Star Wars vs Star Trek

I feel compelled to answer an age old question. Which is better? Star Wars or Star Trek?

Star Wars caters to the sci-fi and fantasy action lovers who aren't preoccupied with actual scientific theories and hypotheses. Classic battle between good and evil, plus a prophecy about a chosen one. Can't really go wrong. It's a story we're all familiar with, and it's an easy one to enjoy. The action keeps us engaged and gets us excited. We've seen it in Lord of the Rings too, albeit in a more consistent and detailed universe ;)

Star Trek caters to optimistic theoretical science lovers who want to explore the human condition and grapple with ethical questions of right and wrong, in the interests of creating a better future. It's about understanding ourselves better by seeing our behaviour in different contexts. It's about what our future could hold, ethically and scientifically. It's about relationships, diplomacy, personal growth, discovery, exploration, and learning how to help and understand others.

I think some of the only reasons these two universes are even compared is because they're both successful, both sci-fi, and their names are both 2 words and 2 syllables long, beginning with the word Star. Otherwise, really, there are certainly other sci-fi series that would make better comparisons.

You wouldn't compare Firefly to Star Wars, would you? But if Firefly were named Star Fire and Serenity had weapons, you'd probably start thinking about it ;P

So ultimately no, I disagree that either is "better" than the other. It's a matter of personal taste, and you're comparing two different genres of sci-fi to each other. Is comedy better than drama? Is sci-fi better than fantasy? Are grapefruits better than potatoes? The answer is determined by your own personal taste.

My Other Life?

I dreamed that I found an old crawlspace door somewhere that led to another room full of sticky notes and papers on the wall with memories and quotes from myself, written in my handwriting. It was like each note reflected a piece of a life I never had, retelling a story I had no memory of. Snippets, as though to jog my memory.

I looked at an open cabinet door to my left that was aimed at me as I crawled in. A note written in big letters, in my handwriting, read:

"Josh, read these messages. You want to remember. You need to remember. Remember who I am so you can remember who you were."

As I read that note and saw the other notes everywhere, I started to notice it was a familiar looking bedroom. I started to remember that I used to write reminders to myself on sticky notes all the time and leave them up on the walls, forgetting to take them down. I vaguely remembered writing the big note in a panic, terrified I would forget everything I was. Intense memories of some other life began pouring into my head. It was all so overwhelming I cried out, and as I cried out I woke up.

The memories are almost entirely gone now, but in the instant I woke up, I felt like something was made clear and something about myself made sense. But I can't remember what it was now.

Was this a past life I was remembering?
Were these memories I had blocked off from childhood?
Is this symbolic of my discovering my true self?
Did I make discoveries about myself a long time ago and shove it into my subconscious out of fear?
Are the memories from the other life I lived out in dream years ago?

Or is this just an intense dream, amidst a dry spell of remembering dreams, and it stands out because I haven't had one in a while...

Ignorant Tech Support

I purchased and downloaded Anno 1503 and it didn't run on my computer. The third party launcher simply did nothing when I clicked play, and the .exe file kept giving me 6 .dll errors when it tried to run it directly.

I didn't feel like diagnosing the problem myself, so I contacted the purchase site company tech support hoping they might have some insight. I submitted a ticket and attached pictures of the errors. They emailed me back with a very robotic looking list of all the things I already read from the FAQ on their website, despite the fact I told them in the ticket that I already went over the FAQ and tried all of them. I humored them and went down the list telling them the unchanging results of each try.

They emailed me back again with another suggestion that I was sure wouldn't make any difference because, just like every other suggestion, it's not addressing the .dll errors specific to this problem. I tried their suggestion. Big surprise - It made no difference. They said if that didn't work to try playing it on a different computer. That is simply an unacceptable answer for me because I want to play it on my desktop, and that was the whole point of me contacting them in the first place. I want it to work on THIS computer.

The amount of ignorance and miscommunication they were displaying got me frustrated. I gave up with them and decided to fix it myself. After googling around a bit and not finding any other situations online that corresponded to my problem, I did an in-place Windows upgrade that completely replaced all the .dll files that were causing issues. Problem solved.

I gave the tech people one final reply saying that they really should have actually read my description of the problem, and before completely giving up, they should've suggested an in-place Windows upgrade. Because seriously, what are the chances that won't fix the problem?

I have worked in tech support. I understand why there are blanket replies that cover all the most common issues. I understand that user error is common. But that's no excuse for blatant ignorance.

If the tech person doesn't actually read your description of the problem, how are they supposed to even know what the problem is? And if they don't know what the problem is, how are they supposed to help you fix it? I believe that because of the amount of detail I put into my description of the problem, this tech person should have realized that maybe, just maybe, I was talking about things that might help them solve the issue.

Anyway, the abundance of ignorance made me feel the need to rant. So yeah. Rant over.

Wabbajack

One day, not long before you awoke after finding yourself in the future, there was a mirror that looked into the past. And in front of that mirror without a proper reflection was the Wabbajack.

I was on a beautiful sunny ocean one day, eating the sweetrolls that had become of my enemies, when suddenly a small rodent ran into a nearby watercloset. I chased after it, hoping for dessert, only to find a waistcoated banker. This man looked familiar, as I had once mistaken him for Sheogorath, when he was, in fact, despite the lacking in all physical appearances, Hermaeus Mora.

He said something that didn't make any sense about him actually being a cat, and wondered how I recognized him. But it was clear to me that he looked exactly like an elephant. I have no idea what he was talking about.

Anyway, He demanded that I give back the Wabbajack! Wabbajack. Wabbajack.

Wabbajack. Wabbajack.

Never in all my life had I believed the wonders of this magical book of knowledge could manifest into illusions such as these. I begin to wonder, really, if everyone else truly can't see the inter-connective system as I can? Is it true that people cannot see that all things are and aren't the same? Can dementia truly not be the Duke of Mania? If you prick me, do you not bleed?

So obviously I refused. I earned the Wabbajack! It was my brilliance and forthcoming that brought it to my basement on the 5th of First Seed! If not for all the cat hair and the matching bedding, this would all be for naught!

I had to use it. I didn't think it would come to this - that the Daedric prince of knowledge and ceiling wax would become my enemy! But I had to do it. I told him to go away.

You would think in all my politeness he wouldn't have gotten so rude! He turned inside out with rage screaming, "My name is Sheogorath!" I think he must be mad. There's no such thing as a Sheogorath. But I digress... He proceeded to explode. I found the whole situation to be far too uncomfortable, so I hit him with my Wabbajack staff and ran out through the u-bend.

Stumbling over my own ribcage, I fell into a place that seemed to be an arena of some kind. But because I know the interconnective system so well, I understand that all of what I saw was what I was looking for the whole time!

I sat on a nearby pile of light and had a wonderful time dining on the remains of a large feast the former inhabitants seemed to have left for me. So very polite of them, wasn't it, Wabbajack?

Wabbajack. Wabbajack.
Wabbajack. Wabbajack.
Wabbajack. Wabbajack.

Religion and Medicine

So when my mother read that last post of mine, boy did I hear about it... She's certainly passionate about this subject. In my information gathering I had already learned just about everything she stated in its defense, but she couldn't answer some of my particular critical questions:

1. Why the lack of ingredients labeled? 
2. Why the specific duck ingredients if it's the imprinted vibration that's doing the healing?
3. Why have any sugar in the pills at all?
4. Wouldn't a larger dosage of the main ingredient allow for more potent healing? The imprinted vibrations would carry over in greater potency is the dosage were upped, would they not?

With every question I didn't hear a valid explanation to, I instead would hear another story of when homeopathics saved my brother's life from bee stings and fevers... 

But if it was truly a sugar pill with an imprinted vibration of the active ingredient that saved him and not his own immune system, I feel as though this is no longer a talk about the pill being the saviour. This is a talk about faith and spiritual healing. 

Like any beliefs, I don't want to bunk something that someone else believes in just because I don't think it's true. Maybe the pills' vibrations actually did work.
Maybe it was healing energy from my mom that did the healing rather than the pills.
Maybe my brother's immune system was better than she thought.
Maybe God was watching over him and decided it wasn't his time.
Maybe the Flying Spaghetti Monster slipped a noodle up his nose and pulled out the venom/virus.

Many things are possible, and I shouldn't be one to judge. I guess I'm not accustomed to the idea of taking a pill for something other than the physical ingredients in the pill, so if it seemed like I was attacking the idea of this medicine working, that wasn't exactly my intention. My intention was to bring into light the things that seemed deceptive. 

Personally, I believe that we should all know what is contained within what we buy. I am an advocate that the GMO labeling i-522 bill should have passed, being that it would be a step in the right direction. But just like I believe the deception behind not labeling GMOs is wrong, I also believe that not containing all the ingredients on a pill bottle is wrong. This bottle contains 99.999etc% sugar. And they could at least write "extract of duck liver and heart" in a parenthetical. If the average person today can't even understand how to use a semicolon with English as their primary language, how can we expect them to know that much Latin?
(I'm pretty sure "healing vibrations" wasn't on that ingredients list either.)

Also, these things are being marketed as though it's a pill you take to get better, when in fact it is a method of spiritual healing; not so much a compound of physical ingredients, but rather a product made through a process of vibrations, and taking the pill melds the pill's vibrations with those of your own body. But putting it like that would make them far less money, I'm sure. They could at least sell some that are sugarless. Make them out of stevia or something... Don't they know their target audience?

Oscillococcinum

So I took some of my mom's Oscillococcinum this morning to see if it might help calm down my coughing fits (I think I might have fractured a rib). It occurred to me after taking it that, to my memory, all round-white-pill homeopathics I have taken in my life have had the same sweet taste, so I looked at the ingredients. They were in Latin, for some reason:

"Anas barbariae hepatis et cordis extractum 200CK"

With Google Translate, that became:

"Barbary duck liver and heart extract 200CK"

So I had the question at that point... Why would duck liver/heart be the color white, and why the hell would it taste sweet? And what is this 200CK?

Well after a bit of research I found some answers. First of all, 200CK is apparently an indication of dilution. The C stands for Centesimal (a division into hundredths), and the K stands for Korsakov. Not Korsakoff syndrome, but rather the Korsakov method of making homeopathic remedies (Yes, his full name is Semen Nikolaevich Korsakov... Poor guy). Basically, his method was to use the same container for mixing the diluted extracts with water.

So now we know that this Oscillococcinum contains 200 of some division of barbary duck liver and heart extract mixed with water using the same tank for each mixture. I feel like if they just said it like this in plain English it would feel a lot less shady. But I'm getting ahead of myself...

Feeling as though I had more yet to discover, I researched Oscillococcinum itself, and found an interesting fact... Not only are the ingredients on the bottle printed in Latin, seemingly on purpose to prevent their knowledge, but not all of the ingredients are even printed on the bottles. Oscillococcinum contains 1x10-400 (ten to the -400th power) grams Anas Barbariae Hepatis et Cordis Extractum as the "Active Ingredient," and the "Inactive Ingredients" are 0.85 grams sucrose and 0.15 grams lactose. So... Yeah, that explains why this duck liver/heart would taste sweet. I wonder if the sugar is organic?

So basically Oscillococcinum pills are made of 100% sugar with maybe a single molecule of what might be a 1 in 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 chance of being duck liver and heart extract instead of water. And no, I did not make that number up. That is 10 to the -400th power - the amount of the active ingredient in this product.

When Professor Hubert Farnsworth from Futurama replied to Amy Wong's suggestion of homeopathic medicine with the retort: "Or a big fat placebo! It's all the same crap!" I gave it a laugh and gave the medicine the benefit of the doubt... But finally looking at the science behind much of this stuff, I'm afraid I don't see any possible conclusion other than, yes, these are sugar pills... I certainly welcome somebody to prove me wrong, but I'm going to need some good explanations about how a duck's liver and heart could heal my ailments in the first place. Apart from curing my hunger, of course.

Violence in Video Games

For many years now there have been arguments that video game violence desensitizes people from real life violence. Some studies even say that video games cause people to become violent themselves. Video games do not make people violent, nor do they cause people to believe that violence has no repercussions; video games merely show that poor sportsmanship, impatience, and a violent disposition can lead to violence.

Many studies seem to assume that violence in video games allows people to be violent without any repercussions. This is not true, because in order to add challenge (and fun) to any video game, it is necessary to have opposition – a way to lose. If a person attacks someone in real life, they are likely to be attacked right back. Video games work in the same way – you attack someone, they attack you right back. There are circumstances in real life where one may be, for some reason, unable to counter the opposition, and video games share those same conditional circumstances. But no matter what the circumstance, there is always a repercussion in some form or another, video game or no, for acts of violence. In the Grand Theft Auto series violent acts are treated in much the same way as in real life, resulting in the player being wanted by the police/military, and oftentimes the player gets killed trying to evade them. In the game Battlefield: 1942 the player is given arms and told to go out and fight in World War II. And not unlike the real war, the player is at constant risk of stepping on a landmine, being sniped, being bombed by a plane, etc. These games aren't showing the players that war and violence is okay, they're showing them just how devastating war and violence can really be.

When extremely involved in, or passionate about something, it is easy for people to overreact. When playing video games in competition with another player, or sometimes even against the computer, a player can become frustrated from a losing streak. This highly depends on the individual person, but sometimes players can become so frustrated at their losing streak that they throw the controller, or even hit the friend who was constantly beating them. That is not an example of the video game causing them to be violent; it is an example of poor sportsmanship and self control. Being that video games are a form of media created by people, they also act as a kind of self-expression for the developers, representing their thoughts and ideas. If one is arguing with somebody else and begins to feel frustrated by his or her ideas, one must hold back feelings of aggression, just as one must hold back feelings of aggression when playing a video game. Video games are designed for recreation and entertainment; if the game isn't fun anymore, one can simply stop playing it. Sports fans who are really passionate about the team they root for might react in a similar way when they see their team make a stupid move during the game. The ability to lose, admit defeat, and shake the hands of the opposing team is something supposedly taught at a young age. Unfortunately some people never grasped the concept of losing with dignity during their youth and instead of congratulating the opposing team they get angry and make accusations. Video games are not the only devices that cause frustrated losing reactions; this behaviour is found all over the place, and video games are merely a convenient medium to pin the blame on due to their popularity among the younger generation (Ferguson 1).

The argument has been made that young children shouldn’t play violent video games because it could desensitize them to violence. Depending on the age and development of the child, this could very well be true, but this is also why video games are given a rating, just like movies and television shows. Many young children are impressionable, and game developers know that, so they rate their games for certain age groups. But even within the age groups of the rating, the parents themselves must decide whether their child should play it or not. If parents find that their child is outside stomping on turtles like the Super Mario Brothers, that isn’t the fault of the game, since he clearly wasn't ready, it’s the fault of the parents for letting their child play the game and not teaching the child beforehand that stomping on turtles is wrong. The same argument can be made for the television shows children watch. Just as parents would watch an episode of a television show and judge for themselves if their child should watch it or not, parents should also play a level or two of a video game so they can accurately judge if their child should play it or not. Children are impressionable in their early developmental years, and therefore parents should be the judges of whether their child is ready or not for various media stimuli.

When making the argument that violent games cause violence, people seem to ignore the possibility that the violence could have happened despite the video game. Dr. Patrick Markey stated in an article of The Escapist, “Individuals are not ‘blank slates.’ One’s general disposition moderates the effect of violent media” (Chalk). If a man played the game Modern Warfare and then went out and shot someone, that doesn’t mean that the game made him do it. Taking an example of a single individual who actually shot someone and correlating his shooting with the video game he plays is inaccurate because it does not account for the thousands of other people who have played that game and gotten no urge to go on a real life killing spree. If this guy can actually go out and shoot someone just like that, maybe we should consider the possibility that he is mentally ill, or that he has a history of violence. If violence in video games were making people physically violent, imagine how many people would be currently under attack by the approximated 9 million currently active World of Warcraft players (Holisky). People play video games that they personally enjoy, so telling a number of people to sit down and play games that they do not enjoy can cause them irritation in itself, thereby contaminating the results of the test. The humanity element is a difficult thing to measure and cannot accurately be portrayed in a laboratory; when testing for a correlation between violent gaming and and real life violence, the mental characteristics of the gamers should be taken into account.

Some people might question why violent video games are made in the first place and why people play them. People who play violent video games often play them as a way of relieving stress. Let's say a man by the name of Greg had a bad day at work; his boss gave him a hard time. He might have thoughts about punching his boss, or even throwing his boss out the window. These mental images are normal; it's acting on them that makes them bad. So Greg comes home and attacks a punching bag for an hour to relieve his stress. You see how Greg can relieve his stress through acts of violence against an object designed for receiving acts of violence? What if Greg came home and played Street Fighter on his gaming console? He takes control of a virtual avatar and beats on another virtual avatar, thereby taking out his anger on a virtual character designed to be attacked. Video games allow people like Greg in the modern age to have a sense of control during hard times, and many games offer virtual realities where people can create lives for themselves that could never be achieved in reality (CACM Staff 10). Video games allow people to experience their “happy place” in a fully immersive environment and help people to cope with the hardships and stress of their daily lives.

The reactions people have to the video game world vary highly depending on the person, and society has been known to shun every technological step leading into a new era. Radio was looked down upon when it became popular, television was looked down upon as its popularity grew, and now video games and virtual reality are being used as a scapegoat in much the same way. Video games may be addicting, they may bring out bad sportsmanship in some people, and for developmental reasons it may be a bad idea to let your 6-year-old play Mortal Kombat, but because there are so many gamers out there who aren’t attacking people, it is inaccurate to say that video games are causing violence.

CACM Staff. “War is No Game.” Communications of the ACM Mar. 2005: 10-10. Abstract. Print.

Chalk, Andy. “New Study: Most Teenagers are Unaffected by Violent Gaming.” Escapist 7 June 2010: n. pag. Web. 20 Mar. 2012. <http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/101160-New-Study-Most-Teenagers-are-Unaffected-by-Violent-Gaming>.

Ferguson, Christopher J. “The School Shooting/Violent Video Game Link: Causal Relationship or Moral Panic?” Journal of Investigative Psychology and Offender Profiling (2008): 1-14. Abstract. Academic Search Premier. Web. 20 Mar. 2012. <http://168.156.198.98:2059/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=b42ecbc6-5561-40b3-a578-ec064e402798%40sessionmgr14&vid=4&hid=111>.

Giumetti, Gary W., and Patrick M. Markey. “New Study Examines Anger, Aggression, Videogame Violence.” Journal of Research in Personality (2007): 1-10. Web. 20 Mar. 2012. <http://www65.homepage.villanova.edu/patrick.markey/vg.pdf>.

Holisky, Adam. “World of Warcraft subscriber numbers dip 100,000 to 10.2 million.” WoW Insider 9 Feb. 2012: n. pag. Web. 20 Mar. 2012. <http://wow.joystiq.com/2012/02/09/world-of-warcraft-subscriber-numbers/>.