't tell? Yeah, me neither.

So even if you're against this whole global warming thing, even if you think it's a bunch of LIE-beral nonsense, look at it this way: you won't have to replace a light bulb for nine years (there's actually a warranty with each bulb), and you're using two-thirds the power, which shows up on your monthly bill.

I'll be the first to admit that CFL bulbs are more expensive than normal bulbs (except the stupid bathroom bulbs in the picture attached, but that's only because our bathroom fixture was installed by idiotic monkeys). But a small investment up front will save you much more over the life of the bulb, and is more environmentally responsible.

Oh, and you home-owning, children-having tax itemizers? It's tax deductible, courtesy of the Bush administration and our Republican congress. Yes, I'll openly admit when the "opposition" does something right. Kudos to Bush and the (formerly) Republican Congress for giving you a break for saving oil/power/the world.

Did I mention it cost me about seventy bucks to switch (almost) every bulb in my house (except the already-efficient LED bulbs in the track lighting in my TV room)? Yeah. Seventy bucks. To use one-third of the power and replace my lights in nine years.

It's not just a matter of saving the planet and all that hippie shit. This is how all that "environmentalism" nonsense is supposed to work: offering cost-effective alternatives so even if you don't believe the "planet needs to be saved laugh out loud," at least it is a smart decision for your pocketboot.

So, uh, what have you done lately?

Now You Need to Go Green

Alright, pay attention Puppeteers. Today my information packet arrived for switching to green power. It included $10 worth of coupons towards CFL lights (which use 75% less power than regular lightbulbs and last ten times as long), and a little introductory letter about the program.

It turns out that in my environmentally-conscious, liberal, blue-as-blue-can-be city of Seattle, only 2000 homes are currently being supplied with green power.

2000. Granted, that's PSE's customers (as opposed to Seattle Light), but 2000.

So here's your mission: for the $16 a month, skip four fucking lattes and sign up for green power. Or at least consider it. Or consider signing up for partial green power (you don't have to go the whole $16 if you don't want to.)

If we demand it, by law the power company is required to buy green power. If they can't buy it, they're required to build the infrastructure (wind, hydro, etc.) to support it.

So demand it. 2000 is pathetic.

Watch this space for more opportunities to see what you can do to help.

What have you done lately?

How You Too Can Go Green

Following my previous post on Going Green, more than one of the Puppeteers asked how they could Go Green, especially given that they are in a rental situation. It turns out that my brother out-liberaled me on this one; he's been using green power in Denver for a while now, and he's renting an apartment. He, like my wife and I used to do, had our own account with the power company, so for him it was simply a matter of calling them up and asking them to switch him.

For those who are splitting a bill or are paying through your landlord, I suggest calling your landlord/neighbors and getting the "OK" to switch to green power, and then calling the power company (or having your landlord call) to make the switch.

Of course I joke about this being a liberal issue: the fact of the matter is, it's an issue across the board no matter your politics. When churches are getting into the act because they realize that humans might have the ability to screw up stewardship of the planet, and even my conservative-run Alma Mater takes steps beyond its halfassed token recycling program, perhaps this finally does indicate a shift in the right direction. No pun intended.

Hellboyalicious

It's probably going to suck (OK, it stands a very high chance of sucking) but I'll still buy the Xbox 360 Hellboy game, because someone's got to keep feeding him pamcakes. Judge for yourself - Joystiq has a trailer up.

Web 2.Obama v1.1

Via a coworker comes TechPresident.com, which lists, among other things, how many "friends" each candidate has on MySpace, and what the percentage of change was for that candidate's friends since last week.

Now mind you, just because Snakes on a Plane got a lot of Internet hype doesn't mean that it made any money, so be wary of any numbers on the Internet claiming any kind of victory. But it is interesting to note that Obama, with 44k friends, has more friends than any of the Republican candidates combined. I don't think that's because he necessarily will win, mind you, but it certainly goes to show that one thing the Democrats actually know how to do is use the Internet to mobilize people.

Now if only they can figure out some actual policy that isn't just "LOL NOT BU$H."

The Cost of Going Green

I just called PSE, our local energy provider, and switched entirely to green power. Green power comes from sources like wind plants and hydro plants (of which there are plenty in Washington state) rather than coal/oil burning plants.

I made the switch because after watching An Inconvenient Truth and reading comments on this blog and others, it really is up to us to get off our asses and do something about it. This problem isn't going to fix itself, and the only ones we can blame for not taking action are ourselves.

The PSE person explained to me that they can't control exactly where the power comes from on the grid that flows into my house, but that I would be feeding the proper amount of green power into the grid. Of course, if everyone on PSE did this, the entire grid would be green. So I realize that while my power might come from some rootin', tootin,' pollutin' source (and likely will until I install my own solar panels and windmills), someone else somewhere is getting green power.

The total cost of my power bill will go up by all of $16 a month, on average. That's far less than the money we saved by properly insulating our attic this year, and it's a price I'm willing to pay.

So what have you done lately?

Fallout Valentine

This is too cool not to link to: a Fallout Valentine. Love never changes indeed.

Web 2.Obama - Get Involved

It's official: Barak Obama is running for President in 2008. And what better way to show you know how to appeal to and communicate with the online community than to start a social networking site - My.BarakObama.com? If you're interested, head on over - sign up for newsletters. Join discussion groups. Find people who are interested in the same issues you are. Even post your own blog. Why should candidates rely on third-party sites like DailyKos when they can have a networking site of their own?

And I'm sure the Grand Old Party will figure out how this devious series of tubes works one day. That, or they'll just label it the "loony liberal blogosphere" and ignore the issue yet again.

So I ask again: what have you done to get involved today? Here's something you can do without leaving the comfort of your computer: click some links. Let's change things for the better.

What is the Threshold for Being Wrong?

A couple of years ago, I saw a documentary on Karl Rove that explained how he began to hone his tactics in political discourse (a YouTube search has not yielded the clip). In this documentary, the biographers - many of them his friends - explained that Rove always thought he was right. That he was thoroughly convinced of his own position, and that he wouldn't take that position if he wasn't convinced.

Fair enough. I'd have to say that I feel the same way. If I'm not necessarily convinced of something, I'm not going to argue for or against it.

The show went on to explain that in his high school (or college, I can't recall) debate class, Rove would often use intimidation tactics on his opponents. If they showed up with a few index cards worth of notes, he would show up with a box of index cards. They would bring two boxes, he would bring four. Eventually he wheeled a dolly full of boxes of "notes" into a debate before someone put a stop to it - but Rove knew the value of psychological warfare, and it is something he has continued to refine since. As a marketing person myself, I have to admire him as a kind of mad genius. As a person who'd like to think that discourse doesn't have to sink to suck levels, he makes me ill.

Because that's the rub, isn't it? If you're really so convinced, why bring the boxes of cards? One could argue it's a tool in the overall debate, but wouldn't a true master of discourse be able to convince his opponents through - I don't know, logic and reason? Perhaps it was all that Greek philosophy I studied and the Platonic dialogues I read, but when I listen to an argument for or against something, I'm sure as fuck going to weed out the psychological warfare elements (doubly so since as a marketing schlub I recognize them) and cut to the actual reasoning behind the position. And if you can't explain that, what good are you?

Which brings me to the point of this post. What exactly is the threshold for being wrong? At what point can you throw away the psychological warfare and your smug self-satisfaction that you've used to belittle and denigrate your opponents, and admit "hey, maybe this isn't the way to go after all." After your "slam-dunk" WMDs aren't there? After you realize that labelling people who aren't on board with you destroying civil liberties as "traitors" isn't working? How about after the levees break, and the help that you promise doesn't come?

Most recently, it's been two attacks on the opposition that have raised my eyebrows. As the Democrats have already done more in the first month they've been in Congress than the Republicans did in the last six years of controlling the legislative and judicial branches of government by raising minimum wage, how do Republicans respond? With rational discourse? No. They accuse (falsely) Barack Obama of attending a radical Islamic school, and accuse Nancy Pelosi (also falsely) of trying to traipse around the country in a plane that it turns out was requested by Homeland Security?

What exactly is the threshold for being wrong? When does the psychological warfare end? How many "Barack HUSSIEN Obama LOL" jokes are we going to have to tolerate before enough is enough? When will people demand that the boxes of index cards be put away, and we finally return to civil discourse in this country?

I think a lot of people are getting tired of those boxes, and more and more people are seeing them for what they are. And that's really the sad part about warfare, psychological or otherwise: you need to keep providing bigger and bigger boxes. And when you can't anymore, it's time to sit down and settle things like civilized human beings - by talking it over.

Web 2.0 in Less Than Five Minutes

Want to know about what I do? That I'm not just some marketing sleaze trying to smarm a few more bucks out of unlucky suckers?

This video can explain more than I ever could. Watch. Observe. Enjoy.

Hat tip: Seth.

Activism Ad Absurdium

Meet I-957, also known as the Washington State Defense of Marriage Initiative. Washington, like many states, will put voter-sponsored Initiatives on the ballot. These initiatives are for all kinds of different things: banning smoking in public places, pull tab casinos, and so forth. The Defense of Marriage Initiative, sponsored by the Washington State Defense of Marriage Alliance, wants to expand on the Anderson v. King County court ruling that defined marriage in Washington State as something specific to a man and a woman. Here's WA-DOMA's goals, from their website (bold mine):

add the phrase, "who are capable of having children with one another" to the legal definition of marriage;

require that couples married in Washington file proof of procreation within three years of the date of marriage or have their marriage automatically annulled;

require that couples married out of state file proof of procreation within three years of the date of marriage or have their marriage classed as "unrecognized;"

establish a process for filing proof of procreation; and

make it a criminal act for people in an unrecognized marriage to receive marriage benefits.

Good golly Miss Molly but that is a kick in the pants! I've been happily married for more than five years, and my house has yet to see the pitter-patter of little feet (unless you count the romper-stomper of kitten paws.) And what about couples who are impotent? Or choose to adopt? Or couples past the point of menopause? True, conservative Christians feel that marriage is about procreation but mother of God, we didn't actually expect to have this thrown in our face this much!

Are your panties in a wad yet? Because here's the punchline. Scroll down to the bottom of the site I linked above you you'll find WA-DOMA's mission statement:

The Washington Defense of Marriage Alliance seeks to defend equal marriage in this state by challenging the Washington Supreme Court’s ruling on Andersen v. King County. This decision, given in July 2006, declared that a "legitimate state interest" allows the Legislature to limit marriage to those couples able to have and raise children together. Because of this "legitimate state interest," it is permissible to bar same-sex couples from legal marriage.

The way we are challenging Andersen is unusual: using the initiative, we are working to put the Court’s ruling into law. We will do this through three initiatives. The first would make procreation a requirement for legal marriage. The second would prohibit divorce or legal separation when there are children. The third would make the act of having a child together the legal equivalent of a marriage ceremony.

Absurd? Very. But there is a rational basis for this absurdity. By floating the initiatives, we hope to prompt discussion about the many misguided assumptions which make up the Andersen ruling. By getting the initiatives passed, we hope the Supreme Court will strike them down as unconstitional [sic] and thus weaken Andersen itself. And at the very least, it should be good fun to see the social conservatives who have long screamed that marriage exists for the sole purpose of procreation be forced to choke on their own rhetoric.

So there you go - it's activism ad absurdium, attempting to weaken an existing law or decision by introducing one that takes the reasoning behind the existing law or decision and inflating it to the point where its absurdity - and thus invalidity - is revealed.

Frankly, I'm not sure what to think about this. It reminds me of the town of Dayton, Tennessee, who put a teacher named Scopes on trial for teaching evolution - not out of some principle that banning the teaching of evolution was bad, but that Tennessee state law contradicted itself (the textbook teachers were required to use taught evolution, but the Butler Act prohibited them from teaching it.) That, and it was good for the local economy and would put the town on the map.

It also seems as if it's a little out of place in this context. I used to think "well, the voters are smart enough not to pass anything that seems too absurd," if the last six years have taught me nothing if not that the American voters probably shouldn't be trusted too far.

This will certainly be an interesting local politics story, and I'll be keeping an eye on it closely.

Randy Newman Kicks Ass

From the guy who reminded us that some people don't know their asses from a hole in the ground comes "A Few Words in Defense of My Country." If you're not offended by at least some part of this song, be you liberal or conservative, then you probably weren't paying attention.

Via MeFi.

What Have YOU Done?

I wanted to share with my readers the letter I sent to the Federal Way school board, the fine folks who decided that pseudoscience and science were the same:

Greetings again members of the Federal Way School Board,

This last week, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change issued a report stating that humans are "very likely" the cause of global warming - you can read about it here: http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/science/02/02/climate.change.report/index.html. These scientists used terms like "It's unequivocal" and "90 percent certainty." As the news article to which I linked states, even President Bush himself addressed climate change in his recent State of the Union speech.

More scientific evidence. Almost unilateral support from both sides of the political spectrum. Perhaps it is time you recognized that you made a grevious misake by capitulating to the pseudoscience of a religious extremist rather than a decision grounded in scientific research and fact. Please do not continue to do your children a disservice by pretending that there is an "opposing point of view." Simply put: there isn't. Frosty was given a venue at which to share his ideas of not only global warming, but creationism and lack of birth control education. Good for him. Let's admit our mistakes and move on.

I look forward to reading in the Times that you have admitted you were wrong and reversed your previous decision.

So what have you done?

More Warming

The proof just keeps on coming - more and more scientists, more and more studies, all saying the same thing: global warming is happening, and humans are causing it.

Is it any wonder that the same people who oppose it are often the same people who think creationism should be taught alongside evolution in science courses? Or that Saddam was a "slam-dunk" for having weapons of mass destruction?

Yeah. People who live apart from a little something called "reality."

If You're Looking to Kill Me

Let it be known that my favorite band of all time, Roger Clyne & The Peacemakers, will be in Seattle on April 7, and I will be attending the conference concert (typo, see comment). In Seattle? Interested in hearing some of the best southwestern rockabilly-country-salsa-rock you've ever heard? Why don't you join me?

The Rachael Ray Appreciation Station

I typically don't make posts like this, but I feel it is necessary. Rachael Ray is a chef cook celebrity of sorts on the Food Network. Her gig is to be like a younger, hipper Martha Stewart without the baggage. And all the home improvement stuff. So she mostly focuses on cooking.

Then I read this morning on my favorite news aggregator/waste of time a thread titled "Rachael Ray is an annoying idiot." And in this thread the poster stated that "I swear to god i cant buy a box of wheat thins or a microwave pizza anymore without having this goblin scowl back at me with her 8 million teeth. Her stupid fucking face is on pretty much everything at the grocery store."

Goblin? 8 million teeth? Feh, I say to you sir. Feh.

I'll say it: Rachael Ray is hot and the only reason you don't like her is because she's hot and has done well for herself. So screw you.

Now back to your regular Puppet programming.

Valse Triste

At the risk of turning this blog into a video aggregator, I wanted to post a follow up. Stemming from the video of "Diana's Piano" from earlier in the week, I found this: the "Valse Triste" segment from Allegro Non Troppo. Allegro is an Italian animated film that's almost like an anti-Fantasia; most of it is only so-so, but this segment, particularly if you're a cat lover, is emotionally impacting in a way not many cartoons are. The "small screen" doesn't really do the visuals justice, but since this can be pretty hard to find (it was only put up on YouTube yesterday), here ya go.

My Space

Oh yeah, I almost forgot: I got a MySpace. I did it so I can try to get back in touch with some people I've lost track of. So come and be my friend if you want.

INLAND EMPIRE

So last week Angela and I took in a screening of INLAND EMPIRE, David Lynch's new movie. I've been holding off writing about it because I wasn't sure what I thought yet. I'm still not sure what I think, but I'm going to write about it anyway.

Bottom line: I thought the movie was good, but I'll be the first to recognize that David Lynch movies aren't for everyone. Local bloggers Seattlest didn't care for it that much. As this interview in the Times says, "it's about ideas." And that's exactly what it was about. Ideas. Feelings. Impressions.

Lynch's movies have always been interesting to me, because narrative is often secondary to the "art" of the film. Lynch was trained as a painter and sculptor first, and found film only as a way of experimenting with "moving paintings" or "moving pictures," much as film was originally intended to be used. His earliest short film, from his art school days, was projected in an art exhibit like a painting but with sound. Fair warning: it contains a siren that can be very repetitive.

Moreso than any of Lynch's other feature-length films, INLAND EMPIRE is a member of this group. It's a three-hour-long moving painting. Is there narrative there? Yes, but it's also one of the first real examples of a working "metafilm" that I've seen - as in, it involves things that aren't happening on the screen. It involves the audience. I would go so far as to say that the audience is a character in the film, if not the main character.

EMPIRE is about watching and performing. It's about audience. It's pure voyeurism, and even though it needed an editor, I liked it. It's certainly not going to appeal to everyone - this is probably the very definition of art film - but after thinking a lot about it, I liked it. And I will very likely see it again.

Just to clutter up this post with some more video, here's a new trailer:


In heaven, everything is fine.

Prepare Your Tissues

Here's something a little different: I found an old segment from the animated movie "Garfield's Nine Lives" on YouTube. This particular segment is called "Diana's Piano," and if you're a cat person, you'll probably be crying like a little girl by the time it's over. OK, well, that's what I was doing. Enjoy.

Winter Driving in the Northwest

My readers in the Midwest will get a kick out of this. This video was going around the Seattle blogosphere (yeah, there is such a thing) but it was embedded on King5's website. That is, until someone decided to help humanity by placing it on YouTube. Enjoy! Note: this happened in Portland.

Jericho

So I'm experimenting with TV by the episode. I grabbed the first episode of Jericho before I left for Macworld to watch on the plan, and have been grabbing the others off Xbox Live Marketplace since then. I'm digging the show quite a bit; it reminds me a lot of Alas, Babylon.

Between this, BSG, Heroes, Rome... narrative television is back.

Zombie Evolution

Via Jon, a fascinating article about zombie evolutionary epidemiology. It discussed dispersion of fast and slow zombies. Money quote:

Zombies actually evolve towards a very diverse population, with some zombies very fast and some very slow even if the majority is optimal. This might be relevant as the situation changes. If there are many people around the optimal efficiency is lower than 0.5, since each zombie still has plenty of chances of attacking someone. After most people have turned to zombies fast zombies have more fitness (pun not intended) since they are better at getting the few survivors.

Inconvenience and Truths

Fair warning: I am ignoring Leah's advice and writing something not-wacky here.

Yesterday, Liz and I took a Family Circus (ie., wandering and directionless) trip around town after a wonderful breakfast at Alexa's. We ended up at Best Buy (which, I might add, had a whole skid of PlayStation 3s - so if you want one, go grab one. Incidentally, no one wanted one in the half-hour we were in the store.) I grabbed a copy of Idiocracy on DVD, Mike Judge's new movie that was kept out of theaters. Sitting close to it was An Inconvenient Truth, which I had fully intended to get around to buying eventually. So I grabbed it. Liz and I watched it last night.

Upon second viewing, I actually liked it more than I did the first time. The things that annoyed me in the movie theater as far as pacing was concerned, didn't annoy me nearly as much from my couch. But this isn't a film review.

After grabbing the movie and heading to REI to grab a backpacking sleeping bag I got on the cheaps, Liz and I were talking about global warming (or global climate change, if you prefer - potato, potatoe, but climate change is to global warming what complexity theory is to chaos theory, I suppose.) Specifically, Brandon made a post the other day about a school board decision down in Federal Way that requires "an opposing view" on global warming be presented when teachers show An Inconvenient Truth. "Score one for the skeptics," Brandon says (non-Seattleites: Brandon is one of my good friends, and although he tends to be at the opposite end of the political spectrum, we don't really let that get in the way of our friendship, much like me and Bobby or me and Meghan. I also want to make it quite clear that I'm not attacking or upset with my buddy in this post, I'm raging against a guy named Frosty. You'll meet him in a moment.) The AP story, which Brandon quoted in full on his site, is here.

But the story has another chapter. The AP story was really just a blurb, and wasn't local, so I thoguht I'd try to find what the Seattle rags had to say about it. A little Google-fu revealed a Seattle PI story about the decision. The PI story reveals some interesting context around the parent who lead the fight to the school board that lead to this decision, one Frosty Hardison:

After a parent who supports the teaching of creationism and opposes sex education complained about the film, the Federal Way School Board on Tuesday placed what it labeled a moratorium on showing the film. The movie consists largely of a computer presentation by former Vice President Al Gore recounting scientists' findings.

"Condoms don't belong in school, and neither does Al Gore. He's not a schoolteacher," said Frosty Hardison, a parent of seven who also said that he believes the Earth is 14,000 years old. "The information that's being presented is a very cockeyed view of what the truth is. ... The Bible says that in the end times everything will burn up, but that perspective isn't in the DVD."

In case you missed the really important information there, I bolded it for you.

So rather than an actual scientifically sound view "opposing" climate change, what you have is a guy who thinks the Earth is 14,000 years old - and not a scientist or a schoolteacher himself - who has now dictated curriculum for an entire school board. His argument is not based on science, nor is it based on fact. Like creationism and other faith-inspired beliefs - say, for example, Holocaust Denial - there is no evidence for its teaching in schools apart from the Bible. There is no scientific or factual basis to back this up, especially in the case of climate change, as is cited in the PI article above. The scientific consensus is overwhelming: to pull a statistic from the film itself, a study showed zero - nil, goose-egg, null set - peer-reviewed scientific articles that cast doubt that humans were a major contributing cause to global climate change. However, in the news, 53% of stories cast doubt. And people like Frosty Hardison certainly aren't submitting the Bible to peer-reviewed scientific journals.

So I think that pretty much takes care of addressing the real facts behind this case. I have to ask old Frosty though: if it's appropriate to teach the opposing point of view, the view that flies in the fact of scientific consensus simply because it conforms to your own beliefs, in a science classroom - would it then be appropriate to require students to learn about Holocaust denial before watching Schindler's List in History class?

There is no difference. Both are belief systems utterly lacking any kind of factual basis or scientific backing. So where's the requirement to teach that the Holocaust never happened? Perhaps it's floating around on an iceberg the size of Delaware that recently broke off from the Arctic ice shelf in Northern Canada? Oh right, sorry, that's not in the Bible either. My apologies, Frosty. I'll go ride my Brontosaurus to work now.

Back in reality, Brandon's post actually inspired a lengthy and interesting conversation between Liz and myself where we were trying to figure out exactly what the big deal about addressing climate change is among conservatives. To me, it seems like a no-brainer. If we're shitting up our nest, we need to fix it. Even if there is some doubt about whether humans are the cause - which for the sake of argument, I'll allow, even if it does ignore years of scientific research - there's still a chance we're fucking up the Earth, so maybe we should at least address it. Right?

That's what I just don't understand. Many conservative ideals, I can understand - and in some cases, agree with. Abortion - if you believe an unborn fetus is a life, then opposing abortion is not only understandable, it would be a moral requirement. Smaller fiscal government - a sound principle for a free market economy. Even the War in Iraq is understandable on a rational level, as is the drive to put more troops on the ground, as Bush has recently announced. (Is he right? I don't know. I frankly don't know what to think about Iraq anymore, but that's beyond this post.) But global climate change - why?

Will it cost money to implement the changes required to avoid massive climate change? Sure. But if we're wrong, will it cost even more to deal with potentially a billion displaced people and the massive amounts of infrastructure damage that could occur? Absodamnlutely. Is investing in a preventative step now to avoid a far more costly "solution" later worth the investment? I would say it is. Or at the very least, if you don't think human beings are responsible for climate change but it's occuring anyway (after all, it's hard to argue with icebergs the size of some of the original colonies), shouldn't we at least be investing in the kinds of infrastructure changes to deal with a potential rise in ocean levels? But we're doing neither.

There is a religious view, but I have a hard time believing that all conservatives (or even anywhere near a majority of them) who doubt climate change are like Frosty the Psychoman and believe that God placed radiocarbon dating in rocks as a means of testing His faithful. It's the religious right's version of snake handling: something that should be resepcted as any belief system should, sure, but isn't exactly representative of a consensus among the party.

So to quote the South Park version of Saddam Hussien: what's the big fucking deal? Even if you're dubious about the results, don't you think it's at least worth our while to try to stop shitting in our nests or at least prepare for what already seems to be starting?

I guess I really don't get it, and that seems kind of inconvenient to me.

Update 1: CNN.com runs an article about Evangelical Christians and scientists working together to address global warming.

"Whether God created the Earth in a millisecond or whether it evolved over billions of years, the issue we agree on is that it needs to be cared for today," said Rich Cizik, vice president of government relations for the National Association of Evangelicals, which represents 45,000 churches.

I guess not everyone who believes that the Earth is 14,000 years old have their heads planted firmly up their asses. Which frankly makes those who do all the more troubling to me. I still don't get it.

Retro TV Awesomeness

If you're cool like me (and in your mid-to-late 20s), then you probably watched the Super Mario Bros. Super Show in your misspent youth younger days. More importantly, you probably watched the Legend of Zelda cartoons they would show every Friday, rather than the lame Mario Bros. cartoons. That's right, I said lame. Lame.

Thanks to TV Links, you can now watch, um, Link do his thing and relive your misspent youth. And thanks to Joystiq for the heads-up.

I recommend viewing these cartoons while eating the Nintendo Cereal System.

The Danger Zone

Liz got the idea to start painting the second bathroom today - a waste of perfectly-good goof-off time - so I felt compelled to do something around the house. The first bathroom was getting kind of moldy, so I busted out the Zap, or Zep, or whatever the concentrated bleach nonsense they sell for 8 bucks a pop is called. I put the iPod on random and stepped into the bathroom, ready to do battle.

The first song the iPod decided to play on random was "Highway to the Danger Zone." Somehow, it fit perfectly.

SNOWPOCALYPSE 2

First, there was snow. Then there was wind. Now, there's more snow!

I'm actually blogging this from my hotel room in San Francisco before I leave Macworld Expo to return home. My plane lands smack-dab in the middle of rush hour, so I can't imagine how awesomely awesome it's going to be to try to get a taxi from the airport to Bothell at 6 PM tonight. And by "awesomely awesome," I mean head-bangingly awful.

Props to an unknown Photoshopper on SA for the image.

CLICK HERE TO GO TO MIT FOR FREE

No, really.

MIT, echoing a move made by some other colleges, has released materials for many of their courses online. By the end of 2007, according to the news article about it, "by the end of this year, the contents of all 1,800 courses taught at one of the world's most prestigious universities will be available online to anyone in the world, anywhere in the world. Learners won't have to register for the classes, and everyone is accepted." The OpenCourseWare program is already populated with a lot of awesome stuff: want to learn about Astrophysics? What about history? Anthropology? Forensic science? It's all there, and it's all free.

Viva la education revolution. Via SA.

This (and This, and This) Is The Way The World Will End

Via Digg, a Discovery online article about 20 Ways the World Could End.

They left off the most obvious method: zombie attack. For shame, Discovery online. For shame.

Puppeteers: what is your preferred method for the world to end? Flooding? Alien invasion? Maybe something not on the list, like Cloned Dinosaur Attack? Do tell! The comment button is there for a reason.

Beautiful

One of my favorite music videos ever:

Waiter? There's Something Red in My Soup

Today, I'm taking ten minutes at work to eat my lunch, catch up on some website monitoring (translate: reading the Something Awful forums), and talking with Brook about tonight's Pirates game. I'm not really paying attention, and I feel a slicing sensation along my upper lip. Turns out the cheap plastic spoon provided by the sandwich shop for my soup has a rough edge. A very rough edge.

A minor setback. I continue eating my soup, when I look down and notice it has taken on a distinctly red tone. Like blood. Like I'm bleeding in my soup. Sometimes, it takes a moose.

So now I'm sitting here with a largish cut on my lip much worse than I thought. I can only imagine it will be a nasty canker sore in a day or two. And the soup? Not all that satisfying.

I finished it, though.

From the "Oh Snap" Department

In the 2006 midterms, Minnesotans elected Keith Ellison to the House of Representatives. Mr. Ellison is a Muslim, and as such wanted to take his oath of office on the Koran. Representative Virgil Goode (ol' boy), Republican from Virginia, opined that

"I believe that the overwhelming majority of voters in my district would prefer the use of the Bible," the Virginia Republican told Fox News, and then went on to warn about what he regards as the dangers of Muslims immigrating to the United States and Muslims gaining elective office.

So how did Ellison respond to Goode's charges? He asked to take his oath on the Koran that Thomas Jefferson once owned. To which Goode had no response.

Via SA.

An Obligatory Best-Of List

Via Joystiq, a list of the Top 10 Independent Video Games of 2006. Although DEFCON is noticeably absent from that list (the horror!), there are some interesting-looking games. I've already downloaded Kudos and will be giving it a try today. That's how I spend my holidays: playing indie video games.

But it's so much less stressful this way.

Happy New Year!

Make Believe

I pretend
To have no money
Marseilles dismissal
My "higher" brain can ignore
Boethian truth.

It's not so cold

Survey says:
She'll just buy junk
A safe place to sleep
And a loving family.

It's not so easy,
This make-believe.

A Long December

A long December and there’s reason to believe
Maybe this year will be better than the last...

...[t]he feeling that it’s all a lot of oysters, but no pearls
All at once you look across a crowded room
To see the way that light attaches to a girl...

..I guess the winter makes you laugh a little slower...

...And it’s been a long December and there’s no reason to believe
Maybe this year will be better that the last
I can’t remember all the times I tried to tell myself
To hold on to these moments as they pass.

Bestest Cover Songs Ever

There's a lot of lists floating around at the moment (it's the end of the year, after all), but here's a great and different one: the 100 best cover songs of all time. Many of them have videos or MP3s you can download. Check it out, you won't be disappointed.

When Catchphrases Go Bad

Few marketers can argue with the elegance of simple catchphrases: "I'm lovin' it," "Like a Rock," whatever. I would even argue the "Intel inside" tone and the PS2 "start noise" are both, in their own way, catchphrases. The old rule states that someone has to hear something seven times before it becomes true in their mind, so endlessly repeating "I'm lovin' it" during an NFL game or the PS2 start noise after every PlayStation ad isn't something negative - it's good, if traditional, marketing.

It's also a tactic that the Bush administration has used, and used quite effectively. "Flip-flopper" to describe John Kerry. "Stay the Course" for the War in Iraq. And so on. The Daily Show is excellent at catching them in the act: their montages of different Republican-fed talking heads on various news channels, repeating the same catchphrases, are like a Marketing 101 textbook on how to repeat a message seven times. Bam. Truth.

Except there's a problem: what happens when one of your catchphrases turns out to be dead fucking wrong? Catchphrases work fine for McDonald's: who's going to argue with "I'm lovin' it?" Fast food isn't exactly the cutting edge of discourse. However, when you apply catchphrases to politics in such an aggressive manner, it's almost like a law of diminishing returns: eventually, somewhere, somehow, you'll be wrong. Like with "Stay the Course." "Stay the Course" was being used up until a week before the midterm elections. Now, it's strangely absent from Republican "discourse" (talking points.) Rather, it's a "new course."

So what does this represent, aside from their own massive "flip flop?" Is Bush really any more of a waffler than Kerry?

The answer, interestingly enough, comes from John Kerry himself in a recent WaPo editorial (hat tip: Mark Evanier.) Kerry is necessarily political in his OpEd, but there's good stuff in there:

Changing tactics in the face of changing conditions on the ground, developing new strategies because the old ones don't work, is a hell of a lot smarter than the insanity of doing the same thing over and over again with the same tragic results.

I knew from the beginning that the "stay the course" meme would eventually fall flat on its face, and Kerry identifies what anyone who has engaged in discourse beyond a Kindergarten level can tell you: changing your mind and adapting to situations isn't negative, waffling, flip-flopping, it's what adults do. It's what makes humans great, that we are so adaptable. We can live in almost any climate, often with very little environmental impact if we so choose. So why should we be accused of flip-flopping when we adapt to the situation?

While the child liberal in my would love nothing more than to climb on top of the nearest building with a bullhorn and declare "George W. Bush is a waffling flip-flopper!" that would really do nothing but buy into the exact same catchphrase nonsense.

Part of the challenge of new marketing is that we can't rely on these catchphrases anymore. You can't expect your meme to circle the Internet in the same way "The Ohio Farmer" circulated for William Henry Harrison in the 1800s, or even "knock down this wall" did for Reagan in the 1980s. The Net is like the old game of telephone, multiplied by a thousand: your messages will be tainted and distorted, and more importantly, when your catchphrase turns out to backfire, you'll be held accountable for it in a way unimaginable even ten years ago. While catchphrases will still work in traditional marketing (the PlayStation noise), they are a thing whose relevance is starting to diminish in the new marketing realm, and as this incident indicates, will likely continue in this trend. Marketer beware!

This Is Going On My Resume

It's been blogged about here and there, but Time magazine went and named us Person of the Year. As in, everyone: the empowered and informed public. One of the more astute observations on this choice was made by Jeff, who wrote:

YOU. As in "You who are blogging, getting your news from the net, checking out videos on the Youtube, and otherwise not buying our damned magazine". It is lame (as in lamer than usual) choice, and has a whole lot of "We couldn't figure out what to put up so we punted."

That pretty much sums up the cynic in me: it was a total puntjob, not unlike last year's "the soldier." Blah. Are empowered Internet users really more influential than, say, Donald Rumsfeld? Or Bush, whose response to the September 11 attacks has, for better or worse (OK, for worse), reshaped the face of foreign policy?

Nevermind. I know what Time was trying to say: that empowered users, user-created content, and the benefits the Net is bringing to consumers is becoming influential. Sure, the new marketer in me agrees 100%. Whether or not that's "more influential" as a whole than some of the individuals in the last year is open to debate, and it's a debate from which I'll spare you.

To me, Time's decision reeks of bandwagoning. It seems like a gratuitous choice made not because of consideration of what they were doing, but simply doing for the sake of doing. It is not dissimilar from another interesting new marketing story that popped up last week: "griefers" (people who intentionally make others' lives miserable on MMOs) attacked a CNET interview in Second Life. CNET was interviewing "Second Life millionaire" Anshe Chung, AKA Ailin Graef, when:

a griefer sent "animated flying penises" at the building for 15 minutes. After relocating to Chung's own theater, the Prick Assault followed and managed to crash the server.

Joystiq's coverage links to a page on SA with pictures and videos, but is embedded in posts relating to SA's own pseudo-griefing group Second Life Safari. Except SL Safari aren't griefers in that they barrage press conferences with animated cocks. They specifically go after the, ahem, animal element on Second Life. And by animal element, I mean furries. If you don't know what a furry is, first, I apologize for having to introduce you to this knowledge. If you decide to click that link and eat from the fruit, there's no going back. You have been warned.

The first link takes you to a SL Safari page regarding an email conversation with a specific furry on Second Life. What's most interesting is the lead-in:

We created the Second Life Safari because when the mainstream media covers Second Life they dance about madly and act as if an economically active virtual world is the greatest thing to happen to anyone ever. Publications like the New York Times ignore the rank, semen-stained underbelly of Second Life, perhaps because so much of it is unprintable.

In any case, they miss a lot of journalistic windfalls. They're can't talk about the truly juicy stuff that is going on in Second Life, which we love to report on!

But not everyone likes what we do. Take BabyWolfie, who didn't appreciate our visit to BabyTiger's den, which we chronicled in the last update.

Last week, BabyWolfie and I had a "Seriouse" chat about Second Life, "ISP Rights", and what it takes to slay a dragon. He's a darling little diaper wearing furry. The best thing about him, though, is that he's not just any old yiffing fucktard. He's a Second Life employee. Specifically, a "Live Instructor", who gets paid to teach newbies to script. They must be desperate if they're hiring someone with the identity--and writing comprehension--of a baby animal. Intrigued yet? Read on!

Not that I'm coming down against sexual freedom. If you want to pretend to be an anthropomorphic animal who wears diapers and shits in those diapers because you're pretending to be a baby anthropomorphic animal, and get your jollies by doing this with other like minded individuals in a rendered virtual environment, knock yourself out. I'd be a hypocrite if I said or believed otherwise. But SL Safari really has raised a good point, and in my Second Life experience, it rings true: if I had to guess, I'd say about 90-95% of that game is devoted to sex and empowering users in their sexual fetishes/deviancies/lack of social skills and sex lives. Rather than go out and dance at real night clubs, you can dance in fake nightclubs. Rather than hire a real prostitute (or find a real sexual partner), you can hire virtual prostitutes.

I'm unsure about that statistic, but what I am sure about is that with all this talk of user-created media and content, user-empowered experiences like Second Life, it might behoove new marketers to remember - before millions of flying cocks come at you during what's supposed to be a serious interview - that the freedom the Net affords caters to the childish, the socially inept, the sexual deviants in ways that the real world can't, and when you forget that, you're leaving yourself open for a lot of "grief" (pardon the pun.)

I don't mean to demean what myself and other new marketers do. My company, Edelman, has a Second Life office. CC Chapman's company, crayon, has an office there - I visited it today as a matter of fact, just to poke around and see what it was like. But for Christsakes, new marketers who ignore the lower end of the Net's bell curve are running an incredible risk for themselves and those they represent, be it in an agency relationship like I currently use, or in a direct-company relationship like I used to do at WizKids.

So it is with a grain of salt that I must take Time naming me Person of the Year. I'll still put it on my resume of course (credit to Seth for that joke), but I simply don't feel that new marketing has grown up to the point where it can say that it's anything more than a gimmick. And new marketers are partially responsible. We've sold it to our bosses, our clients, our colleagues as little more than a gimmick. We approach it with the mindset of old marketers, as something to exploit and to use and abuse as we would any other media outlet (see my post regarding the PSP ads online).

This seems kind of pessimistic. I want to stress that I really do view this optimistically: empowered consumers are the way of the future, even if I don't agree that we should be People of the Year. So next time, I'll talk a little more about my optimism regarding this space, and blogs specifically.

Life's Goings On

Astute Puppeteers will note some changes in the right nav, which can only mean one thing: I've had a couple of days off work! It's true: starting at 4:00 PM - only one hour later than scheduled - on Friday, I left my troubles and worries behind and started a four-day break, including the two weekend days. We had a splendid Christmas get-together, played a lot of video games, and shook off the non-relaxation of last weekend's power deficit.

Merry [Insert Holiday Here]

Whether you're celebrating the birth of your lord and savior, celebrating the Maccabbees' victory over the Seleucid Greeks and the miracle of neverending lamp oil, remembering your African heritage, honoring the winter solstice, or airing your greivences with the rest of us, have a safe and awesome holiday!!

Jacking Off

You Don't Know Jack is categorically one of my favorite trivia games. Best played with a group of friends (and some booze), it's full of dry humor and in-jokes that make smart geeks feel in the know. And, it looks like it's moving online. You can play a daily Dis or Dat at the You Don't Know Jack website. Today's topic: kinky sex act or torture not endorsed by the US military. Enjoy!

More on Power

The power is back on. Apparently, a power surge destroyed our furnace. The good news is it was easily fixed.

Goodbye extra Christmas money.

On Viral Marketing, the PSP, and the FTC

There's been some interesting buzz lately about viral marketing, due in no small part to the efforts of a marketing company linked to Sony's PSP handheld. The basic recap is this: a website goes up that claims to be a blog started by an 11 year old who wants a PSP for Christmas (or maybe his friend wants one - it really doesn't matter.) The kids post in "kiddiehip" AOL-style speak, and they've made some kind of rap video that went up on YouTube (but has since been removed.)

A little Internet Detective work by fellow goons on Something Awful uncovers something rotten: the domain is registered to a marketing company called Zipatoni - not exactly the 11-year-old that the site claims to be owned by. This starts to get pickup on video game blogs, and it's pretty clear to everyone that the site is a fake. Oddly enough, the name "Zipatoni" is banned from the site's comments as a "curse word."

Well, Sony eventually owns up to their shenanigans - two days after the news about the site being a fake hits. In online marketing time, that's an eternity. When the fellows are Penny Arcade are using terms like "do irreparable damage to their brand", you know you've got a problem.

The problem, of course, is transparency. In a coincidence worthy of of Charles Dickens, the FTC ruled on the same day that the blog started getting notice that "WOMM" (Word of Mouth Marketing) needs to clearly state its source. For example, you can't make pseudo-kiddie blogs without stating clearly that you're a marketing firm representing Sony.

The accounts on which I work at my firm are very strict about transparency in word of mouth marketing; it's been a policy for as long as I've been there. At WizKids, although it was never a written policy, it was one I adhered to (hell, one I developed) for one simple reason: if you want someone to trust what you have to say about a product, then you better not give them any reason not to trust you.

The shift to online and WOM marketing means that the days of claiming something to be true and it isn't are over. Between Internet Detectives and the kinds of news cycles online communities generate, you simply cannot afford to be deceptive in your marketing practices. Studies are starting to show a shift in how customers make buying decisions about products: rather than advertising, traditional news stories, or even product reviews in magazines, they are turning to online communities to gauge reactions of trusted influencers to a product in which they are interested. In nonmarketingspeak, people are going online and reading - if not outright asking and talking about - the opinions of others online that they trust. If a company wants a chance in hell of being part of that influence, they need to be able to demonstrate that they aren't jerking customers around, which is what transparency accomplishes. There are also legal boundaries, of course, but beyond those reasons for transparency, trust in a customer base strikes me as a far better reason for a company to maintain transparency in its online communications.

I'm working on two separate accounts now where transparency is a daily need (incidentally, I'm not working on the Xbox account or any other product that could potentially compete with the PSP at all at the moment - just to maintain the spirit of disclosure.) If you're reading this as a new marketer, don't just pay lip service to transparency or make it a policy because it's legal. Make it a policy because you need to in order to establish trust with online influencers.

Also, this would be an excellent opportunity to give a nod to Managing the Grey, a new marking podcast that Seth introduced me to. If you're interested in new marketing, you need to subscribe to that podcast.

More About Power

It's going on 48 hours without power now, and vast sections of the Eastside are still in the dark. We decided to drive down to Bellevue, so we're holed up in a Tullys at the moment, enjoying some warmth and an Internet connection.

This has been a pretty surreal experience; I have a feeling that is due in no small part to the fact that my sleep and work schedule has been incredibly out of whack lately. Last week was pretty crazy, and it doesn't look like it's going to be much better until after January.

I've been following newsy updates on Seattlest and updates from people all over the area, including a PSE employee, on this Something Awful thread. The windstorm was a "once every hundred years storm," according to the mayor, who is probably quite qualified to discuss the rarity and severity of historical weather patterns (note the sarcasm).

On a more personal level, it's been even more surreal. A few houses in my neighborhood have power thanks to generators; one, in a display of flagrant waste in the face of rampant want, has their vast Christmas light collection running full blast. I tried to take a picture, but couldn't get the camera to work. There are still trees laying on power lines on the road near my house, and near the back entrance to my neighborhood an entire street is cordoned off with red tape because there is a jumbled mass of power lines sitting in the road.

Best adventure: heading into the Juanita Safeway yesterday. The power was off, but the store was open. They had emergency power on, so the cash registers, ATMs, and Lotto machines were all working. Oh, and the Christmas Muzak. But all the lights were off, so the store was pitch black except for the areas by the doors. The employees were at the door telling everyone they had "no ice, no wood, and no batteries." And you couldn't buy frozen foods because they wouldn't sell them to people (liability, I suppose). They were issuing lanterns to people who wanted to shop, but a lot of people had brought little flashlights or were using their cellphones to see. The entire effect was like the grocery store at night from Dead Rising: no one was really talking, so all you heard was some mumbling over the Muzak, and the only thing you could really see were a few of the lanterns and some dark shapes moving around. It was damned unnerving.

On the upside, I'm done with my work for the weekend. On the downside, we had no power when Battlestar Galactica aired last night. Oh the humanity!

Powerless

I'm in my office, not only because I have to keep working, but because my house has been without power for about 38 hours now. It went out at 8:30 on Thursday night, and hasn't come back.

Initially, there were around 1 million people in the Seattle area without power (including all of Whidbey Island), and they're fixing it as fast as they can, but PSE is saying it could be up to a week in some places. Also, our cellphone reception at home is intermittent at best, so don't freak out if you can't get in touch.

I'll keep you all posted, as best I can.

How Busy Am I?

How busy? Let's just say that the last two days, I have worked from home - because I didn't have time to communte in.

Well HELLO There!

The official trailer for David Lynch's new classic film, INLAND EMPIRE, is out.



Expect to see me blogging more about this in the coming months.

Games: My Answers, Part Two

Here's part two of my games post, about how I discovered the games I love.

Video Games
Civilization: It's not hyperbole to say that the Civ series is my favorite video game(s) of all time. Period. I was first introduced to Civ when a friend handed me a copy (yeah, an illegal copy) and said "here, try this game." I installed it, fooled around with it, and when my buddy Mike came over for a sleepover we decided to give it a go. We stayed up the entire night playing Civilization, only to end up losing at the end game as Germany's tanks rolled over our knights. Civilization is different because no one was actually there to show me how the game worked; like a lot of video games, while it was recommended to me by a friend, I learned to play it on my own, often through trial and error. An interesting differentiation between video games and traditional games, I think, and a pattern you'll see repeated.

Also, I purchased a legit copy of Civ not long after the sleepover.

Grand Theft Auto: I include the GTA series because, unlike other games, I actually didn't like this one so much when it came out. My first roommate in college played the original GTA and I thought it was shit; I ended up with a copy of GTA2, which had its moments, but I thought GTA3 was far too violent and realistic for my tastes (it lost a lot of the cartoony flavor of the first two games.) It wasn't until Vice City that I found a GTA game I really loved, and San Andreas almost went over the edge. Actually, some parts, like the DDR-like dancing sequences and the "gravel pit" missions, did go over the edge. But I've spent a good deal enjoyable of time with the GTA games (and the slick, and in many ways superior, Bully), but it was a series I really did discover on my own.

Wasteland / Fallout: Those really are one game, right? Of all the games I've replayed that haven't been strategy games, I've had the best time with Wasteland and its spiritual successor. I also discovered Wasteland through a friend, although I discovered the game's depth myself (and Fallout as well.) What I mean by that is that I played the game with a buddy, but never really got into the game. When I got my own copy, I bothered to read the story and begin to understand the game's underlying RPG structure, so it was a far different - and more rewarding - experience.

RPGs
RPGs are a little different. Some of my fellow Alliterates might string me up for this, but I think that many RPG systems are, at their base level, the same game. That is, the game where you show up, imagine you're a character taking part in a story (or creating the story in the case of the GM), and the system itself is simply an abstraction that allows the GM to govern the universe by a set of rules that includes randomness and possibilities and impossibilities. So differentiating between "the d20 system" and "the Rolemaster system" is fairly pointless, at least when it comes to the kind of analysis I'm doing here.

But that being said, I was introduced to D&D - no joke - through the "red box," advertised in a comic book and purchased by me. I ran through Zanzer Tem's tower with an Elf. I can't remember the Elf's name, but I had a good time. And I was hooked. And now look at me.

The Lone Wolf books, on the other hand - my buddy Nick Hannum put me on to those. We used to trade them back and forth. Did you know they're all available online? They are. You should play them.

Wot Sucks About Seattle This Tima Year..

Is that it's nearly dark at 4:10 in the evening.

At least all the Christmas lights downtown are purdy.

Great Local Blog

I don't read many local blogs (the Slog when I do), but this one jumped out at me as I was looking for something work-related the other day: Seattlest, kind of a general-interest Seattle blog. I'll probably put it firmly in my daily reading list for a while.

Games: My Answers

So how did I learn to play games?

I was thinking about this on my long drive home (OK, so this now counts as my Obligatory Seattle Blogger Snow Post as well, thank God.) It might be better for me if I were to break down a few games I've spent some time playing and act as a relatively representative sample - not necessarily my favorite games, mind you - into three categories. Let's call them Board Games (in which I will put tabletop miniatures games, like HeroClix), Card Games, and Video Games.

Since I consider many RPGs to be the same, just with different systems, I'll put those at the end in a kind of catch-all category.

Board Games
Monopoly: Aside from Chutes and Ladders and Candyland, Monopoly is one of the first board games I have a memory of playing. I'm reasonably certain I was about six or so when my dad taught me how to play. I was lucky in that I came from a family that valued "game nights," so we played a lot of Clue, Euchre, Pinocle, and other games. For a while, we did it once a week. Kind of like I do now with my D&D game, come to think of it.

Chess: I think my grandfather might have taught me the rules to chess. At the very least, he had a crazy chess computer circa 1980 that always played the same opening every time. I learned its opening, and finally started to mirror everything it did. I think I played that stupid computer to a draw more times than I can count, and neither of us never learned from it. I'm guessing I was about 7 or 8.

HeroClix: OK, here's a biggie. I learned HeroClix by myself, but I did so at a friend's recommendation. People who know me, know that I tried Mage Knight before I tried HeroClix and I hated it. Absolutely, no-holds-barred hated it. I thought the IP was just generic fantasy with nothing unique to recommend it, I thought the gameplay was far too imbalanced and rewarded first strike (actually, first dice roll), and it did nothing for my imagation. I discovered HeroClix on the day Infinity Challenge (the first release) hit the stores; my buddy and I were there to get comics, and he showed me the game because he knew I liked comic book statues. And the sculpts were what drew me to the game first, before the game itself. I learned the game by trudging through the manual and forcing my wife to play playing with my wife. But it was my comic shop guy's recommendation that brought me into the fold in the first place.

Fury of Dracula: I like this game, but not many of my friends do. I was introduced to this game at GenCon 2005 by Angus, who told me he'd played the original version and that I should check out a demo in the Fantasy Flight booth. So I did, and while the game is complicated (not as complicated as Arkham Horror, which I will not include in this list because I've never actually managed to play it), I had a good time and grabbed a copy when it came out later that year. I then tried to teach my wife, roommate, and friends, who didn't like it; then I tried to teach the WizKids crew, who also really didn't like it all that much. Fury of Dracula has its flaws, but what's interesting is that both my personal buddies and the WizKids crew wanted to quit playing after trying it for a certain amount of time. It just wasn't fun for them, and I can't imagine what they would have done if they'd tried to learn it by reading the instructions having purchased the game blind.

Go: First, my confession - I wanted to play Go after I watched the movie Pi because it was "cool." At least in the movie. So I bought a cheap Go set and a book to teach myself Go. I didn't really understand it. Then I journeyed onto Yahoo Games and played Go online. I didn't really understand it then, either. Then I tried to have Crabby teach me how to play Go. And to this day, I still don't understand the rules. Supposedly, the rules are simple, but so far no one has adequately explained the game's mechanics to me in such a way that I've seen the underlying strategic structure (or, for that matter, what the hell I'm supposed to be doing!) I'd still like to play Go someday.

Card Games
Poker: Texas Hold 'Em. Here's another game I didn't understand, even after watching it on television and reading a book about it. It took someone explaining to me how it worked before I "got it." Since that time, I've read all kinds of books, played all kinds of poker both in "real life" and online, listened to poker podcasts, read poker magazines, and so forth, but the game mechanics and my opinions of the game were formed when someone took the time to explain the game to me.

Pinocle: As I mentioned before, Pinocle was a game that we played on family game nights. My family, both sides, and my in-laws all play Pinocle, so it's a good game to know in my situation. I learned Pinocle as kind of an extension to Euchre (the first trick-taking game I learned). It's not really one of my favorite games, because I think it relies a little too much on luck, but it's a fun diversion.

Magic: The route by which I learned Magic is a strange one indeed. The owner of the game store in Bloomington came to give a talk about games to my mom's elementary school class. While there, he talked about this new gaming sensation called Magic. My mom was intrigued, so she bought me a deck (of unlimted) and a booster (of Arabian Nights.) I tried it out and was hooked. I showed it to my friends, who soon bought decks, even the chubby Mormon girl (yes, Mormons play Magic.) We organized a little Magic league at school. We played in Boy Scouts. And here's the funny part: none of us really knew the right rules. We finally read the rulebook enough to figure it out, but there must have been a half-dozen variants flying around at one point. We didn't realize you could play without using all of your cards - I won a tournament because I figured out that there was no rule that didn't let me play with only green cards, so I played with only my green cards. Oh, and we anted. I lost a Time Walk in an Ante. A buddy lost a Black Lotus. We didn't care, because the "collectable" aspect to the game just wasn't there for us yet.

Munchkin: I was introduced to Munchkin by, well, a munchkin (the gaming type, not the cure little kid type) at a coworker's house. Munchkin is right up there with Chez Geek and pretty much every other Steve Jackson game: if you can keep your head down and not piss anyone off, you can win about two-thirds of the time. These games are really just excuses to be social (which is fine), and are fun because the mechanics are simple to teach and you can still play the game after a drink or three.

OK, that's a really long post. Next time, I'll do video games, RPGs, and the Lone Wolf books. 'Cuz I can.

Games: The Question, An Answer (Not Mine)

I asked the other day about how you find what you like, and HeroClix player Grey Zealot posted a very well-thought-out answer to my question on his blog, so it's really only fair that I answer myself. Which of course I don't have time to do between my work and the obligatory Seattle Blogger Post About The Snow I still have to make.

But I'll do it later. Maybe even today, if I make it out of here at a reasonable hour.

What I Want for Christmas

Whenever anyone asks me what I want for Christmas, I respond truthfully: peace on Earth, and good will towards men (and women). Apparently that's all someone in Colorado wanted until her homeowners association decided to try to fine her $25 a day for putting up a Christmas wreath in the shape of a peace sign.

Some highlights from the story, formatting mine:

"Some residents who have complained have children serving in Iraq, said Bob Kearns, president of the Loma Linda Homeowners Association in Pagosa Springs.

He said some residents believed the wreath was a symbol of Satan. Three or four residents complained, he said.

"Somebody could put up signs that say drop bombs on Iraq. If you let one go up you have to let them all go up," he said in a telephone interview Sunday."

Regarding the first highlight: what the fucking fuck?

Regarding that second one: haven't we pretty much been doing that since the first Gulf War? Even Clinton got in on the action there.

Here's Dubya's "if you're not with us, you're against us" being applied once more. Or is it the Church of Satan? Or is it part of the lie-beral War on Christmas? I just don't know which irrational conservative falsehood to use anymore. Can someone please help?

Gamers Who Complain

Saying "gamers are a complainy bunch" is kind of like saying that outer space is pretty big. So here's a recent Wired article on complainy gamers and what should be done with them that others in the industry out to get a kick out of.

How Do You Find What You Like?

Since I read The Long Tail, I've been reflecting slowly on some of the things that Chris Anderson discussed. This last trip home, I introduced my nephew to Settlers of Catan, one of my favorite board games. Liz and I were talking about something unrelated the other night (video games, probably), and somehow gaming habits come up - for example, examining twenty casual games in the course of GenCon rather than three very deep games. And that got me thinking about just how we are introduced to the games we like. How do we learn the games we like?

How many games did you learn by buying something based on the box's marketing copy, reading the rules, and sitting down to tear through a game without knowing anything else about it?

Then, think about how many games you've learned because someone said "hey, let me show you this cool game!"

Of course, that second option is kind of esoteric; it could be as simple as "hey, let me show you this cool game!" or as complex as you researching a game online that you think you might enjoy, or visiting an influencer (a blogger, for example) whose opinion you value. But no matter how you think of the second option, I'd be willing to be that most of the games you know and like - Monopoly, chess, checkers, Medieval 2: Total War, Dice Wars, or even Dungeons & Dragons - you learned because someone suggested them to you, or even showed you how to play. In fact, every example above, including probably a hundred others, I found based on suggestion.

Games, of course, are a little different than movies and music, but not much different. How much of your music do you listen to because someone suggested it, and how much did you simply pick up blind in the store? How many movies have you seen because someone said "hey, you really should see this movie, you'd love it."

The challenge for marketing people like myself is finding out how to tap this phenomenon without destroying it. This kind of word-of-mouth marketing, especially for games, is a self-cleaning organism, and I suspect that tampering with it too much would simply create a barrier through which we can never again pass.

It's something interesting to consider as I move forward in my career.

In Keifer, They Have a Scorpion Problem

Now there's something you don't have to worry about in Seattle that much: scorpion problems. But in Keifer (Oklahoma, where my friend's brother lives and was recently stung by such a creature), you do. Which is to say, I spent the last week in Tulsa with kith and kin, enjoying a few days off and the company of loved ones.

The trip is one of highlights: seeing my brother, fixing a main course for Thanksgiving dinner, introducing my nephews to Settlers of Catan, getting to know my parents new cat, a trip to a bar where I suddenly became a complete convert in Washington State's smoking ban, and generally just a good time. This is the first trip home where I felt more a stranger than a part of things, not because of the company, but because I've seen myself grow in the past few months without necessarily being conscious of it and sometimes it takes facing older parts of yourself that you left behind to remind yourself of that.

It's worth mentioning that it was in the high 60s and low 70s for most of my trip, and as I pulled into the coffee shop in Bellevue where I'm writing this, it started to sleet.

Some things, I'd keep if I could.

O WII-LY?

YA WII-LY.

For the first time in my life, I tried standing in line for a game console this morning. I showed up 10 minutes before Best Buy opened, and left 20 minutes later when they ran out, with about 30 people still ahead of me in line.

I'm not really all that disappointed. I went home and played Medieval II: Total War and had a blast.

Thanks Giving

My health.

My friends and my family.

My job, and the income provided so I don't have to worry about things like food.

A roof over my head, and a warm place to sleep.

My talents and abilities.

My perseverance.

My ability to allow myself to continue to grow and develop.

What are you thankful for today?

Book: Newton's Cannon by J. Gregory Keyes

And then there's Newton's Cannon. Rarely do I read a book without skipping parts - usually only paragraphs - here and there, or glancing at the last few pages to see how it turns out. Newton's Cannon is the first book in a long time that captured my interest enough so that I just didn't want to do that. Rather than tearing right through, I put it down in places just so I could savor the last third.

Premise: Sir Issac Newton discovers alchemy - or rather, the applications of it. Alchemy is kind of a mixture of magic and quantum mechanics - in the context of the book, it's all scientific, but there are certain aspects of it that aren't really covered by our modern scientific understanding. Newton's discovery touches off an age of invention that brings the world into a kind of steampunk age, with pistols that shoot lightning, machines that communicate over enormous distances, and more. England and France have squared off against each other, both trying to find an advantage, and France might just have that advantage, with the unwitting help of one young Ben Franklin. Oh, and Blackbeard the pirate makes an appearance.

Newton's Cannon is the first of a series of four books collectively called The Age of Unreason. Keyes' work is one of those rare treats where the execution of a cool premise is just as good as, if not better than, the premise itself. I've already purchased the second book in the series, A Calculus of Angels, and frankly I can't wait to read it, too.

RIP Robert Altman

I can't necessarily say that Robert Altman was one of my favorite directors, but I've certainly enjoyed everything of his that I've seen. The movies lost a good one today.

Election Post Mortem, Via Jeff

I was going to sum up some of my thoughts regarding the national elections and the subseqent media coverage and spin, but Jeff did a fantastic job of hitting almost everything I was going to say - especially with his analysis of the new memes floating around the punditsphere about how we should be taking all of this.

Book: The Wild Shore by Kim Stanley Robinson

The last Kim Stanley Robinson book I tried to read was The Years of Rice and Salt, which I couldn't finish. In the same Amazon order as the post below, I grabbed The Wild Shore, a post-apocalyptic tale by Robinson, and couldn't put it down.

Part of a triptych (trilogy) of similar books about three vastly different futures for Orange County, California, The Wild Shore takes place in an America about fifty years after a nuclear attack destroyed major cities. Bombs were detonated from ground-level, inside trucks and buildings, so the devastation isn't as complete as it could have been if they were launched from ICBMs, but it was still complete enough. The UN has decided that the United States should be cut off from the rest of the world for 100 years as punishment for its imperialism (at least, that's the explanation given in the book, but the narrator does show that there is a good reason to question whether or not that's true.) So anyone who tries to leave, is killed by one of the battleships that patrols the shore. Additionally, if any settlement makes too much progress towards reunification - such as building a railroad track - a space-based satellite destroys the structure.

A blurb on the back describes The Wild Shore as a cross between Huck Finn and Our Town, and that's as apt a description as any. The action centers around one small village of survivors, who have built a community based on fishing and agriculture. They battle with the "scavengers" who inhabit the ruins of Orange County, people who have chosen to simply live off the scraps of the old civilization rather than trying to make a new life. The book clearly comes down on the side of the farmers, and in an interesting twist for the genre, the calls to action for resistance, revolution, and reunification and rebuilding the old United States are less important than the personal lessons the main character learns as he instead grows up in his village and his decisions and perspectives start influencing the lives of those around him, for better or worse.

The Wild Shore is not a rollicking action-adventure, but it's a hell of a read regardless. It's an interesting contrast to David Brin's The Postman, which released about the same time (early 1980s) and embraced the spirit of reclamation and reunification rather than the spirit of community and family that The Wild Shore ultimately concerns itself with. Amazon sells The Wild Shore too.