Reviews: A study of the phenomena of video games as explained by graphs

Good afternoon!

I have decided that my blog will go in a new course. I have always enjoyed writing, and have recently rediscovered my passion for video games. So, for a limited time (perhaps longer if people enjoy it), I will be providing my own video game reviews. I'm not going to play every video game released, nor am I going to play most games released. I will play the ones that have good marketing campaigns. I'll play the ones we've heard about through the mass media, been waiting for, and want to know about.

And I'll review them. But unlike other review sites out there that offer menial pay to those dedicated writers that bring us reams of delicious information (God bless you), it's just going to be the high points of these games accompanied by graphs to better illustrate and support my opinion. After all, who would argue with such science?

Only young earth creationists, and you're not welcome here anyway!

So without further ado, I bring you my first review: BIOSHOCK: The World of Tomorrow, Yesterday!

A thought on the proletariat

Toiling with your hands. Creating. Crafting. Thinking.

These are things that inspire me. Things that I enjoy.

Fulfilling a need. Making money. Quantity over quality.

These are not things that I enjoy.

I find that I do far more of the latter list in my current occupation, and I find that I am hardly inspired to do great things by the thought that I might make $100 more this month than last. I find that my only inspiration is aspiration... that I want to do more with my life, and that to do more with my life I must be successful in this position. That would buy me a chance at a higher pay grade, a different position, a new life.

Those of you who read this blog tend to know me, for those of you that do not.. I hope to show you the underlying frustrations of my life as it currently stands.

My job is inconsequential. I am not paid to be unique, or even to create things requiring skill. I am paid to do a LOT of work, not do quality work. Not solve problems, or come up with ideas. I am paid to work, and work hard.

For some people, my coworkers, this is enough. Many of them are floundering with thoughts of where their life will take them, and many of them spent their time in college preparing for a business world job. I did not.

I studied a specific set of knowledge which prepared me for a specific job that I discovered I did not want to do. I discovered an alternative job that I could do, but when it was offered to me I turned it down due to the fact that it fulfilled my desire to be creative and thought-provoking... but it did not quench my thirst for advancement. There was nowhere to go to after working a few years at that job, there was no room for advancement if I succeeded, and much internal strife at the time I would be joining.

So I took the job I currently have. Much more organized, much steadier and defined.. but no room for creativity either. It fulfilled my thirst for a change (I moved.) and my thirst for advancement (given time and success.. movement up is inevitable). It also provided a sizable paycheck, which is important when living on your own.

However... Now I am reevaluating my desires, as recent conversations have trended towards me defending my job for all the wrong reasons. I find after some thought, that the bottom line is that I will not be good at my job. I cannot produce the quantity they want because I am not well-suited for the position. My skills DO lay in interacting with people of all types, but my interactions are extremely shallow in this position. Thus, they buy me no foothold... My skills lie in research and problem-solving, in logic and debate, yet these skills are things I cannot put to use. When I do, I find that I am taking far too long to do the tasks I should be doing quickly and without thought. In fact, I am most successful when least motivated and least thought-provoking.

I have determined that this must stop. I know it cannot stop immediately, I know that this will take discussion with close friends and an open mind... but now I know far more than I did previously, and now I can have honest discussions without reservation or defense. I know a lot of very intelligent people, and I should consider their words and ideas as much as I consider mine.

To those of you who read this, know that today I am beginning preparations for another major change. An unknown one. I have a direction, but I am open to all suggestions, so long as they are honest. All forms of contact are open to discussion, and all discussion I hope to have is with those of you who read this.

I have learned so much since college. I have grown so much. It is time to find something worth my continued growth. Let's rock this thing.

The Follies of Man

My friends, my great experiment has finally ended.

What began as the fever dream of a grizzled madman has come full circle and given me the knowledge necessary to advance the field of science.

I now know the answer to that question I sought to answer, and that answer is: No.

You see, I had originally endeavored to spice up my sleep schedule, as detailed below. However... nature bested me. Around the 3rd day in to the experiment, where I was slated to sleep on the carpeted floor... my air conditioning broke down. Seeing as how it was exceedingly hot in the apartment, I had to rearrange my sleeping methodology in order to better facilitate heat exchange.

Sadly, my experiment never continued. I lost hope for a suitable conclusion.

So, ladies and gentlemen... I have reached the conclusion that we are never to know the answer to that great question of sleep comfort.

I appreciate your time.

Revelations and Tribulations of Man

Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I would like to present to you a series of related thoughts.

After giving the evidence due consideration and thought, I have determined a number of remarkable things all revolving around one key event. If you shall bear with me for but a moment, I will attempt to enlighten you in as brief a time as I can.

A man is many things to many people. Friend, companion, worker, mentor, fossilized skeleton discovered 10,000 years from now. And to all of these roles he assigns different personas based upon his experiences and thoughts. However, all of these things are still that man.

Ladies and gentlemen, they are still that man.

And that man, who may be a pillar of society in one scenario, may indeed have failings in other area which he might downplay. How he appears to the public in general is a result of decisions he makes. While many of these decisions are made away from the home, many can be linked in many ways to decisions made at home. Some of you might say: But Sean, WHY must we care about these decisions.

Because, dear friends and bliggosphere-goers. Because it is in these decisions that we are truly created. And because, dear potatoes... It is because of this singular reasoning I have decided to start sleeping not upon the bed, that creation designed singularly for rest (and perhaps reading or eating of a thing), but instead upon a simple aged couch.

Yes, friends. A couch. That which is many times a useless piece of furniture eschewed in favor of the popular loveseat or "easy" chair, does indeed make a comfortable resting place. As I look at it now, with pillow and blanket salvaged from my bed, it does look comfortable. And I tell you this: I do sleep well upon that couch.

Thus I have a new series of blugg entries in the making.. entitled the Revelations and Tribulations of Man. I plan on sleeping on a variety of surfaces over the coming weeks, and determining (for the furthering of the field of science) which of these is conducive to a good night's rest. Night one and two shall be on the aforementioned couch. This Wednesday I shall move to the smaller loveseat. Should I prove amenable to the rest... I shall spend a second night.

Finally, these shall be compared to a third area. The floor. This should take some preparation, as the floor is currently not the most desirable of substances to sleep on, and every effort will be made to eliminate confounding variables.

But Professor! Where is the CONTROL?!

I'm glad you asked, Jimmy. Beginning next Monday, I shall return to sleeping in my bed, and thus will establish a control to compare against.

Don't cry, it's just Net Neutrality

It was relatively early in the morning, and I wished to read a few things on Digg. I fired up the old internet machine and started tooling around the tubes, looking for interesting tidbits... and that's when it hit me. A Digg post about the FTC abandoning Net Neutrality, leaving it up to the private sector to figure out. That's a terrible idea. But out of this terrible idea came a question that makes my heart sink:

What about the lolcats?

I worry for the future of the lolcats, and the rest of their lolfriends, with all of this Net Neutrality blahblah going on. Is it really their fault for existing on a server and generating so much traffic and hysteria? No, it's not. And they will suffer for it, in the end.

But before I digress too far, I want to explain lolcats. Basically, if you don't know what lolcats is, stop reading this blog. I don't care about you, in this venue. I'm not here to entertain or inform you. I am here to make light of a completely serious subject, FAR too soon. And anyway, if you're reading this you probably know a lolcat or two.

I believe that lolcats is truly a reflection of our society as a whole. We demonstrate incredible stupidity in what we say, and although we may indeed be sincere... it is that lack of an efficient and intelligent form of communication that drove us to the intarweb anyway. We sought to share ideas more efficiently between highly intelligent researchers, and then eventually this evolved into sharing ideas on a massive scale. Which leads to blogs, and wikipedias, and lolcats. In blogs, one person is sharing his or her opinion on any number of subjects where he or she may not be an expert. It doesn't really matter, because opinions are information and valid regardless of whether they be on a subject such as dark matter or the latest episode of House.

In wikis, the idea is different. Use the collective knowledge of the universe to create a depository of ALL knowledge, using self-checking as a control. Don't Panic on the cover, of course.

Lolcats, however, is the purest form of computer usage and the internet. It is a complete waste of space, a complete waste of time, and can be created by anyone with access to a photo editor and a cat. Or a picture of a cat. Hell, my coworkers have access to photoshop at work and have created lolcats, and they don't even know what Net Neutrality is. And lolcats have been created referencing everything from cheeseburgers to aliens. A cross-section of American pop-culture. Easily created by even the most simple of computer users.

THUS, when lolcats are lost due to a lack of net neutrality... we have lost the internet wars.

f1rs7 p0st!!1eleven

I've decided that I need to have a blag again.

I used to have one back in the day on Livejournal (no, I will not link to it), but it wasn't a very interesting thing. Mostly, it was just me whining about this and that and every once in awhile there was an interesting tidbit or whatnot.

HOWEVER.

This will be different. Under the guise of PROFESSOR SCIENCE, I shall share interesting tidbits ALL the time.

And that's about all I've got for the standard first blog post. I'm not going to dive into the standard Hi I'm and I'm going to post about .

Instead, I'll just dive into it.

I found this on Digg today.

It disturbs me.

And will be the complete subject of a further post... eventually. Welcome to the sceince hole.