Tis The Season…

…to be charitable.

Christmas is right around the corner, only a few weeks away! Time really flies. So, if you’re wondering what to get me for Christmas, look no further! I’ll tell you.

Child’s Play.

That’s all. Seriously! That’s it.

Child’s Play is a charity started by the guys from Penny Arcade. Not content with the bad rap that gamers tend to get, they set out to prove that not all gamers are bad. To that end, they have created a charity that has been growing every year. Money donated to Child’s Play is used to purchase games, toys, movies, and more for sick children located at hospitals in the US, Canada, and Europe. Christmas for these kids can be a bit light given the cost of medical care and the strain on their families.

Here, Gabe from Penny Arcade can explain it better:

If you are like me, every time you see an article like this one, where the author claims that video games are training our nations youth to kill you get angry. The media seems intent on perpetuating the myth that gamers are ticking time bombs just waiting to go off. I know for a fact that gamers are good people. I have had the opportunity on multiple occasions to meet hundreds of you at conventions all over the country. We are just regular people who happen to love video games. With that in mind we have put together a little something we like to call “Child’s Play”. Penny Arcade is working with the Seattle Children’s Hospital and Amazon.com to make this Christmas really special for a lot of very sick kids. With the help of the Children’s Hospital we have created an Amazon Wish List for the kids. It’s full of video games, movies and toys. Some of these kids are in pretty bad shape and just having a Game Boy would really raise their spirits.

Please take some time to browse the Wish List. Maybe all you can afford is a package of batteries or maybe you want to go in with your entire office and get the kids a GameCube. Every single contribution will help out the Children’s Hospital and the 190,000 kids they treat each year.

All the toys and games will be delivered to us and we will in turn deliver them to the Children’s Hospital. As soon as the toys start arriving I’ll set up a web site and post as many pictures as I can. We will be making a trip over to one of the hospitals next week and we’ll bring you back stories from some of the kids along with more pictures.

Penny Arcade has a readership of something like 4.5 million gamers across the world. We are arguably the largest community of gamers on the internet. The important word there being community. This isn’t IGN, this isn’t Gamespy, we are not a faceless corporation, you are not just a number tracked by a database and then relayed to hungry advertisers. You guys have proven yourselves to be a powerful force when stirred into action. Here is your opportunity to use that power to do some real good.

Let’s give these kids the Christmas that they deserve and let’s give the news papers a different kind of story to write about gamers.
-Gabe out

That post originally appeared back in 2003 and more information about the start of Child’s Play can be found on their About page.

So that’s it. That’s all I want. Show these kids that even in the darkest of times, there is a ray of hope. Give them the gift of fun and distraction. You’ll be happy you did.

 

“Educate to Innovate”

About 2 weeks ago, the President gave a speech about a new program called “Educate to Innovate.” The program aims to improve education in the categories of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics, or STEM. At the end of his speech, students from Oakton High School demonstrate their “Cougar Cannon,” a robot designed to scoop up and throw “moon rocks.” A video of the speech, and the demonstration, is below.

“As President, I believe that robotics can inspire young people to pursue science and engineering. And I also want to keep an eye on those robots in case they try anything.”


As a lover of technology, I find it wonderful that the president is moving in this direction. I wrote, not too long ago, about my disappointment with our current educational system. When I was in school, there were always extra subjects we could engage in to expand our knowledge. In fact, the high school I attended was set up similar to that of a college, requiring that a number of extra credits, beyond the core classes, be taken. Often these were foreign languages or some form of a shop class. Fortunately, for me, the school also offered classes in programming and electronics.

I was invited back to the school by my former electronics teacher a few years after I graduated. The electronics program had expanded somewhat and they were involved in a program called FIRST Robotics, developed by Dean Kamen. Unfortunately, I had moved out of the area, so my involvement was extremely limited, but I did enjoy working with the students. The FIRST program is an excellent way to engage competitiveness along with education. Adults get to assist the students with the building and programming of the robot, guiding them along the process. Some of the design work was simply outstanding, and solutions to problems were truly intuitive.

One of the first “Educate to Innovate” projects is called “National Lab Day.” National Lab Day is a program designed to bring students, educators, and volunteers together to learn and have fun. Local communities, called “hubs,” are encouraged to meet regularly throughout the year. Each year, communities will gather to show off what they have learned and created. Labs range from computer science to biology, geology to physics, and more. In short, this sounds like an exciting project, one that I have signed up for as a volunteer.

I’m excited to see education become a priority once again. Seeing what my children learn in school is very disappointing at times. Sure, they’re younger and I know that basic skills are necessary, but it seems they are learning at a much slower pace than when I was in school. I don’t want to see them struggle later in life because they didn’t get the education they need and deserve. I encourage you to help out where you can, volunteer for National Lab Day, or find another educational program you can participate in. Never stop learning!

 

Gaming Legend

I ran across an article on Gamasutra a few months ago, and I’ve had it in my list of things to write about since then. I decided to finally get to writing about it today.

Scott Miller is the founder of Apogee Software. Apogee, and it’s sister-company, 3D Realms, are makers of some of the greatest games I’ve played. I grew up with these guys!

If we travel back a few years, back to the BBS days, there was a rather well-known BBS called Software Creations. I fondly remember dialing in weekly to check on the latest Apogee releases. Of course, I also remember, less fondly, getting in a helluva lot of trouble for running up the phone bill too. But, in the end, I think it was worth it. Apogee made some of the best games of that time and being the first on the virtual block with their latest creation was stuff of legend.

But Apogee was more than just a game company. They helped spawn a PC gaming revolution. Before Apogee, game makers either sold their games commercially, or released them as shareware, hoping users who downloaded their games would send them a few bucks. Commercial games relied solely on marketing and flashy ads while shareware authors relied solely on faith.

Apogee can be credited with bringing shareware to the masses and kickstarting the PC gaming revolution. They broke their games into multiple parts and released the first part for free, radically changing the well-established shareware model. This served as a fully-functional demo, enough to get you hooked, and then sold the rest of the game as a commercial product. And so the episodic model was born. They were also responsible for helping kickstart one of the most well-known game development companies, id Software.

Apogee started in 1986 with ASCII-based games such as Beyond the Titanic and the Kroz series. From there they moved into 2D CGA/EGA games such as Crystal Caves, Bio Menace, and, Duke Nukem, which would go on to become one of their most popular properties. Shortly after Apogee started doing business as 3D Realms in 1996, they released Duke Nukem 3D, arguably their greatest hit.

In the 20+ year history of Apogee and 3D Realms, they have released in excess of 70+ games. Unfortunately, most of these releases were from before Apogee entered the 3D age and formed 3D Realms, but then, most publishers have slowed output considerably since then due to the big budget games they create. More recently, 3D Realms has been working with external development teams.

3D Realm announced in May that it will be closing its doors, though they have since made announcements regarding an overhaul of their online store, as well as the release of a Prey-based iPhone game. Both of these announcements came roughly 1 month after the announcement of their imminent closing. According to Scott Miller, however, only the internal development team was released and 3D Realms will continue to do business. Miller claims there are still several titles in development by external teams.

Even today, Apogee continues to move in new directions. Scott Miller helped form a new game company, the Radar Group, which aims to take new ideas and form them into marketable properties for games, television, and movies. The Radar Group aims to take gaming into a whole new direction.

The Apogee name has been licensed to a new group of developers who aim to revive the label. According to Scott Miller, the new Apogee group is working on a Duke Nukem Trilogy and an up-to-date version of Rise of the Triad. RotT was originally intended as a Wolfenstein 3D sequel until ID Software pulled the plug.

While most of the gaming world has moved on to bigger titles, and while Apogee’s role seems to have diminished somewhat, it’s good to remember where it all started. Apogee helped make PC gaming what it is today. And who knows, perhaps they have something else up their sleeve.

 

Reign of the Fallen

Fan videos tend to be low-budget and that usually shows through in the end product. Don’t get me wrong, there are some incredible fan-made creations out there. Every once in a while, a fan-film comes along that just fills you with awe. This is one of those films.

Star Wars – Reign of the Fallen from Darth Anonymous on Vimeo.

Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be an HD version available, so you’ll have to deal with Vimeo scaling it for you, or just watch the smaller version. Thanks to John Simpson (he with the famous beard), I stand corrected. You can get an HD version of the video, and even a DVD, from their official site. Best part is, it’s all free. Though, it doesn’t hurt to donate if you’d like to see more from these guys.

There’s also an article about the shooting of this film. Interestingly enough, this was shot in Central New Jersey, though you’d never tell from the visuals.

 

Education, then and now…

When I was going through grade school, we learned how to subtract by borrowing. We learned how to add by counting. It was ok to use your fingers to count when we started, and I still use them occasionally today.

Flash forward a few years and it seems like schools are teaching a whole new language. Is this the math I learned? Drawing counters? What makes this easier? Sure, I get that most people learn how to round to ten first before adding, and it definitely makes things easier and faster, but trying to teach that right from the get-go?

If I, someone who knows and excels in math, have trouble understanding these lessons, then how do the kids handle it? These seem to be such convoluted methods to get to the same answer! Take, for instance, this math paper from a Boing Boing employee’s daughter. Sure, I understand what they’re trying to do here, and it’s a trick we all learn. But starting out with this? Why?

My own children bring home math papers that use the oddest methods for adding and subtracting. My son brought home a math paper about subtraction and had trouble completing it. I tried to explain borrowing to him and he looked at me like I had two heads. Apparently borrowing is no longer taught, instead they use regrouping. They draw pictures to get the answer rather than using mathematics.

Yeah, yeah. In the end, they do subtract, but why the need to draw pictures? Do we not have enough fingers? Can we not use them to figure out every subtraction problem? Regrouping is basically borrowing, but the concept seems so much more convoluted and difficult to explain.

To make matters worse, I tried to explain why he needed to borrow/regroup. “You see, the top number is smaller than the bottom number, so if you subtract them, you’ll get a negative number.” He floored me by asking what a negative number was. Seriously? I tried explaining the number line and while he understood, he explained that the teacher never taught such things.

I fear for our youth’s future. These are simple concepts. What happens when they get to the difficult stuff? Will they start relying on calculators and computers to multiply and divide because it’s “difficult” and they’d have to draw really big pictures?

What is our education system coming to?

 

Live and Learn

As most of us know, making changes in a live environment is often something done with extreme care. In fact, best practices dictate that such changes should be made during a maintenance window wherever possible. Of course, there are often situations where changes are made outside of the aforementioned maintenance windows, though these are generally emergency situations in which services have failed or severe problems are being experienced.

Being human, though, there are also times when we make rash decisions, believing that our modifications are so insignificant that they can’t possibly cause problems. It’s times like this that the big red caution light should go off in our heads. Of course, we often ignore that light and move forward with our plan, certain that nothing will go wrong and that we’ll come out the other side as a hero. We’ll be the person who tweaked the service and made it run even smoother.

I was that person today. However, as I have a very good friend named Murphy, my insignificant change caused a wonderful chain reaction of events ending in a major service interruption. Go me.

In the end, we resolved the problem and life continues on. Thankfully I work with people who are willing to forgive the occasional mistake, provided it’s a learning experience and doesn’t happen again.

The point of all of this is to show that even the smallest changes, no matter how insignificant, can result in catastrophic failure. Every change should be evaluated, tested, and scheduled for deployment whenever possible. And when you make that inevitable mistake, learn from it. We’re all human and will, at one time or another, view ourselves as invincible. We’re not. We make mistakes, we screw things up.

So, learn from my mistake, go make your own, learn and move on. As they say, Live and Learn.

 

Moral Outrage

I just caught this story over on slashdot. The details are quite a bit fuzzy here, but the general premise is that the new Modern Warfare 2 game has scenes of terrorism. This is a bit more than just a cut scene, though, as it appears the player is actively participating in the action. Keep in mind, though, that this game is, as yet, unreleased. There is no real context here, so we don’t know why the player is participating in these acts. [Update] As I’m writing this, there have been some updates. Apparently Activision UK has authenticated the footage, claiming it’s an optional scenario.

Video footage is being taken down very rapidly by Activision, the publisher, so good luck finding live footage. At the time of writing, this site does have some rather fuzzy video.

The outrage is obviously centered around the terrorism portrayed in the video. From what I’ve seen, it looks like the player is participating in a terroristic act, that of killing civilians in an airport. The video shows mass carnage with no remorse, shooting people in the back, shooting civilians as they flee or attempt to help others, and tossing grenades into masses of people. Here is a still shot from the video:

Let’s keep in mind, however, that we’re talking about a mature rated game. This is NOT a game for children. But people are “outraged” anyway. And I have to ask, why? Let’s think about this for a bit. First, there have been claims throughout the years that games de-sensitize you from violence. That games are “murder simulators,” and other such insanity. Yet, after this footage was leaked, we hear outrage from gamers about the improper nature of it and how it makes some people feel uncomfortable. They wonder if Infinity Ward, the creators, are going to far.

I don’t see a problem here, though. This is a game designed to be as realistic as possible. And guess what, people die in real life. There are terrorist acts that actually involve real terrorists. So viewing the action through the guise of a terrorist is a perfectly valid way to tell a story. They do it in books, and they do it in movies. This just ups the interactivity a bit more. And, if it makes the player feel uncomfortable in the process, then it’s doing a damn good job, isn’t it. How about we make the player think a bit. Let’s show them how things really are. Not everything is a fantasy game, we can use games as a teaching tool too. Learning how the terrorists see things, what choices they make and how quickly they sometimes make them is important to understanding them.

I applaud Infinity Ward for their choices. From what I’ve read, it sounds like they’re doing it in a very responsible nature. I may pick this game up just to “speak with my wallet” as it were. Just to bring more innovation and daring to the industry. We need something new, something exciting, and yes, something that upsets our oh-so-delicate sensibilities. Bravo.

Pink!

Yup. Pink. I wrote about this last year. Unfortunately, it looks like the pinkforoctober.com site has vanished, but fear not! There’s National Breast Cancer Awareness Month!

The long and short is this. Breast cancer is a problem. While some women do die from breast cancer, even survivors can suffer for the rest of their lives. Support breast cancer research. In fact, support cancer research in general. If we all work together we can enjoy longer lives.