Evony, the MMO of highest quality

As one may know, sex and negative publicity attract attention. Knowing these important basic facts, the good people behind Evony, a browser-based MMO, decided to heavily invest into both aspects to promote their lovechild.

I'm not quite sure, but I have a nagging feeling that they got carried away too much at some point.

Exhibit A:



I think I don't really need to explain the UNNOTICEABLE part of this picture. I should, however, point out that the game has nothing to do with it. Perhaps it's just so bad and pathetic, though, that one might need to play it UNNOTICEABLY.

Exhibit B:



Yes, now we're getting there. This game is a shower simulator! And the graphics, they are so photo-realistic!

Exhibit 3:



Exhibit 3 comes complete with two exhibits, however, unlike Exhibit 2, the lady hasn't played the Shower Simulator Kingdom yet. But when she does, she plays secretly!

Maturity in Bioware's Dragon Age

According to an interview with one of Dragon Age designers, 

Making a decision early, deciding to make a mature game, to target an older audience, then knowing that all the way through... you play and it's like, "that's really challenging. I wasn't expecting that kind of motivation for these characters". That mixes up with, "I wasn't expecting to have that much sex". It goes into the same space. It works as one cohesive unit. It's kind of like having a blue period.

I wasn't expecting to have so much tripe. This is really challenging, I didn't expect Bioware's kind of motivation to let them sink this low.

"I wasn't expecting to have so much sex". Heh. Maturity. Heh. Blood, guts, gore. Heh.

Various fun stuff to do with texts

Vocabprofile

Last week's intensive course brought with it some interesting new links and nifty things to do with people's texts. One of them was from the Lexical Tutor website, a bot that calculates the complexity of the text for a second language reader.

A brief explanation may be in order, should you try to use the bot. K1 words are the words that are the bare necessities for the reader to even slightly understand what the text is about. K2 is the next step that enables the second language user to be able to communicate with a remote success. 

These are technically very basic words that are most frequently used and accessed by language speakers and learners and are the crucial part to understanding the text. The higher the total percentage of the first two items combined, the more accessable the text is supposed to be.

Other items on the lists, on the right side of the result breakdown are the word counts. Since a word can be categorised by different systems, the bot tries to address this in its algorythms and counts words as 1) Tokens (Each word is individually counted, no matter how many times it repeats), 2) Types (One word - one type, if it repeats through the text it won't be counted) and 3) Word Families (Inflected, derived and shortened forms of a word each count as a word family, for example, familiar - unfamiliar - familiarise - familiarity are all the same word family unit)

It's quite a neat bot and anyone concerned about the accessibility of their text ought to check it out some time. And waste their time pasting random texts into it as well, to spite people like Stephen King. Ghghgh.

Gematriculator

The Gematriculator is an oldie, but it's still an entertaining little bot that supposedly calculates your writings' evilness value. If you intend to become a pile of seething malevolence but lack a little guidance, you ought to start here (or pay me to write a guidebook about it). I do have to warn that it's not quite necessarily a reliable means of assessing a text, but it does calculate the "evil"-sounding compounds and words in an alright-ish manner.

Gender Guesser

A rather useless, but still fairly amusing bot named Gender Guesser. If you can't guess the gender of a text's author, you can try pasting it in for... well, some sort of a result. I'm going to test this on some test subjects and then, perhaps, report the finds (aka I probably won't bother), but, if any of you get called a female when you aren't, or vice versa, do tell of your finds!

The Gender Genie

Something I found through Gender Guesser just now, a bot that looks a lot more comprehensive and transparent and actually useable in academic research, writing and creating a fake gender identity. In fact, I'd recommend skipping Gender Guesser altogether and going for the Gender Genie if you want to mess around, as on top of being more comprehensive, it offers the option to choose from fiction, non-fiction and blog styles. Blog. Damn I hate that word.

Fat-Free Mayonnaise

Tastes like sugared-up hyena puke.

Don't try.

Ever.

Antagonists

So, following my line of inquiry about literature and fiction as such in general...

What makes a good antagonist? I'd mean an "active" antagonist here, rather than "forces of nature", "life itself" and other such fanciful things. In other words, what makes for a good bad guy to you people?

Dragon Age: Origins

David Gaider, one of the lead designers/writers for BioWare, charged with writing an introductory novel to the setting, writes:

"Standing gingerly, Maric listened for where the voices were coming from. As soon as he ascertained their source, he headed in the opposite direction. It was an awkward hobble at first. His legs were bruised and cramped and he might have broken some bones, but he ignored the pain. With effort, he grabbed on to low-hanging branches and pulled himself farther into the darkness. They would pay for what they had done. If he did only one thing as King, he would make them pay."

Sigh. Same old crap. Dead royal parents, surviving heir, evil necromancer armies taking over a kingdom, warrior maidens, heroic rogues, revenge. It's as if people used 3% of their brain capacity in order to barf out this sort of pompous drivel.

Oh wait, they do.

The Male Opinion On Sex And The City

So a while earlier I got to see the Sex And The City movie, and I had such an estrogen injection right there I couldn't write a straight review until now. I mean, seriously, do you know what all those bags, blings, shoes and dresses do to a non-metrosexual male that's not very much in touch with his feminine side? I go to watch a movie that has "Sex" in it and what did I get? Fashion? Do those two equate for women? What? What?!

As an aside, I suppose that "sex" could refer to just the sexuality thing, since there was a token gay character and as gender is purely biological while the sexuality is an identity thing... I forgot the point I was making here so I move on.

So the movie called Sex and the City is about this woman that's about to get married so she has to get the best dress ever, the best house ever and the best spot ever in a public goddamned library with four hundred guests attending because she has a point to make. What's that point? I dunno really, probably that best guy ever has the fattest wallet ever to pay for the awesomest wedding ever or that she has a bipolar personality (as we later get to see when she finally gets the actual wedding off in some crammed office - woops, I just made a spoiler).

Now, if the film was actually about what the name claims it is, I'd say that about five minutes before or after the introduction of the clothes they'd be discarded as unnecessary, but the film director has different things in mind! And those things are called Product Placement! Gucci bags! Somebody's Rings! Named Dresses! 

Eventually, they collect enough sponsor money to move on with the plot - the guy, like, well, any normal guy, has enough of the nonsense, albeit in a horribly unrealistic way (Oh yes, that's what men do, doubt the whole wedding thing because a drunken friend of the bride with a trainwreck personal life says one sentence that doesn't go something like "I just saw your future wife kissing the chef in the kitchen!"), and the bride's friends decide to cheer her up by taking her to the honeymoon hotel in Mexico or whatever anyway, where they cry, hit on waiters (!), crap their pants (!!) and discuss personal life of the mentioned trainwreck woman by pointing out her bikini line (!!!). Truly, women are wondrous creatures of nature.

Anyway, then they get back to the city, fashion, internet, strong cool hip sistah from the hood (more stereotyping!), and then it turns out the groom was sending a letter to the bride every day and she goes like "OMG NOWAI" and the trainwreck woman tells like "IT WAS ALL MY FAULT" and the bride goes "How could you do it and why do you want me to forgive you when you can't forgive your husband!?" because adultery and being drunk and saying one stupid sentence that ruined a glam wedding are totally the same thing, and then everyone kisses and makes up except the other blonde that actually breaks up and kisses afterwards. And then there's a baby born from the character that was completely trivialised because she actually had a happy marriage!

And everybody is happy!

And oh my god what the hell (place I'm going to for uttering the Lord's name in vain as I'm being pointed out)

Anyway, it's not actually a bad movie, especially once you're stunned with all the fashion talk.

But just think of what the film Sex and the City would be like if it was about a guy spending his last unmarried days in company of three other guys. 

Hint: it wouldn't be about fashion.

tenorikissa - Mother's milk says:

Unless they're gay guys! It would be about fashion and gay orgies.

The Swedish Epic

It's mostly about butter and herring. In iambic pentameter.

A random thought

Is there any perversion in the world that's not an art form in Japan?

Total Recall 2070

So for the last couple of days I had to stop watching Life on Mars (Sorry CC, you'll have that eval soon) Season 2 because I've got my grubby hands on some of the biggest jaw-droppers of my somewhat younger years. Total Recall 2070. A 22-episode-long cyberpunk police drama based on Philip K. Dick's works, We Remember it for You Wholesale and Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep. To all the people that are blissfully unaware, Blade Runner and Total Recall are based on these works.

The setting is, in fact, very much the same. It's the same "High Tech, Low Life" philosophy that's generally behind the Cyberpunk genre, and, considering the references, would seem to take place some twenty years before the events of Blade Runner. The story revolves around two detectives for the Citizen Protection Bueraeu, Hume and Farve and is split between two "parts" of the series - the first one being a loose collection of 11 episodes that acquaint the audience with the setting, build the characters and entertain with some odd criminal cases. The second part, however, is essentially what the series are about - being human. I really can't and shouldn't tell anything else about the plot, however, as anything I would say could be treated as a major spoiler. All I have to say is that I ended up watching the last 11 episodes in a row, which is bloody unusual for me.

And now imagine my surprise when I found all of Total Recall 2070 on the internet. All 22 episodes. In good quality. For free. Legally.

Here it is. Clicky.

P.S: The first few episodes may seem a little generic, but it picks up by a lot after that.

Oh, and do watch them in the correct order - E1A, E1B and onwards. The list is a bit disorganised there, unfortunately. And ignore any registration pleas, they're unnecessary.

Children's TV

Take a look at this video. What do you see? Do you see a rip-off of the Teletubbies? A means to make stupid the upcoming generations? A senseless stream of images that can make a grown-up man crack up and laugh like he were insane? 

No. Not at all. What you see, dear reader, is art. Fine Art. Art so refined and complex that many will confuse it with some manner of a children's programme. Indeed, the use of lush, vivid colours, the explicitly childish themes, the toy-like outlook, all these things may throw the inexperienced viewer off the right track. To a trained eye, however, this performance displays a multitude of various undertones, ranging from delightful pastoral idylly to the darkness of a depraved, twisted mind, the very depth of a post-Freudian soul of Man, torn by conflict between the id and the Ego. This piece of art questions our very existence, the justification for mankind's acts of savagery upon the noble, pure bosom of Mother Earth, and fills the spectators with disgust to their own base nature, dirt, and meaninglessness.

And yet the images also give the viewer hope. Hope for a better future, where perhaps one day, everything shall be revealed and made sense of; a world where the the viewer may one day equal the Author with the power of imagery and presentation, the strength of wit and the clarity of vision. The Author's talent, however, is simply out of their grasp - as they shall hear in the closing narrative, the only spoken lines of the performance. The character merely wanted to clean the red contraption, not ride it.

And therein lies the truth.

This is stupid

Just earlier today, discussing the news with Furbs, we came to an agreement that it's good that the Finnish media hasn't been focusing much on the personality of the latest school shootist. Just a few hours ago. And then, on my way home, I found out that the shootist's parents will be appearing on the TV today.

How is this not retarded? Please, how?!

Think about this. What do terrorists, psychopaths, mass murderers and unstable shootist kids have in common? Well, it's bloody obvious - they all crave publicity. Publicity! Do I need to spell it by the letter to every moron in the media, in the government, in every branch of this stupid society? By focusing on the personality of the killer, you're not preventing the next attempt. You're not consoling the victims' relatives and friends. You're not even making a good selling point for your pathetic piece of garbage. No. No, no, no. What you're doing is advertising the next attack.

Has none of these idiots been a kid before? A kid that wasn't the heart, soul and focus of their community, group, pack, whatever? A kid that ever had any kind of problems or depressions, or just felt the lack of attention? What do these kids want? These kids want to die - so everyone else around them felt sorry, so very sorry for their deeds, misdeeds and lack of action. And so then some moron goes and shoots a classroom full of kids. And it's advertised all over the goddamned media for months and months, with friends, relatives, acquaintances, random passers-by and members of parliament and government all being so sorry they couldn't prevent it, wondering what went wrong, chewing the same stupid gum for forever...

Don't you see where that leads next?

Idiots.

P.S: Yes, I'm angry.

P.P.S: No, by "you", I don't mean any of my readers. Unfortunately, the people that decide on what the press illuminates don't read this.

The Saw Series?

So what is it that makes the Saw series so popular?

No, let me rephrase. What makes it worth watching? The, erm, plot? Or, uhh, the torture scenes and deathtrap devices? Why is this thing keeping on getting millions every year, despite simply cashing in on blood and guts? Explanations? Ideas? Is it just a valid excuse to go watch someone being torn to shreds?

Note: Haven't actually seen a single film, so, I'm actually being curious. Not that I'm going to watch it anyway! Ha ha!

In Bruges

So today I watched it and decided to see what the movie critics say about it. And I realised that the movie critics should stick to reviewing Adam Sandler, Transformers and Star Wars cartoon spin-offs, because clearly the idiots can't even understand what a movie with more than three words put in one sentence twice is about.

Click here for stupid.

Comedy, they call it. A comedy thriller. A criminal flick with dark humour. A comedy. Yeah, right.

Thing is, it's not a comedy. At all. In terms of theatric generes, this is tragic comedy - with comedy meaning something that's fairly different from the modern meaning of the term. If the reviewers would have bothered watching more than two trailers and the first and last ten minutes of the film, they might have actually understood that.

The film is great. The presentation, the pacing, the acting, it's all done really, really well. A man's personal hell, as we find out - and his way of trying to deal with it. Of course, humour is involved, humour is in a sense the guy's only way to try to focus on something else, fairly realistically so.

As a brief verdict, I really liked it. A very good psychologic/philosophical drama with spots of dark humour here and there.

Freedom of Speech, 1984-style

I don't even think I need to comment this. If anyone thinks I should, though, leave a note.


BBC News "Losing signal" on an unpleasant question.

Fox News calls commercial break and ends the interview of Osetians.


Well, okay. One comment. Even the CNN has been more neutral than the BBC. Which, all things considered, is amazing.


P.S.: Photographs from Ossetia. Not for faint-hearted, contains images of destruction and injured.

Free Press

"There is no such thing, at this date of the world's history, in America as an independent press. You know it and I know it. There is not one of you who dares to write your honest opinions, and if you did you know beforehand that it would never appear in print. I am paid $150 a week for keeping my honest opinion out of the paper I am connected with. Others of you are paid similar salaries for things, and if any of you would be so foolish as to write honest opinions would be out on the streets looking for another job. If I allowed my honest opinions to appear in one issue of my paper, before 24 hours, my occupation would be gone. The business of the journalists is to destroy the truth; to lie outright; to pervert; to vilify; to fawn at the feet of Mammon, and to sell his country and his race for his daily bread. You know it and I know it and what folly is this toasting an independent press. We are the tools and vassals of rich men behind the scenes. We are Jumping-Jacks -- they pull the strings and we dance. Our talents, our possibilities and our lives are all the property of other men. We are intellectual prostitutes!"

From the speech of a former Head Editor of New York Times.