Posted in Culture, Politics, tagged boys will be boys, locker room talk, sexual assault on 18 Oct 2016| 5 Comments »
Locker room talk. Harmless braggadocio. Boys will be boys.
If you’re a hetero male like me, you might feel that we’re getting a bad rap, that we’re being slandered and libeled, being painted with a big stinking brush. We don’t talk that way. We don’t even think that way. OK, sure, we like looking at women and yes, we are guilty of crudely expressing our opinions about female anatomy, but that’s different. Isn’t it?
Is it? (more…)
Posted in Culture, tagged daily stress, empathy, handling stress, inner peace, modern life, quiet living, simple living on 22 Sep 2016| 1 Comment »
My world has become meaner, of late, and I’m guessing yours has, too.
Mean, in the sense of “harsh, spiteful, and cruel,” but also in the sense of “crude, lowly, or ignoble.”
Work, politics, society, and even some relationships have taken on a more callous, retributive aspect. People don’t want to listen — They don’t even want to care. — and it feels like the whole social contract has begun to unravel.
My world has indeed become more mean.
In response, I find that I have becoming meaner, as well. Patience has vanished. Reactions have intensified. Empathy has hit rock bottom.
And I hate it.
So I’m doing something about it.
I’m changing the only thing I can.
Me. (more…)
Posted in Culture, Writing, tagged Anne Trudek, common core, cursive, handwriting, keyboard, typing on 01 Sep 2016| Leave a Comment »
Several articles have crossed my desk recently about the removal of penmanship — specifically writing in cursive — from the curricula of public schools and the Death of Modern Civilization that will naturally follow.
Piffle.
Cursive is as relevant and useful today as is Secretary Hand (pictured right), and those who decry its elimination are merely holding on to their nostalgic memories, clinging to a past that is gone, never to be seen again.
In grammar school, the only failing grade I ever received was in penmanship (well, there was that D in “Comportment” … but let’s not open up that old wound). Despite years of toil, facility in cursive has remained beyond my capacity, and no amount of practice (or repetitive exercises handed out in punishment for my … creative alternatives) ever improved my skill. My cursive was (and is) a crabbed, uneven, slowly produced, literally painful, and for the most part illegible scrawl. Yet, I have lived my life comfortably without its advantages and, now that my parents are both dead, I almost never have to read anything written in cursive script. (more…)
Posted in Culture, Low Tech, tagged nostalgia, old phones, retro, telephone, vintage on 25 Aug 2016| 5 Comments »
I don’t know what got me thinking of this, but my fellow old farts will remember these things…
Ring me.
Get off the line!
Dial the number.
Hang up.
I wonder how puzzling these phrases are to younger folks? The phones of the mid-20th century were so different from what we have now, when having a “land line” is starting to be considered quaint. (more…)
Posted in Hi Tech, tagged game review, gamers, Gaming, hello games, NMS, no man's sky, playstation, ps4 on 23 Aug 2016| 2 Comments »
Because A.J. wanted a follow-up…
The Perception of an Object is distorted by the sum of the object’s anticipatory Hype and the engagement level of the observer’s Imagination.
The hype for No Man’s Sky was intense. As if three years of visionary promises and a truly groundbreaking approach weren’t enough, when Sony opened up its gargantuan wallet and bet its money on Hello Games — a tiny, 15+ person development company with only a cheesy little platformer app to its credit — all speculation was punched into warp-drive.
Usually, in such situations, I see the hype for what it is (i.e., marketing) and my Imagination compensates, essentially canceling out the effects of Hype. This way, when the game is released, it’s pretty much as I expected and disappointment levels are kept to a minimum.
In the case of No Man’s Sky, however, I made a tactical error. I figured that a small, independent company like Hello Games, run by a plucky band of earnest boys and girls from Surrey, would not yet be infected by the callous, avaricious cancer of corporate greed. I took them to be sincere lovers of games who were trying to be transparent about plans and features.
My bad. (more…)
Posted in Hi Tech, tagged game review, gamers, Gaming, hello games, NMS, no man's sky, playstation, ps4 on 10 Aug 2016| 2 Comments »
On Release Day, I spent a few hours playing No Man’s Sky.
It’s not perfect, but damn, it’s close. (more…)
Posted in Hi Tech, tagged Daymeeuhn, gamers, Gaming, hello games, no man's sky, playstation, ps4 on 08 Aug 2016| 5 Comments »
Tomorrow’s the day.
No Man’s Sky, the game that tipped the scales and convinced me to buy a PS4 console delivers tomorrow.
The hype for this game — in my little world, anyway — has been intense, and with good reason. It’s truly unlike any other game, both in construction and in scope. Nothing exists until you (or someone else) discovers it. Planets, environments, flora, fauna, it’s all built on the fly, procedurally, the moment you encounter it. Once a gamer has discovered it and uploads her findings to the “atlas,” it becomes permanent and available to all other gamers.
It’s been a long wait — more than a year, for me — but as usual, some spoonhead decided to spoil it for others.
Kurt R.A. Giambastiani 