Not so long ago, I found the Blogspot option to turn on "Reactions" on my posts. This allowed me to add simple buttons that readers can press to say (after I edited them) whether they Liked or Disliked a post (I used to have Netural as a selection, too, but no one ever seemed to use it, so I removed it). This new feature helped me understand that, while I thought only about four or five people read my blogs, that really it is around 12-15 (maybe more) who do. Which is exciting news to me.
However, one thing else I have also noted: while I never received many Comments to my blog, the number seems to have decreased by turning on the Reactions. Now, instead of typing even a quick word or two about it, people are simply clicking whether they like or dislike it and moving on. This, for me, is a double-edged sword. On one hand, it has helped me discover that I have more readers than I initially thought. On the other hand, by simply clicking Dislike without actually posting a comment as what they disliked, I am left wonder what about the post they didn't care for.
For example, take my last post about celebrities and politicians that get caught in nude picture/sex scandals. I simply stated an opinion that if these people would keep their "junk" in their pants, not film it or take pictures of it, then these scandals wouldn't happen. I also asserted that if you were feeling sexual toward another that you should either a) divorce the one you are current with so that you can have sex with that other person or b) take that pent up sexuality home and have sex with the one you are married to. Both of which would, again, keep a scandal from happening (or at least minimize it) and seem like logical, common-sense solutions to the situation.
Two people marked this post as Dislike. I am fine with their dislike in a general sense. I'm happy they read the post and happy they had an opinion on it. However, I'm having a hard time understanding what about it they disliked. Do they dislike that I am trying to help celebrities to stop having sexually-related scandals? Do they object to the simplicity of my argument? Do they reject that I called Weiner an idiot? Is it their preference that we should continue to have more of these scandals in the future? Do they have an alternate plan for stopping these scandals, something I didn't cover or haven't thought of?
Another example is the recent post on steroids and Lance Armstrong. In this, my thesis is that it doesn't matter whether Lance Armstrong took or didn't take steroids. If he did not take them, then is accomplishments are that much more impressive. If he did take them, then he was still the best of a group who, it seems, all took steroids. Either the playing fields was not level (and Armstrong was nearly super-humanly good at his sport) or the playing field was level (and Armstrong was the best of the cheaters).
Similarly, two people selected Dislike on that post, too, and I wonder what it was they disliked. Did they feel that I was biased and made it sound like Armstrong was guilty? Did they feel like I was missing some vital piece of the puzzle? Do they feel that steroids are so bad that they don't want to Like something that says that the playing field might be level because of steroid use? Was it simply that I was not clear in my assertions?
Now, don't get me wrong, this doesn't happen with every post. When I write something that is stating my religious, political, or a similar view point and someone simply clicks Dislike, I respect it and don't question it. If that post is leaning left, I assume it is a right-winged friend who doesn't see it the same way. If it is leaning right, I assume it is a left-winged friend who is affronted. When it is religious, I assume a friend who is not of the same belief system (or lack of one) is protesting what I wrote. All of which is fine and makes sense. But on the other posts, the posts with no clear-cut stance or that is trying to make sense of what I am seeing and reading, I am frequently left wondering what it is that the person who clicked Dislike is against. Without a comment from them, I am left scratching my head. I am happy to have the dissenting opinion posted so I can learn why the person disagrees or what specifically they are disagreeing with.
So, if you disagree with a post, please feel free to add a comment with an explanation. You do have to be signed up with a Google, Blogspot, or another type of verification process (I was getting spammed, so, unfortunately, had to turn on that requirement) in order to comment, but they are easy and free to get. I'd love to hear from you.
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June 22, 2011
June 7, 2011
Keep It In Your Pants
So, there is something about all these political and celebrity scandals that I simply don't get: if you keep it in your pants, and don't film it or take pictures of it, none of this happens.These scandals are all entirely self-made by what I can only assume are self-destructive people.
My thinking on this is pretty simple: if you want to have sex with people who are not your wife, you should divorce your wife and then do so -- then there is no scandal. If you want to stay married, then KEEP YOUR PENIS IN YOUR PANTS when with any female who is not your wife, and you'll be fine. If your penis is in your pants, sex can't happen, pictures can't happen, and lewd acts can't happen. Problem solved.
Why is this so hard for celebrities and politicians to understand?
And, if you do decide to whip it out and let it be exposed, and thereby allow these bad decisions to happen, then DON'T LIE ABOUT IT. If there is one thing that we've learned over and over is that if you lie about it, the story doesn't die and it'll just be worse for you and your wife when the truth does finally come out. The moment you apologize for it, the American public is pretty much willing to drop it. If Rep. Wiener (to pick the current idiot with this problem) had just apologized, admitted to it, and moved on, we would be talking about other things 10 days later than his penis. The fact he lied and tried to cover it up for 10 days just makes it worse.
Lastly, if you see some female that turns you on that much, why not take that sexual tension and your libido home to your wife and use it all on her? She'll probably enjoy it and be happy and it will keep you from having an embarrassing scandal in your near future. If, for any reason, you don't feel you can do that, divorce your wife and then proceed. Your audience/constituents will be less worried about a divorce than they will be with you lying and committing adultery.
My thinking on this is pretty simple: if you want to have sex with people who are not your wife, you should divorce your wife and then do so -- then there is no scandal. If you want to stay married, then KEEP YOUR PENIS IN YOUR PANTS when with any female who is not your wife, and you'll be fine. If your penis is in your pants, sex can't happen, pictures can't happen, and lewd acts can't happen. Problem solved.
Why is this so hard for celebrities and politicians to understand?
And, if you do decide to whip it out and let it be exposed, and thereby allow these bad decisions to happen, then DON'T LIE ABOUT IT. If there is one thing that we've learned over and over is that if you lie about it, the story doesn't die and it'll just be worse for you and your wife when the truth does finally come out. The moment you apologize for it, the American public is pretty much willing to drop it. If Rep. Wiener (to pick the current idiot with this problem) had just apologized, admitted to it, and moved on, we would be talking about other things 10 days later than his penis. The fact he lied and tried to cover it up for 10 days just makes it worse.
Lastly, if you see some female that turns you on that much, why not take that sexual tension and your libido home to your wife and use it all on her? She'll probably enjoy it and be happy and it will keep you from having an embarrassing scandal in your near future. If, for any reason, you don't feel you can do that, divorce your wife and then proceed. Your audience/constituents will be less worried about a divorce than they will be with you lying and committing adultery.
June 2, 2011
The Silent Majority
What America needs is a great Moderate leader to come out of nowhere. This person needs to be erudite, well-read, versed in politics in some fashion, and charismatic. He or she needs to have salient facts and a winning disposition and a virtually unassailable background. And, best of all, this person should be a third-party candidate.
People laughed when Jesse "The Body" Ventura ran for governor of Minnesota. They laughed until he won, and then got reelected. What was fabulous about Ventura as a governor was that a) he came out of left field, b) although he was best known as a wrestler and sometimes movie star, no one could find much dirt on him, and c) he was neither Republican nor Democrat. He had new ideas and he completely turned around Minnesota's situation and got it going forward again.
That's what America needs.
America was never intended to be a two-party country. Amendments to the Constitution have made it two-party and strengthened those parties to the point where they have a near stranglehold on politics in America. However, for the vast majority of people I know, and I have a sneaking suspicion the vast majority of Americans in general, one party does not speak for any one voter 100% of the time. Instead, everyone most likely has certain topics that they are conservative on, some they fall on the more liberal side, a few they are more noticeably "Democrat," and some on which they are "Republican."
For example, I'm anti-abortion, but I'm also pro-choice. By that I mean that I, personally, am against abortion except in very specific circumstances. There are too many options available to both men and women to stop unwanted pregnancies from occurring to have abortion as a last resort. However, I also recognize and understand that others do not share my opinion. And they have a right to this surgical procedure and to have it be the safest procedure possible. So, where do I fit on the "right/left wing" scale holding these seemingly opposed ideas?
The list goes on: I'm very right-wing on crime but sway left-wing on the environment. I'm republican in my ideas on the economy in general, but have decided democratic ideas about certain areas of the marketplace.
And I think most people follow a similar pattern to that-- swinging with their conscience, beliefs, and how they were raised between ideals that are typically one party to ideals that are typically the other. In the end, I think that makes us all sort of land in the middle as moderates, and I think most people can find common ground if they sit down and talk about it.
However, in the last decade or so, American politics have become increasingly polarized toward the extremes within the two main parties. These extremes are swaying the overall vote in ways that the silent majority of people don't like and do not want. There is a great line from the movie The American President, "People want leadership, Mr. President, and in the absence of genuine leadership, they'll listen to anyone who steps up to the microphone. They want leadership. They're so thirsty for it they'll crawl through the desert toward a mirage, and when they discover there's no water, they'll drink the sand." Right now, I think we're in that state.
Obama was going to be the President of Change. He kept saying we can't keep doing politics as usual. Yet, even though his door has been open to the Republicans for his entire time in office, the leaders on the other side have railroaded him, lied to the American people, and sandbagged the changes he promised. On the other hand, Obama also didn't provide good, strong leadership to his own people; he let people like Nancy Pelosi run amuck, make bad laws, and put down the Republicans such that they didn't want to work with her or any other Democrats. So, Obama is not that person, or has failed to be the person who can make both sides work together.
And that's where my contention that a third-party candidate needs to come forward. Someone who is beholden to neither the Democrats nor the Republicans. Someone who is savvy and charismatic enough to make them actually work together on things, find the common ground, and stop hurting the Republic and start helping the Republic's people. Someone who can hold the same disparate beliefs I'm convinced the majority of people hold, who can argue for both sides of an issue and make people see the reasonable middle ground, and who can build bridges between those moderate voices and show the extremes for what they are-- a small but very vocal minority that does NOT have America's best interests at heart.
If a third-party candidate cannot do this, then we need to find a new Reagan or Clinton. Many people forget that both Reagan (Republican) and Clinton (Democrat) had Congresses that were held by the opposite party during their terms. Yet they still managed to get a majority of their policies enacted with a minimum of issue by building bridges between the parties and by doing things that the other side couldn't fault. (Yes, I know: Iran-Contra and Blow Jobs from Interns -- I'm talking strictly party and lawmaking.)
America has a number of issues that can, and will, sink it in the near future unless the people rally. These issues include: distribution of wealth (America was made great by having a strong middle class, but that middle class is disappearing rapidly as more jobs go overseas), infrastructure (the roads, railways, bridges, water, sewer, and other infrastructure across the country is failing at an alarming rate), education (America is coming in last or near last in nearly every qualifier for industrial nations), and production (America is not producing as much as it once was, and is shipping what production is left overseas-- allowing those nations to become strong with a strong middle class and further hurting the American economy and other issues).
We need a leader who is going to create jobs at a good wage getting people to work on the failing infrastructure. This solves two problems (distribution of wealth and infrastructure) by putting Americans to work fixing America. Next, that leader needs to revamp the educational system; it needs punishment for disobedient children, it needs to focus public educated on making the best, most well-rounded students for graduation from High School, it needs to build more schools and better stock all schools with new textbooks and equipment, and it needs to make teaching a career choice that more people want to do so we can lower class sizes and allow the students to actually learn.
Lastly, this leader needs to encourage car, clothing, electronic, widget, and doodad manufacturers to make those products in America. This puts even more people to work and further stabilizes the economy. If people make it in America and buy it in America, then America's economy stays strong. And, yes, it really IS that SIMPLE.
I hope this mythical leader comes along soon. The country cannot go another decade with this kind of infighting, rancor, and apathy about doing what it needs to before it starts to collapse under its own weight.
People laughed when Jesse "The Body" Ventura ran for governor of Minnesota. They laughed until he won, and then got reelected. What was fabulous about Ventura as a governor was that a) he came out of left field, b) although he was best known as a wrestler and sometimes movie star, no one could find much dirt on him, and c) he was neither Republican nor Democrat. He had new ideas and he completely turned around Minnesota's situation and got it going forward again.
That's what America needs.
America was never intended to be a two-party country. Amendments to the Constitution have made it two-party and strengthened those parties to the point where they have a near stranglehold on politics in America. However, for the vast majority of people I know, and I have a sneaking suspicion the vast majority of Americans in general, one party does not speak for any one voter 100% of the time. Instead, everyone most likely has certain topics that they are conservative on, some they fall on the more liberal side, a few they are more noticeably "Democrat," and some on which they are "Republican."
For example, I'm anti-abortion, but I'm also pro-choice. By that I mean that I, personally, am against abortion except in very specific circumstances. There are too many options available to both men and women to stop unwanted pregnancies from occurring to have abortion as a last resort. However, I also recognize and understand that others do not share my opinion. And they have a right to this surgical procedure and to have it be the safest procedure possible. So, where do I fit on the "right/left wing" scale holding these seemingly opposed ideas?
The list goes on: I'm very right-wing on crime but sway left-wing on the environment. I'm republican in my ideas on the economy in general, but have decided democratic ideas about certain areas of the marketplace.
And I think most people follow a similar pattern to that-- swinging with their conscience, beliefs, and how they were raised between ideals that are typically one party to ideals that are typically the other. In the end, I think that makes us all sort of land in the middle as moderates, and I think most people can find common ground if they sit down and talk about it.
However, in the last decade or so, American politics have become increasingly polarized toward the extremes within the two main parties. These extremes are swaying the overall vote in ways that the silent majority of people don't like and do not want. There is a great line from the movie The American President, "People want leadership, Mr. President, and in the absence of genuine leadership, they'll listen to anyone who steps up to the microphone. They want leadership. They're so thirsty for it they'll crawl through the desert toward a mirage, and when they discover there's no water, they'll drink the sand." Right now, I think we're in that state.
Obama was going to be the President of Change. He kept saying we can't keep doing politics as usual. Yet, even though his door has been open to the Republicans for his entire time in office, the leaders on the other side have railroaded him, lied to the American people, and sandbagged the changes he promised. On the other hand, Obama also didn't provide good, strong leadership to his own people; he let people like Nancy Pelosi run amuck, make bad laws, and put down the Republicans such that they didn't want to work with her or any other Democrats. So, Obama is not that person, or has failed to be the person who can make both sides work together.
And that's where my contention that a third-party candidate needs to come forward. Someone who is beholden to neither the Democrats nor the Republicans. Someone who is savvy and charismatic enough to make them actually work together on things, find the common ground, and stop hurting the Republic and start helping the Republic's people. Someone who can hold the same disparate beliefs I'm convinced the majority of people hold, who can argue for both sides of an issue and make people see the reasonable middle ground, and who can build bridges between those moderate voices and show the extremes for what they are-- a small but very vocal minority that does NOT have America's best interests at heart.
If a third-party candidate cannot do this, then we need to find a new Reagan or Clinton. Many people forget that both Reagan (Republican) and Clinton (Democrat) had Congresses that were held by the opposite party during their terms. Yet they still managed to get a majority of their policies enacted with a minimum of issue by building bridges between the parties and by doing things that the other side couldn't fault. (Yes, I know: Iran-Contra and Blow Jobs from Interns -- I'm talking strictly party and lawmaking.)
America has a number of issues that can, and will, sink it in the near future unless the people rally. These issues include: distribution of wealth (America was made great by having a strong middle class, but that middle class is disappearing rapidly as more jobs go overseas), infrastructure (the roads, railways, bridges, water, sewer, and other infrastructure across the country is failing at an alarming rate), education (America is coming in last or near last in nearly every qualifier for industrial nations), and production (America is not producing as much as it once was, and is shipping what production is left overseas-- allowing those nations to become strong with a strong middle class and further hurting the American economy and other issues).
We need a leader who is going to create jobs at a good wage getting people to work on the failing infrastructure. This solves two problems (distribution of wealth and infrastructure) by putting Americans to work fixing America. Next, that leader needs to revamp the educational system; it needs punishment for disobedient children, it needs to focus public educated on making the best, most well-rounded students for graduation from High School, it needs to build more schools and better stock all schools with new textbooks and equipment, and it needs to make teaching a career choice that more people want to do so we can lower class sizes and allow the students to actually learn.
Lastly, this leader needs to encourage car, clothing, electronic, widget, and doodad manufacturers to make those products in America. This puts even more people to work and further stabilizes the economy. If people make it in America and buy it in America, then America's economy stays strong. And, yes, it really IS that SIMPLE.
I hope this mythical leader comes along soon. The country cannot go another decade with this kind of infighting, rancor, and apathy about doing what it needs to before it starts to collapse under its own weight.
May 30, 2011
Bored With It All
I used my last two RPG sessions, one with one gaming group and the other with another group, to come to a conclusion: I'm burned out (for now) on gaming.
Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the act of getting together with friends. I enjoyed the camaraderie and the shared experience. I enjoyed the effort each DM put into trying to make a good story and an interesting experience for me (and the other players). What I did not enjoy was playing Dungeons & Dragons. I also have not been enjoying my weekly online LOTRO gaming session with the group. And, when Atari failed to successfully launch a new D&D-based computer game and I couldn't download or get a boxed copy of, I was at first fairly annoyed but then I found I was more relieved than anything else.
All I can figure is that I am currently burned out on the "sword and sorcery" genre and need to take a break from it. It has happened before, where I just needed to get away from the game and the rules, plus all the additional things I do for the games, for a while and recharge the battery. I've never stopped playing the game for very long (a couple of years being the longest time off, but usually just a few months to a year off is all that is needed). I've played RPGs since the late 1970s and have only taken a few breaks here and there -- pretty much didn't play at all in junior high, again during and after college (a couple of game sessions only), and then again for about six months or so in the early 2000s. It is something I very much enjoy doing and is a great release, in general. But sometimes a feeling of lassitude and ennui creeps in and I just don't the same feelings from the game as I should or normally do.
It doesn't help that I take on added responsibilities during gaming. I frequently DM the games (although not recently), I usually wind up being the note-taker and journal keeper, and sometimes I do more. Those extra tasks may be adding to the overall burn out I'm feeling, even though they are tasks I enjoy doing and offer to do.
The thing is, I'm still interested in playing other games; I'm playing Champions Online a bit again, and enjoying that. I am interested in potentially playing other RPGs, something new and different (like super-heroes, horror, some sort of action genre even). It seems to really be simply the D&D/sword and sorcery stuff that is bogging me down and making me less than excited.
The one negative, as my wife rightly pointed out, is that this activity is one of the few I have that takes me out of the house and gets me out and about. Without it, I will be even more hermit-like. She's right that this isn't a good idea from that regard, but I also don't want to force myself to continue doing something when or if I'm only going through the motions; that doesn't help anyone either.
I am going to give it a few more days and then make a decision to inform my gaming groups on whether I will sit out for a while or determin if I can muddle along until my desire and passion for the game returns on its own. I don't want to be a stick-in-the-mud to my friends, but I also know that I don't want to force the play too hard and grow to hate the get-togethers simply because I'm not having the fun I should at the gaming.
Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the act of getting together with friends. I enjoyed the camaraderie and the shared experience. I enjoyed the effort each DM put into trying to make a good story and an interesting experience for me (and the other players). What I did not enjoy was playing Dungeons & Dragons. I also have not been enjoying my weekly online LOTRO gaming session with the group. And, when Atari failed to successfully launch a new D&D-based computer game and I couldn't download or get a boxed copy of, I was at first fairly annoyed but then I found I was more relieved than anything else.
All I can figure is that I am currently burned out on the "sword and sorcery" genre and need to take a break from it. It has happened before, where I just needed to get away from the game and the rules, plus all the additional things I do for the games, for a while and recharge the battery. I've never stopped playing the game for very long (a couple of years being the longest time off, but usually just a few months to a year off is all that is needed). I've played RPGs since the late 1970s and have only taken a few breaks here and there -- pretty much didn't play at all in junior high, again during and after college (a couple of game sessions only), and then again for about six months or so in the early 2000s. It is something I very much enjoy doing and is a great release, in general. But sometimes a feeling of lassitude and ennui creeps in and I just don't the same feelings from the game as I should or normally do.
It doesn't help that I take on added responsibilities during gaming. I frequently DM the games (although not recently), I usually wind up being the note-taker and journal keeper, and sometimes I do more. Those extra tasks may be adding to the overall burn out I'm feeling, even though they are tasks I enjoy doing and offer to do.
The thing is, I'm still interested in playing other games; I'm playing Champions Online a bit again, and enjoying that. I am interested in potentially playing other RPGs, something new and different (like super-heroes, horror, some sort of action genre even). It seems to really be simply the D&D/sword and sorcery stuff that is bogging me down and making me less than excited.
The one negative, as my wife rightly pointed out, is that this activity is one of the few I have that takes me out of the house and gets me out and about. Without it, I will be even more hermit-like. She's right that this isn't a good idea from that regard, but I also don't want to force myself to continue doing something when or if I'm only going through the motions; that doesn't help anyone either.
I am going to give it a few more days and then make a decision to inform my gaming groups on whether I will sit out for a while or determin if I can muddle along until my desire and passion for the game returns on its own. I don't want to be a stick-in-the-mud to my friends, but I also know that I don't want to force the play too hard and grow to hate the get-togethers simply because I'm not having the fun I should at the gaming.
May 22, 2011
Steroids... Who Cares?
There seems to be a disconnect between what is being said and what it means: another person has come forward claiming to have witnessed Lance Armstrong taking performance enhancing drugs (PEDs). There are a couple of things to keep in mind about this:
It is true that Armstrong has made a life for himself outside of cycling based on the perception that he was a top athlete even after cancer. He gives many cancer patients and survivors hope that they, too, can overcome the debilitating disease and still be world-class in their own lives. If it turns out he did use PEDs, that image and legacy may be hurt, maybe irreparably. However, what shouldn't be ignored is the amount of time and money he has diverted toward cancer issues in an attempt to understand and cure the disease. Does the one overshadow the other?
I have a hard time with the fact that none of these assertions have ever come up except in two circumstances: a person is caught with a positive doping result and/or a person is writing a book about his career in cycling. In the first case, they seem to go with an "everybody is doing it, I was trying to keep up" defense and in the second case they simply need to sell books and making assertions about the most popular, most widely known name in the sport will do that. But those two reasons for making the claims seem to ignore the factual, scientific evidence of the actual blood results. Until someone has undoctored video of Armstrong talking about, using, buying, or providing steroids or other PEDs, I'm not going to believe it.
- The person did not come forward when questioned about it during the last person's attempt to discredit Armstrong. Why not?
- The person comes forward only when he has a book to sell.
- All of the "evidence" provided is, at best, hearsay, as opposed to the hundreds of blood and urine tests Armstrong has taken during his long cycling career.
It is true that Armstrong has made a life for himself outside of cycling based on the perception that he was a top athlete even after cancer. He gives many cancer patients and survivors hope that they, too, can overcome the debilitating disease and still be world-class in their own lives. If it turns out he did use PEDs, that image and legacy may be hurt, maybe irreparably. However, what shouldn't be ignored is the amount of time and money he has diverted toward cancer issues in an attempt to understand and cure the disease. Does the one overshadow the other?
I have a hard time with the fact that none of these assertions have ever come up except in two circumstances: a person is caught with a positive doping result and/or a person is writing a book about his career in cycling. In the first case, they seem to go with an "everybody is doing it, I was trying to keep up" defense and in the second case they simply need to sell books and making assertions about the most popular, most widely known name in the sport will do that. But those two reasons for making the claims seem to ignore the factual, scientific evidence of the actual blood results. Until someone has undoctored video of Armstrong talking about, using, buying, or providing steroids or other PEDs, I'm not going to believe it.
May 7, 2011
Dungeons & Dragons
I've been playing 4th Edition of the Dungeons & Dragons (DnD) roleplaying game for three years now. That means I've also spent the last three years listening to and reading about how inferior this edition is to everything else.
Most of these discussions amount to people who have not read or played the new version talking trash about it. I can tell by what they say very quickly if they have any real knowledge of this edition of the game because many are saying things that simply are not true of the game.
I've played DnD since my friend Dennis Cole invited me over to play with him, his brother, and his brother's friend one summer afternoon in 1978. I've played the Red Box edition, the Blue Box edition, Advanced DnD (or Second Edition), 3.0, 3.5, Pathfinder's derivation (which many consider to be "3.75"), and now 4th Edition. And by that I mean I actually played multiple sessions, multiple characters, was both a dungeon master (DM) and a player for each of those editions.
In each of the previous editions there were areas that either hindered new people joining the game or that didn't make sense to the system itself:
Along comes 4th Edition, which sets as its goal to eliminate those problems, which plagued each previous edition in greater or smaller ways, and continues to plague the so-called 3.75 of Pathfinder. And, as one who has played and DMed each of these editions, I can tell you they mostly succeed.
Yes, those who prefer the specific complexities of whichever edition is their favorite deplore that the rules are simpler and easier for a new person to grasp, but the point is that new people can pick it up more easily. In addition, there are still complexities in the game but they just are not as obvious as, say the complexity of THAC0. So, really, it comes down to the elitism of your knowledge of the edition you prefer versus a game that doesn't require the same level of elitism. This turns off a lot of geeks, who like to lord their knowledge of complex, esoteric things over those without that knowledge.
As we have two people who are knew to RPGs in general and are specifically new to 4th edition, I can tell you it has been relatively easy for them to pick it up and be vital, worthwhile members of the team.
4th Edition does have its complexities, too; they now lie in character creation and optimizing what and how your character does what he does; by getting powers to work together with feats and magic items to give incredible bang for your buck.
4th Edition also allows each character to be useful at each level (so far). Wizards no longer have the same huge spell list they had before, but the spells they do have they can use more often. Fighters have abilities that keep scaling with the encounters, so in my group that is level 9, my barbarian still feels completely viable, worthwhile, and distinct from the wizard. It is still in my best interests to keep the wizard alive, but it is not my sole focus any more; the wizard can withstand some blows, can fight back on his own, and I can still take on the creatures the party is combating with my own character's abilities.
In previous editions, your fighting characters (barbarian, fighter, paladin, ranger, monk, etc.) pretty much had the choice of a) swing their sword, b) use their bow/crossbow, or c) do nothing. Rinse and repeat for each round of combat. They would, over time, get Feats and maybe even some limited spell use to add in, but for the most part they swung their sword and stood between the bad guys and the mages in the party and got hit a lot. It would take many levels before they could attack multiple creatures or do anything really special with their attacks. Now, however, melee characters have choices. You may take powers that give you defensive bonuses, or that move you around the battlefield or heal you (or your compatriots) or attack with special effects. You can use a power that attacks one creature, or one that attacks multiple creatures.
In those same previous editions, a wizard would cast his one or two spells, and then be virtually useless as a mage until the party slept for the night. In each edition, they alleviated this and gave the mages more they could do earlier. But the problem was that doing so led the mage to suddenly become very powerful early in the game and make non-spell casting characters useless later. In 4th, your mage character has two "at-wills" that he can use all the time, every round, every encounter. He has first one, and then more than one, power he can use once every encounter, which are more powerful than the at-wills. And he has one power (and later more than one) that he can only use once a day which are even more powerful still. So, in every combat, the mage starts with a minimum of three powers he can use, two of which can be used every round, as opposed to previous edition mages casting their one Sleep spell or Magic Missile, and then getting to (badly) use a bow or a staff or a dagger and hope they survive until they can sleep and recover their spell for the next day.
In 4th edition, they have taken the concept of what each class is designed to do (including classes in all the previous editions) and have assigned a role to them. So, you have Leaders, Defenders, Strikers, and Controllers. Leaders are those who have abilities that primarily focus on helping the party (healing, buffing). Defenders have abilities primarily focused on protecting the party and keeping enemies focused on them over other party members. Strikers have abilities primarily focused on doing a lot of damage, either in melee or via spell or ranged attacks. And Controllers have abilities primarily focused on affecting or debuffing the enemies. This is just the primary focus of the class. Each class has the ability to do damage, each has access to abilities that may be classified in a different role. And there are plenty of classes that sit on the fence between two (or more) roles. Many 4th Ed detractors say that this makes it too much like a video game. This comment makes me chuckle, because DnD has had this setup since the 1970s and current video games were simply the first to codify it as a role. It seems a natural progression for the game to make it official after 40 years.
In 4th edition, they have made healing simpler. Each class has a number of Surges, or ways to heal itself. Most of these surges are designed to be used between encounters, to keep the party moving forward along the story/adventure. However, they can use one (and only one) of those surges in an encounter without outside assistance. This is called a Second Wind. All Leaders have a healing power they can use twice per encounter (three times at higher levels) which allows a character to access a surge. This is the rough equivalent of a heal potion or a Cure spell from previous editions. On top of this, many classes have access to powers that may allow them to access more surges during combat. For example, my barbarian at level 9 has a few abilities that allow him to use one of his surges or to gain temporary hit points so he can stay in the combat dealing damage. Most Leaders have powers that increase or add to the amount of healing they can do in a combat. In the end, it is the rough equivalent of the same amount of healing (maybe slightly more at lower levels, but slightly less at higher levels) that the average party in previous editions would have having a cleric's healing spells plus each character carrying healing potions, wands, and scrolls. And to those who complain that "healing is too easy/accessible" in 4th edition, I know from experience that if you want to kill a party as a DM, you still can and easily. I've seen it happen both as a DM and as a player.
The last thing the creators of 4th edition did was revamp the "fluff" text about each class and, importantly, race, so that there is more room for roleplaying. They limited the fluff text so that you and those you play with can use the small foundation to build a house of your choosing. For example, the section on dwarfs is now only a few paragraphs long and speaks mostly in generalities. Also, since all races can now be any class, you can play a godly dwarven paladin as easily as a sneaky, cutthroat dwarven rogue. The same is true for all of the races and classes-- you no longer have to be Lawful Good in order to play a paladin, and all races can become a paladin. However, it may be true that the rules mechanics for a particular race may make it more suited to particular classes than to others.
When you consider the rules the creators added to help the DM in making encounters and quickly scaling events up or down, the changes to magic items to make them simpler and more useful to a character, and the way the game was opened up to allow DMs the latitude to create the world from and races from the simple fluff text they provided, with as much or as little nuance as they need, fourth edition seems to be the culmination of the game. It makes me wonder why a small but vocal minority of geek culture is so against it.
In the end, the main goal of the game remains the same -- to sit together with your friends for a few hours and enjoy a shared story-telling session and have fun. If you insist that you cannot do that with 4th edition, that's fine with me, but can you at least stop posting your hatred of it in chat rooms and on boards devoted to those who actually enjoy the system?
Most of these discussions amount to people who have not read or played the new version talking trash about it. I can tell by what they say very quickly if they have any real knowledge of this edition of the game because many are saying things that simply are not true of the game.
I've played DnD since my friend Dennis Cole invited me over to play with him, his brother, and his brother's friend one summer afternoon in 1978. I've played the Red Box edition, the Blue Box edition, Advanced DnD (or Second Edition), 3.0, 3.5, Pathfinder's derivation (which many consider to be "3.75"), and now 4th Edition. And by that I mean I actually played multiple sessions, multiple characters, was both a dungeon master (DM) and a player for each of those editions.
In each of the previous editions there were areas that either hindered new people joining the game or that didn't make sense to the system itself:
- Class/Race parity. From the original editions (that used a combat system called Chainmail as its foundation) through to 3.5 (and still plagues 3.75 to a strong degree), certain classes start weaker and, if they survive, become horribly overpowered while others started stronger and quickly were overshadowed. In terms of playing the game, you would start as a fighter and be kicking butt and taking names while keeping your friend's wizard alive (he would cast his one or two spells and then be useless for the rest of the session). But then around level 5 that started changing and by about level 8 your fighter was pretty much the wizard's lackey, used only to keep things physically off the character while the wizard destroyed the enemies, opened the locked doors, teleported the party around, and summoned creatures that were your superior in every fighting category. There was no balance and it was hard to pretend that you were a viable, helpful part of the party for half or more of the game.
- Mechanical complexity. The mechanics were notoriously complex. THAC0, Armor Class, hit matrices, weapon speeds, and spell casting all used different rules and different mechanics to get a result. This turned off a lot of potential players, who just didn't get it. On the other side, it made those who did get it even more clique-ish about the game. When new editions came out, those geeks were very upset with the changes and vowed to never play them because they "ruined" the game.
- Roleplaying versus Roll playing. Some people played to roll dice, kill monsters, get loot, and level up (roll players). Others played because they saw the chance to invest themselves in the drama of the game (roleplayers), to become, if only for a few hours, that big, strong barbarian or that elfish wizard, or whatever. But these folks had many restraints; if you played a dwarf, you distrusted elves, were miserly (to the point of hording), and loved beer and precious metals above all other things. If you played outside of that, you were some sort of rogue, bucking the rules and going against the common understanding of the races (or classes) for everyone else playing the game. For a long time, it seemed like you were playing with a group of roll players or roleplayers, and never the two should meet.
- Class roles. Although it was never explicitly stated in previous editions, each of the classes fell into generalized roles within the group as people played them. The cleric and bard would typically be healing and buffing the party. The Wizard would typically do damage or control/debuff the enemy. The rogue, ranger, barbarian and certain other melee classes and sorcerers would do a lot of melee or ranged damage, but not have the ability to survive return blows. Fighters, paladins, and certain other melee classes would typically have the armor class and hit points to withstand a lot of damage, so would try to keep enemies focused on them. This is why the standard class makeup of a party was considered Fighter, Wizard, Cleric, Rogue.
- Healing/health. In early editions of the game, characters had few hit points and healing magic was incredibly rare. It led to a lot of needless deaths and people literally bringing multiple character sheets to each sessions so they would always have a player to play when the current one died. In more recent editions, healing was better but still the domain of only a few classes. This led to a large portion of party wealth going toward health magic and/or resurrection magic.
Along comes 4th Edition, which sets as its goal to eliminate those problems, which plagued each previous edition in greater or smaller ways, and continues to plague the so-called 3.75 of Pathfinder. And, as one who has played and DMed each of these editions, I can tell you they mostly succeed.
Yes, those who prefer the specific complexities of whichever edition is their favorite deplore that the rules are simpler and easier for a new person to grasp, but the point is that new people can pick it up more easily. In addition, there are still complexities in the game but they just are not as obvious as, say the complexity of THAC0. So, really, it comes down to the elitism of your knowledge of the edition you prefer versus a game that doesn't require the same level of elitism. This turns off a lot of geeks, who like to lord their knowledge of complex, esoteric things over those without that knowledge.
As we have two people who are knew to RPGs in general and are specifically new to 4th edition, I can tell you it has been relatively easy for them to pick it up and be vital, worthwhile members of the team.
4th Edition does have its complexities, too; they now lie in character creation and optimizing what and how your character does what he does; by getting powers to work together with feats and magic items to give incredible bang for your buck.
4th Edition also allows each character to be useful at each level (so far). Wizards no longer have the same huge spell list they had before, but the spells they do have they can use more often. Fighters have abilities that keep scaling with the encounters, so in my group that is level 9, my barbarian still feels completely viable, worthwhile, and distinct from the wizard. It is still in my best interests to keep the wizard alive, but it is not my sole focus any more; the wizard can withstand some blows, can fight back on his own, and I can still take on the creatures the party is combating with my own character's abilities.
In previous editions, your fighting characters (barbarian, fighter, paladin, ranger, monk, etc.) pretty much had the choice of a) swing their sword, b) use their bow/crossbow, or c) do nothing. Rinse and repeat for each round of combat. They would, over time, get Feats and maybe even some limited spell use to add in, but for the most part they swung their sword and stood between the bad guys and the mages in the party and got hit a lot. It would take many levels before they could attack multiple creatures or do anything really special with their attacks. Now, however, melee characters have choices. You may take powers that give you defensive bonuses, or that move you around the battlefield or heal you (or your compatriots) or attack with special effects. You can use a power that attacks one creature, or one that attacks multiple creatures.
In those same previous editions, a wizard would cast his one or two spells, and then be virtually useless as a mage until the party slept for the night. In each edition, they alleviated this and gave the mages more they could do earlier. But the problem was that doing so led the mage to suddenly become very powerful early in the game and make non-spell casting characters useless later. In 4th, your mage character has two "at-wills" that he can use all the time, every round, every encounter. He has first one, and then more than one, power he can use once every encounter, which are more powerful than the at-wills. And he has one power (and later more than one) that he can only use once a day which are even more powerful still. So, in every combat, the mage starts with a minimum of three powers he can use, two of which can be used every round, as opposed to previous edition mages casting their one Sleep spell or Magic Missile, and then getting to (badly) use a bow or a staff or a dagger and hope they survive until they can sleep and recover their spell for the next day.
In 4th edition, they have taken the concept of what each class is designed to do (including classes in all the previous editions) and have assigned a role to them. So, you have Leaders, Defenders, Strikers, and Controllers. Leaders are those who have abilities that primarily focus on helping the party (healing, buffing). Defenders have abilities primarily focused on protecting the party and keeping enemies focused on them over other party members. Strikers have abilities primarily focused on doing a lot of damage, either in melee or via spell or ranged attacks. And Controllers have abilities primarily focused on affecting or debuffing the enemies. This is just the primary focus of the class. Each class has the ability to do damage, each has access to abilities that may be classified in a different role. And there are plenty of classes that sit on the fence between two (or more) roles. Many 4th Ed detractors say that this makes it too much like a video game. This comment makes me chuckle, because DnD has had this setup since the 1970s and current video games were simply the first to codify it as a role. It seems a natural progression for the game to make it official after 40 years.
In 4th edition, they have made healing simpler. Each class has a number of Surges, or ways to heal itself. Most of these surges are designed to be used between encounters, to keep the party moving forward along the story/adventure. However, they can use one (and only one) of those surges in an encounter without outside assistance. This is called a Second Wind. All Leaders have a healing power they can use twice per encounter (three times at higher levels) which allows a character to access a surge. This is the rough equivalent of a heal potion or a Cure spell from previous editions. On top of this, many classes have access to powers that may allow them to access more surges during combat. For example, my barbarian at level 9 has a few abilities that allow him to use one of his surges or to gain temporary hit points so he can stay in the combat dealing damage. Most Leaders have powers that increase or add to the amount of healing they can do in a combat. In the end, it is the rough equivalent of the same amount of healing (maybe slightly more at lower levels, but slightly less at higher levels) that the average party in previous editions would have having a cleric's healing spells plus each character carrying healing potions, wands, and scrolls. And to those who complain that "healing is too easy/accessible" in 4th edition, I know from experience that if you want to kill a party as a DM, you still can and easily. I've seen it happen both as a DM and as a player.
The last thing the creators of 4th edition did was revamp the "fluff" text about each class and, importantly, race, so that there is more room for roleplaying. They limited the fluff text so that you and those you play with can use the small foundation to build a house of your choosing. For example, the section on dwarfs is now only a few paragraphs long and speaks mostly in generalities. Also, since all races can now be any class, you can play a godly dwarven paladin as easily as a sneaky, cutthroat dwarven rogue. The same is true for all of the races and classes-- you no longer have to be Lawful Good in order to play a paladin, and all races can become a paladin. However, it may be true that the rules mechanics for a particular race may make it more suited to particular classes than to others.
When you consider the rules the creators added to help the DM in making encounters and quickly scaling events up or down, the changes to magic items to make them simpler and more useful to a character, and the way the game was opened up to allow DMs the latitude to create the world from and races from the simple fluff text they provided, with as much or as little nuance as they need, fourth edition seems to be the culmination of the game. It makes me wonder why a small but vocal minority of geek culture is so against it.
In the end, the main goal of the game remains the same -- to sit together with your friends for a few hours and enjoy a shared story-telling session and have fun. If you insist that you cannot do that with 4th edition, that's fine with me, but can you at least stop posting your hatred of it in chat rooms and on boards devoted to those who actually enjoy the system?
April 30, 2011
Shoe's On the Other Foot
When I first came here, my new friends often grilled me about American politics. Especially prevalent were questions about why and how Americans could re-elect President Bush with all that he did to the American people. For my friends here, who had news people who were more probative and more willing to ask the tough questions and dig after the truth than what was going on in America at that time, it was obvious to them that Bush was up to no good. The lies, the obfuscation, the repealing of Constitutionally guaranteed rights, all this was more obvious and was commented on in their news, even while our news was refusing to do its job.
On May 2 Canada is having a new election. I'm reading and experiencing all that Harper and his Conservative Party people have done recently (broke the law, prorogued (or "shut down") the government to keep from being ousted, lied, gave huge contracts to friends of the government, trying to change the official name of the government to "Harper's Government," etc.) and I'm trying to correspond this with the fact that 40% of Canadians polled are saying they will vote for the Conservative Party again, keeping Harper in office to continue these shenanigans.
With the shoe firmly on the other foot, I am now asking why and how my friends and other Canadians can vote for a party that has done so many negative things. The simple answer seems to be, "Because they are better than the other choices," which doesn't seem like much of a choice or answer to me. If the estimated 40% do actually vote Conservative Party as the polls predict, that would give Harper and his cronies a majority in Parliament (currently they have a minority), and they would be able to do more of what they have been doing.
I guess it wouldn't be so bad if Harper hadn't run on a platform of accountability and transparency. Because of that, all the swept under the rug issues and outright law bending and breaking seem that much more egregious. Just as one example of this, do a search on "Bev Oda" and read about the entire, sordid affair, and ask yourself how she still has her job. There are at least 10 or 12 more similar scandals, and Harper has fired or accepted resignations from very few of those involved.
Bush seemed, at the time of his reelection, to be the better of two evils; the devil America knew versus the one it didn't. The Republicans also ran very efficient and effective smear campaigns against both Gore and Kerry that worked surprisingly well. This seems directly analogous to what is happening in Canada right now; the people know that Harper is a bad guy and his cabinet is not to be trusted, but they would rather stay with that than go with someone new.
It will be very interesting to see both how Canadians vote and what the party that gets the majority (if any) does with the power on May 2 and beyond. Maybe I'll be able to turn that question around to my friends and ask, "How could you re-elect Harper, knowing what kind of leader he is?"
----
May 3
It appears that Harper and the Conservative Party got the seats it needed to have a majority. The shoe is definitely on the other foot now.
On May 2 Canada is having a new election. I'm reading and experiencing all that Harper and his Conservative Party people have done recently (broke the law, prorogued (or "shut down") the government to keep from being ousted, lied, gave huge contracts to friends of the government, trying to change the official name of the government to "Harper's Government," etc.) and I'm trying to correspond this with the fact that 40% of Canadians polled are saying they will vote for the Conservative Party again, keeping Harper in office to continue these shenanigans.
With the shoe firmly on the other foot, I am now asking why and how my friends and other Canadians can vote for a party that has done so many negative things. The simple answer seems to be, "Because they are better than the other choices," which doesn't seem like much of a choice or answer to me. If the estimated 40% do actually vote Conservative Party as the polls predict, that would give Harper and his cronies a majority in Parliament (currently they have a minority), and they would be able to do more of what they have been doing.
I guess it wouldn't be so bad if Harper hadn't run on a platform of accountability and transparency. Because of that, all the swept under the rug issues and outright law bending and breaking seem that much more egregious. Just as one example of this, do a search on "Bev Oda" and read about the entire, sordid affair, and ask yourself how she still has her job. There are at least 10 or 12 more similar scandals, and Harper has fired or accepted resignations from very few of those involved.
Bush seemed, at the time of his reelection, to be the better of two evils; the devil America knew versus the one it didn't. The Republicans also ran very efficient and effective smear campaigns against both Gore and Kerry that worked surprisingly well. This seems directly analogous to what is happening in Canada right now; the people know that Harper is a bad guy and his cabinet is not to be trusted, but they would rather stay with that than go with someone new.
It will be very interesting to see both how Canadians vote and what the party that gets the majority (if any) does with the power on May 2 and beyond. Maybe I'll be able to turn that question around to my friends and ask, "How could you re-elect Harper, knowing what kind of leader he is?"
----
May 3
It appears that Harper and the Conservative Party got the seats it needed to have a majority. The shoe is definitely on the other foot now.
April 24, 2011
Whose Show Is It Anyway?
This last week's episode of Bones, a favorite of mine, had Bones and Booth heading out to Florida to find a body. Booth then says, "I've got a friend who can help us." At this point, the entire show is taken over by a pilot for a new show about a new character from a different set of books. The Booth and Bones characters (and a couple of others) show up briefly during the episode, and then are back to bookend the "Bones" episode and wrap it together.
This irritates the shit out of me. I watch Bones because I like the show. I don't necessarily want to see the pilot for a new episode, starring new characters and actors.
Now, it so happens that I found the trio quirky and interesting and may give them a chance when "The Locator" comes to a TV screen near us (either this summer or next fall). But the point is moot, as I would have been just as happy to check out the real pilot when they released it and given it a chance on its own merit. The fact that they, in essence, pre-empted the show I enjoy with a different show irritates me enough to consider boycotting what may otherwise be a decent show just to voice my displeasure. The fact that the Locator appears to be some sort of cross between Psyche and Burn Notice also makes the choice of whether to watch a little easier, as I already watch both of those original shows and, if this is just going to be a knockoff of them, I don't really need to add it to my viewing list.
Criminal Minds did this recently as well. I tuned in for what I thought would be an episode of one of my favorite shows and, instead, I watched a new group of specialists take over. In this case, however, I hated the new crew from the outset, especially the lead (played by Forest Whitaker-- an actor I usually enjoy), so it made the decision not to watch the new show very easy.
Some shows have organic means by which they grow the brand. NCIS spun off recently and it made some sense (and worked pretty well). I chose not to continue with NCIS:LA because I didn't have any characters I liked, not because they "pre-empted" the source show or took it over. They managed a much more organic and interesting means of segueing the new characters, placing them in the world but making them their own entity, and then breaking away from the source. Both teams played important roles in the origin show.
In a case like the Bones episode, and the Criminal Minds spin off, I'm left wondering just whose show I'm watching, anyway?
This irritates the shit out of me. I watch Bones because I like the show. I don't necessarily want to see the pilot for a new episode, starring new characters and actors.
Now, it so happens that I found the trio quirky and interesting and may give them a chance when "The Locator" comes to a TV screen near us (either this summer or next fall). But the point is moot, as I would have been just as happy to check out the real pilot when they released it and given it a chance on its own merit. The fact that they, in essence, pre-empted the show I enjoy with a different show irritates me enough to consider boycotting what may otherwise be a decent show just to voice my displeasure. The fact that the Locator appears to be some sort of cross between Psyche and Burn Notice also makes the choice of whether to watch a little easier, as I already watch both of those original shows and, if this is just going to be a knockoff of them, I don't really need to add it to my viewing list.
Criminal Minds did this recently as well. I tuned in for what I thought would be an episode of one of my favorite shows and, instead, I watched a new group of specialists take over. In this case, however, I hated the new crew from the outset, especially the lead (played by Forest Whitaker-- an actor I usually enjoy), so it made the decision not to watch the new show very easy.
Some shows have organic means by which they grow the brand. NCIS spun off recently and it made some sense (and worked pretty well). I chose not to continue with NCIS:LA because I didn't have any characters I liked, not because they "pre-empted" the source show or took it over. They managed a much more organic and interesting means of segueing the new characters, placing them in the world but making them their own entity, and then breaking away from the source. Both teams played important roles in the origin show.
In a case like the Bones episode, and the Criminal Minds spin off, I'm left wondering just whose show I'm watching, anyway?
April 19, 2011
Civil Discourse
I have read the Constitution and the Bill of Rights a few times. I am a big fan of the Bill of Rights, and have had debates about it. Yet for some reason I never noticed, nor had it pointed out to me, that the Bill of Rights does not actually grant anyone any rights, as most of those with whom I discuss it always believe (and I did, too, until today).
If you read each of the first ten amendments, they discuss in detail what the government, and specifically the Congress, cannot do. Or, more precisely, what Congress cannot make laws to do.
For example, here is the entire text of the First Amendment:
As you go through each of the rest of the Bill of Rights, you see the same trend. The amendments are always worded to limit the government's ability to infringe on the rights of its people. But it never explicitly states what those rights are.
I recently got into a bit of a debate online. Someone was saying how the fact that the NBA gives such hefty fines to its players and coaches for speaking negatively about the officiating is bogus. He argued that, if he was in the NBA, he would say what he wanted and would sue the NBA if they fined him for it because he has freedom of speech.
And that, in a nutshell, is how most people online and in person seem to feel about the first amendment, which, unfortunately, shows their ignorance about one of the most fundamental rules in any democratic government. As you can see, looking back and rereading the first amendment again, it only limits the government from enacting laws that limit the people's right to speech. However, a company for which you work (in this case, the NBA) has every right to put policies in place limiting what you can say and offering disincentives for breaking that policy, up to and including the right to terminate your employment. If you want to be a part of that organization, they make you sign a contract and you are supposed to abide by the terms of that contract of face the appropriate penalties.
Most business have this to a greater or lesser degree, by the way. If you are a white collar worker, you undoubtedly signed a contract that specifies some things, like some sort of confidentiality agreement about the products or business you are working with or in. Main blue collar jobs have similar contracts, as you may be working with proprietary software, hardware, or ideas that your company does not want its competitors finding out about. Upon leaving, whether voluntarily or not, most companies have you sign a noncompetition agreement that states you won't work in the same industry, won't take your clients with you, won't discuss the business with any competitors for a certain number of months or years, etcetera.
In addition, a person cannot just say anything, at any time, in any circumstance. We all know the old adage about not yelling fire in a crowded theater. Well, guess what? If you do, you can be arrested and/or sued for doing so. Contrary to what you see on the internet in any chat room or forum, you can be held accountable for what you say through laws dealing with libel, slander, and defamation of character, among others. I will grant that the burden of proof in these situations makes it very difficult for the wronged individual to actually sue and win, but that is a different argument for another blog.
All of these are perfectly legal ways that businesses and individuals can limit one's "right" to free speech.
What this all boils down to is: many Americans seem to have forgotten in the last 20 or 30 years that "your rights end where my rights begin." Your rights to call me names and lie about me under the guise of "free speech" end where my right to privacy and to fight against defamation of my character begins.
America is founded on a system of laws. The first laws, those placed into the Bill of Rights and subsequent amendments, were all about limiting the government's ability to subjugate its people. All the remaining laws are at the State and local level and deal with how individuals and businesses interact with one another.
The next time someone states what their "Constitutional Rights" are, listen closely. You may have an opportunity to educate them on what their rights really are.
If you read each of the first ten amendments, they discuss in detail what the government, and specifically the Congress, cannot do. Or, more precisely, what Congress cannot make laws to do.
For example, here is the entire text of the First Amendment:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.Congress cannot pass a law establishing or prohibiting the free practice of a religion. It cannot pass a law infringing on free speech or the press. It cannot pass a law denying the people's right to peacefully assemble. It cannot pass a law limiting the people's right to petition the government. No where in that simple paragraph does it grant the people any rights. "Freedom of speech" is assumed, to some degree, but not explicitly stated.
As you go through each of the rest of the Bill of Rights, you see the same trend. The amendments are always worded to limit the government's ability to infringe on the rights of its people. But it never explicitly states what those rights are.
I recently got into a bit of a debate online. Someone was saying how the fact that the NBA gives such hefty fines to its players and coaches for speaking negatively about the officiating is bogus. He argued that, if he was in the NBA, he would say what he wanted and would sue the NBA if they fined him for it because he has freedom of speech.
And that, in a nutshell, is how most people online and in person seem to feel about the first amendment, which, unfortunately, shows their ignorance about one of the most fundamental rules in any democratic government. As you can see, looking back and rereading the first amendment again, it only limits the government from enacting laws that limit the people's right to speech. However, a company for which you work (in this case, the NBA) has every right to put policies in place limiting what you can say and offering disincentives for breaking that policy, up to and including the right to terminate your employment. If you want to be a part of that organization, they make you sign a contract and you are supposed to abide by the terms of that contract of face the appropriate penalties.
Most business have this to a greater or lesser degree, by the way. If you are a white collar worker, you undoubtedly signed a contract that specifies some things, like some sort of confidentiality agreement about the products or business you are working with or in. Main blue collar jobs have similar contracts, as you may be working with proprietary software, hardware, or ideas that your company does not want its competitors finding out about. Upon leaving, whether voluntarily or not, most companies have you sign a noncompetition agreement that states you won't work in the same industry, won't take your clients with you, won't discuss the business with any competitors for a certain number of months or years, etcetera.
In addition, a person cannot just say anything, at any time, in any circumstance. We all know the old adage about not yelling fire in a crowded theater. Well, guess what? If you do, you can be arrested and/or sued for doing so. Contrary to what you see on the internet in any chat room or forum, you can be held accountable for what you say through laws dealing with libel, slander, and defamation of character, among others. I will grant that the burden of proof in these situations makes it very difficult for the wronged individual to actually sue and win, but that is a different argument for another blog.
All of these are perfectly legal ways that businesses and individuals can limit one's "right" to free speech.
What this all boils down to is: many Americans seem to have forgotten in the last 20 or 30 years that "your rights end where my rights begin." Your rights to call me names and lie about me under the guise of "free speech" end where my right to privacy and to fight against defamation of my character begins.
America is founded on a system of laws. The first laws, those placed into the Bill of Rights and subsequent amendments, were all about limiting the government's ability to subjugate its people. All the remaining laws are at the State and local level and deal with how individuals and businesses interact with one another.
The next time someone states what their "Constitutional Rights" are, listen closely. You may have an opportunity to educate them on what their rights really are.
April 16, 2011
Work Until You Bleed
If I promise a deadline or a project, or if something happens that causes me to have issues with getting it done on time, I'm more than willing to work overtime and on weekends in order to get the project done on time or as close to it as I can. However, when it is someone else's issue(s) that causes the delay, a lack of support, an arbitrary deadline that someone else has imposed or agreed to on my behalf without discussing with me, or acts of God or similar, then I get frustrated if I have to work OT or weekends in order to, in essence, cover someone else's butt.
My current contract has been too much of the latter lately.
This week, in particular, has been bad on a number of fronts:
The rest of the issues were either out of my control (hardware failure and IT issues setting up the work-arounds) or someone else's issues (the unending desire for others to make me completely reformat the entire document). It is this time that I begrudge having to work OT for. If the IT people could have set up my substitute PC correctly the first time, and if the IT at the other company would have helped me get the proper software reinstalled and re-set up correctly in anything close to a timely fashion, I wouldn't have lost most of one day. If the people in question would stop futzing with a working document's structure, I wouldn't have lost that day. And a third day was lost because one of the same IT departments refused to assist with the login/password issue that was partly caused by the hardware issue from a few days before. That's a whole lot of OT caused by other people's problems, and that I detest.
The net result of all of this is that I've had to work nearly double the normal work hours this week in order to try to get the document done. I missed the Friday due date, but as of right now, I have 95% of the document done and can get the rest done tomorrow for a potential Monday release. Since coming back from vacation, at which time all the documentation seemed on target for each due date, mostly due to other people's issues and concerns, I have had to work some or all of every weekend (5 so far), plus a bunch of OT.
There is an old adage that I enjoy, "Bad planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part." However, due to the nature of the work, the bad planning, the lack of a cohesive review process, and the constant struggle to get everyone to agree on a basic structure and format for the project has caused an emergency on my part. This has turned into a 60 hour work week for me when it shouldn't have been needed. Had the review process been smoother and had the format been agreed to three weeks ago when I thought it was, I would have made yesterday's due date without any issue. The basement flooding (3 work hours "lost" in the morning, made up that evening) and the hardware issues could have been overcome without significant issue, or may not have even been an issue, had everything flowed the way I expected and the way the group had agreed from four weeks ago to yesterday.
I'm only just over five weeks removed from the end of my vacation, and yet I feel completely burned out due to all these issues caused by other people. My health is suffering from the constant work without relaxation. While I was always impressed by my stoic friends who have to work daily or a lot of OT due to the nature of their jobs or needing to work multiple jobs in order to make ends meet, these last five weeks have reaffirmed my esteem for them and their ability to keep going.
I just finished another eight hour day on my Saturday, with more hours expected tomorrow. My next deadline is Wednesday for a third, completely new document. I see more OT in my near future.
My current contract has been too much of the latter lately.
- People who have no knowledge of the tasks involved have been promising due dates to the end-client without discussing with me first and there is an abject refusal to change the dates when I bring up objections.
- My main reviewer has taken a couple of weeks off (2 in the last 6 weeks), plus individual days here and there, which has caused my processes to come to a screeching halt. When asked about the time off, I was told, "She has a family." Yeah, so? So do I. What they mean is, she has young children. My response is, again, yeah, so? She can get a babysitter, she can work off-hours, or she can get a reviewer to fill her place while she's gone. Which leads me to...
- If another reviewer is willing to step in, then the primary hates all of his changes, edits, and decisions and makes me redo a lot of work needlessly.
This week, in particular, has been bad on a number of fronts:
- More formatting discussion on Monday, which led to the entire rest of the day spent reworking the structure of the document instead of doing more writing.
- Tuesday started with a sudden hardware failure which required most of the day to overcome (involved two trips into the main office and a bunch of IT support from two different companies to get up and running again) plus a dentist visit in the middle of all of it.
- Thursday I woke up to a flooded basement, which had to be dealt with immediately, before stuff was damaged or destroyed by the water.
- Friday started with a login/password issue that IT refused to fix and that is still a problem (but that I got a work-around for).
The rest of the issues were either out of my control (hardware failure and IT issues setting up the work-arounds) or someone else's issues (the unending desire for others to make me completely reformat the entire document). It is this time that I begrudge having to work OT for. If the IT people could have set up my substitute PC correctly the first time, and if the IT at the other company would have helped me get the proper software reinstalled and re-set up correctly in anything close to a timely fashion, I wouldn't have lost most of one day. If the people in question would stop futzing with a working document's structure, I wouldn't have lost that day. And a third day was lost because one of the same IT departments refused to assist with the login/password issue that was partly caused by the hardware issue from a few days before. That's a whole lot of OT caused by other people's problems, and that I detest.
The net result of all of this is that I've had to work nearly double the normal work hours this week in order to try to get the document done. I missed the Friday due date, but as of right now, I have 95% of the document done and can get the rest done tomorrow for a potential Monday release. Since coming back from vacation, at which time all the documentation seemed on target for each due date, mostly due to other people's issues and concerns, I have had to work some or all of every weekend (5 so far), plus a bunch of OT.
There is an old adage that I enjoy, "Bad planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part." However, due to the nature of the work, the bad planning, the lack of a cohesive review process, and the constant struggle to get everyone to agree on a basic structure and format for the project has caused an emergency on my part. This has turned into a 60 hour work week for me when it shouldn't have been needed. Had the review process been smoother and had the format been agreed to three weeks ago when I thought it was, I would have made yesterday's due date without any issue. The basement flooding (3 work hours "lost" in the morning, made up that evening) and the hardware issues could have been overcome without significant issue, or may not have even been an issue, had everything flowed the way I expected and the way the group had agreed from four weeks ago to yesterday.
I'm only just over five weeks removed from the end of my vacation, and yet I feel completely burned out due to all these issues caused by other people. My health is suffering from the constant work without relaxation. While I was always impressed by my stoic friends who have to work daily or a lot of OT due to the nature of their jobs or needing to work multiple jobs in order to make ends meet, these last five weeks have reaffirmed my esteem for them and their ability to keep going.
I just finished another eight hour day on my Saturday, with more hours expected tomorrow. My next deadline is Wednesday for a third, completely new document. I see more OT in my near future.
April 13, 2011
Character Issues
I'm not sure why the sports world is consistently surprised when those players with questions marks for character reasons go ahead and do something stupid. Some, like Michael Vick, hold it together or hide it longer and better than others, but, at the end of the day, those character issues always creep up.
LeBron James didn't go to college. People never questioned his talent but they did question both his maturity and the group he hung around with. He still hangs around with the same people, he made one of his friends from the old days into his closest adviser, and he has made a ton of poor decisions as an adult just like when he was a fresh-faced kid with all the talent in the world. His lack of education crops up frequently whenever speaking about ... any subject at all, including basketball. Many other straight-from-high-school sports kids managed to continue to read and educate themselves enough to speak intelligently on subjects, why didn't LeBron?
There are a wealth of bad character individuals in the NFL. People who have made poor decisions in their past tend to continue making those poor decisions unless shocked out of them by some traumatic event. It is for these reasons that I am not surprised when I hear about gun possession charges, assault, rape allegations, and arrests. What is true in other walks of life seem to be equally true in sports: if you're an idiot going in, you're going to be an idiot once there. If you hang with bad influence friends, you're going to have bad influences helping you to make decisions.
Add into this mix of stupidity and a bad entourage the effects of wealth, performance enhancing drugs, entitlement, and celebrity and I am, frankly, surprised we don't hear about more arrests and issues with players. Look at Mike Tyson; he was a high school prodigy when it came to fighting. There were rumors of him being aggressive toward women even back then. He came from a bad background where he had to fight to stay alive; no wonder he was such a mean, nasty fighter in the ring and had social issues outside of it. But that's what we were paying for. You don't get to be the top heavyweight fighter in the world by being nice. Yet, when his bad temper, wife beating ways were "discovered," we turned on him. When he spiraled out of control, we feigned shock. Why? He was a thug on the streets that got a ton of wealth and celebrity, which lead to entitlement, and his bad posse of "friends" fed off of him and helped him make increasingly bad decisions until he hit rock-bottom. He has, to all appearances, managed to crawl out of that death-spiral and turn things around, but that's rare. And look at how long it took him.
Most people don't change who they are without significant incentive. If people are thugs and felons in high school or college, then they will be thugs and felons in pro sports. If people have a "bad" group of friends/hangers on while they are young, they won't give them up when they get a ton of money and celebrity, and the bad decisions and peer pressure will continue in their pro career. It should only be shocking if we let it be -- if teams are truly, honestly about character, these people wouldn't be hired in the first place regardless of talent. But they are, because, in the end, it is all about ratings, talent, and wins, not about character.
LeBron James didn't go to college. People never questioned his talent but they did question both his maturity and the group he hung around with. He still hangs around with the same people, he made one of his friends from the old days into his closest adviser, and he has made a ton of poor decisions as an adult just like when he was a fresh-faced kid with all the talent in the world. His lack of education crops up frequently whenever speaking about ... any subject at all, including basketball. Many other straight-from-high-school sports kids managed to continue to read and educate themselves enough to speak intelligently on subjects, why didn't LeBron?
There are a wealth of bad character individuals in the NFL. People who have made poor decisions in their past tend to continue making those poor decisions unless shocked out of them by some traumatic event. It is for these reasons that I am not surprised when I hear about gun possession charges, assault, rape allegations, and arrests. What is true in other walks of life seem to be equally true in sports: if you're an idiot going in, you're going to be an idiot once there. If you hang with bad influence friends, you're going to have bad influences helping you to make decisions.
Add into this mix of stupidity and a bad entourage the effects of wealth, performance enhancing drugs, entitlement, and celebrity and I am, frankly, surprised we don't hear about more arrests and issues with players. Look at Mike Tyson; he was a high school prodigy when it came to fighting. There were rumors of him being aggressive toward women even back then. He came from a bad background where he had to fight to stay alive; no wonder he was such a mean, nasty fighter in the ring and had social issues outside of it. But that's what we were paying for. You don't get to be the top heavyweight fighter in the world by being nice. Yet, when his bad temper, wife beating ways were "discovered," we turned on him. When he spiraled out of control, we feigned shock. Why? He was a thug on the streets that got a ton of wealth and celebrity, which lead to entitlement, and his bad posse of "friends" fed off of him and helped him make increasingly bad decisions until he hit rock-bottom. He has, to all appearances, managed to crawl out of that death-spiral and turn things around, but that's rare. And look at how long it took him.
Most people don't change who they are without significant incentive. If people are thugs and felons in high school or college, then they will be thugs and felons in pro sports. If people have a "bad" group of friends/hangers on while they are young, they won't give them up when they get a ton of money and celebrity, and the bad decisions and peer pressure will continue in their pro career. It should only be shocking if we let it be -- if teams are truly, honestly about character, these people wouldn't be hired in the first place regardless of talent. But they are, because, in the end, it is all about ratings, talent, and wins, not about character.
April 4, 2011
Dungeon Master
I was complimented on my GMing and the stories I told. I don't think I was all that great, but I came at it from a writer's perspective, I didn't let the rules hamstring me if something interesting or cool came up, and I wanted each character, and by extension the player running him/her, to have a chance to shine each session. I enjoyed creating bosses that were challenging to overcome, simple puzzles to solve, worlds and reasons to adventure in those worlds. Most of all, I enjoyed the shared activity of the group story-telling sessions that are the foundations of any RPG.
In my current location, I started as the GM for the group I currently game with. I created a world (or, rather, a valley in which they started, with the intent of fleshing out the world later as we went). I gave it rules and places of interest. I let the players create characters. I created a means and reason for them to be together as a group and provided them with threats to overcome.
But I noticed I didn't have the same... verve for doing it I once had. I found that, while I had an outline for what I wanted to have happen, I didn't enjoy creating the individual adventures like I once did. I found I didn't want to adjudicate the rules like I did before. We played that game for about a year, and then one of the others in the group stepped up and said he wanted to GM. I was happy to let him.
I have very much enjoyed playing the game under his direction. He is a good GM, who is conscious of the rules and of his world, but also open to new things, house rules on the fly, and polite and well-meaning criticisms to help make the game better. His game is a bit more of the "roll playing" style, meaning that it is more about the rules, rolling the dice, and getting together than "playing a role." It is fun, and I enjoy the time spent with the group and on the game.
Recently, I also joined a new group. The GM of that group is much more about "role playing" (acting) and less about the dice rolls or rules. Although the vast amount of information is in the Player's Handbook, he admits he hasn't read it and rules entirely based on gut and the Dungeon Master's Guide. He wants everyone to have a good time, he house-rules everything in sight, and we don't worry about the rules nearly as often. I have a lot of fun in that game, too.
The key thing that I find so surprising is how much fun I'm having playing and how little I want to go back to GMing. In my Southern California gaming group, we had a legitimate four people who liked and wanted to GM, and two others who dipped their toe in from time to time. When I wasn't GM, even if I very much was enjoying the other game, I was already thinking of new places to go and new challenges I wanted my players to meet and overcome. I nearly chafed at the bit to get back to GMing!
I have tried for the last few months to come up with new things for my players here to do. They have mentioned they may want to head back to my game in the future, yet I can't seem to come up with anything I want to GM for them. I've even purchased and downloaded some paid or free adventures that I thought I could use for that game, but even those I have little to no desire to adjudicate.
The vast majority of people who play RPGs want to play. Few want the challenge or extra prep time needed to be the GM. It requires a very solid understanding of the rules, an incredible attention to detail, the ability to coordinate the efforts of multiple people, and the ability to create both prepared tasks and challenges and to come up with things "on the fly" as the players do things a GM never intended or expected.
I used to excel at doing pretty much all of that. Lately, however, I have been finding I am not remembering the rules as well as I should or need to in order to adjudicate the game. I am finding no joy in the creation of the story or challenges any more. My attention to detail seems slack. I, simply put, just don't feel like I can do it justice any more.
Maybe this is a life-long evolution. Maybe I did it enough that now I want to just be a player for a while. Maybe I am reaching an age where I just don't want to make the same time-commitment to GMing that I always did before. Maybe I am just burned out on RPGs in an overall sense, what with video games, movies in the genre, and playing/GMing regularly. Maybe I'll turn around tomorrow after having written this and have a great idea that I get excited about and it will turn out I've only been in a slump for the last year or so.
I don't know. But I feel like I've reached the end of a personal era, of sorts. I do still enjoy playing, so I will continue doing that for the foreseeable future. And, who knows what that future may hold for me on this front as I go forward into it?
April 3, 2011
White is a Color
I just took a survey for a prestigious North American company. When the survey got to the question about race/ethnicity, it listed several, including: Hispanic, Pacific Islander, African American, Native American, and Asian, among others. However, it listed "White" as the alternative race to all of those.
Um, excuse me? There were no other colors listed in this section.
Why would a prestigious company list a proper race/ethnicity for every other group and choose not to put "Caucasian" down as one of them? Or, at least, why not write "Caucasian/White?"
This makes no sense to me. White is a color, not a race or ethnicity. I nearly selected "Other" and wrote in "Caucasian" just to make a point.
In an attempt to be racially sensitive to others, this North American company wound up being insensitive to a primary race/ethnicity. Shame on them.
Um, excuse me? There were no other colors listed in this section.
Why would a prestigious company list a proper race/ethnicity for every other group and choose not to put "Caucasian" down as one of them? Or, at least, why not write "Caucasian/White?"
This makes no sense to me. White is a color, not a race or ethnicity. I nearly selected "Other" and wrote in "Caucasian" just to make a point.
In an attempt to be racially sensitive to others, this North American company wound up being insensitive to a primary race/ethnicity. Shame on them.
March 31, 2011
Game Design
I enjoy both MMORPGs and individual games. One thing I've noticed over the years with MMORPGs in particular, but any game that involves your character "leveling up" and getting stronger as the game goes on is that game designers make it harder to use the interface by providing too many powers.
I regularly play Lord of the Rings Online (LOTRO), City of Heroes (COH, not to be confused with Call of Heroes which sometimes uses the same acronym), and Champions Online (CO). I occasionally play Dungeons & Dragons Online (DDO). I recently was in the closed and open beta for DC Universe Online (DCUO), and, while I commented at the time at how awkward the PC interface for DCUO was, one thing they did well was that many of the choices you had during level-up actually made existing powers better rather than providing a new power.
I have four 10-slot power bars, mostly full, up when I play LOTRO. On CO, I have three bars, with one completely full. In COH I have, on the average character, at least three mostly full 10-slot tool bars.
The problem with this is two fold:
DCUO changed that paradigm to a degree. In the betas, you only had 6 slots on one tool bar to use for your slots (there were two other slots, used for devices/potions). Each aspect of your character (aggressive, defensive, or generalist) had its own tool bar that could be set up with different powers on it but, depending on your aspect, you only had those six slots to work with. The reason for this was that most of the advantages given during a level-up were abilities that made existing powers better.
I have a group of buddies with whom I play LOTRO every Wednesday evening for two hours. We have lots of fun, everyone has a unique character, and everyone fills a different role in the group. However, we're all in the 37-40 level range right now, which means, as I commented above, I have four 10-slot tool bars, mostly full, on my screen with my Runekeeper character. I have some 5 fire power icons, 5-6 lightning power icons, 4 cold power icons, 5 or so healing icons, 5 or so miscellaneous powers, plus a bunch of items, food, potions, or skills that I use regularly. The bottom third of my screen is taken over by this plethora of tool bars and icons.
Last night while playing I thought about the DCUO concept and concluded that LOTRO (and most of these style games) could benefit from the concept of specialization and diversification of existing powers.
Using my Runekeeper as an example, I have a fast, low damage, single-target damaging lightning, cold, and fire attack (3 powers). I then have a slightly more powerful, faster/slower, single-target attack for all three elements (3 more powers). I then have much more powerful, slower attacks with side benefits (for fire, area of effect, for cold, slows, for lightning, stuns). Lastly, I have at least one more even more powerful attack with similar side benefits. So, as you can see, I'm now up to a minimum of 12 attack powers that all do relatively similar things.
What if, instead of getting a new power at level-up, I instead had a choice of power specialization or diversification? Using the same examples, let's say I start with a choice between a starting lightning, fire, or cold attack. I choose lightning. The first-level attack has a fast induction time (time between pressing the button/clicking the icon for the power and when the power activates to do damage). It starts with low damage and is a single-target attack. When I level up, instead of a new power with slightly higher damage, slightly longer induction, and maybe a side effect, I have a choice to make the existing power better from the following list: a) increase the damage/duration on the power, b) add X special ability to the power (may increase induction time), or c) give the power (if applicable) area of effect (may increase induction time). I can only pick one at this level and, in general, once I pick one it leaves the list (except for damage). I pick A, and for the next few levels I'm doing higher damage to single targets. At the next appropriate level-up, I choose C, because I want my lightning attack to have the Stun ability. Because this is a special ability, the application shows that choosing this will increase my induction time for the power by 2 seconds. Now my power is slightly slower, does good damage, and has a nice chance to stun the creature it hits.
The same can be done for the healing power; start with a fast, low heal amount, single-target heal and then add to the power more healing, group effects, heals more than just damage taken, etc.
The result being that my character has improved, has a more powerful lightning attack that does an additional effect, and I only have one key to press on my tool bar. Looking back at the original example, I've now replaced the first three powers with one power that does what each of them does. Now, as I level, I get options to further increase the damage, add new effects, etc.
Or, maybe you break it down so you have your melee (touch) power, your single-target ranged power, and your group/AoE power, each with multiple specialization and diversification choices. Each time you pick a new power, that is one less "power up" that you made to an existing power (or, at least, delayed making). So now you're a generalist who is good in close combat (melee), can hit single targets (standard ranged), or attack groups (AoE ranged), but each individual power is weaker than someone who chose one power and "powered up" that power (say, a melee character who has the touch attack with extra damage and a stun, compared to your standard touch attack at base damage with no extra ability-- you can attack at range and he can't, but he does a lot more damage in close combat than you).
Right now, these games rely on the players having a wealth of the powers available at their current level and making tactical decisions about which power to use in which circumstance, and then finding and using that power amidst that plethora of choices. All while attacking and being attacked. I'm moving the tactical decision making to the character creation and level up points, out of combat, where you have time to ask yourself, "How am I planning to fight (or have been fighting)? Should I take the new power to give me more tactical advantages, or should I stick with what I have and make it better or stronger?"
The downside to my plan is that you will have less to do as a player to start. You will have fewer buttons to hit, and some players may feel slightly more "one-note" by always having just the few buttons to press, even though that one button does more than the previous multiple buttons did. Ironically, many of those who have complex attack chains in their games still predominantly only use slots 1 to 4 (or maybe 6) of the first tool bar when actually playing.
In the meantime, I dream of playing a Runekeeper who is just as capable at level 37 as my current guy, but who only has a couple of attack, healing, and miscellaneous powers to hit. I dream of playing a game where the character-related decisions are left to character creation and leveling up, not for the middle of pitched battle.
I regularly play Lord of the Rings Online (LOTRO), City of Heroes (COH, not to be confused with Call of Heroes which sometimes uses the same acronym), and Champions Online (CO). I occasionally play Dungeons & Dragons Online (DDO). I recently was in the closed and open beta for DC Universe Online (DCUO), and, while I commented at the time at how awkward the PC interface for DCUO was, one thing they did well was that many of the choices you had during level-up actually made existing powers better rather than providing a new power.
I have four 10-slot power bars, mostly full, up when I play LOTRO. On CO, I have three bars, with one completely full. In COH I have, on the average character, at least three mostly full 10-slot tool bars.
The problem with this is two fold:
- Complexity of the interface. Having that much space on your monitor taken up with power/tool bars means less space to see and interact with the world. You also have to visually scan and see all the icons and select the one you want from 20, 30, 40 visible icons.
- Interaction with the tool bars. In most games, one tool bar is hard-coded to link to the number keys across the top of your keyboard. So, pressing the 1 key means the power or skill in the first slot of that first tool bar activates. However, I've noticed in my own playing and while watching, or asking how, friends play, we all typically put our most used powers in tool bar 1, slots 1 through 4 and then don't use the other slots nearly as often. When we do use them, it is typically using the mouse cursor and clicking. Or, worse yet, we have to take our eyes off the action in order to find the right key(s) to press.
DCUO changed that paradigm to a degree. In the betas, you only had 6 slots on one tool bar to use for your slots (there were two other slots, used for devices/potions). Each aspect of your character (aggressive, defensive, or generalist) had its own tool bar that could be set up with different powers on it but, depending on your aspect, you only had those six slots to work with. The reason for this was that most of the advantages given during a level-up were abilities that made existing powers better.
I have a group of buddies with whom I play LOTRO every Wednesday evening for two hours. We have lots of fun, everyone has a unique character, and everyone fills a different role in the group. However, we're all in the 37-40 level range right now, which means, as I commented above, I have four 10-slot tool bars, mostly full, on my screen with my Runekeeper character. I have some 5 fire power icons, 5-6 lightning power icons, 4 cold power icons, 5 or so healing icons, 5 or so miscellaneous powers, plus a bunch of items, food, potions, or skills that I use regularly. The bottom third of my screen is taken over by this plethora of tool bars and icons.
Last night while playing I thought about the DCUO concept and concluded that LOTRO (and most of these style games) could benefit from the concept of specialization and diversification of existing powers.
Using my Runekeeper as an example, I have a fast, low damage, single-target damaging lightning, cold, and fire attack (3 powers). I then have a slightly more powerful, faster/slower, single-target attack for all three elements (3 more powers). I then have much more powerful, slower attacks with side benefits (for fire, area of effect, for cold, slows, for lightning, stuns). Lastly, I have at least one more even more powerful attack with similar side benefits. So, as you can see, I'm now up to a minimum of 12 attack powers that all do relatively similar things.
What if, instead of getting a new power at level-up, I instead had a choice of power specialization or diversification? Using the same examples, let's say I start with a choice between a starting lightning, fire, or cold attack. I choose lightning. The first-level attack has a fast induction time (time between pressing the button/clicking the icon for the power and when the power activates to do damage). It starts with low damage and is a single-target attack. When I level up, instead of a new power with slightly higher damage, slightly longer induction, and maybe a side effect, I have a choice to make the existing power better from the following list: a) increase the damage/duration on the power, b) add X special ability to the power (may increase induction time), or c) give the power (if applicable) area of effect (may increase induction time). I can only pick one at this level and, in general, once I pick one it leaves the list (except for damage). I pick A, and for the next few levels I'm doing higher damage to single targets. At the next appropriate level-up, I choose C, because I want my lightning attack to have the Stun ability. Because this is a special ability, the application shows that choosing this will increase my induction time for the power by 2 seconds. Now my power is slightly slower, does good damage, and has a nice chance to stun the creature it hits.
The same can be done for the healing power; start with a fast, low heal amount, single-target heal and then add to the power more healing, group effects, heals more than just damage taken, etc.
The result being that my character has improved, has a more powerful lightning attack that does an additional effect, and I only have one key to press on my tool bar. Looking back at the original example, I've now replaced the first three powers with one power that does what each of them does. Now, as I level, I get options to further increase the damage, add new effects, etc.
Or, maybe you break it down so you have your melee (touch) power, your single-target ranged power, and your group/AoE power, each with multiple specialization and diversification choices. Each time you pick a new power, that is one less "power up" that you made to an existing power (or, at least, delayed making). So now you're a generalist who is good in close combat (melee), can hit single targets (standard ranged), or attack groups (AoE ranged), but each individual power is weaker than someone who chose one power and "powered up" that power (say, a melee character who has the touch attack with extra damage and a stun, compared to your standard touch attack at base damage with no extra ability-- you can attack at range and he can't, but he does a lot more damage in close combat than you).
Right now, these games rely on the players having a wealth of the powers available at their current level and making tactical decisions about which power to use in which circumstance, and then finding and using that power amidst that plethora of choices. All while attacking and being attacked. I'm moving the tactical decision making to the character creation and level up points, out of combat, where you have time to ask yourself, "How am I planning to fight (or have been fighting)? Should I take the new power to give me more tactical advantages, or should I stick with what I have and make it better or stronger?"
The downside to my plan is that you will have less to do as a player to start. You will have fewer buttons to hit, and some players may feel slightly more "one-note" by always having just the few buttons to press, even though that one button does more than the previous multiple buttons did. Ironically, many of those who have complex attack chains in their games still predominantly only use slots 1 to 4 (or maybe 6) of the first tool bar when actually playing.
In the meantime, I dream of playing a Runekeeper who is just as capable at level 37 as my current guy, but who only has a couple of attack, healing, and miscellaneous powers to hit. I dream of playing a game where the character-related decisions are left to character creation and leveling up, not for the middle of pitched battle.
March 29, 2011
What a Wonderful World
I wonder sometimes what would change in America if the news reported good things, if politicians told the truth and actually worked for the betterment of the nation and its people, and if the public at large heard a consistent, positive message about the country.
The closest analogy I can draw would be to Reagan's first term in office. The late '70s were a time of upheaval and grim news. America was down on America, and the world seemed poised to rip it to shreds globally. The economy was in a tailspin, gas prices and housing prices were through the roof, and America was struggling with its global image, especially in the face of a lot of press concerning the Middle East (including hijackings, military skirmishes, and threats from leaders toward the West). Then along came Reagan, with a hard but humorous stance that America was the best place in the world, we should believe in ourselves, we should buy American, and everything will be all right.
And, you know what? It worked. By making people think of themselves as great, and making convincing them to buy locally (even if the American product was a bit more expensive), America halted the economic slide and made itself great again. The economy rebounded, the GDP went through the roof, and America became a leader globally again as it was seen to have heralded the fall of communism and stilled the voices of the Middle Eastern dictators, for awhile.
I see a lot of the same issues today. When Obama ran for President on the "Change you can believe in" mantra, I thought he might try to do something Reagan-esque by making Americans believe in America again and turn things around. And he did try. But the world in which Obama was elected is a much different place than the era of Reagan; the twenty-four news cycle, the divisive politics didn't allow him to present the same message of hope and encouragement that Reagan expressed. Whenever he said, "Let's work together," the opposition said, "Okay," but proceeded to then turn on him and tear him apart and lie about him. The news media took a surprisingly hard stance (compared to past Presidents, Democrat or Republican) on each and every attempt Obama made to right the economy. With the media and the opposition not doing or proposing any solutions of their own, but hammering the perceived failures of the existing administration, it is no wonder that polls showed a quick decline to Obama's once very favorable numbers.
The funny thing is, the American public do not seem interested in finding the facts. They are told that Obama has been ineffective, yet the economy has stabilized. They are told Obama is doing little, yet he has passed more bills so far than any other President. They are told that Obama doesn't want to work with the opposition, so the opposition will not work with him. Yet if you go back to every speech he has given so far and you will see at least a few lines if not whole paragraphs devoted to asking for both sides to work together, saying he has an "open door" to the opposition, and asking for bipartisanship. They are told the war in Iraq and Afghanistan is not going as well as it could be, and that Obama's plan to bring home troops will make it worse. And yet the number say fewer are dying, more enemy combatants are being captured or killed, the UN forces of America's allies are doing more, and that the people of each nation are moving steadily toward self-protection.
I have come to the conclusion that the American people no longer want to think for themselves, and that is the true problem facing the country today. The news media has become a money-making enterprise, which hurts the truth. It is all about ratings, grabbing viewers, and getting ad revenue. So you have to hook people any way you can. The way some outlets have chosen is by having pundits (note that very few are called "news anchors" anymore) with a message and an agenda. They want you to be afraid, to listen to them, and to revere them. When called on it, they simply shout louder, knowing the American public will listen to the loudest.
I believe that we are only really hearing from the far right and the far left on most issues. Think about it, there are 535 representatives in the House of Representatives (435) and Senate (100). From how many of them do you normally hear? It is usually the same 15 or 20 from either side of the debate that makes the media rounds whenever something comes up, isn't it?
I truly believe that the vast, silent majority of people are somewhere in the middle on most issues, are fairly moderate in their opinions, and just want all the sound and fury to go away. I believe that this majority understands that things are not as the far sides are constantly insisting it is. The problem is, though, that this silent majority does not want to speak out, make waves, or become political. They are silent for a reason; they have their noses to the grindstone, are trying to make ends meet, and be good people to their families and friends. They don't necessarily care about Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Japan, global warming, or the global or national economy, per se. What they care about is their job, their car, the local prices they have to pay, if their child is in harm's way.
And I think that is where the solution is. Let's start taking a local approach to fixing the economy. Let's take a page from Reagan's "trickle down economics" package, but work it in reverse. Let's start buying locally, from small businesses and local farmers whenever possible, even if the cost is a little more. These people will then need more workers, will buy more products, and will invest more in the local economy. This makes the local economy, wherever it is, more attractive to others. People move (housing purchases, promoting growth), people open new businesses, people have more to spend on discretionary items, like movies, electronics, home projects, and similar. More products and people are needed from nearby locations to feed this growing economy, which benefits the next town, city, state. It trickles up to the rich and powerful, making for a strong GDP, a strengthened dollar globally, and a sense of pride and ownership in America and its products.
You may think me naive, but there are many organizations that prove this works in third- and second-world countries by providing what are called "micro-loans" or "micro-financing." The concept is the same; you loan someone in, say, Africa $100 US. They use that to open a, say, clothing store in their local village. That $100 goes to purchasing products, paying wages, and renting/buying a location. The people then have some place to buy clothes, which establishes the business. They soon need more product and more workers, so the money pays wages and buys product. Which then gives those people more money to buy other things (food, livestock, tools, vehicles), and the cycle feeds on itself and the entire area prospers from one $100 loan.
While America is not a third- or second-world nation, the economics work the exactly the same. If you have more money to spend, typically you do. Which provides the places where you spend it with more money to pay wages, to buy more goods, and to invest in the local economy. This in turn provides more money to those businesses that the first business works with so they can continue the trend. And the end result is that your local economy is strong, which ensures you have a job, can buy goods and services, and can keep buying from local businesses. Which makes the state's economy stronger, and the nation's, and finally the global economy
In the end, I think the media and the politicians need to start looking for simple, moderate, workable solutions like these, and reporting them. Make policy that helps it happen. Imagine how you would feel if the next time you turned on the news or read a report, it lead with "Economy stabilizing, trends are positive," "Global view on America bullish," and "Fewer lives lost, battles going well." Imagine if the next time a political person was in the news it was saying, "Bipartisan committee proposes economics plan all are confident in," or "Both sides working together toward stronger and better health care plans for all," or "Both sides agree on infrastructure changes." What if the press reported things as they are rather than using shock tactics and red journalism? What if we had even a one week moratorium on anything relating to pop stars, "celebutantes," and the latest drug overdose?
What a wonderful world it would be! One in which Americans would feel more proud, would feel more hopeful, and would work toward a better future. Call me naive if you want to. I can take it.
The closest analogy I can draw would be to Reagan's first term in office. The late '70s were a time of upheaval and grim news. America was down on America, and the world seemed poised to rip it to shreds globally. The economy was in a tailspin, gas prices and housing prices were through the roof, and America was struggling with its global image, especially in the face of a lot of press concerning the Middle East (including hijackings, military skirmishes, and threats from leaders toward the West). Then along came Reagan, with a hard but humorous stance that America was the best place in the world, we should believe in ourselves, we should buy American, and everything will be all right.
And, you know what? It worked. By making people think of themselves as great, and making convincing them to buy locally (even if the American product was a bit more expensive), America halted the economic slide and made itself great again. The economy rebounded, the GDP went through the roof, and America became a leader globally again as it was seen to have heralded the fall of communism and stilled the voices of the Middle Eastern dictators, for awhile.
I see a lot of the same issues today. When Obama ran for President on the "Change you can believe in" mantra, I thought he might try to do something Reagan-esque by making Americans believe in America again and turn things around. And he did try. But the world in which Obama was elected is a much different place than the era of Reagan; the twenty-four news cycle, the divisive politics didn't allow him to present the same message of hope and encouragement that Reagan expressed. Whenever he said, "Let's work together," the opposition said, "Okay," but proceeded to then turn on him and tear him apart and lie about him. The news media took a surprisingly hard stance (compared to past Presidents, Democrat or Republican) on each and every attempt Obama made to right the economy. With the media and the opposition not doing or proposing any solutions of their own, but hammering the perceived failures of the existing administration, it is no wonder that polls showed a quick decline to Obama's once very favorable numbers.
The funny thing is, the American public do not seem interested in finding the facts. They are told that Obama has been ineffective, yet the economy has stabilized. They are told Obama is doing little, yet he has passed more bills so far than any other President. They are told that Obama doesn't want to work with the opposition, so the opposition will not work with him. Yet if you go back to every speech he has given so far and you will see at least a few lines if not whole paragraphs devoted to asking for both sides to work together, saying he has an "open door" to the opposition, and asking for bipartisanship. They are told the war in Iraq and Afghanistan is not going as well as it could be, and that Obama's plan to bring home troops will make it worse. And yet the number say fewer are dying, more enemy combatants are being captured or killed, the UN forces of America's allies are doing more, and that the people of each nation are moving steadily toward self-protection.
I have come to the conclusion that the American people no longer want to think for themselves, and that is the true problem facing the country today. The news media has become a money-making enterprise, which hurts the truth. It is all about ratings, grabbing viewers, and getting ad revenue. So you have to hook people any way you can. The way some outlets have chosen is by having pundits (note that very few are called "news anchors" anymore) with a message and an agenda. They want you to be afraid, to listen to them, and to revere them. When called on it, they simply shout louder, knowing the American public will listen to the loudest.
I believe that we are only really hearing from the far right and the far left on most issues. Think about it, there are 535 representatives in the House of Representatives (435) and Senate (100). From how many of them do you normally hear? It is usually the same 15 or 20 from either side of the debate that makes the media rounds whenever something comes up, isn't it?
I truly believe that the vast, silent majority of people are somewhere in the middle on most issues, are fairly moderate in their opinions, and just want all the sound and fury to go away. I believe that this majority understands that things are not as the far sides are constantly insisting it is. The problem is, though, that this silent majority does not want to speak out, make waves, or become political. They are silent for a reason; they have their noses to the grindstone, are trying to make ends meet, and be good people to their families and friends. They don't necessarily care about Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Japan, global warming, or the global or national economy, per se. What they care about is their job, their car, the local prices they have to pay, if their child is in harm's way.
And I think that is where the solution is. Let's start taking a local approach to fixing the economy. Let's take a page from Reagan's "trickle down economics" package, but work it in reverse. Let's start buying locally, from small businesses and local farmers whenever possible, even if the cost is a little more. These people will then need more workers, will buy more products, and will invest more in the local economy. This makes the local economy, wherever it is, more attractive to others. People move (housing purchases, promoting growth), people open new businesses, people have more to spend on discretionary items, like movies, electronics, home projects, and similar. More products and people are needed from nearby locations to feed this growing economy, which benefits the next town, city, state. It trickles up to the rich and powerful, making for a strong GDP, a strengthened dollar globally, and a sense of pride and ownership in America and its products.
You may think me naive, but there are many organizations that prove this works in third- and second-world countries by providing what are called "micro-loans" or "micro-financing." The concept is the same; you loan someone in, say, Africa $100 US. They use that to open a, say, clothing store in their local village. That $100 goes to purchasing products, paying wages, and renting/buying a location. The people then have some place to buy clothes, which establishes the business. They soon need more product and more workers, so the money pays wages and buys product. Which then gives those people more money to buy other things (food, livestock, tools, vehicles), and the cycle feeds on itself and the entire area prospers from one $100 loan.
While America is not a third- or second-world nation, the economics work the exactly the same. If you have more money to spend, typically you do. Which provides the places where you spend it with more money to pay wages, to buy more goods, and to invest in the local economy. This in turn provides more money to those businesses that the first business works with so they can continue the trend. And the end result is that your local economy is strong, which ensures you have a job, can buy goods and services, and can keep buying from local businesses. Which makes the state's economy stronger, and the nation's, and finally the global economy
In the end, I think the media and the politicians need to start looking for simple, moderate, workable solutions like these, and reporting them. Make policy that helps it happen. Imagine how you would feel if the next time you turned on the news or read a report, it lead with "Economy stabilizing, trends are positive," "Global view on America bullish," and "Fewer lives lost, battles going well." Imagine if the next time a political person was in the news it was saying, "Bipartisan committee proposes economics plan all are confident in," or "Both sides working together toward stronger and better health care plans for all," or "Both sides agree on infrastructure changes." What if the press reported things as they are rather than using shock tactics and red journalism? What if we had even a one week moratorium on anything relating to pop stars, "celebutantes," and the latest drug overdose?
What a wonderful world it would be! One in which Americans would feel more proud, would feel more hopeful, and would work toward a better future. Call me naive if you want to. I can take it.
March 25, 2011
Don't Let Democracy Slip Through Their Fingers
No democracy has ever survived for long if its people didn't rise up and demand it, which is where the failure occurred in Iraq. We went in there and gave them democracy when they, themselves, weren't demanding it and fighting for it.
However, many nations of the middle East are now fighting for democracy. Libya, Yemeni, Bahrain, and other locations have people fighting, and dying, in their streets wanting freedom and an end to totalitarian regimes.
And we, the shining light of democracy, sit and do next to nothing.
We should be flying overhead and dropping food, weapons, and pamphlets to the embattled people fighting for a change in government and for their lives. We should be offering to send in people to train them in guerrilla warfare and how to set up and maintain a democratic government. We should be poised to swoop in with advisers who can help them transition to a free-market economy.
Yet, we sit and do next to nothing.
Bush forced democracy on people who were not yet willing to fight for it themselves, and the results have been disastrous. Well after Bush proclaimed "Victory!" our troops are still there, are still fighting local insurgents who want a return to past ways, and trying to teach people how to govern using a democratic principle. (Rights for women? We're not too sure about that!)
If you don't remember the past, you are doomed to repeat it, or so the saying goes. And in every case of a successful, lasting democracy, it came about because the people wanted it and fought for it. Often, the people had help to overthrow the government in power, and much more help setting up their new form of government. But the people wanted it, struggled for it, and achieved it.
It is much like your children. Those children who are given everything they want tend to be spoiled brats who cannot handle life's adversities. But those children who save their allowance, learn the value of hard work, and strive to succeed often are the most grateful and protective of what they earn and what they buy with that money. So it is with people in general and a democracy in particular.
Democracy is HARD. It is, most likely, the most difficult form of government to run and to do right. A democracy gives everyone, even those who you despise and don't want to listen to, a voice in the government. It means that the minority has rights and privileges that the majority can not and should not infringe. America is living proof of that right now: the right and the left are screaming at one another and trying their damnedest to ignore and push around the other. Both sides are out and out lying about the policies, procedures, and intents of the other. These squabbles are straining the democratic ideal to its breaking point. And a new revolution of cooler heads and moderate voices may be needed to keep America strong and prosperous. It isn't easy at all to run a democracy at all!
When the people rise up and demand democracy and change, successful democratic governments have to step up and help them. Show them the way and help them fight for the freedoms that those in their own nations once stood up and were counted for.
Yet, we sit and do next to nothing. The moment in history for that region has finally come, the one that Reagan spoke about, that the first President Bush longed for, that Clinton tried to cajole with foreign policy and embargoes, and which the second President Bush tried to force has finally come to that region, and America stands back and watches from afar.
I'm not saying that we should send our forces in and fight for the peoples of these nations, but we should be ready to help those people when asked and with whatever they need short of troops to do their fighting for them. They have to want it and they have to earn it, but we should, like proud parents teaching them the value of a dollar and how to buy their own toys, be prepared to help, encourage, and support them in whatever way they need.
However, many nations of the middle East are now fighting for democracy. Libya, Yemeni, Bahrain, and other locations have people fighting, and dying, in their streets wanting freedom and an end to totalitarian regimes.
And we, the shining light of democracy, sit and do next to nothing.
We should be flying overhead and dropping food, weapons, and pamphlets to the embattled people fighting for a change in government and for their lives. We should be offering to send in people to train them in guerrilla warfare and how to set up and maintain a democratic government. We should be poised to swoop in with advisers who can help them transition to a free-market economy.
Yet, we sit and do next to nothing.
Bush forced democracy on people who were not yet willing to fight for it themselves, and the results have been disastrous. Well after Bush proclaimed "Victory!" our troops are still there, are still fighting local insurgents who want a return to past ways, and trying to teach people how to govern using a democratic principle. (Rights for women? We're not too sure about that!)
If you don't remember the past, you are doomed to repeat it, or so the saying goes. And in every case of a successful, lasting democracy, it came about because the people wanted it and fought for it. Often, the people had help to overthrow the government in power, and much more help setting up their new form of government. But the people wanted it, struggled for it, and achieved it.
It is much like your children. Those children who are given everything they want tend to be spoiled brats who cannot handle life's adversities. But those children who save their allowance, learn the value of hard work, and strive to succeed often are the most grateful and protective of what they earn and what they buy with that money. So it is with people in general and a democracy in particular.
Democracy is HARD. It is, most likely, the most difficult form of government to run and to do right. A democracy gives everyone, even those who you despise and don't want to listen to, a voice in the government. It means that the minority has rights and privileges that the majority can not and should not infringe. America is living proof of that right now: the right and the left are screaming at one another and trying their damnedest to ignore and push around the other. Both sides are out and out lying about the policies, procedures, and intents of the other. These squabbles are straining the democratic ideal to its breaking point. And a new revolution of cooler heads and moderate voices may be needed to keep America strong and prosperous. It isn't easy at all to run a democracy at all!
When the people rise up and demand democracy and change, successful democratic governments have to step up and help them. Show them the way and help them fight for the freedoms that those in their own nations once stood up and were counted for.
Yet, we sit and do next to nothing. The moment in history for that region has finally come, the one that Reagan spoke about, that the first President Bush longed for, that Clinton tried to cajole with foreign policy and embargoes, and which the second President Bush tried to force has finally come to that region, and America stands back and watches from afar.
I'm not saying that we should send our forces in and fight for the peoples of these nations, but we should be ready to help those people when asked and with whatever they need short of troops to do their fighting for them. They have to want it and they have to earn it, but we should, like proud parents teaching them the value of a dollar and how to buy their own toys, be prepared to help, encourage, and support them in whatever way they need.
March 20, 2011
No Rest for the Wicked
It is funny how quickly the relaxation of a vacation can be sucked out of you. Normally when I go on vacation I try to schedule the next day off as a travel-recovery day before I have to do anything important (like work). This year, it simply did not work out that way.
We got home and I was in bed on Tuesday night (3/15) (well, really, as it was after midnight, Wednesday morning) by 1am with my alarm set for 7am. After four planes and 20 hours of travel, that 7am wake-up call came very early indeed!
I quickly realized my brain was not good for much, and I rescheduled my meeting to the next day and used that day to read through the emails and try to get back up to speed on where I was and what I was doing with the project, and what was needed.
Thursday I then had my two meetings, learning of the due dates that they continue to promise the end-user without consulting me and discovered that I did not have much time to hit any of the three upcoming deadlines. Then, on Friday, I only worked about half the day or a little more, as my usual "travel sickness" struck me and I was feeling sick (headache, sinuses, very upset stomach, slightly feverish -- happens after traveling nearly every time with my compromised immune system).
So, this week I have to work like a fiend to make the first deadline (Saturday-- not sure why they keep scheduling due dates when the end-user isn't in the office and no one, not even those in Israel, are supposed to be at work).
My shoulders, which were relaxed and pliable during our days in Florida, are back to being tense balls. My headache is back (not as bad as on Friday, but steady and ongoing regardless of aspirin or similar).
After the next three weeks or so, I'll feel like I need yet another vacation.
We got home and I was in bed on Tuesday night (3/15) (well, really, as it was after midnight, Wednesday morning) by 1am with my alarm set for 7am. After four planes and 20 hours of travel, that 7am wake-up call came very early indeed!
I quickly realized my brain was not good for much, and I rescheduled my meeting to the next day and used that day to read through the emails and try to get back up to speed on where I was and what I was doing with the project, and what was needed.
Thursday I then had my two meetings, learning of the due dates that they continue to promise the end-user without consulting me and discovered that I did not have much time to hit any of the three upcoming deadlines. Then, on Friday, I only worked about half the day or a little more, as my usual "travel sickness" struck me and I was feeling sick (headache, sinuses, very upset stomach, slightly feverish -- happens after traveling nearly every time with my compromised immune system).
So, this week I have to work like a fiend to make the first deadline (Saturday-- not sure why they keep scheduling due dates when the end-user isn't in the office and no one, not even those in Israel, are supposed to be at work).
My shoulders, which were relaxed and pliable during our days in Florida, are back to being tense balls. My headache is back (not as bad as on Friday, but steady and ongoing regardless of aspirin or similar).
After the next three weeks or so, I'll feel like I need yet another vacation.
March 9, 2011
Resting
Vacation got off to a poor start, as you can read in the previous post. In addition to that, the first house we were put in was within maybe 500 yards of the local dump, so the outside smelled pretty bad. When we were inside the house, we noticed an additional smell which gave me a headache and put off my wife. We had to stay the night (having arrived after midnight), but additional issues we found that night and upon waking (broken closet doors, stains on the sheets, inadequate supplies, inadequate internet provisions, improperly or inadequately cleaned bathrooms, etc.) had us contacting the housing broker and getting moved from that house to a new one. The caveat being that the new house was only available for some of the vacation, and she have to move us again on Friday. Anything was better than staying in a place that literally gave me a splitting headache, let alone smelled so horrible, so we took it.
After that rocky start, the vacation has turned out to be just what the doctor ordered... nearly literally. Being in FL has been, so far, very restful and relaxing.
We are with two other couples, close friends. Between the six of us, we have two vehicles. So, pretty much everyone can come and go as needed. Or, as I took advantage once, stay behind and do nothing!
Group highlights so far:
Sunday: We started with a trip to Disney's Downtown Disney section, where we ate and did some shopping. It was fun, but tiring on my feet and knees for as long as we were moving around. We ate at a place called Ragland Road, an Irish pub/restaurant that was very good (but pricey).
Monday: Sea World was next. Last year we didn't get to go because the same day we were preparing to leave, the news suddenly announced half the park was closed because one of the killer whales had killed a trainer. This year, no such thing happened, and we spent a very nice day there. It is a great place to visit; lots of touchy-feely exhibits (rays are so smooth they almost feel slimy), interesting shows, and nice exhibits.
Tuesday: Shopping day for four of the vacationers, while two of us went to putt-putt at Congo River on the I192. Two courses, both challenging and fun, with a lot of variety in obstacles and elevations on most of the holes. Lot's of fun. As the shoppers weren't done and back, the two of us then spent a pleasant afternoon reading and talking.
Wednesday: M had to go to church, and she and I wanted to do some shopping for our house, so the other four went to Disney World proper (M and I didn't want to go). She and I tried a new church, with a great priest, and she did the Ash Wednesday thing. We then did some light shopping, found and ordered our new deck chairs and tables, and just had a nice day together. Our friends will probably not be back until well after 9pm, as that is when the park closes for the day. They are pretty much visiting from opening until closing!
Not sure what the rest of the vacation will bring; Thursday is supposed to have thunderstorms, so we may find some indoor activities to do (maybe a new movie or a game night?), Friday involves the move from one house to another, and Saturday is M's church. We still have some plans to go to a few restaurants that we don't have available in Canada, and M "needs" to do more shopping. I'd like to replace my current tennis shoes with new ones. Outside of that, I think I may see some more long reading sessions by the pool in our future.
One set of friends leaves on Saturday and the other set leaves on Monday, with us following suit on Tuesday. M has Wednesday off to recover, but I have to hit my contract again hard and fast, as the next deadline is exactly two weeks from that Wednesday for a document that hasn't even been created. I'll probably feel like another vacation by the time this contract is up!
After that rocky start, the vacation has turned out to be just what the doctor ordered... nearly literally. Being in FL has been, so far, very restful and relaxing.
We are with two other couples, close friends. Between the six of us, we have two vehicles. So, pretty much everyone can come and go as needed. Or, as I took advantage once, stay behind and do nothing!
Group highlights so far:
Sunday: We started with a trip to Disney's Downtown Disney section, where we ate and did some shopping. It was fun, but tiring on my feet and knees for as long as we were moving around. We ate at a place called Ragland Road, an Irish pub/restaurant that was very good (but pricey).
Monday: Sea World was next. Last year we didn't get to go because the same day we were preparing to leave, the news suddenly announced half the park was closed because one of the killer whales had killed a trainer. This year, no such thing happened, and we spent a very nice day there. It is a great place to visit; lots of touchy-feely exhibits (rays are so smooth they almost feel slimy), interesting shows, and nice exhibits.
Tuesday: Shopping day for four of the vacationers, while two of us went to putt-putt at Congo River on the I192. Two courses, both challenging and fun, with a lot of variety in obstacles and elevations on most of the holes. Lot's of fun. As the shoppers weren't done and back, the two of us then spent a pleasant afternoon reading and talking.
Wednesday: M had to go to church, and she and I wanted to do some shopping for our house, so the other four went to Disney World proper (M and I didn't want to go). She and I tried a new church, with a great priest, and she did the Ash Wednesday thing. We then did some light shopping, found and ordered our new deck chairs and tables, and just had a nice day together. Our friends will probably not be back until well after 9pm, as that is when the park closes for the day. They are pretty much visiting from opening until closing!
Not sure what the rest of the vacation will bring; Thursday is supposed to have thunderstorms, so we may find some indoor activities to do (maybe a new movie or a game night?), Friday involves the move from one house to another, and Saturday is M's church. We still have some plans to go to a few restaurants that we don't have available in Canada, and M "needs" to do more shopping. I'd like to replace my current tennis shoes with new ones. Outside of that, I think I may see some more long reading sessions by the pool in our future.
One set of friends leaves on Saturday and the other set leaves on Monday, with us following suit on Tuesday. M has Wednesday off to recover, but I have to hit my contract again hard and fast, as the next deadline is exactly two weeks from that Wednesday for a document that hasn't even been created. I'll probably feel like another vacation by the time this contract is up!
March 4, 2011
US Airways
As any frequent reader of this blog knows, when I travel I have an... interesting... time of it. It is always an adventure, whether (rarely) good or (often) bad.
Yesterday, my wife and I traveled to Orlando. The trip was an adventure. The set path had us flying out of our home airport at 9:40 and arriving 45 minutes later in Halifax. An approximately 7 hour layover there and then we were on the 2 hour flight to our second stop, in Philadelphia. A two hour layover there and we were off to our final destination of Orlando.
The flight out of our home airport was delayed approximately 2.5 hours, departing at about 12:15pm rather than the 9:40am flight time. Since we had the long layover at the next airport, that wasn't so much of an issue. However, there was no notice of it prior to our leaving the house, so we actually sat at the tiny little airport for that entire time.
In Halifax, US Airways announced the next flight was delayed by approximately 1:15. We learned later this was caused by the original plane having issues which caused them to order a replacement plane to take the flight, which they then had to wait the hour and a quarter to arrive, get the passengers on board, and off to Halifax. Since we had a 2 hour layover, we weren't overly concerned about this at first. It would be tight, especially since we already knew we were landing at the end of the F terminal and flying out of the end of the A terminal in Philadelphia. That's a long haul, but there is a shuttle, so we didn't think it would be an issue.
After pushing back from the gate, the bad news came: there was an electrical issue with the generator that supplies power to the AC unit and some of the rear electrical. It took them about 20 minutes to figure it out, fix it, and get us moving again. If the pilot could not "make up" time on the flight down, that left us with only 25 minutes to go from gate to gate in Philly. Serious issue now, as that was not enough time to cross the sprawling airport, even with the shuttle.
There were a total of eleven people on board that US Airways flight (including us) who all had to make the same absurdly tight connection in Philly to the Orlando flight. When asked about it, the best advice the US Airways personnel could give us was "You'll have to run."
And this is where I have an issue. The plane we were on had a radio. The ground personnel had radios. US Airways has computers that can track this sort of information. Why couldn't our flight crew radio ahead and say, "Look, we're running way late and we have 11 people who need to make this flight. Make sure the plane holds off departure for 10-20 minutes." Or, another tact could be, "We're running late and we have 11 people that need to make the Orlando flight. Can you have airport crew ready with carts to help them get across the airport (from gate F27 to A24)/get to the shuttle?" There are any number of ways in which radios and computers could be used to convey the message that 11 people need that flight, hold it and help them get there!
There were many things the US Airways (or any flight crew/airline) could do in these situations to be saviors and help their passengers have a better experience under trying times, yet in every situation like this I find myself, the usual response is to make it the passenger's problem. This is exemplified by the "You'll have to run" advice we were given. One look at their database of passengers would show them that the flight was delayed (their issue caused it), a further mechanical issue created another delay (again, their issue), and that eleven people on the manifest had to make the last flight out to Orlando in an extremely tight timeline. In order to avoid having the airline need to put us all up for a night in the hotel (the reason we would be missing the flight was mechanical, so their own rule says they have to put us up at their expense), the system should flag someone and issue an alert to hold the outbound flight. It is both cheaper for US Airways to hold the flight and makes them look all kinds of good doing so, which is a PR bonus for them.
As it is, we got off the plane, we hooked up with a woman in a pink sweater who knew what she was doing and where to go and also needed to make that flight. We stumbled on another woman who was an airline/airport employee who gave us some advice, and we managed -- out of breath and with literally no time left -- to make it across the entire airport and to the (new) gate our flight was out of. My wife ran ahead, determined to make them hold the gate open for me, as I limped my way along behind at as fast a walk as I could muster (was not having a good arthritis day and simply can't run like that any more).
One last caveat: the original information we were given, and confirmed by the fight attendant just before we landed, was that our gate was A20. However, the airport/airline had moved it to A24. However, when we got there, there was no notice or indication of this move (even though, according to one of the other passengers who had been there well before us, it had happened about 2 hours prior-- so our flight attendant should have known). We had to ask someone what happened to the flight and get directed to the new gate even farther down the concourse -- yet another delay which could have proven costly and made us miss our flight.
I am disappointed in the advice, reaction, and inability of US Airways as a company and the specific individuals with whom we had contact to use their heads, think not very far outside the box, and help the stressed and harried passengers by either getting us to our gate or calling ahead to keep the gate open a little longer. This disappointment stretches to all the airlines, none of whom seem able to take ownership of the responsibility they have to their customers. A small bit of effort on their end would create so much goodwill on the passengers' side that they may have loyal customers for a long time to come.
Moral of the story is: the passengers banded together, all walked fast/ran to the gate, and all arrived out of breath, upset, and frustrated. But we all made the connection and got to Orlando
Yesterday, my wife and I traveled to Orlando. The trip was an adventure. The set path had us flying out of our home airport at 9:40 and arriving 45 minutes later in Halifax. An approximately 7 hour layover there and then we were on the 2 hour flight to our second stop, in Philadelphia. A two hour layover there and we were off to our final destination of Orlando.
The flight out of our home airport was delayed approximately 2.5 hours, departing at about 12:15pm rather than the 9:40am flight time. Since we had the long layover at the next airport, that wasn't so much of an issue. However, there was no notice of it prior to our leaving the house, so we actually sat at the tiny little airport for that entire time.
In Halifax, US Airways announced the next flight was delayed by approximately 1:15. We learned later this was caused by the original plane having issues which caused them to order a replacement plane to take the flight, which they then had to wait the hour and a quarter to arrive, get the passengers on board, and off to Halifax. Since we had a 2 hour layover, we weren't overly concerned about this at first. It would be tight, especially since we already knew we were landing at the end of the F terminal and flying out of the end of the A terminal in Philadelphia. That's a long haul, but there is a shuttle, so we didn't think it would be an issue.
After pushing back from the gate, the bad news came: there was an electrical issue with the generator that supplies power to the AC unit and some of the rear electrical. It took them about 20 minutes to figure it out, fix it, and get us moving again. If the pilot could not "make up" time on the flight down, that left us with only 25 minutes to go from gate to gate in Philly. Serious issue now, as that was not enough time to cross the sprawling airport, even with the shuttle.
There were a total of eleven people on board that US Airways flight (including us) who all had to make the same absurdly tight connection in Philly to the Orlando flight. When asked about it, the best advice the US Airways personnel could give us was "You'll have to run."
And this is where I have an issue. The plane we were on had a radio. The ground personnel had radios. US Airways has computers that can track this sort of information. Why couldn't our flight crew radio ahead and say, "Look, we're running way late and we have 11 people who need to make this flight. Make sure the plane holds off departure for 10-20 minutes." Or, another tact could be, "We're running late and we have 11 people that need to make the Orlando flight. Can you have airport crew ready with carts to help them get across the airport (from gate F27 to A24)/get to the shuttle?" There are any number of ways in which radios and computers could be used to convey the message that 11 people need that flight, hold it and help them get there!
There were many things the US Airways (or any flight crew/airline) could do in these situations to be saviors and help their passengers have a better experience under trying times, yet in every situation like this I find myself, the usual response is to make it the passenger's problem. This is exemplified by the "You'll have to run" advice we were given. One look at their database of passengers would show them that the flight was delayed (their issue caused it), a further mechanical issue created another delay (again, their issue), and that eleven people on the manifest had to make the last flight out to Orlando in an extremely tight timeline. In order to avoid having the airline need to put us all up for a night in the hotel (the reason we would be missing the flight was mechanical, so their own rule says they have to put us up at their expense), the system should flag someone and issue an alert to hold the outbound flight. It is both cheaper for US Airways to hold the flight and makes them look all kinds of good doing so, which is a PR bonus for them.
As it is, we got off the plane, we hooked up with a woman in a pink sweater who knew what she was doing and where to go and also needed to make that flight. We stumbled on another woman who was an airline/airport employee who gave us some advice, and we managed -- out of breath and with literally no time left -- to make it across the entire airport and to the (new) gate our flight was out of. My wife ran ahead, determined to make them hold the gate open for me, as I limped my way along behind at as fast a walk as I could muster (was not having a good arthritis day and simply can't run like that any more).
One last caveat: the original information we were given, and confirmed by the fight attendant just before we landed, was that our gate was A20. However, the airport/airline had moved it to A24. However, when we got there, there was no notice or indication of this move (even though, according to one of the other passengers who had been there well before us, it had happened about 2 hours prior-- so our flight attendant should have known). We had to ask someone what happened to the flight and get directed to the new gate even farther down the concourse -- yet another delay which could have proven costly and made us miss our flight.
I am disappointed in the advice, reaction, and inability of US Airways as a company and the specific individuals with whom we had contact to use their heads, think not very far outside the box, and help the stressed and harried passengers by either getting us to our gate or calling ahead to keep the gate open a little longer. This disappointment stretches to all the airlines, none of whom seem able to take ownership of the responsibility they have to their customers. A small bit of effort on their end would create so much goodwill on the passengers' side that they may have loyal customers for a long time to come.
Moral of the story is: the passengers banded together, all walked fast/ran to the gate, and all arrived out of breath, upset, and frustrated. But we all made the connection and got to Orlando
February 28, 2011
Working Class Blues
I rarely discuss work on this blog. However, after the last two and a half weeks or so, I need to vent.
I've been working a project since last summer/fall. It started as a three-month contract that got extended a couple of times until, right now, I'm working through the end of April. And that is likely to get extended to the end of May or June. This is all great news for our bank account, even if we have to put up with the headache of figuring out taxes for two countries.
The issue came up not quite three weeks ago. A new content guru came back to the project and became my primary resource for editing the 250 page manual I was working on. She is a very good reviewer, overall, and knows the content quite well, which is good. However, she decided with only a few weeks left that she didn't like the manual's standard layout and changed it. I mentioned that this was a pretty significant scope change and asked about the due date. After some hemming and hawing, I learned that the 2/21 due date was not really the due date; the main PM on the project had a built-in "just in case" week and the real due date was 2/28. He wanted me to shoot for the 2/21 date as best I could, but could find it acceptable if I went over a day or two.
She then made more scope changes to the document after another week. I cried foul and mentioned that these scope changes were making it difficult for me to hit that deadline, and I was worrying about the 2/28 deadline. We have to hit that deadline, they said. Do the best you can.
And then, with only a few days left, they decided that I needed to change all of the pictures/graphics in the document to something more like the end-client's devices. I'm a technical writer, not a graphic designer or artist. I mentioned scope change for the third time and got the same Do the best you can response back.
I worked every day from 2/7 through 2/26, including weekends and overtime on week days. The only reason I didn't work on 2/26 was because I was waiting for edits that I thought would arrive and never did. During that time, my content adviser and editor took each weekend off, left early on a number of days, and generally treated our deadline like it didn't matter or wasn't a concern, even though I was constantly being told it was a drop-dead date. This included telling me that she would work this last weekend, but she only answered two emails and only sent me a partial review of the content, and then did not check her email or "finish" her work until the start of her work week. I put finishing into quotes because she just "didn't get to" one entire section and will get to it the next time she's in the office... which is tomorrow, a day AFTER the deadline.
What I dislike about this is that, at this point in the process, I can't do work without her edits. She's the gatekeeper of the knowledge. Yet the PM of the project was holding me to due dates and deadlines without considering his own people's processes and participation requirements. Nor did this PM tell his workers that they needed to work the weekend or overtime in order to help me get the project done (or as close as we could come).
During the entire time I've been working this contract, each person involved has taken at least one vacation. The content guru I'm working with has taken two and has continued to work her "normal" schedule regardless of due dates and pressing needs.
I live by the old adage "improper planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part." However, due to conflicting values and direction by the overall PM of the project, they managed to make an emergency on my part with their lackadaisical responses to my needs and to the due dates. Luckily, working much overtime and being a generally conscientious guy, I managed to hit the deadline, as best as I can with missing sections. The sections my content adviser didn't get to are simply being marked in red as "to be determined" for now and we're moving on.
And, for the remaining projects upcoming, I'm going to be less willing to put in a great deal of overtime if my coworkers treat the remaining deadlines in the same manner. If they don't care, why should I? (Okay, that's not true; everyone who knows me knows that I will still do my best to be professional and will still strive to make deadlines. But I'll be thinking it and will likely raise a bigger stink about it going forward.)
I've been working a project since last summer/fall. It started as a three-month contract that got extended a couple of times until, right now, I'm working through the end of April. And that is likely to get extended to the end of May or June. This is all great news for our bank account, even if we have to put up with the headache of figuring out taxes for two countries.
The issue came up not quite three weeks ago. A new content guru came back to the project and became my primary resource for editing the 250 page manual I was working on. She is a very good reviewer, overall, and knows the content quite well, which is good. However, she decided with only a few weeks left that she didn't like the manual's standard layout and changed it. I mentioned that this was a pretty significant scope change and asked about the due date. After some hemming and hawing, I learned that the 2/21 due date was not really the due date; the main PM on the project had a built-in "just in case" week and the real due date was 2/28. He wanted me to shoot for the 2/21 date as best I could, but could find it acceptable if I went over a day or two.
She then made more scope changes to the document after another week. I cried foul and mentioned that these scope changes were making it difficult for me to hit that deadline, and I was worrying about the 2/28 deadline. We have to hit that deadline, they said. Do the best you can.
And then, with only a few days left, they decided that I needed to change all of the pictures/graphics in the document to something more like the end-client's devices. I'm a technical writer, not a graphic designer or artist. I mentioned scope change for the third time and got the same Do the best you can response back.
I worked every day from 2/7 through 2/26, including weekends and overtime on week days. The only reason I didn't work on 2/26 was because I was waiting for edits that I thought would arrive and never did. During that time, my content adviser and editor took each weekend off, left early on a number of days, and generally treated our deadline like it didn't matter or wasn't a concern, even though I was constantly being told it was a drop-dead date. This included telling me that she would work this last weekend, but she only answered two emails and only sent me a partial review of the content, and then did not check her email or "finish" her work until the start of her work week. I put finishing into quotes because she just "didn't get to" one entire section and will get to it the next time she's in the office... which is tomorrow, a day AFTER the deadline.
What I dislike about this is that, at this point in the process, I can't do work without her edits. She's the gatekeeper of the knowledge. Yet the PM of the project was holding me to due dates and deadlines without considering his own people's processes and participation requirements. Nor did this PM tell his workers that they needed to work the weekend or overtime in order to help me get the project done (or as close as we could come).
During the entire time I've been working this contract, each person involved has taken at least one vacation. The content guru I'm working with has taken two and has continued to work her "normal" schedule regardless of due dates and pressing needs.
I live by the old adage "improper planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part." However, due to conflicting values and direction by the overall PM of the project, they managed to make an emergency on my part with their lackadaisical responses to my needs and to the due dates. Luckily, working much overtime and being a generally conscientious guy, I managed to hit the deadline, as best as I can with missing sections. The sections my content adviser didn't get to are simply being marked in red as "to be determined" for now and we're moving on.
And, for the remaining projects upcoming, I'm going to be less willing to put in a great deal of overtime if my coworkers treat the remaining deadlines in the same manner. If they don't care, why should I? (Okay, that's not true; everyone who knows me knows that I will still do my best to be professional and will still strive to make deadlines. But I'll be thinking it and will likely raise a bigger stink about it going forward.)
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