“I had forgotten what a small and noisy people they are…I would bring them dragons, and they shout out for grapes.”

“Grapes are real. A man can gorge himself on grapes. Their juice is sweet, and they make wine. What do dragons make?”

“Woe.”

So spoke Euron and Victarion Greyjoy in A Feast for Crows. The latter was excised from Game of Thrones and the former was absent from “The Spoils of War,” but their words make a fine template for the episode. Things grow even in Westeros’s blood-soaked soil, and small and humble as they may be, they make for nourishment and joy. Still, there’s a shadow over the vineyards. We’ve heard of dragons, seen them born, watched them grow; seen hints of their power and terror, writ small or from a distance. In a climax up there with Thrones‘s very best episodes, the scope collapsed into full reality, as awe-inspiring as it was horrifying.

It was a stunning turn from the first half of “Spoils,” which revolved around as many reunions as Thrones has yet served us in one episode. Arya’s return to Winterfell (a snowy homage to one of the first shots of the series) was a warm, fuzzy blanket for the soul.  Of all the long separations inflicted on the cast, that of the Stark sisters may have been the most painful — not for how much they missed one another, but for how close they weren’t. There were no snowflakes melting in anyone’s hair, no tearful goodbyes, only preteen squabbles and horror. Many years and seasons later, Sansa and Arya have become very different people. A shared respect for one another’s newfound competence would have been enough to build on, but the love was there too.

Arya’s meeting with Bran provided another affecting jolt, albeit at the emotional remove at which all of Bran’s scenes now stand as the extent of his sacrifice becomes clear. (The long-suffering Meera Reed’s heart-struck delivery of “You died in that cave” was nearly unnecessary.) There was also Arya’s seemingly low-stakes duel with Brienne, emphatically less so by the second, and her significant glance with Littlefinger, who must feel the jaws of the trap closing on him by the second. But for all the various tensions and unanswered questions underlying this lineup of greetings, so much emotional lift was provided just by seeing Arya riding over that hilltop, sitting in those familiar grounds. As far as viewers or readers are concerned, Winterfell itself is the heart of Westeros, our entry point into the world and a barometer for the state of the Starks whose fortunes we’ve been entangled with. And all of Winterfell’s children have come home.

i really appreciated Davos trying to extricate himself from this awkwardness

Except for the one who left, anyway. The contrivance that leaves Jon Snow gently imprisoned on an island seems thinner and thinner in hindsight, but at least he’s using his time wisely — flirting with a hot-tempered woman in a cave. That, and unearthing, along with his dragonglass, historical antecedents of the War for the Dawn. Portraying some haply discovered cave paintings as the keystone of an alliance with Daenerys would have been too much of a stretch, but thankfully, “Spoils” held back from that. Dany and Jon built enough rapport that she was inclined to believe him, but belief is only part of the recipe. For all the moral excellence praised by Missandei (in an only moderately cringey scene), Daenerys remained too familiar with the varied uses and forms of power to surrender any of it.

And when word came of her full reverses, the dark side of that power surged to the fore. Thrones has coyly tweaked its portrayal of Daenerys in a way that doesn’t always convey the conflicted person it probably intends to. She’s propped up as a savior figure, the absurd idea of a “revolutionary queen,” commanding ardent loyalty from a potpourri of peoples otherwise invested in the question of who sits on an uncomfortable chair in a pasty, angry kingdom. But throughout her rise to power, she’s been imperious, ruthless, and downright vicious, to the point where it often comes off as inconsistency rather than turmoil. That said, Dany’s rage on the beach (brought to life admirably by Emilia Clarke, who hasn’t gotten a chance to be that mad in a very long time) was a step in the right direction, and her ensuing actions followed suit.

It must now be accepted that war on Game of Thrones isn’t a strategic endeavor, but a battle of wills and an exchange of costs. Principal characters make a difficult decision, or commit themselves to a risk, and all of the logistics fall amiably into place. So one could well question the timing of Daenerys’s ambush, or wonder at the experienced Randyll Tarly’s failure to catch wind of an entire khalasar approaching, or ask just where the hell all those Dothraki were waiting around in the first place. But it’s more rewarding to accept the conventions of the TV form, where the maneuvers of armies are the expression of protagonist choice. Who knows? Maybe the Dothraki have been raiding the Stormlands this entire time. It’s not like anyone would notice.

mom likes ME best, rhaegal

Because, after all, it’s hard to notice anything when you’re looking down the barrel of a dragon. The Second Field of Fire (just like the first one, a union of the Reach and the West against a Targaryen invader) was a triumph by any standards, up there with the very best battles Thrones has given us. What “Spoils” lacked in the perfectly structured expanse of “Blackwater” or the frightening tension of “Hardhome,” it made up for in straightforward tactics, high-budget action, and the deployment of a fully operational battle Drogon. From the astounding stunt work of the Dothraki cavalry, to the wandering shot of Bronn’s quest for Qyburn’s scorpion, to the nightmarish effects of dragonfire on the human body, it’s hard to ask for better craft in the area of “showing people dying on screen.”

And when Thrones is really at its best, it plays spectacle and meaning with both hands. It asks viewers to question the worthiness of the satisfying, awe-inspiring, or just plain cool stuff it shows them in a way that’s more thoughtful than a simple Screw you, viewer, for enjoying this! The battle of “Spoils” didn’t reach that at every point; the Dothraki, with an egregious faux-Indian war whoop and precisely one line of dialogue between them, remain painfully underserved since their reintroduction. But by the logic of war-as-extension-of-character, the Second Field of Fire pitted sympathetic people against one another better than any battle since “Blackwater,” and then showed us the extent of the cost.

Whatever their destination, the wagons were full of grain and gold, enough to feed one kingdom and make a down payment on stockpiles for the rest. When Daenerys released Drogon to burn the fields, however tactically sound, she also contributed to the very starvation of Westeros that she initially planned to avoid. To make it worse, her opposing number had the opportunity to show viewers his best self. Jaime Lannister was by turns charming (bantering with Bronn), compassionate

“I’ve made a huge mistake.”

(holding back Randyll’s excesses), understanding (commiserating with Dickon on his first battle), and finally, insanely brave (charging a fucking dragon! with one hand!) That final scene of Jaime’s mad charge and Dany’s struggle to heal her wounded “child” was Thrones writ small — two flawed, well-meaning people, spurred to separate acts of unbelievable heroism in direct conflict with one another, while thousands die as a result.

It certainly wrung at Tyrion’s heartstrings, in a moment that echoed the reunion of the Stark children. And it was enough to inspire even Bronn of the Blackwater, as self-interested a person as Westeros has ever seen, to risk his life far above and beyond his pay grade. Jaime almost certainly lived through his plunge — he’s the valonqar, after all, he has work to do — but we may find out that Bronn was the sacrifice to the hungry gods of the battlefield. If so, he was far from the least deserving person to die on the Field of Fire. And that is something that Daenerys will have to reckon with, along with all the rest.

Quick hits:

• Yes, Theon is an adopted Stark, thematically speaking. It’s all over the text. Fight me about it.
• Tough one for Theon, by the way. I would watch a quick Curb Your Enthusiasm parody starring Theon Greyjoy getting into more and more awkward situations that are entirely his own fucking fault.
• Not much to say about Cersei here. Her brief check-in mainly served to establish stakes for the lost Highgarden convoy, and drop some hints about what might come next. Including…
• The Golden Company! This is their second mention on the show, and like the first, probably just an Easter egg. There’s no way a rival claimant, let alone the whole concept of the Blackfyres, is being introduced at this stage. (It’s no coincidence that all the supplementary “history of Westeros” material has focused on the Dance of the Dragons as its great inter-Targareyn conflict of note). But if the Company does appear, even as hired mooks, their maneuvers might shed some light on what to expect in The Winds of Winter.
• I would be remiss if I didn’t bring up what a great episode of dialogue this was for Davos Seaworth, whose captivity is clearly wearing on him. That is one salty onion.
• Hey kids, it’s MLB All-Star Noah Syndergaard!
• And finally, here be wild theorizing. Purely speculative spoilers below, so avoid if you like:

It seems that the show is spinning up the wheels to reveal that Littlefinger was behind the attempt on Bran’s life. This is logistically unfeasible but as we’ve discussed, the show isn’t terribly worried about that. A Song of Ice and Fire, of course, pinned the blame on Joffrey, an explanation that was definitely plausible but always, to me, lacked the craft and resonance of the books’ other revelations. Petyr Baelish’s culpability would be much more thematically fitting, what with his personal history of fucking over the Starks at every turn.

I’m starting to suspect that GRRM had initially intended for Littlefinger to be behind the murder, then decided he couldn’t make the continuity work to his satisfaction and called an audible. I could be totally off on this, but I like that sort of craft speculation. And it would work for one of my favorite things about Thrones — the ability to go back and tweak things that every author, no matter how thoughtful and hard-working, wishes they could have done better.

The post Game of Thrones Episode 4: The Spoils of War appeared first on Dorkadia.

I’ve been on a mission to get my Destiny Age of Triumph T-shirt, but that’s required a ton of PvP activity. I’m bad at the crucible. Like reeeeaaal bad. I also tend to take everything way too personally (they clearly have it out for me, specifically) and get pretty angry. So instead of throwing a controller through my screen, I figured why not give this whole getting high thing a try? Anything that’d keep me mellow while I endure match after match of a sub 1.0 k/d ratio is worth a go, right? Which then left me to figure out just how in the world to best get stoned. Turns out, like with all of life’s mysteries, Google is a big help in that department.

The trials of purchasing

On a sunny Saturday morning, I took a walk to my local pot shop. I walked so I could catch Pokemon along the way and work off the nervousness of barging into a place I didn’t even remotely understand and requesting their finest reefer. (I had no clue what I was doing.) Thankfully, most of my terror vanished as soon as I was through the door. This place has the absolute friendliest staff I could have asked for. After checking my ID, the lady behind the counter complimented my New California Republic shirt and started talking about New Vegas. Turns out, that’s about all it takes to put me at ease. After I admitted how green I was at all of this, she helped me pick out some edibles since I’m still pretty firmly against smoking. (I swear I ate up every scare campaign they fed to me in school.) She gave me a quick rundown of dos and don’ts with the biggest being not to assume it’s not working and take more unless it’s been a couple of hours since my first dose. I’ve heard similar things from friends who ended up stuck on a couch for the better part of a day. So it’s advice that should definitely be followed.

The experience

I made my way back home with my illicit (read: completely legal) purchase concealed in a paper bag which I may have been gripping a little too tightly. I settled on chocolates from Evergreen Herbal since I do love me some junk food. As soon as I got home, I opened the package and munched some of the cannabis candy. I was pleasantly surprised that it didn’t have any sort of weed taste to it. (I haven’t smoked, but I have been to concerts.) That left me with some time to kill until the effects set in. I certainly knew when I’d waited long enough by the not-quite-drunk feeling and my sudden inability to concentrate on reading. It was time to get my game on.

I jumped into the crucible after staring at my vault a little too long during my stop at the Tower. I’d say that I want to apologize to all the teams that ended up with me, but I honestly didn’t do any worse than normal. I felt like I got into a kind of flow at one point, but that might have been in my head. In total, I ended up playing eight rounds of Rift during my experiment. I only know that now after looking at my PVP stats page since everything blended together at the time.

It was as a good a time as I’ve ever had in the crucible. The experience was kind of like being drunk without the slurring speech and uncomfortably full stomach or bladder. I had a hard time focusing on my objectives and my reactions were certainly slower than normal. At the same time, I didn’t care nearly as much and so I didn’t feel the stress I normally would. Though a few times I definitely found myself spacing out while walking into a wall because my thoughts had wandered. I get the feeling that if I were playing an RPG, I’d have likely ended up taking a nap in my chair. Getting regularly blown up was what kept me grounded and coming back to the present. After an hour and a half or so of playing, I had to give up because my mind was no longer anywhere near the game.

Regardless, I found myself being way more chill than usual. Not only did I not throw my controller, I kind of enjoyed myself thanks to being so relaxed.

There were, however, a couple of downsides.

Some words of warning

Folks, when you’ve never been high before, it’s probably a good idea to do so around friends. I took this fantastic voyage solo and hit some patches of rough sailing. I was not prepared with snacks on hand because getting the munchies is just so cliche. The problem with having your mind altering substance in candy form is that once you’re looking for something to snack on, they start looking real appealing. What harm could just one more piece do? It’d taste soooo goooood! Thankfully, I resisted the urge and went out in search of food. While stoned. Because that’s a great plan.

The other problem was the heightened sense of paranoia. Clearly, everyone around me knew that I was messed up and they were all judging me. They might have been judging me more because my plan to get a sandwich was replaced by a king size candy bar and a bag of Australian licorice. What I’m saying is you should really plan ahead when trying something like this for the first time.

High score!

I’m told that a product containing CBD would help with the anxiety/paranoia side of things, but it was really only an issue when I was walking around. On the whole, it was a pretty cool experience, and I did manage to get through most of the stuff I needed. But weed’s not something that I’m going to start using regularly. Gaming while high is more of a once in awhile thing that I might treat myself to if I’m incredibly stressed and need to chill. I have no idea how people do it on a regular basis. The effects from the edibles lasted several hours, so having nothing to do for the rest of the afternoon is a must. If you’re someone that’s always been curious but, like me, saw too many PSAs growing up, it’s probably worth getting over the anxiety and trying. However, I’ll stick with a beer or glass of whiskey as my regular gaming vice instead of something that’s going to leave me stoned for a couple hours.

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If you’ve been hiding under a rock or you just  stopped caring about Destiny soon after it came out, Expansion I – The Dark Below brings three new story missions, a new strike, and a new raid to the game. There are 6 new PvP maps, but I still don’t care about any of that. There are also a number of new weapons and armor (including legendary and exotics) and the ability to raise your Light level to 32. So let’s talk about all of this stuff briefly.

The first thing we did was pick up a story mission and jet back down to the Cosmodrome. That didn’t really seem like what I was expecting in an expansion focusing on The Hive. After a good 15 to 20 minutes, we were left wondering why an expansion with only three story missions would lead off with something so short. After less than 90 minutes we had destroyed the soul of Crota. I mean, the legendary fusion rifle reward was pretty cool looking and has the ability to switch between arc and solar damage, but it’s still a bit disappointing. Finishing the new story missions opened up some more quests, but that’s not exactly the same as more story. When the lack of story was one of the most common complaints from players of the core game, it may not be a great plan to skimp on the first expansion. Weirdly, my ghost stayed absolutely silent the whole time. I couldn’t get him to shut up originally, but he has nothing to say about tracking down the soul of what amounts to the god of the Hive. If Bungie couldn’t retain the services of Peter Dinklage, he should have been replaced.

The new raid, Crota’s End, is supposedly full of all-new game play mechanics and enemy bosses. I’m sure it’s amazing in the same way that I’m sure the Vault of Glass is amazing. As much as the blog posts over on Bungie’s site continually say that they listen to their community, it’s odd that they refuse to add matchmaking to the raids. In an interview with Game Informer (quote via IGN) Luke Smith said, “… we have absolutely no plans to do raid matchmaking at this time.” They’re apparently looking at ways to make more interesting content outside of raids, just not for this expansion. I think it’s a bit unreasonable to expect players to have five friends that all have similar schedules and own the game on the same console. Clearly, the people over at Bungie don’t feel the same way.

Completing the additional three missions that follow the exceptionally flat portion of The Dark Below‘s story opens up the new strike. Sadly, it’s not a more interesting or involved strike than anything else in the game. It seems that what Bungie thought would be more engaging for non-raiding players would be to simply triple the number of enemies being thrown at us. Upping the difficulty is a nice thought, but I prefer my bullet hell games to be side-scrollers. At least I can get some new gear and raise my level by two. Two? Yep, that’s just spectacular. I really, really hope that I’m wrong and that the new strike is going to make Destiny more enjoyable, but I’m pretty skeptical at this point. Frankly, if I wasn’t playing with my brother, I most likely wouldn’t have bought the expansion pass.

The last bit of content besides PvP was a series of quests that feel similar to the exotic bounties, but without getting ganked by my fellow players. It had to wait until this recent weekend because it involved turning in items to Xûr, Agent of the Nine. (Could we get more story about the Nine? Mr. Tentacle Face seems like a really cool story hook.) Killing various Hive with specific elemental damage was fun, but I really quite enjoyed the challenge of isolating cursed thralls and killing them with melee damage without getting killed. (They explode with a satisfying, yet painful pop.) Camping Skywatch for a public event can be tedious, so bring a friend. The final turn-in also requires Xûr, so try to get it all done over a weekend. You’ll get a new legendary piece of class specific arm gear for your effort.

Speaking of Xûr, I am glad that there is a path (limited weekly as it may be) that allows people to upgrade the exotics they already own to bring them into line with the new, more powerful gear of the expansion. It’s not the most important part of the update, but it’s certainly a welcome one.

The thing that I want the people working on Destiny to take away here is that weapon balancing and eliminating loot caves is about the bottom of the concerns you can address and say that you’re listening to your fans. The fans are the people that continue to play and buy expansions while pleading for raid matchmaking or some form of in-game communication option beyond pointing, saluting, and dancing. Yeah, my Bad Juju is a bit more powerful now, but it would be nice if I could use that in a raid. Six new PvP maps? Was the lack of maps really more demanded than more access to raids? More than actually expanding the story into something more coherent without digging through the Grimoire on another site? I’m guessing that a lot of people originally bought the pack that included the first two expansions, but Bungie is really going to need to step it up if they’re planning on selling me on expansion number three or the planned sequel.

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The year was 1989 and Marvel didn’t have any idea what they were doing in regards to comic-book movies. Given that the Marvel Cinematic Universe has become the second-most successful franchise in history, giving rise to so-called “megafranchises,” it’s easy to forget that the first Marvel film in the modern era was Howard the Duck. X-Men was so successful and Iron Man later broke the mold in terms of how Marvel did movies, so one can almost ignore the pre-2000 Marvel films, none of which scored better than 55 percent on Rotten Tomatoes. These days, of course, Marvel has finally figured out how to make its interconnected universe work on-screen, which has its advantages and disadvantages. On the one hand, the Marvel comics themselves were heavily interwoven, with characters jumping teams and loyalties all the time. On the other hand, the demand that every Marvel movie going forward need fit into the MCU seems to leave no room for the one-off, fun movie. (One of the rumors circulating around Edgar Wright’s departure of the Ant-Man movie is that his version wouldn’t have fit in the MCU.)

Sadly, if Marvel ever ever tries for a third reboot of The Punisher, they’ll most likely try to shoehorn him into the MCU, which seems unnecessary. Marvel’s anti-hero Frank Castle always seemed more of a lone wolf; his few crossovers are appropriately with other lone wolves, like Ghost Rider, Batman, and (ahem) Archie. Castle doesn’t seem like the team player type. Moreover, I don’t want to see the Punisher in the MCU. I don’t need another reboot; I don’t need another origin story. The Punisher kills people without remorse. All I need from a Punisher movie is a high body count.

On this front, 1989’s The Punisher delivers and more. We’re told at the beginning of the movie that the Punisher has killed 125 people in the past five years, and he easily tops that number before the movie is over. While it doesn’t reach the levels of silly killing methods of a Friday the 13th or Nightmare on Elm Street, there are several inventive weapons, most notably the femme fatale’s earring daggers, which she uses to stab one of the mafia members through the hands in a gruesome stigmata. For the most part though, people jut shoot each other, with every type of automatic weapon available. While watching the movie I kept having to turn the volume down, lest my neighbors think my apartment was involved in a gang war.

Want the Punisher skull? Here you go.

Dolph Lundgren got the short shift when this was first released; due to New World having financial trouble the movie never got a US theatrical release, being sent direct to VHS and laserdisc instead. In hindsight, this was probably a good idea. At first glance, The Punisher looks like a second-rate Terminator and it would have looked awful next to the other big comic-book movie of 1989: Tim Burton’s Batman. Not only does The Punisher lack Burton’s vision, it alters many of the fundamental details of the character, such as the origins of Castle, or Castle’s outfit. (SPOLER ALERT: the famous skull logo is nowhere to be found. Not even as an Easter Egg. Don’t bother looking for it.)

Thankfully, this is a Way Too Late review, and 2014 me can look at this 1989 movie and examine it in the context of all the movies that have come after. Changed origin story? I don’t care, because the origin story doesn’t play a big part in the movie. The movie isn’t about the origin story, which I’ve come to appreciate more and more as every comic-book movie recently feels the need to kick off a franchise with an origin story. No skull T-shirt? I’m not that bothered; Castle’s skull-pommel throwing knives he scatters around the city like Batarangs are a sufficient nod to the comic. From its James Bond-esque opening sequence, The Punisher is nothing but the story of a man out for vengeance. That’s all it needs to be. I don’t need a tearjerking origin story, and I don’t need anything other than Lundgren’s five o’clock shadow and brooding demeanor to know that he is The Punisher. It works without needing to fit in the MCU.

tl;drs

Blank is a blanker version of blank: The Punisher is the gritty outcome of a movie studio not being able to afford a comic book budget, but still turning out something better than Fantastic Four.

Screen credits over/under: Under, although it was the first screenplay for writer Boaz Yakin, who *could* have taken a little more from the source material.

Recommended if you like: Hypermasculine 1980s movies like Red Dawn or Commando.

Worse than I hoped: The middle dragged a bit, but other than that it was as I expected it would be.

The Punisher would work better as a(n): You know what? Leave it. Marvel, you’ve tried to reboot this franchise twice and haven’t gotten anywhere. Let it go and get to work on my Gambit movie.

Verdict: The Punisher has none of the polish of the modern-day MCU, but there are times when a flawed, entertaining movie is all you want.

Related Reading: The Punisher (Thomas Jane edition)

The post The Punisher (Dolph Lundgren edition) appeared first on Dorkadia.

For all the stuff about Facebook’s algorithm (like the Eat 24 letter), check out Megan’s article.

Megan was thinking of Marshall McLuhan – The medium is the message.

Check out Gail Simone.

So Nick said things about Google Glass and the dystopia that will follow.

Wanelo – Social media for all of your shopping needs?

All hail Poop Quest Jon, successor to the once mighty Steve!

As always, click to download the MP3 of this episode here: Episode 38 – Walk like a Horadrim

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Please comment below or email us at podcast@dorkadia.com

The post Episode 38 – Walk like a Horadrim appeared first on Dorkadia.

It started when I was researching putting some $$$ down for some Facebook advertising for Dorkadia on Facebook, and came across Varatisium’s video about how Facebook advertising doesn’t work (It’s a good 9 minute video, well worth watching). So, if you pay to advertise your site, you’re going to get what you ask for – lots of people looking at your ad, liking your page, and going to your website! But you’re not getting what you want – people to engage with what you’re talking about. Real meaningful people who care about your topic. That’s pretty crappy.

Then when Facebook started inserting more and more ads into your news feed, and decreasing how many people see what you post – and I’m not talking just about a business page like Dorkadia, but your own personal updates as well! – it started getting pretty frustrating. Social Ogilvy has a great chart showing the decline of organic reach, and Forbes details how Organic reach is rapidly reaching zero; (the number of people who see your status updates without paying to boost them at all), where you watch that line plummet down. As of about two months from this article, organic reach of a post on facebook is about 2% of people who like your page. Say you have 1,000 people who like your page? It’s most likely that only 20 of them will see your status update. ??????? Lots of people are getting frustrated with this shift in policy that asks people to pay to reach more of the people who ASKED TO SEE YOUR CONTENT. Eat24.com put a pretty awesome open letter discussing their reasoning to turn off their Facebook page – because quite honestly, for less effort and way less money, they can reach more people on other social media channels.

social.ogilvy.com

And with my own personal experience – Charles and I were excited last year when we heard about Unnatural Redhead Productions was going to put on the burlesque show about Table Top Games “Table Topless” (lol!), we made sure to like their page, and follow their content so we could get the announcement when tickets were going on sale. Months and months go by with nothing in our feed from them, and thankfully on a whim Charles went directly to their website to see if they had a status update there. Turns out, they had been selling tickets for over a month, pushing out status updates right and left! But Facebook’s algorithm thought it was content we didn’t want to see, so we never saw it. (Thankfully, we were still able to get tickets!) A few weeks later a friend of ours was married – an event Charles attended, and yet Facebook didn’t think he would want to see the status update from his friend the groom thanking all who attended. This magic algorithm thinks I don’t want to know about major life events in my friends comments, but that I really care about my mothers 847th weekly status update of “TGIF”. really.

So personally, I’m seeing less content than I actually want out of Facebook, and professionally, the people I want to reach aren’t seeing my content. Then at our 13th Age game the other night, one of our players was telling us how Facebook asks to read your txt messages on your android phones. I have nothing to hide, but why does Facebook need to know that I’m telling Charles that I’ll be late getting home because I lost track of time browsing reddit? There is just more and more and more that makes me frownie face.

I’m taking a class through the University of Washington, and my instructor shared a piece he wrote titled “We need an exit strategy for Facebook“, which got me thinking, Is there an exit strategy for Facebook? Eat 24 has clearly shown that they can do without – and probably gained customers due to their splash in the news because of it. But what about how just a few months ago, Hannah and I laughed at Jon because of his trepidation, and feeling of anxiety and obligation to use social media? I think I’ve done a fair amount of poking around about Facebook, but it wasn’t long ago that if someone told me the weren’t on Facebook, I’d look at them funny and wonder why.

Are we really in a place yet, where we can not be part of the larger conversation that is happening on Facebook? I’m leaning towards yes, because even if you say something on Facebook, no one is going to hear you. But how long until people stop looking at you funny when you say that you’ve given up on their social media of choice? In the end, what I think it means for me is that I’m pulling the Facebook app off my phone, I’m still going to post articles to Facebook, but I’m pretty much not going to invest or worry about what happens to our page there. I’m not quite ready to implement the exit strategy, but I’ll be looking for one when that organic reach goes from 2% to zero.

The post Is there a withdrawal possibility for Facebook? appeared first on Dorkadia.

So far I’ve received two major reactions when telling people that I ordered Glass.  The first is far easier for me to understand – “Can I try them?”  Sure, of course you can try them.  It’s an alpha version of a new gadget, you use that for fun, dreaming big, and playing around with your friends.  I’m excited to take some videos and pictures, have texts pop up in my field of view, and get street level directions when I’m walking around, as are the other people that fall into this category.  We might dream about doing some kind of art project with the technology, like make a first-person perspective movie or something of that nature.  In general, we’re just excited about the new pieces of functionality that Glass offers, and excited about creating some new games with them.

However, there’s a whole other category of people that I’ve read about, but before announcing that I’d actually bought Glass, had never encountered.  This group responds with what seems to be a deep seated discomfort about the device and its implied secret surveillance capabilities.  They don’t seem to care about Glass’s other features, or simply discount them as unimportant, “My phone can already do that.”, or “I prefer to use my technology, not have my technology use me.”

In my second article on Glass, I talk quite a bit about the future dystopias this technology opens up, so I can certainly understand the darker uses of AR and its forerunners.  What I don’t understand is that the discomfort seems to exist at a non-cerebral level – it becomes emotional and very reactive.  In San Francisco there have been 2 assaults on Glass users, with the assaulters taking the device and smashing it.  Of course, in SF, this is the result of a deeper struggle occurring in the city over gentrification of neighborhoods and the emergence of a new crowd of technostocracy, with employees of Facebook and Google and other tech companies appearing to demand a different level of treatment than the average citizen of SF.  But so far the violence has centered around Glass and its role in social code as an elitist/creeper identifier.

I don’t understand that level of emotional response to nearly any technology (other than nukes and biowarfare I guess).  New tech either makes me excited or bored, but very rarely angry, and technology that provides some new type of surveillance is no exception.  Without some type of serious “society collapses” kind of event, we are never, ever moving back to a time period where there is LESS surveillance than there is right now.  It’s just too technologically convenient to put cameras on everything.  Our tech is going to continue to get smarter and MORE perceptive, it’s never going back in the opposite direction.  The way to fight the encroaching dystopias is not to get angry, but to get involved.  Develop an ad-blocker for Glass.  Go to local community meetings and ask “How do we want this tech to be used in our public spaces?  How do we want it to be applied to law enforcement?”  Write to your Senators and Representatives.

In all things, fighting the future is the same as commanding the tide to turn back.  It’s not going to work and you’re just going to get wet trying it.  Don’t fight the wave – ride it and guide it.  Our only hope of living in a technological utopia is if we react with cautious optimism, and apply critical thinking to our future choices.  Anger and kicking people out of your bar won’t cut it.  Those sort of things might help hold back Glass, but what about Glass version 5, which is an optical nerve implant, or something else of that nature?  This is happening, so let’s choose wisely.

Courtesy of Cyanide & Happiness (http://explosm.net/)

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A more digestible experience than AC3

As much as I enjoyed playing as Desmond Miles and the various ancestors that he dove into over the last few years, I’m not ultimately going to miss him or his baggage. The story, while ultimately about the current power struggle between Templars and Assassins, is one that is experienced largely through the long dead avatar that happens to have some knowledge of the MacGuffin of the week. And since we’re dealing with highly questionable science to begin with, I can appreciate that we’re delving into familiar territory while embracing a new external protagonist who remains completely unnamed throughout the game. These games have always been about the historical figure being portrayed and I’m fine with the level of focus given to that this time around.

The thing that really drove me forward with such vigor this time around was the brilliant way that areas were packaged into dozens of bite-sized experience nuggets. Assassin’s Creed 3 was overwhelming with the massive amount of crap they crammed into every single map. When you arrived in an area in AC3, it was nearly impossible to stumble 5 feet without running into another chest, almanac page, Assassin mission, contract, race, etc. With AC4 we get this same volume of tokens to chase for achievements, but it’s broken out into islands that have a few chests or whatnot at a time. It seems more manageable and less WTF.

Vastly superior fast travel system

Thank fuck I did not have to spend my time navigating those wholly awful tunnel mazes for a half hour just to save myself running for five minutes like I did in AC3. The fast travel system in AC3 was an unmitigated disaster and I wish I could douse it in kerosene and watch it burn. Assassin’s Creed 4 throws the whole thing out the window and turns it into a much more simplified system that actually lets you get places quickly. Travel points are discovered organically throughout your travels and don’t make you jump through hoops that impede your ability to have fun.

Naval combat greatly improved

Honestly, the naval combat in Assassin’s Creed 4 is so much better than it was in its predecessor that much of the time I don’t even bother with the fast travel to get between places I already visited. After experiencing the naval elements of AC3, I cringed when I heard that AC4 was going to rely heavily on being at sea. No, I mean it; I actually had a visceral physical reaction to the news. I’m relieved to say that everything from ship control, to combat mechanics, to ocean effects has improved significantly. I actually found myself taking the helm and looking for a prize even when I could simply fast travel to my next story destination.

Excellent external support of game

I love having a game experience spill out of the game and into external programs. While I was a little sad to see that there was no support of Black Flag on the Xbox One SmartGlass app, Ubisoft does offer a specific app for the game. From it you can manage your fleet, keep track of your treasure maps, and more. Being able to access my fleet while I was commuting made those bus rides a whole lot more enjoyable.

On top of the app, there’s the AC Initiates site. Just in case you want to pile more challenges on yourself, there’s a mission option that is updated by the Xbox at regular intervals. Completing missions earns you xp for your profile and can also get you some in game items as well. The site is also a wealth of lore about the alternate history universe of Assassin’s Creed. Definitely worth checking out if you can handle an extra level of challenge.

I was absolutely surprised by how involved I got with Assassin’s Creed 4: Black Flag. I can’t say for certain, but I believe the main story took me a good 40 hours to complete. However, over the course of nearly three weeks, I couldn’t help clearing out the items of most islands I came across because it seemed like a small and easy thing to do. I’m sure not everyone is going to be as crazy as I was and play with treasure maps constantly up on a smart phone while having an open laptop on the AC Initiates site the whole time they’re playing. Hint: it’s a fun way to play. I can’t believe that I’m fine with Ubisoft putting out an AC game every year, but I’m looking forward to the further adventures of our renegade Abstergo Entertainment employee. Take my money and keep pumping your pseudo-science bullshit premises into my console because I can’t stop being entertained by them.

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Exciting, but Simple

Like all mobile games, Deep Dungeons of Doom’s gameplay is straight forward, but unlike most mobile games Deep Dungeons of Doom will also kick your ass and smile while doing it. You will pilot a hero through a number of dungeons, each dungeon being a linear series of one-on-one monster fights terminating with a boss monster and sprinkled with special events. You’ll have your choice of three heroes, a tough crusader, a glass cannon witch, and a wily mercenary, each with a unique and impressive tech tree to purchase upgrades from. Only by achieving a level of focus that few mobile games demand will you be able to get your heroes through all of the dungeons alive to save the day.

The fights are brilliantly designed. Your hero can only attack (tap the right side of the screen), block (tap the left side of the screen), using an item (tap the item), and a class-specific charge up ability (hold down on the right side of the screen, then let go). But the brilliance comes from the monster animation. Much like a mobile fantasy version of Bop It!, you’ll be studying your enemies for tells and memorizing patterns. Each wonderfully animated monster will let you know when they’re blocking and when they’ll attack. It’s a careful dance between you and the enemy, block and attack must be expertly timed since the average hero can weather about 3-6 hits before kicking the bucket.

All told, the game is just too much on the simple and repetitive side for me. The third or fourth dungeon you do in a row can feel samey, but the game’s special items, character specific abilities you purchase as you level, and randomly generated quests do a lot to keep it fresh. I certainly still have fun playing this game and it kept my attention much longer than other tap-based action titles.

Beautiful, but Goofy

Ah, the real high point of the game. The graphics in Deep Dungeons of Doom are spectacular. Miniboss has packed so much personality and detail into the backgrounds, story cut scenes, and sprite animates that it’s mind boggling. The enemy animations that call out attacks are silky smooth and their death animations are brutally detailed. A few of the bosses call to mind the pixelated masterpieces of Metal Slug, only shrunk down onto my phone. Even the colors of the game, heavy in browns, reds, and oranges paired with and opposing cyans, makes the game feel caked with grime while still keeping intact all of the hand crafted detail. The mobile game scene is full of primary colors and cluttered screens; this pixelated and murky game is one of the best looking mobile games I’ve ever played.

This game doesn’t, however, keep its tone consistent. The beautiful and grim backgrounds, gorgeously dirty palette, and gruesomely animated monster death sequences are paired up with inappropriately goofy writing. The mobile gaming triumph Swords & Sworcery pulled off a fusion of stylized modern language, fantasy elements, and contemporary music,  but that’s because the folks behind it are fucking masters. Bossa Studios doesn’t pull off that same this-just-feels-right alchemy that allowed us to buy into Swords & Sworcery; when the mercenary in Deep Dungeons of Doom uses the word “dude” I find get snapped right out of the experience. The writing is a miss, but it doesn’t impede anything else the game does so, so right.

Deep Dungeons of Doom, Get It

Deep Dungeons of Doom isn’t quite pitch perfect, but it is an extremely enjoyable action mobile game that is worth your time and moneys. Rarely do action games on mobile platforms keep me coming back for more and I’m still playing the shit out of this game. The first five missions are free with a $3 paygate to complete the rest of the game. It’s available for absolutely every platform, so there’s no excuse. Grab it on your robot pads, your macintosh touchmachines, the Ouya, and even the Kindle briquette.

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Last week I talked about Google Glass and how excited I am that this sort of futuristic technology is finally arriving.  I understand the fallacy of the slippery slope, but please follow along while I do a little brainstorming on what possible effects the infant field of Augmented Reality will have on our future.

The Near Future (5 – 10 years)

Already begun.

Although Google Glass is the first type of this tech that might actually make it to market, it is certainly not the only product like this coming to market.  The commercial demand for AR technology (once its easily affordable) is going to be huge.  It’s hard to imagine not having a smartphone these days once you’ve had one for a few months.  Having access to the internet in your pocket is such a tremendous asset to simply moving around in our society that suddenly severing that connection feels as though you have been isolated and thrust back in time a century.  I imagine when products like the Google Glass arrive, they’ll replace those smartphones.  Suddenly as you move about your daily business, you will be in constant ready contact with everyone you know, or possibly have ever met.  Every single problem you encounter on a given day becomes solvable by parallel processing instead of serial with minimal effort on your part.  Versions two or three will probably require zero effort on your part.  Get a flat tire?  Just look at your tire, AAA is on the way.  See an accident?  Emergency help is on the way.  See a job posting?  Get a list of people you know looking for work that have a skill-set for that job.

Why would this revolutionize human culture?  If you think about it, people have three basic “values” that they offer to others – what they know, what they can do, and who they are.  AR can completely eliminate the first of those categories completely.  Everyone is going to have access to “know” everything that everyone in humankind has ever known.  Interacting with people will now be much more based on personality and behavior than on knowledge.  We will also be able to make even faster and more thorough progress than ever before.  Progress is based on building upon the previous foundation of knowledge, so not only will knowledge be accessible easily to everyone, it will intelligently PRESENT itself to you.

The first few generations will simply have extremely convenient features like driving guides, photos and videos, and easy communication with friends.  Following soon after that will be artistic digital overlays of physical surfaces.  My assumption is that people will be decorated with digital tattoos that move, buildings can be made to look like forests or waterfalls, and any number of other aesthetic replacements.  Of course, it’s not all going to be sunshine and roses.

I foresee some pretty insidious uses for AR technology, even in the first generations. Advertising is going to be fucking HORRIBLE.  It’s going to be everywhere, and is going to require a whole new set of laws to deal with.  Unfortunately, if we legislate AR devices like we’ve been legislating for smart phones, those laws are going to specify that we can’t install software to block advertisements.  We’ll see how that shakes down in the future, but it’s going to be a fight.

Our Kids’ Problems (20 – 40 years)

Law enforcement and national security are also going to be some of the first areas this tech is rolled into, and it’s going to be rough figuring how THAT is going to work.  Imagine a camera catching you jaywalk across a street.  Your name and face goes into a database, and the next time a cop walks past you, they issue you a ticket.  That’s if we don’t just automate ticketing misdemeanors altogether, like traffic cameras.  I imagine once you’ve committed a crime, you will NEVER be able to erase that in a post AR world.  If you move, police could get a rap sheet just by walking past you.  Our safety crazy society already makes it difficult for people pay their debt to society, so it’s going to be even tougher to become a reformed criminal than it ever was. Possibly to the point that many people who might change could simply remain criminals, as there could be no other option for them.

It’s very easy to imagine that a world where all crimes are immediately spotted and police can recognize criminals on sight will be a safer world.  I mean, if you think about it, letting less people get away with crime is a good thing, right?  Theoretically, yes.  However, that only applies if our LAWS actually make sense.  Our federal and state laws are so byzantine at times that it’s impossible to tell if you’ve actually broken a law.  You can’t possibly hope to memorize every legal code that applies to every area you visit.  Ever broken the speed limit, jay walked, defaced a dollar bill, or rounded while doing your taxes?  You’re screwed.  We’re already running into this problem today with the amount of video surveillance that goes on.  AR could multiply that to the point where people will be on camera virtually any time they leave their house.  In our effort to be “tough on crime”, we almost never repeal laws, only add more.  It’s going to take some very serious thought on how to restructure our legal system to avoid legislating ourselves out of existence.

The Not So Bright Future (50-100 years)

via http://digitalxdefiant.deviantart.com/

If we look farther into the future, and we make the assumption of the worst, the possibilities are  frightening.  With AR technology, we could literally be able to CHOOSE the world we live in.  Don’t like what someone says?  Put them on a ban list, you could never see them again, only a floating X where they’d be.  While this seems like a nice feature to deal with jerks on the bus, it has some extraordinarily dangerous ramifications.  We have a lot of trouble dealing with people we disagree with – it’s one of the things that keeps Congress in a deadlock.  As time goes on, the media and politicians encourage us to be less and less reasonable toward the other side of arguments.  They encourage WINNING at all costs, instead of reasonable compromise.  When people could simply blot out other people they disagree with, we stop having meaningful dialogue.  Without being exposed to new ideas and new people, we stagnate, and our culture just slowly eats itself.  Progress forward in the United States happens in the melting pot.  Without being able to interact with people we disagree with, we’re not going to be cooking that pot at all – just trying to eat a bunch of shitty raw ingredients.

And even further beyond that, what happens when we begin to take the CHOICE of banning people out of the hands of individuals?  In fifty years, AR will probably be delivered to us through a chip in our eye or brain.  That means that parents could choose what kind of world they want their children to live in, or even worse – governments can do that.  That’s my ultimate nightmare scenario – the Great Firewall of China turning into nationalities or religions enforcing not only their dictates but their very reality on the people they have power over.

So, I’m both excited and terrified of Augmented Reality.  It could be the best, worst, or borst(?) thing ever to happen.

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