A lot of people have been asking about why they’d put the boring stuff in Heavy Rain. I think the goal is simply to lower the Emotional Baseline: most games are all about the shooting (or the action of some kind). Now there might be some more subtlety in the storyline, but it’s usually told through cinematics or non-interactive means, so every time the player does have the controller in hand, he’s always right there in the middle of the action, killing dozens, business as usual. By resetting the Emotional Baseline to a lower (mundane) level, the developers made it so that when something out of the ordinary happens, it does feel like something out of the ordinary to the player.

Or at least I think. Can somebody get me a PS3 over here ?!

It’s actually done only every single time in movies: rare are the ones that start with action right off the bat; it always begins with the hero living his ordinary, everyday life, right before the terrorists/aliens/bad guys show up.

I had an interesting conversation the other day: my interlocutor was the kind of person who barely, barely knows the difference between an internet connection and an internet browser, and who seemed content with it. Fair enough. The guy only had one email address (the one his ISP set up), which, he told me, he couldn’t even use because of all the spam.

A second went by as I tried to process the thought. I blinked. Spam? Those things our ancestors used to fight with bare hands? But I thought they were extinct!

And that’s the beauty of virtual worlds; the world we see is the one we choose to make. Remember the annoying web pages of yore, the ones that tried to hypnotize you with a sea of  ridiculous animated GIFs? Well, they’re probably still out there. The difference is that no one sees them anymore, because we collectively (yet unconsciously) decided we didn’t want to suffer their sight anymore; they got buried by the magic of Google’s PageRank.

If Internet was a physical world, our cities would be build on top of heaps of crap. Thank God it isn’t.

Not so long ago, somebody I know was telling me how he had never used Wikipedia. His argument was that it wasn’t to be trusted:

“I heard that when a malicious change is made, it only takes a couple of minutes to fix it; but if someone changes Napoléon’s D.O.B., the person responsible for finding out which is which doesn’t necessarily know the right answer.”

It used to be, we dreamt of a monolithic computer that would know all (hello, Multivac); you’d walk up to it, and ask a question either directly or through a punched card (depending on the decade you were in). And the computer would know the answer, the way you know how to conjugate verbs or an academic knows what Napoléon’s dates are: by referring to an academic source of information. You can look around all you want nowadays, you won’t find such a thing. We do, however, have a system that gives the same result, except through very different means: by simply indexing the whole world, we have a statistical source of information.

As an example, we’ve tried for years (decades) to teach word processors to correct our mistakes: typos, orthographic mistakes, and grammar errors. A 12-year old could do it. And yet a computer still can’t, not really (admittedly, a lot of progress has been made, but programmers still took decades to achieve this).

Now on the other hand, if you simply google “napoleon 1769 1821″, without a doubt (and without even clicking on any result), you know you have the right, official, 100% certified dates for Napoleon. As another example, let’s say you’re not sure whether “unconstitutional” or “inconstitutional” is the proper spelling; just type in both, and see for yourself, again, without accessing any specific website other than Google.

Does Google know what Napoléon’s dates are? Does it have any clue as to the proper orthography of the word  “unconstitutional”? Has it been taught any grammar rules? Absolutely not. And yet you can have certainty through 2 indicators: the number of results, and the type of results – are the top links leading to official, commercial or academic websites?

The interest of this, of course, is that a single, authoritative source of information can be mistaken, voluntarily corrupted, involuntarily biased, unavailable, etc, while a statistical source – a mass of information stored all over the place – is a distributed, incorruptible source of information.

For an in-depth explanation, there’s an entire chapter in The Long Tail by Chris Anderson (some of it can be read here, in case you’re too lazy and/or cheap to by the book).

Moving on as I’m catching up with everything I didn’t have the time to watch, I finally sat through the whole first season of Dollhouse. The first time I tried, I couldn’t get passed the first episode, steered away by a nasty combination of not-so-stellar acting, and a non-compelling story. Now that I have, I’m forced to get down to the most basic questions.

What’s the series’ synopsis again? There are dolls into which you can blow your darkest, most secret fantasies.

What kind of theme does that bring about? Identity. The separation of mind and body. What if the same mind ended in two different bodies? What if someone ran away with an active to try and live a second life? What would a long-term engagement look like?

There are enough stories to tell about our weaknesses and who we are to fill a couple of seasons right there. And yet the first 7 episodes are nothing but action tales of super-duper agents – hostage negotiator, kung-fu expert, high-end thief, etc; this looks like a string of unrelated episodes of The Pretender. You could strip the whole “dollhouse” concept out of the first 7 episodes and still retain 90% of the storyline; that’s how intricated the themes are to the episode writing.

I can’t believe the writers failed to identify the question of Identity as the main theme of the series. So why is it that the only way they found to express identity crisis was through a whole lot of action, global conspiracy or even apocalypse (in the feeble “Epitaph One” episode)?

That’s exactly what happened with True Blood, as well: supposedly a vampire story, it’s like the writers had so little to say about vampires and their society, they had to throw in a psychic protagonist and what? Shape-shifters? Damn. Whether it’s about designing a product, a service or writing stories, if you fail to identify what you’re about, you’re guaranteed to end up into a wall.

So I finally watched Hancock.

Following my newfound enthusiasm for alternate superheroes, I came around and watched it (among other things). The verdict is that it was kinda nice for the first two thirds, but obviously went downhill on the last part. So, what would I have done different?

I remember this pivotal scene where Hancock tries to kiss Mary Embrey (the wife of the PR consultant that helped him); she steps away from him, triggering a dispute of epic proportion. But why does she rebuff him? Because they were married and their kind lives and dies in pair? Please, no. Because she’s his mother? Now, that would work. That’s actually what I expected (wanted), partly because I read disgust and distance more than fear in Charlize Theron’s performance.

Now, why is that better? a) because it’s less conventional: Hollywood has trained us to see a couple in every on-screen pair of attractive actors. b) because it makes just as much sense, if not more: The whole ‘we die when we’re together’ bit doesn’t make much sense, and smells horribly like an artificial artifact, solely designed to bring Hancock into exile. Hancock could just leave because he can’t stand being in love with his mother (and I wouldn’t blame him). Of course, we’d need to rewrite their interaction a bit to squeeze more passion out of Hancock, but it would (additionally) shine some light on the predicament of people living that long.

Now, what is the downside of having Hancock and Mary as a mother and son instead of a husband and wife? The only impact I see is that we’ll miss the explanation of their kind’s disappearance. Except I honestly don’t care, at least not in a first chapter. As a bonus, their separation would be more of a human-rooted reaction, instead of being a non-sense response to an alien condition the viewer cannot empathize with.

Finally, and because I love me some drama, I’d also alter the following (although it’s purely a matter of personal taste):

• What are the odds that Ray’s wife just so happens to be related to Hancock? That kind of coincidence is fine for a comedy, but doesn’t work well in a drama. So Mary Embrey probably would have initiated this, maybe simply because she missed her son.

• Ray’s public relation career makes him a prime candidate for some shady intentions. He’d have to have some ulterior motives, once he realizes he can manipulate Hancock. This would generate conflicts with his wife Mary further down the road.

• Finally, I’m missing a couple of scenes showing the reaction of the LA/NYC population following Hancock’s departure/arrival at the end of the movie. A superhero, even a controversial one like Hancock, leaving a city for another, well, that really must create some ruckus, one way or another. Hell, he’s the only official superhero!

Oh, and because some coincidences are just too hard to swallow, I really can’t believe that the fight between Hancock and Mary leads them right below her unsuspecting husband’s window; let’s just have him discover the truth via the news, okay? He wouldn’t be the first celebrity spouse to get the surprise, after all.

Anyway, I think this version of Hancock would have been better (meaning I would have liked it more), but I can only admit that a drunkard superhero was a damn good idea in the first place.

Following the settlement of an absurd lawsuit against them (filled by their production company for failing to deliver a 3rd album on time), 30 Seconds to Mars probably decided that it was good time to take matters  into their own hands. Heavily community-oriented from the get-go with their “Echelon” fanbase, the band pulled out all the stops for their 3rd album “This is War”: right along with Techdirt/Floor64′s motto “Connect with fans”, 30STM organized “The Summit”, a gathering of fans in the LA area, where recordings were made for some tracks on their upcoming album. Several summits were subsequently organized throughout the world (although the band couldn’t attend).

Far from stopping here, 30 Seconds to Mars announced “The Ride”:

This Sunday night, October 11th and Monday night, October 12th we will be filming a one of a kind night time mass bicycle ride through the streets of Los Angeles as part of the short film for Thirty Seconds to Mars’ new single “KINGS + QUEENS”.

We would love to invite you to join us for The Ride.

Its a one of a kind adventure and we will be shutting down streets, tunnels, bridges, Santa Monica Pier and even Hollywood Blvd.

[...]

If you’ve never experienced a night ride with hundreds of people it is sure to be a night you will not soon forget!

Let’s take back the city for a night, or two.

That’s right. The band will close some of the most popular avenues and places in LA, delivering a unique experience to their fans. Just wish they’d wait for next year, so I could have joined.

Funny how some companies apply the proverb “under promise, over deliver” completely backward.

Sales people make dubious promises to clients about some wonderfull technology that doesn’t exist. R&D has to step up, but under impossible constraints and schedule. The clients are not happy with what they see.

And everyone ends up really bummed.

Quick! Let’s start the cycle again!

Wow, long time without a post! I need to get more serious about posting frequency.

So here I am, back from a road trip across California, with yet another example of dusty business models that make you want to shake your head. In a little more than two weeks, I’ve seen more than a dozen hotels, hostels and motels. In each and everyone of them, my friend Steven tried to access the Internet through WiFi, and,  finding myself without anything better to do at those times, I started noticing the following trend: Full fledged hotels want to make you pay for WiFi access, while youth hostels and model don’t. Without any kind of insider information, I can only guess how this came:

When the new and expensive wireless technology became available, large hotels were the only/first ones able to afford it. Smelling the possibility of adding value to their customers’ experience, they proposed a service that clients liked and were glad to pay for.

Fast forward for couple of years to a world were wireless Internet technology is much more affordable. Smaller businesses (motels, youth hostels), in an effort to stand out, decided to offer the very same service, except for free. Now that it cost almost nothing, it wouldn’t impede their margin much, and would make for a nice gesture for their clients; after all, nobody likes to stay away from news and mail, nowadays. And sitting all the way across the ring are the hotels, used to take that money from their customers, who still don’t see why it would ever change.

Too bad for them of course, as they are now comparatively under-serving their customers. All of this just because they were busy looking the other way (voluntarily or otherwise) while free internet access became the norm.

Of course not. But that’s what lobbyists and lawmakers around the world are trying to shove down our throats with blind propaganda and obsolete moves.

Question: at a time when music was only performed by live bands, what kind of reception do you think phonographs received? “People are going to play the same music over and over! We live musician always improvise a little bit and will be out of business! It’s going to kill music!” It didn’t.

Fast forward to the invention of the radio. I’m sure the advent of a box that could broadcast music all over the world for no additional cost and without the intervention of an artist generated an outcry. And when audio cassettes came up, the industry whined that it helped hordes of shameless pirates record music, killing it as a result. It didn’t.

It’s time people learned not to listen to those alarmist cry babies. Of course they aren’t going to cheer the arrival of this (r)evolution: during a transition, only the smartest from the “before” will manage to make a buck in the “after”. Just remember that it doesn’t matter: by using their reasoning (change = bad), we wouldn’t have what we have – and love.

Music will always be alive and well; so will be the musicians. The people in the middle, peddling the stuff at a steep price, will have to adapt or disappear – it’s the golden rule of both evolution and business.

Wow, long time since I posted here! It’s also been a long time since I’ve talked about video games. Now is as good a time as ever to comment on FEAR 2. After all, I won’t finish the game anyway, so, let’s see.

I feel robbed. Last time it happened was when I bought Deus Ex 2. In the end, the story sort of made up to the dumbed up gameplay, and I manage to enjoy the game (like, 3 times). No such luck this time.

Hardcore fan of the first FEAR installment – that I wouldn’t hesitate to dub the best FPS I’ve ever played – I was expecting the same brutal gunfights, ruthless opponents and nerve-screeching downtimes from the sequel. If I was to only buy one game this year, then FEAR 2 it would be. Imagine my surprise when I discovered that the FEAR formula had fell into the same grinder the Deus Ex franchise had. If by ‘fell’, I mean ‘intentionally dumped’.

From the horrible controls, I can only take away that maybe connecting a mouse where there was a gamepad is not enough to make it a PC game. You end up walking too slow, turning around too fast, disoriented and bumping into objects (including a mural tableau that prevented me  from moving along its supporting wall). Who needs virtual reality when FEAR 2 feels so close to the real deal (being drunk)?

The interface is also exactly what you’d expect on a console game: the gigantic icons reminding you what key/button to press to perform an action, just in case all players have Alzheimer’s. The savegame system is identical to the one in Gears of War, and I remember making a mental note of how appropriate it was in Gears, so that must be a good point, right? Nope. Because you and me don’t don’t play on console the same way we play on PC. When we play Gears, we just blast through levels, while FPS PC gamers tend to want to be ‘stylish’ when playing: I personally want to look like a ballet dancer with an assault rifle. True story. I want my moves and kills to be efficient. Oh, and flashing a huge text in my face to tell me a door is locked before I even tried to open it isn’t helping me out, it’s just pulling me out of immersion.

Of course, all of this could have been prevented by Monolith pretty quickly/easily. To add insult to injury, this wasn’t even fixed in the first patch. Nor the second. Or the third. Historical fan bases don’t take to kindly to being ignored.

The final blow was delivered to me somewhere mid-campaign (I think): as I was quickly going through the game, fairly annoyed, but trying to find out more about the story, I got stuck at the I’m-a-console-game-so-here’s-a-mandatory-quicktime-event face-off. I went back and forth a couple of times during a hand-to-hand combat session that made me want to pull out my teeth. And gave up. Because it’s just NOT what I had payed for.

I feel relief, however, to have uncovered the truth about Alma’s screaming, crying and general tearing people in half: it is my understanding that in events smacked in between both installments, Alma discovered that she’s been adopted and that, not only was her adoptive father a bastard sick enough to induce his 8-year old daughter into labor for simple means of experimentation, but that her real progenitors were of an even worst kind: the kind that would steal her soul and trap it into a console Hell, where her distress will be mocked over and over again through eternity. Everyone will agree that it’s a pretty sucky way to start in life. Nothing short of burning the flesh off of such people’s bones would be considered a fair retribution.