I’ve said it once, I’ll say it again (this time with good reason)

Fuck Apple. Fuck Steve Jobs. Fuck those guys.

I won’t even get into the mindset around their products. I won’t get into the notion that bland aesthetics should come at a premium (and at the sake of efficiency). I won’t get into their truly cult-like following that has convinced several generations that their computer/phone/music player is anything more than a goddamn tool. That would be beating a dead horse.

Let’s just look at the last few months instead.

• iPhonegate

For about a week, plenty of people thought you guys did this on purpose. Just think about how cool Steve Jobs would have been if  he’d winked and said “Oh? A new iPhone? News to me kids.” End scene. Enter: several additional bars, also frequented by certain technology enthusiasts. Maybe a box with “classified” scrawled all over it shows up at the NYT. Hey, the guys at Wired? They got one too. Inside is a camouflaged iPhone, set to expose itself–at a precise hour–to be the technological wonder it is.

Imagine how different things would be, Apple. No one would have been the wiser, and you wouldn’t look like complete jerks. Even your supporters are cranky about your Gizmodo bitchslap.

But don’t take my word for it. John Stewart pours his heart out: (1:20 for when he mentions Apple, 5:20 for when he gives the heart-to-heart)
[From Comedy Central]

“But now you guys are busting down doors in Palo Alto while Commandant Gates is ridding the world of mosquitoes!”

Not that Gizmodo was blameless. They probably knew they’d get stomped for it. But you’re still jerks.

• Adobe’s API, amongst others

In April, Apple changed their developer license agreement to the following:

3.3.1 — Applications may only use Documented APIs in the manner prescribed by Apple and must not use or call any private APIs. Applications must be originally written in Objective-C, C, C++, or JavaScript as executed by the iPhone OS WebKit engine, and only code written in C, C++, and Objective-C may compile and directly link against the Documented APIs (e.g., Applications that link to Documented APIs through an intermediary translation or compatibility layer or tool are prohibited).

The only way  Adobe’s new API could be more clearly excluded from this would be if they were called out by name. What this means for developers is a much more arduous process in making programs work for the iPhone and for other mobile OS platforms. This change came shortly before Adobe released CS5, so they had basically finished the thing before Apple rejected it.

What it means for consumers is a much lower chance that programs originally developed for the iPhone will come to Android, and programs written for the Android are less likely to end up on the iPhone.  Once again, Apple wants tight-fisted control and whether you think that improves the experience or not, it’s restrictive.

• Flash

I don’t know where exactly to begin describing this drama, but Steve Jobs recently weighed in on it. I’d suggest reading it all to get an idea about why—

No I don’t. Here’s why Jobs continues to be a douche sandwich in my estimation.

“Apple has a long relationship with Adobe. In fact, we met Adobe’s founders when they were in their proverbial garage.”

And since then they have been the single largest contributor to your OS from the professional field. Think your consumer electronics department is so great?  In the late 80′s, Apple hooked print companies hard, and most of them still continue that habit. If you need any convincing, walk into a random magazine publishing office (in fact, come on over to my house). Apples everywhere. Why designers still think it’s the platform for them, I don’t know. All I know is that they think it, and they think it en masse. So show a little grace.

While I’m thinking of it, remember to read “we” or “our” as “me” and “my” if you can suffer through his whole post.

“Adobe’s Flash products are 100% proprietary.”

Nope. The SDK, compiler, and Flex framework are FOSS. RTMP and .SWF are open. The VM is open. The format Apple has licensed, h.264, is very proprietary, and Jobs admits it. Despite this, using h.264 somehow makes the web more “open”.

In addition, Flash has not performed well on mobile devices. We have routinely asked Adobe to show us Flash performing well on a mobile device, any mobile device, for a few years now. We have never seen it.

Durrrr. Also, I hear my phone just got a browser that supports flash movies. Also also, flash for the Android OS is on its way as soon as this month.

To achieve long battery life when playing video, mobile devices must decode the video in hardware; decoding it in software uses too much power. Many of the chips used in modern mobile devices contain a decoder called H.264 – an industry standard that is used in every Blu-ray DVD player and has been adopted by Apple, Google (YouTube), Vimeo, Netflix and many other companies.

You know what else is pretty standard? DivX. I hear your iPods can’t play those. Know what else is standard? FLASH. Unless 75 percent isn’t enough to be “standard”. Dumb motherfucker.

“Most Flash websites will need to be rewritten to support touch-based devices. If developers need to rewrite their Flash websites, why not use modern technologies like HTML5, CSS and JavaScript?”

HTML5 is not modern. It is post-modern. It’s not freaking here yet. And what sites are we about? Because most of the websites where clicks are different than pokes are flash games, which you’re probably against anyways. Jeebus forbid people not pay to play those.

“Sixth, the most important reason…Flash is a cross platform development tool. It is not Adobe’s goal to help developers write the best iPhone, iPod and iPad apps. It is their goal to help developers write cross platform apps. And Adobe has been painfully slow to adopt enhancements to Apple’s platforms. For example, although Mac OS X has been shipping for almost 10 years now, Adobe just adopted it fully (Cocoa) two weeks ago when they shipped CS5. Adobe was the last major third party developer to fully adopt Mac OS X.

Do you know why it took that long? Because you’re a giant pain in the ass. Also, CoCoa is the thing you have already refused to let them use. So I don’t see how it should chafe your stones, sir. And in case you can’t catch the subtext here, Jobs is saying, “To hell with how things work. We can force everyone else to use our standard.” This is not the voice of a company that’s big on progressive changes. This is a company that would like to control as much of the market as possible. There will always be a third party between developers and users, even in HTML5. Perhaps moreso in HTML5 because even graphics will require a license to function. Between Adobe and Apple, I’d far sooner trust the former to be flexible with developers.

At this point, every message out of Apple is “We’re the best, and everyone uses us, so adapting to us makes sense.” Of course the former premise is pretty subjective (read: wrong in my opinion), and the later is flat-out wrong. Do you know the biggest seller of smartphones worldwide? Nokia. No one ever considers those poor suckers, but they’re cheap and people like them. Of course, Android is getting bigger every day.

So in addition to all my old hatred towards Apple (formerly stated and thus far avoided), add militant viciousness, refusal to work with one of their biggest contributors in a manner that would give their customers more choices, and trying to enforce the web standard they own under the veil of “open web support.”

In summation and despite danger of wearing it out, Apple,

Fuck you.

Are Video Games Art? (Spoiler alert: Yes. )

Over the past week or so, some comments from film Critic Roger Ebert about the artistic value of video games (really, the lack thereof) have been making lots of people cranky. Why does this matter? If you’re reading this, you’ve probably already got an opinion on that here’s the skinny on what has happened, though.

On March 23, 2009, Kellee Santiago from Thatvideogamecompany  gave a speech at USC not only suggesting the merit of video games becoming art, but gave evidence as to why we have already arrived. Her fifteen minute speech can be seen here.

One of the more salient points to her argument is that painting started out as crude scribbles on a cave, and we lack the perspective needed to judge games as a wholly artistic medium, since they’ve only really been around a couple decades.

Santiago mentions early in her speech that Roger Ebert once said games would never be art, which apparently made him cranky. His response (more than a year later, mind you), can be read here.

He acknowledges the response benefits from rumination, and while I believe he initially treads carefully and could have been more inflammatory, the gamer response has varied from “You are not a video game critic.” (Brian Ashcraft) to a certain edgier vein, wherein Ebert’s article is referred to as  “reeking ejaculate” (Penny Arcade’s Jerry Holkins). Santiago herself responded to his article, and even offers to send him a PS3 so he can actually play the things he writes mean things about.

I’m going to come back around and explain my airier criticism about what Ebert says, but let’s start with things that can be addressed quickly:

• He says her definition of “a way of communicating ideas to an audience in a way that the audience finds engaging” is flawed by his asking “…what ideas are contained in Stravinsky, Picasso…”The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock?” what he seems to mean is “Artists create art in a way that there is one idea, and if you don’t get it, you’re wrong.” This suggests to me that Roger Ebert suggests that Roger Ebert is an asshole. And I know this has nothing to do with video games. This has to do with how I feel about fiction as a narrative.
• Ebert notes, and I agree with him, that the ability to measure art relies on taste, and uses painters as an example. “Some of there paintings are masterpieces, most are very bad indeed. How do we tell the difference? We know. It is a matter, yes, of taste.” This is a strange point for someone who is denigrating games to make when said denigrator has not played a lot of them.
• I don’t completely agree with what Santiago says about Braid. It was a great game, but what you take away from it depends on what you invest. If you buy into the larger metaphor of the game, the message is completely different than if you come at it from a “I am the protagonist, how do I feel about undoing my mistakes”, because your mistakes as a person are different than your ones as a player. For some people, the story probably just made them feel funny.
• A Voyage to the Moon (1902) was a major film milestone, but you think Braid can’t serve as that for games? And you say gamers won’t see a point where games become art in our lifetime? Do you realize the difference between that film and films largely held as masterpieces was about 60 years? Do you realize the difference between the first crude game and 60 years from then would be about 2040? And you think it’s completely beyond the realm of possibility that games will be art by then? Kindly stuff yourself, sir. 
• “Why are gamers so intensely concerned, anyway, that games be defined as art?” That depends, Mr. Ebert. Why do you film should be? Why do you think it’s important enough that games not be that you are willing to throw your opinions to the internet and the great gnashing of teeth?

Phew. Okay, not all of those points are cut-and-dry to everyone, but they are to me. Pike off.

One of his stickier points is that games have a distinct goal, and he uses Flower as an example of this.

The game is “about trying to find a balance between elements of urban and the natural.” Nothing she shows from this game seemed of more than decorative interest on the level of a greeting card. Is the game scored? She doesn’t say. Do you win if you’re the first to find the balance between the urban and the natural? Can you control the flower? Does the game know what the ideal balance is?

My knee-jerk reaction is to light the guy on fire for completely missing the point of the game, which isn’t meant to have a true goal like Pac-Man or a scoring system like Tetris.  Instead, Flower presents itself as a more cerebral experiment, where the point is not to reach a destination, but rather enjoy the journey and reflect on what it says about reality or how it makes us feel. To jump back to how he feels about T.S. Elliot or Picasso, Ebert shows his prejudice as a film critic by suggesting that without a goal something is not a game, and without a clear intent narrative is not a valid way to explore ideas.

This is where Ebert nearly a point that has some semblance of validity, and it is even one that academia will vigorously  nod their heads at. Santiago pulls the Wikipedia definition for art, which notes “Art is the process or product of deliberately arranging elements in a way that appeals to the senses or emotions.” The idea that elements in a work of art are arranged by how their creator intended is usually considered important, and literary critics are pretty crazy about that sort of thing. Believe me: if you look a PHD student in the eyes and say “enplotment,” they’ll jabber for hours. The careful construction of a story is often pivotal to an audience interpreting things as intended. In writing, this is done by careful word selection. In film, it can be even more important, since there are so many additional factors that can be examined in a very concrete way. When a scene on film is shot with red lighting there is a far more pervasive feeling than a writer noting in a single instance “The room was red.”

Santiago doesn’t consider the artist’s construction to be as important to art being art. To her, the idea that an audience is touched by an experience is more important (ie, the video at 3:00). While the small, shriveled remaining bit of joy in me is willing to agree, the sadistic, bloodthirsty college student is very angry. If the immutability of art isn’t important…that means a choose-your-own adventure book could be art! Have you read those?!

Well, yeah okay they are pretty awesome but that’s beside the point.

WARNING, literary critical theory follows:

What Ebert and my angry college education don’t account for is how mutable all art is. The artistic intent of directors has been distorted since the invention of the television, which has a much smaller screen and a different aspect ratio than the once lauded silver screen. To be only a tinge more radical, is the experience of seeing Michelangelo’s fresco in the Cappella Sistina completely negated when it is seen on a print? Or a television? Or a computer monitor? Or is the experience of awe still possible, but the author’s carefully constructed and inclusive narrative is lost?

Even literature, which is about as immutable as art can possibly be, is often considered dependent on the viewer for true context. Someone who is reading War and Peace in a furnished study smelling of rich mahogany–whilst, oh let’s say sipping a 20-year-old scotch–cannot be said to hold the same experience as someone reading the literary titan on a commuter bus. You’d be an ass to suggest the former is the proper way to read and strange to recommend the latter, but they certainly are different, and any post-modern critic would agree with that sentiment.

So: You want to really give Ebert the shakes? Tell him you recently saw Beyond the Valley of the Dolls–which he co-directed–and tell him it was a moving experience from a bygone era. Gush about how fantastic it was, and let him sullenly acknowledge your appreciation. Then tell him you watched it on a 4 inch iPod screen, and watch his head explode.

</literary crap>

Ebert starts off saying that we can debate classification all day, so it’s not helpful, then resorts to it in the end. To me, this is silly, but does point to the main problem in discussing games as art. Avoiding classification is impossible, and current classification of art relies on a construction the artist creates with minimal chance of interference on the part of the viewer (even though some interference is absolutely inevitable).

This does not mean games are not art, it means our system for classifying art is neither perfect nor accurate. I don’t know how to fix that. The more important question: “If a hundred artists create art for five years, how could the result not be art?“

Final Fantasy 13 (fanboy) Review (20 hours in)

I’ve just reached the point most reviewers describe as the good part of the game, so let’s discuss how the experience has been so far.

Shall we start off on a good foot?

The Good

• Holycrapgraphics. At 1080p, Final Fantasy XII is pure eye-candy.
• The music is cute sometimes.

The Wretched

Whelp, glad we got that out of the way.

The first minute of the game involves killing people you don’t know as people you don’t know for a reason you aren’t told. If you think that’s charming, you’re in for a treat. Each of the characters has a history that seeks to explain away their shitty personalities, and this isn’t explained for hours either. And then there’s fal’Cie, l’Cie, Pulse and all other manner of made-up words that aren’t explained either. It’s like watching a movie where every fifth word is in French. Sure I’ve got a dictionary, but fuck all I just want to watch this movie.

Thus begins a trend wherein the game will treat you, the intrepid player ready to explore its wonderful vistas and whimsical inhabitants, as nothing more than a hindrance. From tutorials still appearing hours into the game to not letting you pick who is in your party, FF XIII knows you are very stupid and shouldn’t be trusted. Maybe this is why it doesn’t bother to explain things. I suppose the developers thought, “Well, if you’re smart enough to care you’ll just look it up.” To emphasize this, particularly cantankerous combats are often followed by movie sequences in which your characters do sweet backflips, accompanied by much sweet ninja action. It’s as if they are saying, “See? You can’t do this. Because you fucking suck.”

Let’s talk about combat. The nicest review I’ve read (and in case you haven’t noticed, I’ve read a few of those in a failing effort to convince myself I like the damn game) basically said it’s better than FF XII. This is not high praise. If you’re not familiar, combat is highly geared around the same general meta-structure MMOs use. You’ve got your healer, your guy who makes the monsters attack him, people who do more damage and so forth. The twist is that you can switch who is which role during combat.

Mostly. You have to configure what different combinations are available before combat, and you only control the party leader. Changing your computer-controlled teammate to a medic doesn’t give you the agency to say “Heal me,” it only lets him heal whatever he damn-well feels like. This can mean dispelling poison rather than saving your life, which can mean game over.

Oh, right. You’re a big dumb idiot, so you can’t tell your other party members what to do, but if you die you lose the game. The combat system sounds nice at first, and sure it looks pretty, but it’s a departure from the series for no good reason. An example: FFVII had a very simple combat system. Certain combinations of materia were better than others, but the basic premise was very clear. FF XIII is the opposite of that. Keeping track of who has what abilities and figuring out when the game expects you to change to what combination is the majority of the game. Once you figure out how it expects you to do this for each fight, it’s extremely easy. Hard to understand and easy to master does not a good formula make.

The story should be fairly decent, and it follows the general evil empire thing its sisters tend to do, but only after being mired in an absurdly bad exposition. The entire game is a long hallway very occasionally punctuated by simple puzzles and very frequently broken by movie sequences. From beginning to about twenty hours in, you’re on a railroad. There are no towns (shops are part of save points), and NPCs don’t talk to you, so much as if you do push X on them they stare glassy-eyed into the distance and make pity remarks. I’ve reached the point where you can supposedly get off the tracks and look around. Not too impressed yet. The characters are…I’ll let Tycho from Penny Arcade sum it up.

God, I hate these fucking people. I don’t give a shit what happens to Sulky, Twat, Twit, Pip, and Marm. Sometimes, I kill them on purpose.

Yup. I’ve been playing this and Heavy Rain a second time through at the same time and the later, which I do not consider holding up very well on a second play-through since it’s a fucking murder mystery for Jesus’ fucks’ sake, has been more enjoyable. And I mean, really, it’s not even a game.

I plan on finishing FFXIII, getting the platinum trophy out of sheer spite, and never playing it again. Ever. The rest of the game might change my mind, but I will never go through the first 20 hours again. It’s horrid.

Brown Failout

Usually, the best corporate strategy is when you can get a whole bunch of people to rally in anger against your competitor. The best strategy is getting them to rally for you…and not know it.

Enter brownbailout.com, a website and associated Facebook group  claiming UPS is asking congress for an unspecified amount of filthy American greenbacks. It certainly caught my interest when the little ad popped up. A corporate giant seeking hard-earned money from Americans you say? Outrageous! Well, slightly more or less so than our federal mail program getting constantly put back together, but you know. Hard-earned. America. Whatever. Outrageous!

And then there’s the .com tag on the end of that web address. Well, it certainly seems like a group that’s genuinely incensed about the whole affair, and maybe there’s some stipulation about why they aren’t a full-blown organization. But I like UPS. They’re just as reasonable in their prices, the driver that comes to our house is a really nice guy, and when I ask them to deliver something they don’t falsely deliver my packages three times before sending them back. Okay, mostly that last bit, and more on that later.

So I’m ready to be wowed. What have you got for me oh  America-loving personally-vested activist-type peoples? What’s this evil bill addition do?

What’s in a bailout?

The bailout bottom-line is this: What’s the difference between a 100-year-old trucking company and a modern airline that flies packages around the world every night? Answer: everything. Yes, both carry parcels and packages, but how they do it is obviously and vastly different.

…huh? I agree, trucks are not airplanes. You claim this bill will wreck jobs, promote an evil empire that seeks to dominate other companies, and is opposed by experts (though the news clippings certainly seem to be in very non-specific language), but you can’t tell me why in English? And you link to a 300 page bill as evidence that a 250 word addition will destroy America. Red flags are no longer at half-mast, here. Who are you really? Who is your site registered under? Gaiba.com…a Korean registrar? What the fuck! Who owns you?

Oh. You know…too easy.

And if it isn’t disturbing enough that FedEx is leading this supposed “grassroots” campaign against UPS under the cover of (marginal) secrecy and the banner of supporting fair business, let’s look at the change UPS wants to make, shall we? Taken from factcheck.org, which I ran to after finding out FedEx was behind the campaign:

UPS workers, specifically its drivers, fall under the NLRA and are members of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. UPS argues that FedEx Express workers who perform the same duties should fall under the same regulations. But FedEx, which founded its Express division in 1971 as an airline company, says it should remain under the RLA, which covers airlines and railroads.

UPS argues that the proposed amendment “will appropriately provide equal treatment under labor law to employees performing the same functions at different companies, and will eliminate the special treatment currently given to FedEx Express.” FedEx says that “[r]emoving FedEx Express from RLA jurisdiction could expose our customers at any time to local work stoppages that interrupt the flow of their time-sensitive, high-value shipments through our global network.”

TLDR version: UPS wants FedEx to be required to honor local unions, something UPS already does, rather than only national ones, which FedEx gets away with since they were originally an air-based mail carrier. According to FedEx, the apparent logic behind  ”bailout” is that by forcing FedEx to accommodate local unions, they are giving UPS an advantage.

TLDRer version: Hey. Hippies/conservatives (a group normally seperate, oddly enough) in this facebook group. You’re doing it wrong.

Oh, and the brief mention on trouble with carriers besides UPS? Well, the wrongly delivered box, as well as my laptop computer which arrived three days late despite the speedy service I paid for, summarize my experience with FedEx. Anecdotal evidence? Certainly. But 100% failure is still a bad ratio. So when FedEx tells me that competition should be based on service, I agree wholeheartedly. I can’t quite get behind their slogan’s intent, however. I guess when they say “We understand. You have options,” they think that’s a problem.

By this point FedEx has been flamed pretty hard by other people, but there are still individuals shouting about how stupid the alleged Brown Bailout is, and it’s extremely frustrating. I normally hate it when the term “sheeple” is used since its such a dirty hipster word…but when they make it so easy, what can you do?  I don’t know enough about the tenuous, crystalline framework our country uses to get video games from California to me, so I won’t say whether UPS is in the right with their amendment or not…I just know that FedEx need to stop being dicks. Bad. Bad naughty.

17,000 people? In one place? What about the piggy flu?!

While being able to say that I sat 50 feet from the president is a cool story, his speech on Saturday was about what I’d expected. Considering the event was billed as a rally, no real surprises there.

The larger issue that has kept even supporters of the plan squirming is the proposal that the bill will not increase the deficit by “a single dime,” an idea restated by Sebelius and Obama on Saturday. There hasn’t been any real elaboration on how this will be done, other than Obama’s suggestion that cuts would be made where the public option couldn’t support non-payers.

“Tax hike” is not a suggestion that has been mentioned but isn’t too hard to imagine. The soda tax hasn’t been mentioned for a while (you know, the one that Sean Hannity says is making it so he “can’t live anymore”). Required or at least encouraged colonoscopies and other tests have been mentioned, which could save on more costly treatments later–not to mention save lives.

“Stop being fat, America” has been implied at some point I’m sure, but wording it quite like that may not be very keen.

I know Obama’s speech was meant to drum up support and not to lay a framework, but I’d be a lot more excited about setting sail if I knew where we were going. People who are happy with their insurance might be able to keep their company, but will they be taxed for the public option? Hospitals may be able to become more efficient, but at what cost? Are such costs manditory to small town care centers already struggling to operate?

We’ve heard the horror stories about people who have lost coverage to money-grubbing insurance companies, but exactly how money-grubbing are they? Will the public option indeed be cheap enough to remove companies from the market (I doubt it but hell, who knows)? Has anyone read the proposed (enormous) bill?

While waiting in line, one supporter was shouting into a megaphone “What do we want?” The excited, albeit confused, crowd shouted back a range of responses from “Free healthcare!” to “Reform!” to “Public option!” I’ll agree with Obama in that we need to stop bickering amongst ourselves, but more importantly maybe we should try to all be on the same page right after we’re done with that.