76) Symbolic Computers

Having been preoccupied with the stresses of AP coursework with little time for fun, it's hard to take time out of the day for mind exercises. Exercises like imagining worst case scenarios.

Sometimes it's slight, just you missing the bus and having to walk five miles home. Other times, it's finding out your dog has died or that you didn't hit save when the power cut out in the middle of typing up your English final. It's nice to think about these situations to prepare for them, so you'll know what to do if it happens.

My worst case scenario was having my shiny new computer break down on me. It was the infamous Blue Screen of Death, they call it, indication of the failed processes of an economic giant that has so thoroughly embraced capitalism. It's my firm belief that Microsoft and it's new Windows 7 is just a placeholder for the next product that comes out and soaks up billions of dollars. That next product will become another placeholder, and so on.

The important thing to understand about any company is that with size comes responsibility. Whatever service, whatever product you're trying to sell, is not necessarily purposed to help your customers; it's purposed to help you gain wealth. But I'm not here to speculate on the psychological and sociological reasons for starting a business. I'm here to tell you how such a business can explode into something so helplessly loathed by many.

When a company gets big enough, it hits what I call the "care factor". Basically, at this point, the company is perverted from it's original purpose, regardless of what it was, to serve no other interests but it's own through any means necessary. Most of the time, it just means that they sacrifice quality over quantity to gain the most profit. Other times, it's them buying out competitors and laying off people.

Don't get me wrong; I don't think this happens to every large company that exists, but the evidence is there to prove how products have degraded over time due to this care factor. It affects almost every American sector out there: electronics, food, clothing, etc.

So when I flipped through the motherboard manual for my computer to troubleshoot the problem, it wasn't a surprise to see how Microsoft products would cause such a disaster, since it outsources technical support for "cost", builds crappy and buggy operating systems for "cost", just so that by the time you get around to fixing it, you're already being forced to buy the next product down the line.

It's why I think Apple products are so popular. People are just so fed up with Microsoft, a company that seems to go out of its way to exploit customers by forcing them to buy products that they can't seem to avoid. And that's the cold, hard fact: you can't avoid Microsoft Windows. It constitutes a very large majority of the computer industry, and at least one computer you use in this lifetime will contain Windows. You know it, and Microsoft knows it, so they can use whatever tactics they want to earn money at your expense. It's almost a sick form of control that they know you can't break.

Apple, after they exploded with their fanbase, has also crossed the care factor. They come out with newer products in the same line every single year, setting the stage for consumerism peer pressure. If you don't get the new one, you're not up to date and are part of the old breed. It doesn't matter if you only use this new product for only six months, because by then you'll be holding the next product down the line.

And so, my friends, this is how the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. Everyone has the insinuation that American capitalism is the best thing in the world. It's fair, orderly, and allows the basic person to live and survive for the effort they put in.

And yet, the income brackets are highly polarized, your background and race quantify where you get hired, and there will always be homeless wandering the streets a few blocks from the city center.

American capitalism is idolized like it's some holy messiah that can't be brought down by anything. Maybe it can't. But most people never consider that other countries have children begging for food while your neighbor complains that the line at Starbucks is too damned long. Not everyone has your type of capitalism.

Can you blame anyone? Maybe not. But the quantified greed that exists makes the entire concept of capitalism a horrid oxymoron. Americans are indoctrinated to ignore this, treading down a preconceived road that has only the illusion of free will. You are born, your are taught, you work, and you die. Nothing more, nothing less. Every once in a while they'll let a select group break out of this path, and even then they only exist to embody the next generation of workers.

If this is the society that we are treading downward, then it is in fact a very bleak future. Americans can hardly believe that money isn't everything. It's what makes a film like Fight Club a cult classic; it's an indication that we believe everything is meaningless and trivial, that we have to hurt ourselves to feel something, anything.

All the while, I'm still trying to fix my stupid computer, wondering what I'm supposed to tell future generations about how to live in America. Maybe I'll save the old computer to show them one day, just so I can tell them: "This is the embodiment of everything you will do. You will work and then you will die. If you falter off course, you will be forgotten and discarded."

"You will obey the master system. You will be controlled. You are soulless automatons. Your conceptions of free will are illusions. You have no say over your own destiny."

71) Legacy Of The Hopeless

Join us for a long awaited YOMcast as I rant on about America's war in the Middle East, explain a view on Don't Ask Don't Tell, reflect on the past decade of events (video), look at Korea's tension war, North Korea's willingness to open up, and prepare a message for the future...

56) Dots Of Light

Video games continue to break digital expectations. In a current world where moments of shock and awe are rarely associated with optimism, these mere distractions serve to give us some internal smiles.

The government could learn a thing or two from current video game marketing. In an America where competition is fueled by capitalism, companies have to be creative in selling their products. It's all about advertisement and building a brand. Except these days, it's gone online.

The best example I stumbled across today was the the Halo Reach Remembrance Memorial.

Allow me to explain.

Microsoft and Bungie are finally ending their multimillion dollar Halo franchise with a final game: Halo: Reach. Due on Sept. 14, the pre-orders pile up in the thousands, if not millions.

Reach is a prequel to the series, focusing on one of the most pivotal battles in the Halo universe and canon, aboard the planet, you guessed it: Reach.

The marketing campaign follows a slew of live action trailers, broadcast vigorously where the fanbase is the densest. This follows a legacy of ARG's left behind by the previous Halo games, most notably I Love Bees used for hyping up Halo 2.

For this new Halo: Reach, they've put up a memorial website. In the canon, The Battle of Reach has already occurred before all the other Halo titles, so it can be assumed that the protagonists of this game do not survive.

Even though the story takes place more than 500 years from now, it's a good tactic by Microsoft to put you as an observer of history, to witness these events as if you were a veteran of these battles. It makes sense, seeing as how any true Halo fan has played and witnessed all the other games and their depictions of war. This prologue is a fitting beginning to the end. (See what I did there?)

My excitement centers around the pre-release website for this game: Remember Reach.

The site is a simple view of a memorial of outlined figures, dedicated to the protagonists of the game. But here's the catch: the image is "built" by thousands of dots of light. In order to complete the memorial, fans and visitors to the website have to log onto their Facebook account, choose a unoccupied spot, and the huge robotic arm in the background moves to fill in the blank.

That's not all: the website takes your profile name and picture and puts it onto a sliding bar at the bottom. Proof that you helped build this marvel.

The website is updated live, with all chosen spots on a queue to wait for their moment of robotic arm glory. It's all recorded on camera, and you can see other names and their dots filled live. This behind the scenes video proves that there is an actual studio devoted to this 24/7 task. There's actually a real robotic arm that moves in front of a green screen.

These are the advances that draw your emotional obligation into a product. To feel that you can actually contribute to the canon directly provides a deeper and personal interpretation of the game and its universe. It's not just a simple: "See that memorial? I helped build that!" It's a deeper and subconscious link that makes it easier to lose yourself in the fiction.

With a story like humanity struggling to survive, it's not hard to sell Halo. In many aspects, it can even be interpreted as a metaphor for the United States and its war. Those deeply familiar with the Halo universe can tell you that the enemies are the same, alien and brutal, hell bent on fighting a religious crusade. The human defenders are a disillusioned group barely held together by a fractured government. Some are bent on peace, others vie for revenge. Human casualties become staggering.

There are stories of courage and valor, betrayal and heartbreak. Ethics are tested. People are killed. Heroes are born. Planets are glassed. Enemies are forced to team up. There's a paragraph from the book Halo: Ghosts of Onyx, that summarizes a major theme of the series, applicable to any modern war:

"It will give us time to think, plan, and come up with a better way to fight."

Parangosky whispered, "You want to trade lives for time."

Ackerson paused, carefully weighing his response, then said, "Yes ma'am. Isn't that the job of a soldier?" (47)

But I'm getting ahead of myself here. In the end, you don't have to be a fanboy of Halo or have to know the first thing about the canon to marvel at a Internet innovation via memorial. If for nothing else, participate for the sake of art. There is a story present everywhere, if you are willing to listen.

So go to the website and pick your own dot of light. My dot is tagged under my name, Derek Wong, on 8/31/2010, at 8:01 PM on coordinates x: 185.94 y: 68.23 z: -61.86.

Take a look at the thousands of other names and I dare you to tell me that video games can't be taken seriously. Because ladies and gentlemen, I give you:

A glimpse of the future.

47) Scr(ew)ooge's Paradise

By nature, America is always economically associated with capitalism. Everyone knows that the biggest manufacturers will sell there, eager to make a quick penny over the most devoted of consumers. No product is too ridiculous, for someone, somewhere, will buy it.

Capitalism and consumerism is such a vital core of American life that it controls everything, from food to clothing. Starbucks, McDonald's and Nike are some example brands alot of people cannot live without. Most people can't realize just how valuable and nostalgic local businesses are these days.

The American dollar holds such value that it cannot be labeled unnecessary. As the United States grew, not only did we lose the concept of "money isn't everything", but we also lost the value of what money means to a human being. A government gets to decide that value.

It's logical to assume that the American lack of frugality is founded in the deep nationalism set by Uncle Sam. Spending defines alot of what it means to be an American, provided that you don't immediately go bankrupt afterward. After World War Two, what else could suburbia do?

This is all further reinforced by a natural hate of socialism and communism by America at large, who have an ironic audacity to complain about civil rights. Not the same you say? In America, what would you rather take: A million dollars, or fair treatment?

Truth is, you'd want both, and that's why consumerism is smiling at you. Granted, not everyone is driven by blind greed, but often there is a consensus of "more is better". Can't say the death of Crassus is something to be admired.

Charities try to upset the sad imbalance for the poor, giving money to those who can't make it on their own. It is a glimmer of hope that requires a sympathy and guilt shock when humanitarian agencies have to advertise images of dying children to get your attention.

So think, my friend, the next time you are stuck in a precarious situation of greed, given the American status quo. Which is more important to you: money or ethics?

And no, you can't have both.

41) Summer of Dance

A summer starting YOMcast about the Gulf of Mexico's hazardous oil spill, with a link for a live video of the leaky pipe, the Obama administration's questionable response, first day of FIFA South Africa, the cliche surge of movies, and a hat tip to Mr. Sutherland and his first podcast.

30) The Spring Break Rant

This week, we discuss the imperialist ipad, troubles with Pope Benedict the 16th, hate on the American School System as described by John Taylor Gatto (again), and see the legitimate fears of people and American politics.

This one's a long one folks, so strap in and listen:

27) Don't Need No Education

Listen as we honor Corey Haim, rage on the perils of Mr. Sutherland's adolescence revelation, G. Stanley Hall, discuss the injustices of the American education system, Bash the SAT, explain job satisfaction via video games, see how America is stubborn via Exit Signs, and look at Greece's economic woes.

25) A First Step

Sorry about the sound quality, grammatical structure, and my stuttering.

22A) The Apple Incarnate

An update to my previous post, with a much better explanation on why we should fear Apple in its entirety.

Bottom line, this is a story that needs to be told.

22) Fads and Apples

These days, it's impossible to avoid Apple technology in American life. Everybody you know has heard of or possesses something with the honorable prefix 'I' before it.

Like other technological fads of the old days, like cassette players, wired phones, etc., someone with marketing genius has capitalized on the advances in technology. Those born today will never know what these items were, and become dumbfounded at our nostalgia when we mention it.

But a better question to ask is how such fads impact society as a whole. Everyone you see today has some product by Apple, even presidents and celebrities.

There are numerous commercials anywhere and everywhere, praising the godly products that seem to have taken hold of the modern world. Everybody seems to have been entranced by such products, which seem to infiltrate everywhere in large cities. In San Francisco, I doubt if there is a room where an Apple product is not present.

This Apple fad is in much larger scale than other fads of the past. It has become a vital part of how we perceive media and its subsequent distribution, along with the mass marketing it has established. Apple products are the new status quo.

As Apple stock skyrockets and the company becomes increasingly successful, we may begin to wonder about the consequences of such a powerhouse. After all, with a revenue of $42 billion and a market cap of $181 billion, this is American capitalism at its finest.

As Steve Jobs becomes a prophetic icon of informational success, he also becomes an inspiration for the many starting businessmen in the market today. Who else might follow in his footsteps?

Also I wonder, what is the main motivation behind the powerhouse of Apple? Are they here to make insane amounts of money? Or control us all subconsciously?

My main point here is that we must be wary of the unknown consequences such market control might bring. We are no longer in the age of corporation limitations of the T. Roosevelt presidency. Might we turn into the zombies of a one company economy?

Seems to me it's already happened.

6) When Guevara met McCarthy.

Anyone who has ever used the internet in the past few months will know what I am talking about when I speak of online advertising.

It comes up in many forms, including, but not limited to; popups, web banners, spam e-mail, etc. Most of the time it is just plain annoying. It is so common that you no longer recognize the main ones, especially if you see them over and over again on a website you visit often. Accidentally hover your mouse over one? Yeah I want to start shooting the computer too.

This brings me to my conceptual metaphor of "Capitalist Fascism". The main and chosen few who control all the wealth decide to form a party to oppress the people. They bombard them with propaganda, and other acts to prove their loyalty to the people and to demand the same in return. They control the one thing that can be used to manipulate people: Money.

The propaganda I use in this example is the online advertising. It is the rich CEOs demanding your loyalty and obedience to the their up and high class(or party) of wealthy individuals consumed with utter greed.

Can you blame them? Of course not. As everyone is in pursuit of survival and happiness, wealth just happens to be one of those things to nirvana. Everybody wants it, everybody needs it.

Truth is, in this economy, acts of generosity are extremely rare and valued. And if conditions might allow it, the path we tread may lead to Karl Marx's Communist Revolution. If I had said that forty years ago, I might be dead right about...now.

Then again, what do I know? I'm just another equality loving socialist who believes in an achievable utopia.

I'd like to thank Fate for the First Amendment.