On the Dismissing of Events (Warning: Almost Political)

Warning: Almost Political

I’ve been perusing the internet in the past few days. And of course around 9/11 there was a lot of talk about 9/11. I’m not a conspiracy theorist, nor am I a government patron. I’m not going to try to condemn or praise the United States government here. However in these talks about the past there have been many people dismissing those events. They dismiss them for various reasons, including: “it was a set-up, relatively few people were killed, it pales in comparison to later events, terrorist attacks happen all the time, or simple that it was twelve years ago and that makes it no longer relevant.”

But really it is relevant. I don’t care how you feel about it, it is still important. There are still lines in the sand being drawn over it, there are still policies directly associated with it. Government supporters and government critics, in many countries, not just the U.S. still make it a part of their agenda. It continues to shape politics in America. No matter how dismissive some people will be politicians will for better or for worse continue to use it as a tool, or a reminder. It will continue to be part of the justification or vilification of government programs. And to those who dismiss Americans as being pompous or over dramatic don’t realize the cultural ramifications. Despite what we think Americans rarely forget.

So, I urge people next year to not be dismissive of this date, or of the talk surrounding it. To dismiss it is to hand it to the dogs. If you wish to see it’s message changed or viewed in a new light speak, and speak with an argument, not a few words and a wave of a hand. It, as an event, must be seen, understood, and dealt with, as all events. There has been no closure. Simple stuttered gasps have been attempted, and the remembrance on this day is because of that. And if people continue to ignore or dismiss it there will never be closure, and that can be dangerous.

48 Hour Filming

So I’m going to participate in the 48 hour film project. The problem is the nearest one is quite a ways away and so I need to pack. I’ve got all my gear ready, and am about to put it into its storage containers. I’ve gotten some other things to pack as well, but I have to finish my comics and such before I go. This blog post is also something I have to finish before I go.

The project will already be over by the time this post is released, and I will post the results online. But for now I’m going to muse a little about my past experiences.

For those of you who don’t know what the 48 hour film project is, it’s a contest where teams make films in 48 hours and submit them. I started when I was thirteen, so I was way younger than all the other teams, and this is my fourth year.

Each year has been a fun and informative rush to finish a film. I was just glad to have one done at the end of the first year. My equipment has steadily gotten better with each year, and my experience sharpened. It’s great to have something like this to practice on.

I’ve never felt like I made the best film at the screenings, but the rush and fun of writing, filming, and editing in two days is amazing. I’ve made films in shorter amounts of time, but never with a deadline, or any restrictions.

The story items they give you are great at inspiring but are also restricting. My second year’s film was shot in two takes and looks like one, taking place only around the exterior of a house. My third features and inter-galactic box.

It’s great fun with friends as you race around trying to get everything written, bought, assembled, and filmed. I edit alone, so only I feel that rush, but all the same. If you haven’t tried it and are into making short films I highly recommend going.

Different Sameness

So I have been working, and I wasn’t. What was I doing instead? Playing a game. On my phone in this case, but it was a deep phone game. Anyway it got me thinking about some things. Like why I wasn’t working, that was a problem. What made playing this game better than working for me?  And when I say work I don’t mean boring office job: I actually enjoy doing my work. I don’t know why some games just grab me and make me an unproductive zombie. Good thing I’m me and can turn it around into a blog post, right? (Didn’t think so)

Anyway, I was thinking about why some things make me distracted and it occurred to me that it may be a different kind of mental stimulus, like my brain needs to focus on something different so I play a game. But then I was wondering why some people who have boring jobs chose to play boring, simple phone games, like Fruit Ninja or something like that? After thinking about that for a while what I’ve come to believe is that we as humans want something different, but not too different. I play games that involve lots of strategy and planning, which is similar to what I do, but different enough to be interesting. I think it’s fascinating how things like this work in my head. Like I want something that is the same, but will make me think the same is not boring.

I guess that’s the way we do everything. It’s the reason we don’t like change or end up branching out too much in life. We specialize in what we enjoy, or learn to “enjoy” (Read: tolerate) what we do. And we don’t want to do something different, but we get bored, so we yearn for something else. And something very similar is still something else.

At least this is my theory for the time being. I’m sure it will evolve with time, but now that’s what I’m thinking.  If you have any ideas similar or contrary I’d like to hear them. I could just be completely wrong.

Creating the Roman Empire in an Iphone Game

Well, sometimes I’m bored. And when I’m bored I sometimes play games on my phone, one of which is “Age of Conquest”. I Quite Like it. It’s like Risk, but with a little more realism for my tastes. Don’t get me wrong: Risk is fun, but it’s not the same without people. This is a perfect phone game as you can’t actually do it on a real board, or it would be insanely difficult.

Sometimes though, I get bored playing the thing that is supposed to make me not bored, because I’m…

So I decided to make an as-accurate-as-possible map of the maximum extent of all Roman empires in the game. I took pictures and stitched them together into this.

roman empire map in an iphone game

Now it’s important to note that this is the maximum extent of all Roman empires, including the Holy Roman Empire. It also encompasses all times, meaning any territory gained at any point is on the map.

I’m not sure if this map is supposed to tell you anything, or teach, or provoke any thoughts. I just thought it was a fun little experiment to see how accurately I could reconstruct history in a limited video game. The answer is surprisingly accurate, though I guess the game has the world sectioned off quite well for these purposes.

I really don’t have anything else to say about this. I just wanted to share this little thing with you. I hope you get at least some enjoyment out of my little map.

Moving Mountains

It feels like I’ve been moving mountains. I know I haven’t been, but it feels like it, at least it does now. In a few years I’ll look back and say ‘man that was easy, why can’t now be like then’. Of course, that’s what I think now about school. That was way too easy.

Anyway, you might wonder what I’ve been doing. Well, aside from my current schedule of providing from two to four pieces of content a day, I’ve been: Registering two LLCs with the state, getting DBAs for those two companies, working on advertising, and finishing up and publishing two websites, et cetera. (I also had to deal with some banks that wouldn’t let me get an account, so that failed.)

This may sound easy to some people, especially parts of it. But to me right now that was almost overwhelming. Okay, that might not be the right word, but I’ll go with it.

I’m not exactly sure what to say about the experience. It wasn’t actually difficult, it just felt that way, and it was very time-consuming. I guess time-consuming things are more difficult just based on premise. There were several hiccups, though not as many as I expected, being a few years ‘too young’ to be doing this kind of thing.

Everything has gone along smoothly as far as resistance is concerned though, most of the hiccups were easily gone around, though that was the longer path. The main problem has been that my work has suffered from doing these things. Paper work takes time, especially by mail, so between filling out forms, mailing them, and waiting for them I’ve used up a large chunk of time that I was previously using to create more content. Though most of the content is still eventually being created, it is sometimes late, and is really crunching my schedule. Most of these things are done, but things like the site meta-data are still works in progress.

This is really more of a blog update than an article or something. I just thought it was sort of interesting considering it has been consuming my life for a little while now. I hope anyone who cares was interested and I hope I didn’t kill anyone else with boredom. This has been a long process, but it is still much more gratifying than anything I did in school. And I hope all reading this will get to enjoy the future things I create because of this process.