Tears

Yeesh, I'm sitting here watching this crazy strange show, Quarterlife, which I suppose is trying to appeal to the nerdy, sitting at home, emo, angsty, or whatever blogger through the "main-ish" character. Which, this episode appears to be ending as most pilots do, with lots of horrible timing, sadness, and cheesy friend jokes. But a short scene of sadness just made me think of the role of tears, how rarely we see them in other people's eyes, and the ones I've seen most recently.

It almost seems like we've been trained to see tears, crying as this horrible thing - this sign of weakness, this sign of falling apart. So we hold them back - we don't show them to anyone, sometimes holding them back from even ourselves. Is it so hard to let the tears flow when we really need them to? Where do we need to be - who do you need to be with to feel comfortable just letting it happen? It seems like even tears of happiness we tend to hold back instinctively, and seeing those tears of happiness can initially seem sad from the outside. I wish I knew why we're so ashamed of that, why we choose to hide, instead of letting it come out however it needed to. Anyways, I really don't have a point I'm trying to make, it just happens to be something on my mind at the moment.

Rebirth

The phoenix is a mythical bird with beautiful gold and red plumage. At the end of its life-cycle the phoenix ignites; both nest and bird burn fiercely and are reduced to ashes, from which a new, young phoenix arises. The new phoenix is destined to live, usually, as long as the old one. The bird was also said to regenerate when hurt or wounded by a foe, thus being almost immortal and invincible — a symbol of fire and divinity. Although descriptions (and life-span) vary, the phoenix became a symbol representing resurrection, immortality, and life-after-death.



I bought this ring a little over a year ago and have been wearing it ever since. For some reason the ideology of the phoenix resonated with me, as did this ring when I first saw it. Something about the whole concept of rebirth, of starting anew, starting fresh. Treating each event in your life, each year, each month, each week, each day, as a a new dawn built off the basis of the lifetime before it, not held back by it. It's an aspect I want to embrace more, so I choose to remind myself of it whenever possible. I want to be able to look forward to the excitement each new day presents, and let the struggles from the day before dissipate like ash in the wind.

Home Sweet Home

Seriously, being home has never felt better. Vincent (my cat) agrees, since he was weaving between my legs or finding a spot on my lap for hours after I got home.

Anyways, thought I would post up my notes from GDC if anyone was interested in them. I figure I may as well, for people who couldn't go. I'm looking for mp3s or videos from some of my favorite sessions, and if I find them, will post them up.

I just took these notes as a train of thought (as I normally do), so my apologies if they don't make any sense to you.

Here are the sessions I went to:

Storytelling in BIOSHOCK: Empowering Players to Care about Your Stupid Story
MGS Keynote (no notes, just a keynote, IGN has videos)
The Technology of UNCHARTED: DRAKE'S FORTUNE
I-fi: Immersive Fidelity in Game Design
Ray Kurzweil Keynote (no notes, read his book, and IGN has an article)
UNCHARTED: DRAKE'S FORTUNE Post-Mortem: Amazing Feats of Daring
'Do, Don't Show' – Narrative Design in FARCRY 2
Taming the Mob: Creating believable crowds in ASSASSIN'S CREED (no notes, had to stand in the back)
Pouring Gas on the Flames: Game Designers Rant

And, if you want to read my notes on the ones I took notes in, here they are.

Happy Monday everyone - hope your week treats you well...

Redefining forever

As is really not that surprising, we had plenty of interesting and deep discussions regarding the topics in the keynote over lunch. It was certainly interesting and in depth for the few of us that had actually read of some Kurzweil's books, but pretty open to all. The primary interest of the conversation was based off of the postulation that Kurzweil made regarding the eventual eradication of human mortality within the next two decades. So, for the sake of this post, bear with the science fiction and believe the plausibility of this science becoming realized.

The social and global implications would certainly be huge, given how many assumptions our laws, economy and lives have on our life cycle - social security would no longer exist, and if we really could live productive lives for thousands of years or more, we would potentially be in a state of constantly learning, jumping from job to job, furthering our personal knowledge in much less finite ways than we currently do. Perhaps our required knowledge sets would evolve and we would all be learning and moving higher along the intellectual food chain, which our jobs would then reflect. However, what struct me as most interesting (which will come as no surprise to anyone that knows me) was something that a close friend of mine at work stated. He read The Singularity while we was dating his wife, and before he felt comfortable marrying her, he wanted her to read The Singularity, understand and accept the possiblity of a less traditional existence in their lifetimes. That this could be more infinite than they could comprehend right now.

Certainly not surprising to hear that from Paul, but certainly an interesting concept. Removing the concept of death to part us, the romantic vision of a "forever" that lasts longer than our inidividual lifetime, and a potential existence of infinite change, would you be able to jump headfirst and without looking back at the concept of being with another person literally forever? Once that contract of marriage extends longer than the 70, 80 or a 100 or so yaers that currently times them out, does anything change? Already we've proven as Americans that the statisical chances of staying with soomeone over the span of your current life expectancy is less than 50%. For that matter, look at your current girlfriend or boyfriend - would you be as happy or happier 200 years from now still walking by their side? Hell, is there anyone in your life that you could make that claim with, blood relatives as well? Or does the fact that the timeframe of that connection extends longer than we expect even matter? Shouldn't the fact that you could remain so deeply in love with this person and the other people you care about in your life for infinitely longer than you originally anticipated just heighten the potential joy of the experience? Shouldn't the ideal of being able to live an infinite range of lifetimes to be able to experience new adventures and challenges with that person in the context of one lifetime be the most exciting thing in the world that overshadows those other worries?

I certainly don't know, but I would love to stick around to find out.

Futurists, today

Just had the pretty wonderful experience of seeing Ray Kurzweil talk - Kurzweil is an absolutely spectacularly intelligent person who spends a lot of time looking out towards the future and speculating where we're going and where we'll end up. He's written The Age of Intelligent Machines, The Age of Spiritual Machines, and most recently The Singularity is Near. Given our current rate of advancement in technology, which icreases exponentially, and not linearly (which is strange to imagine, since we instinctivly project linearly), will be advancing faster than ever before and are rapidly changing our society. So much so that the line between technology and biology is becoming more and more blurred, and that within the next few decades, extension of life expectancy will start to increase faster than we can age. That is, for every one year you live, the life expectancy will increase by at least one year, almost certainly more, leading to a sense of immortality. He even postulates that within two decades, computing will reach orders of magnitude over the computing power of the human brain.

Ponder that for a while. Crazy science fiction? It's certainly pretty hard for a lot of people to swallow. But if you this is interesting to you at all, and even if you read his books as fully fiction, I would definitely recommend The Singularity. It's a brick of a book, but it's interesting in a really nerdy, tech way. It certainly paves the road for the imagination to run wild at the potential futures. What would happen in a world where nanomachines could augment your health to always be in a spectacular state? A world where it was possible to actually live (essentially) forever?

Stuff that's really out there - but wouldn't it be intersting if that's where we headed?

Democratizing distribution

Well, the keynote to fire off the conference was given by John Schappert, an ex EA employee who is now the Microsoft Corporate Vice President. There were a lot of interesting things - Ninja Gaiden 2, Gears of War 2, Fable 2 (lots of sequels, actually). But the thing that was really interesting to me was the announcement of Xbox Live Community - a venue for anyone who takes the initiative to write a game in XNA to share their game on Xbox Live, have it rated by peers, and playable by the tens of millions of people with 360s. That, and that XNA will now be playable on PC, 360, and on the Zune out of the box! I'm sure it's not flawless in practise, but it's an absolutely awesome idea that I would love to see take off. I hope this is actually a step towards the industry opening up and respecting the fact that anyone out there can have a killer game idea, and let those passionate people go out there and create their own games for their friends to play. Let the gamers become developers and protoype ideas they think are cool. I really hope this becomes a totally open, self-regulating community, because I think it could be really powerful. Hell, I'm working at a company where we make multi-million dollar big titles, and I feel inspired to spend my time at home making little, simple fun games - the games I dreamt about in college :) Here's hoping this lets other people out there to do the same.

I guess I am starting to get a little more inspired about where we're going as an industry, so this trip may very well be succeeding with its goals :)

Game Developers Gather!

Ahh, the Game Developer's Conference - undoubtedly the largest gathering of people who are passionate about games as a medium each year. I think my friend Paul put it best - "You don't really go to GDC for the content, you go to become re-inspired in the industry, in where we're going, and what we're doing to forward that. To catch up and meet up with our friends and feelow people that are solving the same problems we are in other places." If you come across some good sessions (one thing this industry isn't great at is public speaking...), that's just icing on the cake. After all, what's the point of working if you've not super, insanely passionate about it? Also, Ray Kurzweil is giving a keynote this year, and his books are just awesome from a "Holy crap if would be so cool if any of this came true." I can't wait to see what he has to say about gaming and the industry as a whole.

It's pretty insane how much the industry has been changing. They estimate this year that thirteen thousand people are here. Thirteen thousand! There are now tons of different people and disciplines here now. Game developers are really no longer the traditional view of the nerd in the garage programming all day long (hello Grandma's Boy). Now we're an industry that is starting to pull in cinematographers, writers, composers, men, women, families. It's pretty cool to be able to see it all change before us. Even in the content that we now talk about - it seems like this year is focused on storytelling in games - how to do it, how not to do it. What are the chances you can have the same emotional connection from a video game that you might have in the best movies that you've seen, or the best books that you've read? What's the last medium that influenced you as much as a movie like Children of Men? (if that movie was impactful to you - I know it was to me) What are the chances that a game can pull you in just as much if not more? Why not?

We already had an insanely pasasioned discussion about some of those topics over dinner last night. Pretty crazy and nice that me and a few coworkers have the ability to get in a pull-no-punches dragged out verbal argument, both playing devil's advocate on both sides (not to be dicks, but to challenge the other party to articulate and defend their views), and not have any of it be personal - we know we're all excited about what each other is doing, and we just want each other to succeed. It's like working in a team back in college again.

Which is an awesome feeling - working with friends to make something cool :)

We're all human, after all

It's always interesting to see how people view themselves - especially their bodies. We've been raised in a society to almost be ashamed of our appearances. There's always someone better looking - someone in better shape - some 'beautiful' airbrushed stereotypes made to convince us all that we're not good enough. What ever happened to appreciating the person and body we were both with, imperfections and all? To just be proud of who we are and be happy about it. Now, I absolutely think that we should be working to stay healthy and to better ourselves, but that shouldn't prevent you from being happy with who you are along the way.

A lot of this stems from thoughts running through my head while in figure drawing sessions at work last year. I'm lucky enough to work at a place where they let the few programmers that are artistically inclined (not nearly as talented as our artists) as least tag along and practice their skills with the other artists at the studio. We do nude figure drawing of various time lengths and mediums, which has proved to be inspiring in a wide variety of ways each time. For one, it provides an avenue for me to really tap into the artistic side of me that loves to capture inspiration however possible. But one thing that has always stood out to me is the amazing amount of confidence and pride that the models who come in have about themselves. They are of all shapes and sizes, from full figured to average to supermodel thin, but each one has the same level of confidence in what they're doing. I often find myself enthralled by it and downright curious of the person behind the flesh. There have been times where I've finished the pose early and just took the opportunity to look into their eyes during their mannequin-esque stillness and see nothing but a blank stare - so confident that the fact that they are fully nude has no effect on them. I often have bene curious whether I would have the strength and confidence to do that. Truly amazing.

The thought was rekindled after talking to a friend who exudes the same level of confidence, in an alter ego-esque way. She's helping out a friend with his portfolio by doing some non-nude poses, and I was amazed to hear the level of confidence she had in herself, in her body, and who she was. I don't know that I've met many people at all who held the same level of confidence in their physical appearance - especially not women. Needless to say, I was very impressed with her :) It seems like we focus so much on the harsh line between covering ourselves up in a utilitarian line and any form of nudity (even partial) being pornography. Has the concept of the human body as an art form totally escaped us? Is it possible for us as Americans (many other societies are unlike us in this respect) to see our bodies as beautiful, sexual, sensual art forms and be able to celebrate that? To be comfortable with the fact that the human form is inpirational on an emotional as well as a sexual level? To be able to embrace the imperfections we have and be able to wake up each morning, look in the mirror and be inspired by the person and body staring back at you?

Backdated post - completed 12/20/07 02:29:00 AM

Same story, different audience

chance to catch up with a close friend that I haven't seen in a really long time. Turns out that he's had his share of drama recently - a lot of pain and heartache that taking risks with your heart can often lead to. I had never really talked to him about that sort of stuff before, and he happened to be dealing with something that he drew parallels to my past.

I had really underestimated the differences between going through these stories - these experiences, these troubles yourself, and seeing people you care about going through them. When it's your problem to deal with, it's so easy to be strong - to fight your way through it, to 'tough it out'. After all, it's your problem to work through, right? Of course you rely on your friends, your family, your loved ones - draw support from the structures around you, but in the end, you're the one who has to work past it. To make the decision to go through the hard times for the greener fields on the other side. I never really expected that to be the easy part.

But hearing a close friend, someone you really care about, someone you want to see happy going through similar struggles? That hurts. To see them really struggling and fighting through it in their own ways - knowing full well that you can help, offer support, do what you can to alleviate the effect of the whole experience, to just be a sounding board sometimes, knowing full well that when push comes to shove, they'll make the final step on their own? That sucks. A lot. It might be a lot of the personality I (and a lot of my friends) have - the 'parental' personality trait that makes you want to improve peoples lives', (sometimes - hell, oftentimes so much that it's a personality fault). But it is a lot harder when it strikes a chord that's so familiar to your own life - hearing those exact same phrases, those exact same thoughts that you thought yourself echoed. Love... forever... if only... it made me realize... I wish... I really thought... Knowing full well that they will make it through the process, but that it's a tough road. A part of me wouldn't wish that upon anyone, and another part hopes that everyone gets the chance to experience something similar in their life at least once. Seeing a friend go through it is damn tough.

Especially when they draw the parallels themselves, "I gained a whole new respect for you after this. When you had to go through the same things, I never realized how hard it must have been for you and I can't believe how well you handled it."

That's the thing man, I didn't handle it that well back then. But I'm confident you will.

Backdated post - completed 12/20/07 02:25:00 AM

Happy Singles Awareness Day!

But if you're not, you can give these nerdy video game Valentines to your sweetie! :p

The metroid is my favorite :) Happy Valentine's Day!