The 'Trump' Card

Back in WW2, The Imperial Japanese Army was the best.  They had the best discipline, training, dedication; they were Zealots.  They were as good as the SS in this regard and they knew the terrain which they were fighting in.  What was greater than this army's strength was the estimation of its own strength in the wake of early field success.  This was referred to as 'Winner's disease'.  The American Pacific forces had to fight just a little bit more clever while continuing to be thought of as inferior by the Jap forces.  One example of this was the use of the M1 Garand Standard US rifle semi-auto rifle of the period.  The rifle was loaded via Clip (not mag).  When the last bullet from a clip was fired, the clip would be ejected with an audible 'Ping'.  The Japanese knew that this was the time to pop up and strike as the user of the rifle would have to reload.  Smart.  Except even smarter was the fact that US servicemen would have empty clips that they would throw against rocks to create the same sound and get the Japs to poke their heads up.  Under estimating the opponent had been the Japanese' greatest weak point. 

Well suppose we aren't talking about the quality of troops in the jungle but the estimation of an entire nation of itself.  I've rarely met anyone from the US who doesn't believe themselves to be superior to everyone else.  From the dumbest cowboy to the sleaziest drug dealer, everyone in the US believes themselves to be just better than everyone else for being born American.  Even the name 'America' is egocentric.  'America' is a collective name for the continents of North and South America.  When I'm in the US, I like to tell them that I'm 'American'.  I was born in Canada...that's in North America...therefore I'm an 'American'...and watch the sour faces fly.  How about the M1 Garand rifle (in the above paragraph) which that pompous asshole George Patton called "The greatest battlefield implement ever devised by man" was actually made by a Canadian.  But, you see, at the time he had invented it, he had become a US citizen.  I had this debate with someone online about this.  Becoming a US citizen is treated like some form of Baptism where you wash all the impurities away of your former life from an inferior nation.  I guess only US citizens are allowed to go to heaven while the rest of us go to Ecuador. 

I love American reality TV (yeah I use the term).   Except for the fact that there are other pedals on the floor beside the gas (as in 'How much scripting is too much'), I usually have a good time.  Take an individual with 5 parts mouth and the other 5 parts have to be shared by the rest of the senses as well as the brain...and you have great drama.  I'm not anti-American.  Many Americans I look up to include John F Kennedy, Buzz Aldren, Neil Armstrong and Barack Obama.  There are also those I have met personally that are superior people.  The problem doesn't come from a human being earning accolades on his own merits but from those who feel that they are superior by being linked to what they feel is a superior group.  The US arrogance in this belief is so prevalent that travelers can expect a little something extra when dining out in a foreign country.  I don't think that is right.  Not all US citizens believe themselves to be superior.  Most do, however, even just a little.

I loved the Apprentice and Celebrity Apprentice (though I thought the second was a little too contrived).  Donald Trump was the main man.  He was the boss.  He raised the bar and said 'Jump' and you had better jump.  One has to estimate what motivates a man to do what he does.  Does Donald Trump want the power of sitting in the big chair?  Does Donald Trump want to promote initiatives that will kick up American industry and turn the US into an economic power house? I can believe both of those.  As a Canadian, I'm worried that Donald will shut down NAFTA and pooch other countries for American gain.  I'm sure he knows about business but I'm not sure he knows the first thing about foreign relations other than telling everyone else 'It's my way or the highway'.  This won't fly for other countries that require plenty more finesse.  Look at the mess George Bush made.  Barack Obama turned it all around in 6 years and got the US back on track.  I'm not saying that Mr. Trump won't do what he can for US interests but are the more subtle qualities of being a president within his aptitude and skill set?  Or, like many Americans, is he over estimating his own abilities.  Personally, I believe Mr. Trump is an over compensating egotist.  How many buildings have his name on them?  He is a good man but, and I'm sorry to say this, I think he is a little broken.  As much as I would love the novelty of having the 'Boss' in 'The Apprentice' be President of the US... we all must live in the real world and the buttons he has at his finger tips would be very real.  The bridges that he may burn to flex his Power muscle against other counties may have lasting consequences.  Things are really tenuous right now with the world politics.  We've got that idiot Kim Jong-Un doing stupid shit.  That idiot Vladimir Putin who worships that old psychopath Stalin and wants to start WW3.  ISIS is running around killing, maiming and enslaving people for what is supposed to be a peaceful religion.  Do we really need another cowboy on the world stage? 
 
...and will we know the difference between someone who can make decisions quickly...and someone who those decisions well.  I just hope it's not a lesson we can't come back from.

Remember when 'Googie' ruled the world?

Googie (not GOOGLE), Populuxe or 'Atomic Mid-Century Modern'  This was the style of the day.  You: The young professional with something to say reached for your phone...none of those stock model rotary phones for you

You phoned up your buddies...got into your car

...and drove down the road, pick up your gal

and go catch a movie

This form of art was everywhere mixed in with what came before and other passions including the entire 'Cowboy' genre

It was on our cereal boxes.   It was on our toys.  Googie, with its bold sweeping lines and colors represented everything that we were as a society.  Bold, Vibrant and unapologetically ourselves.  Technology was going to elevate with elegance and we were all going to use that knowledge to discover new and wonderful things.  Resolve strife, hunger and religious differences.  We were all going to march into the future knowing what was right and what was wrong and be back in time with our jetpacks for dinner.  We all haven't really realized what we lost with this dream.   Some would say we 'woke up'.  I say the 'Dream' is more like a blueprint.  Our current 'Blueprint' is without hope.  Nothing is ever as easy as the 'Black and White' mentality of the era suggested.  It is a nice belief but it is the product of lazy, convenient thinking.  Society will always reflect the motivation of its collective people.  I say steer the motivation toward making a better world.  If people want to own something, I'd say let them own the incredible nobility of THAT cause.  Not to mention passing that legacy onto their kids.  I want a world with hope.  I want the world to have a Utopian future...as reflected in Googie.

Characterization in games

I've always wondered why some games left me with a much richer experience regardless of how the mechanics functioned.  Specifically; "why did playing Fallout 3 feel like such an empty experience while Fallout New Vegas left me with a much richer feeling?".  

Somewhere into playing Fallout 4...building this...building that... and going somewhere and shooting things I realized one thing: "I'm bored".   Why am I shooting things?  The usual excuse of "Because they are shooting at me" just seems empty of meaning.  I don't feel invested...I don't feel motivated to helping this person or that...why not!?

So I ended up pulling out an old favorite "Bully".   This is just a stupid little fun game that was ported over from the consoles to PC.  The targeting sucks.  There are too few buttons doing too many things.  However, the game was fun.  It was like someone telling a joke with a straight face the whole way through...so you don't take it for anything more than it is.  Most of the students are stereotypes with characterization that are very simplistic.  The main protagonist and antagonist, however, were extremely real right down to their body language, voice influctions, gestures, posture and what they would say...everything.  You sat there going "I get who this person is;  I must know them from somewhere because what they are doing and how they are doing it seems so right". 

Suddenly it hit me:  I am not engaged in this game (Fallout 3 and 4) because the characters in this game do not really engage with the player.

Case in point:  this is your father's reaction to you intentionally nuking an entire town in Fallout 3 Liam phoning it in   The point is: the more you are exposed to non-engaged characters, the less invested you are going to be.  There is, however, the 'Minecraft' proviso:  You can draw any picture you want on a blank slate.  'Blank' and 'Bland', however, mean two different things.

Thinking about it, I believe the game that had the most amount of well defined characters was Far Cry 3.  That is characters that had face and body language, Tone, intensity of voice, proper wording for their character...basically everything that makes a computer character more human.  It is fair to state, however, that FC3 did use plenty of cut-scenes to convey this character...but that is also to its credit - the characters were given that much respect to be portrayed in cut-scenes.   Far Cry 4 also had cut scenes to portray its characters as well - not that it really mattered.  Most of the FC4 characters were unbelievable; I've seen children's cartoon characters with more dimensions.  It disturbs me this trend toward unrealism in characters.  Seriously, game creators,  if you are going to get your children to make a stick character in crayon on the canvas then just leave it blank...and call it 'Minecraft'.  Microsoft picked up Minecraft for 2.5 Billion from Mojang.  Missing the point completely, they intend to add a set story (/facepalm).  This is the continuing saga of the large corporation picking up a sweet product and pooching it so hard that the pooch needs to apply soothing gel and antibiotic cream.  Back to my original point:  Using words is just one of the ways we, as people, communicate.  Face, body language, vocal influctions are the ways which are usually overlooked...especially by those who are not used to a lot of face to face interactions...which, unfortunately, is the new trend.  The thing is...I can't feel as invested rescuing an animatronic mannequin as I would a thinking, feeling human being.  Funny about that.   

Fallout 4

I'm almost to the end of Fallout 4.  From the beginning I was afraid of the 'Skyrim Face Pissing' infecting the ending...like I was lying on my back and watching the arc of the stream. 

Preface.  You are part of a happy couple with a newborn baby boy.  A salesman shows up at the door and tells you that your space in the nearby 'Vault' is complimentary due to military service in the household....   The bombs soon fall...you get to the vault...and without a word of explanation, you are cryogenically frozen in a capsule and your partner and baby boy are frozen in the other.  Some time later, both you and your partner are thawed out, some thug takes the baby away from your partner and shoots her/him.  You are frozen again and get thawed out some time later.  Now on a quest to find your baby boy, you kill some bugs, leave the vault and find that it is many years later and the old neighborhood has gone to shit.

You soon rescue this group calling themselves the minutemen...probably because every minute or so they will auto dump a timed quest into your log that you will feel obliged to do if you want to continue feeling like a good person.  Do yourself a favor...when you build a second settlement, move Preston Garvey there...and only go there if you really want to do another inane Minuteman quest otherwise you will find it hard to do anything else.  When you get to a point in a quest where it says "Go See Preston Garvey"  - DON'T.  The timed quests will time out eventually and give you a 'Mission Complete' Result if all you have to do is to turn them in.  It wouldn't be so bad if they actually spread the mission locations around a bit so you could explore new areas and get new stuff... but they tend to lean on the same area.  I've been to the Corvega facility at least 10 times on different missions and I know I haven't even explored 1/10th of what is out there.

You have to think that there is one guy in the game design who absolutely goes the opposite way of what everyone else wants...and they are mostly right:

"So people are upset at having to cart around useless junk from our previous games.  All in favor of eliminating junk from this game?"  Aye Aye Aye go the sycophants.  NAY!  Goes the black sheep.
Actualizing the salvage potential in even the most seemingly useless of items will involve the player in an extravagant crafting system that features weapon mods, armor mods, and structures.

And it works! 

"So, what...we'll stick to the usual format of giving the player the God armor later on in the game?"
 Aye Aye Aye go the sycophants.  NAY!  Goes the black sheep.  Having the Power Armor available early in the game with one proviso:  That it uses power cells that will deplete quickly if under constant use.  The player balances when they need armor to the cost of maintenance.  This will require thinking and strategy - which most gamers enjoy.

And it works! 

"So...yeah...We'll do the Skyrim thing where the quest will wait for the player to do it.  All in favor?"
 Aye Aye Aye go the sycophants.  NAY!  Goes the black sheep.  Having not only timed quests but ones that insert themselves into the player's quest log will give the player a sense of urgency.  They will have to think on their feet and decide which quests to do first.  "Listen...I've been right the last two times haven't I?"

And it doesn't work!  (well I did say 'Mostly')
 
It's a good thing they did this just to the Minuteman quests.  You can't have your Minecraft and your Call of Duty too.  This is what is known as an 'IceCream Pizza'.  Two things that people like that just don't work together.  Sitting there trying to design a colony while a quest sits in your log going 'Tick Tock' at you is not that much fun. 

There is a settlement building element to this game.  You can build generators...crops...buildings... defenses...just tons of stuff.  Why?  To defend your settlers and make them happy.  Uh...why?  Really?  It's just a side game.  The real benefits of having so many colonies is to have artillery close to wherever you will happen to be as well as a place to sleep and stow your stuff if you happen to be in the neighborhood. 

I soon realized that numbers to this mini - game were way off.  People would complain about 'Not having enough beds' and I would find they had more than enough.  The numbers 'On Site' versus the numbers in the Pip-Boy would also not match up.  Sources on the Net say that Diversification of crop will make your people happy...Enough Electricity...radios...lights...pictures... chairs...rugs...defenses.  Nope. Nix. Nada. Nay. Nary.  Would I trust that they would have got those numbers right considering that there are two apparent examples of where the game got the numbers quite wrong?  I'm not saying I didn't enjoy it but Bethesda needs to patch that shit with someone who passed grade 3 math.

You can't rate this game by starting off at 10 and taking a point off every place the game pooches something.  Why?   Because the ambition of the Games' own making raised the bar to 15...but then did a half assed job of it.
 
Bethesda has done this since Daggerfall.  There was a game that, on a full install, would take up 2/3rd of the average hard drive size of the time.  There was a revolutionary map creation system for dungeons...unfortunately, one often found oneself in pointless endless corridors that lead to no where.  There were rumors found in conversations that reflected politics between different groups outside the game - that you didn't know the first thing about.  Now in Fallout 4... Approximately 150k lines of voice acted dialogue.  This is truly unprecedented!  Now, unlike the expansions in 'Fallout New Vegas', The dialogue doesn't bore a hole in your skull like the verbal form of Chinese water torture.  Unfortunately, The dialogue options often do not actually reflect how they are actually going to be used.  English is funny like that.  You get the first few words of a sentence in your choices and may actually be used in the context which you had not intended. 

**Slight Spoiler

The story itself is good versus good.  Not good versus good intentions (with some crazy idea of overt radical thinking to benefit the future of mankind).  Every faction in this is all 'Black and White' in a very grey world.   You never get enough information to actually make a proper decision despite supposedly having proper access to it.  The end battles are grandiose and epic... but all endings lead to killing good people that you may actually be very close to.  I don't know of any thinking, feeling
individual who would enjoy shooting their friends.  No.  You aren't going crazy (like in Spec ops: The Line) and it isn't in self defense (as in Far Cry 2).  What kind of a soulless monster wrote this crap-

 

Oh

 

 

Yes there is the joke about Gingers being soulless but I'm wondering if, in this case, it isn't true.  Ladies and Gentlemen, it's

Emil Pagliarulo.  Remember epic battles in Skyrim that you absolutely never did because

to do them, you had to kill good people?  Emil is master at creating the perfect grey so that

it doesn't matter what side you choose, you are going to feel like an asshole if you have a soul.  I guess he's jealous.  There's the big payoff for hours and hours of building and leveling is to feel like an ass for this guy's supposed 'Writing Cred'.  I'm not sure what he is trying to do but I'm sure eventually he will get it right... or perhaps the producers will decide to go drinking with a writer that actually HAS talent in the story aspect.  Emil has allowed the player to get up close and friendly with those that the player will later have to kill...and possibly twice.  That way the player can appreciate the loss of their friends while having a swashbuckling adventure shooting them!  I've been around a while and have seen plenty of 'Ice Cream Pizza' but this has got to be the most blatantly stupid contradictions of ingredients I've ever seen (and that is saying something!).

  

There are many great quests but it doesn't feel quite like you are engaged.   Everything just sort of feels off.  It just doesn't feel like there is enough options and control in dialogue and execution.  The game is quick to remind you if your follower is judging you one way or another...and their AI for combat is freaking awful.  I remember walking into a library with a corridor ahead of me.  To my left was an large open room with robots and turrets pointed my way.  I wasn't going to go that way and while I paused for a few seconds considering my options, Piper (one of the followers you can recruit) openly ran into the room excited for the amount of books she saw while being completely oblivious to the amount of firepower that was there.  She went down in about a second and a half.  Worse was the fact that in chasing after her, half a dozen Super Mutants came running down the corridor that was straight ahead of us.  If we had held position, we would have been fine.  The Super Mutants were after the robots and now we were caught in the middle because an intelligent and perceptive person missed noticing a dozen guns pointing her way.  Piper can't die but the immersion did...again. 

All the guns and armor are extremely customizable...almost too much so.  You remember all that crap you had to sell in previous versions of the game?  Well now damn near everything has a use.  There is definite 'Rhino Hiding' where 9 bullets to the head won't kill something but the 10th will cause their head too look like it was hit by an 88.  A .50 cal. bullet to the head will kill anything IRL.  It can take out most armored vehicles.  If a T-Rex was around, a .50 cal. bullet to the head would make it extinct again.  If a person is hit with a .50 cal. round, the effect on the body is so great that resulting
trauma would - well...lets just say it's pretty grizzly.  So when I play a game where I shoot someone in the head with a 50 Cal. and they barely even notice...and then again with the same effect; well... 'Immersion' looks like it just took the round in its place. 

An enemy in a 'Caution' state will blink in and out of reality causing the location of their body parts to disappear and reappear in different positions.  Contrast that to say Far Cry 3 where body movement is much more fluid.  Also hitting some enemies in the head will not only have no staggering effect but cause them to move instantly up to 6 feet left or right.  It's pretty funny when you manage to kill an enemy in the process of this 'Dodge Dash' because they will launch themselves like 50 feet.

 Grenades and Molotov's are also delivered with the same unrealism.  They just sort of appear in the NPC's hand (with the pin pulled and pre lit respectively) and are tossed like a handful of gravel...like we used to do when we were kids pretending to be soldiers.   The grenades are pre 'cooked' to about 1 second when they land at your feet (on a dime)...which is funny because they must have cooked them in their pockets because they weren't in their hands for that long.  Though I did like the idea that, because the enemy could be deadly...you had to fight smart when not attacking in power armor.  The combat is pretty balanced.  You can't run and gun so well and that is proper...don't expect to always 'Peter Pan Ballet' your way to victory in this.  The enemy is hard to see and can be shooting at you from 6 different places.  Your best bet is to get to cover and pick them off one by one.  The AI, however, is most deadly when it is in the open.  It moves like old Doom PvP with the bullet impact teleportation effect and magic spell molotovs.  It did actually remind me a lot of original Bioshock AI as some of the Feral AI reminded me of the RAGE mutants.  AI in cover would stick its head completely out of cover and remain mostly stationary...Boom.

I enjoyed most of the game, in fact.  As I was approaching the end, I saw dark storm clouds looming overhead...but that wasn't rain coming out of them.

Spoilers:

Spoilers:

Spoilers:


When you find your son he is 60 years old and head of this 'Institute'.  Despite your relationship to him, you can't ask him the real questions about exactly what is going on with the disappearances or the escaped androids. 

Where is the "Come on, Zimmer...what is it you aren't telling me...why would an android want to escape or feel guilt!" moments!?

Why can't you take charge of your fate?  You're force fed one of four flavors of ending and they all taste like shit...and you get to kill your good buddies for some so-called 'Greater Cause' when the cause you are fighting for isn't exactly perfect either.

This is Fallout 4's Stormcloaks Versus Imperials face pissing...but it's mandatory in order to finish the game.  Seriously...I play games to fight the good fight.  To do what I can't do in real life and shoot assholes...of which, I'm sure we can all agree, the world has no shortage of.  I don't fantasize about shooting my friends so I have no desire to play a game that says "In order to finish this game you have to shoot one of your good friends". 

GAMES ARE NOT NOVELS.  I don't want to find myself in a fast paced action shooter only to have it morph into "All Quiet on the Western Front"!!!   It's times like these when I just want to go back and play Doom where there is none of this 'Moral ambiguity'. 

The original Fallout 1 and 2 were clever.  They had a 'Good' versus 'Good' idea but here is the difference: The intended enemy belied a brutal or ruthless nature that disqualified them to be humanity's heirs. 



End of Spoilers


The Verdict?  8.0/15 (Yeah...they raised the bar but did a half assed job in writing, AI and execution)
 

Stephen Harper's farewell speech ... what he doesn't say

 

 

"We believe that hard working Canadians should keep more of their money"
 
...and the more people you have DOING that work for you, the more of THAT money you should keep!

"Because we believe that the government should manage the people's money the way that they would manage their own"

...with reckless spending,  inaccurate records,  frivolous pursuits and forgotten promises

"Because friends, in a dangerous world, Canada must - without apology - advance our values, defend
our interests and stand by our friends"
 
We have to continue bribing the US so that they will like us.  Several more billion dollars should do the trick.

"We have Championed those values all of our public lives" 
 
We use buzz words like 'Championed' because most of our supporters are senile and can't remember
specifically how we fucked over the country.

"In the past 9 years I've had the incredible honor to serve as your Prime Minister"
 
...but not so much honorable as it was hilarious.  Here I stand giving you the full fist with this
bullshit speech that you are all eating up and most of you haven't even paid attention to the news.  The Auto dialers... the Gerrymandering...Mike Duffy...the poison pills...stacking the house and the cabinet...and that's just the tip.

 

"We put everything on the table.  We gave everything we had to give and we don't regret anything"
 We lied.  We cheated.  We Stole.  We Prioritized US corporations over the health of the people and the environment.  It was hard to put what we did on the table but we perched up there and squatted and squeezed as best we could...Now Justin has to clean up that mess.  We're BUSH'D.

"Friends...how could we?  We remain citizens of the best country on earth"
 
Thanks for your support you senile bastards.  We fucked over the country and the democratic process but at least we're not behind bars.

Windows 10 sucks hard - The 'Free Upgrade' is really 'Free Beta Testing' for Microsoft

"Hey!  Get your free upgrade!  Windows 10 is free!  Just click here and reserve your free copy!"
 
There is nothing "Free" about doing beta-testing for a half finished operating system / Surveillance tool for a multibillion dollar corporation like Microsoft.  This is a scam.  I could launch into my usual rant but this time I think I should itemize my issues.

1)  The blue screen of death happens ALL THE FUCKING TIME.  I think I might have had it once or twice on the Windows 7 64 Home Pro mostly due to viruses.  I've owned a PC in one form or another since '92.  Yeah...I know DOS.  I've had Windows 3.1, 95, 98, 98ME, 2000, XP, Vista and Win 7 64 Home Pro.  I have had more 'blue screens of death' on 10 in several months than I have had in 23 YEARS with ALL THOSE OTHER OPERATING SYSTEMS COMBINED!!!
 
2)  This is a minor point for some but for me it just pisses me right off.  Windows has had the card game 'Solitaire' forever.  I think it was on 3.1!  Simple coding and mindless entertainment.  I generally load it up when I've set my computer on some large task and I could use some mild / low resource entertainment that won't disturb that task.  Well, Microsoft in their infinite greed has decided to 'Bundle' Solitaire with a group game package that will cost you a certain amount per month.  'pay-to-play' for fucking Solitaire!!!  I won't do it.  $3 something a month.  I don't care if it is a penny a month...I won't pay for a game that could be programmed by one person from scratch in a day on a TS 1000...that they gave away for free in all previous versions of Windows.

3)  NOTHING IS PRIVATE!!!  Check out the privacy settings.  Microsoft has given itself rights to look at everything you own on your computer with Windows 10.  Your picture, your voice, the commands you give...what types of commands you are giving...your personal files, your pictures, data EVERYTHING!  They say it is to perfect the final product...but they don't exactly have my trust after slipping the whole "Beta-Test" Roofy into my OS.  Sure...it's in the fine print...but nobody reads that shit.  This trend toward underhandedness from otherwise reputable corporations is very disturbing.  If you are dead sure you want your "Free" copy of Windows 10, for the love of God do not select "Express Installation".  And I'll give you a "Free" roll of toilet paper if you clean my bathroom daily for a year...because that is exactly how badly they have fucked their own user base.

4) Backward Compatibility for Games - If you shut everything else down, the newest version of DirectX works pretty good for the newest games.  When I first got Windows 10...certain older games worked just fine.  Somehow...through the "Updating Procedures" these old games simply ceased to work.  I didn't actually change anything...they just didn't function.  Not only did they simple not work but the error code was not available ANYWHERE on the PC.

5) The Encroachment of Automation - Remember those days when you had to turn off auto updating because it didn't matter what you happened to be doing at the time...Windows said "Fuck you and all you have been doing...I'm shutting down and updating".  Then you would put off updating and Windows would nag at you in the form of stealing cycles from the CPU.  Well all that
is behind you because Windows 10 said "Fuck you...I will update when I update...I'll try not to shutdown while you are doing something but while I am updating (and I will never actually tell you when I am doing this) you may experience a crash doing 2 things at once and lose all your work anyway.  It seems to me that a friendly way of doing things would be to let the user know what is going on.  Now, with all of our personal information dangling out there in the cyber wind, it's nice to know what the copious amount of programs running in the background on Windows 10 are actually doing.  The robot telling me to "Don't worry your pretty little head about it" isn't comforting.

6) Perhaps the dumbest thing about Windows 10 is that if you have a crash, calling up the Task Manager does not bring it to the front.  You are literally staring at a crashed application while a perfectly functional Task manager sits both on the bar and behind the crashed screen for you NOT to get to.  This is like breaking down under an overpass on a highway and calling a tow truck...and the tow truck pulls over ON the overpass and the driver completely doesn't understand why you aren't there.  So you need to do a full restart like it's a hardware level crash...like we did with DOS.  With such stupid mistakes in programming I really wonder why so many people are hesitant about giving Microsoft all our personal information.  Even the realization of THAT did not occur to these idiots of overconfidence in academia!!!
 
------------------------------------------------

Bill and Ted's Excellent Corporate Windows 10 Strategy :

Satya: "So boys...what is your marketing strategy for Windows 10"

Ted "Well...uh...we give it away for free"

Satya "...uh..."

Bill "I think what Ted is trying to say is that we give the Beta Version away but we won't tell them it's the Beta version...then they'll be like 'DUDE! No WAY!"

Ted "...and we'll be like WAY!"

Bill " ... and then we'll be like 'Not only that but you have been chosen to help us make it' "

Ted "...and they'll say "fuck yeah!  you guys are the BEST!  I mean like I'm designing history"

Bill "...and then we'll tell them about our plans to make them part of the collective consciousness in the sharing of all their files and stuff"

Ted "...and they will be like 'Whoa...I was just thinking of upgrading my OS not establishing a level of spiritual Nirvana...you guys are like Deities or something"

Ted "...Yeah...we even thought of name for the voice activation.  We call it 'Bill's Mom' "

Bill "Not cool, Ted."

Ted "...just kidding...we are calling her 'Cortana' Like the bodacious babe from the Halo series"

Bill "Oh man...I hate to be the one who has to process those voice requests"

Ted "Yeah...we even made Solitaire profitable!"

Satya "Really?  That game could have been written on a computer made up of Christmas lights and wire...how the heck did you boys do that?"

Bill "We bundled it up with a bunch of games no one wants and called it 'Pay to Play'"

Ted "It only costs like 3 something a month which is like (counting on his fingers........Counting ....
Counting....)

Satya "10 cents a day"

Bill "Whoa...Dude! That's why you are in the big chair!"

Ted "But for us...per year that's like (counting on fingers...counting...counting)

Satya "36 dollars a year"

Bill "Oh Man! you are like some mathemagician or something"

Satya "What about the issue of a class action lawsuit?"

Ted "We've thought this through...we put it in the Eula on OCT 18 that by using our product they give up rights to a lawsuit"

Satya "But...that's not ethical"

Bill "(lowered voice) Dude...it's for their own good.  When they calm down they'll see how excellent we are!"

Bill and Ted "EXCELLENT!"  (playing air guitar)

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Summary:  Windows 10 is fucking awful.  Satya Narayana Nadella should be bitch slapped for his tactics on this.  Windows needs adequate competition. 

Enlightenment with regard to Racism, Prejudism and plain old ignorance

Racism:  The prejudgement that all of a certain race possess similar characteristics.  The fact is that many people of the same race possess similar characteristics.  The politically correct term for this is: "Cultural Similarities".  The big no-no is that you can't assume that any particular person of that nationality WILL possess those characteristics.

You can't rib on any nationality for cultural similarities except for white Anglo-Saxon types.  Why? 
Because white people must share this common crime perpetrated by the ignorant amongst us.  In the midst of this witch-hunt against racism there is this perfect storm of irony and ignorance.  Why should I be guilty for something someone else did?  Because I'm white?  To decide my guilt based on crimes of members of my race is the worst kind of ignorance.  I mean this is Nazi-to-the-Jewish ignorant.

Regardless:  "people are associating me...without really knowing me...that I'm like that ...and it's wrong"  ...and you're damn right it is wrong.  It is prejudging.  It is ignorant. 

Prejudgement:  There is an anecdote about this.  In the old days, gay people were persecuted for what was considered an abnormal sexual preference.  They were thought to be perverts, deviants and mentally ill.  I don't have issue with gay people.   I've met a lot of gay people and some of them I don't like and some of them I like and respect very much.  But there has been much rallying for support in the communities and there are those who are militantly opposed to the old stereotypes.
That's great and all...but I know two people in this community WHO ARE complete perverts.   Yet if litigation happens there is this mighty force that will defend these perverts saying that they are the victim of "Homophobic Intolerance"...and an ocean of idiot supporters will wash away their crimes with their cries of injustice. 

The young people are saying all the older generation have been brought up watching racist cartoons.  That's true but the old cartoons made stereotypes and fun of everyone.  Germans, English, French, Cajun, Japanese, Chinese, African, Cowboys, mobsters and when they couldn't find it on Earth...they made fun of Martians.   Everyone was made to look a little more dumb in cartoons.   I remember wanting to be one of the magpies in Dumbo because they seemed to be quick witted and in-the-know.
Now it's "Racism".   

All this screaming about Racism and Stereotypes and I've never met a young person who hasn't played Nintendo.

Hey ya its ah me! And ah Me! Your ah Racist Stereotypes from your youth ah!

I will talk to anyone of any race like they are my brother ... to start.  As one goes through life, there are certain survival techniques that are, in fact, racist.  IE.  If you have been mugged by 5 Andromedans then you will likely not walk down an empty street with an Andromedan on it.  IE. If the Venusian Trader rented you an apartment that had no heat in the winter, cranked up the rent every year to the max despite doing shit around there...then you would likely be wary about renting from a Venusian Trader again. 

This leads me to my larger point: Prejudism - to Pre Judge Someone.

Whenever you go 'I know his kind' with out actually really knowing that person, you are pre-judging.  In the world today, people are afraid.  Despite the war against Racism turning into basically a witch-hunt, no one is really addressing the larger issue.  People are more segregated into their own groups more than ever before willing to judge on very VERY limited information.  People have some of their most intimate conversations from the safety of their computers, tablets and iphones.  We have become socially inept at physical language yet, despite this, twice as likely to buy what we read from others.  A society so antisocial that it becomes replete with the tactics of the insecure.  IE. We end up with 'Minefield' conversations where the petty take issue with what they shouldn't be so quick to judge.   We end up not celebrating unique people but being afraid of them...yet most of the evil people have only the best of sheep's clothing.

Who champions this cause?

We do it individually...and even inside ourselves.  Ignorance is responsible for all of it.  Racism, Gay Bashing, Bullying...and anywhere someone is being an asshole to someone else for no better reason than to make themselves feel better.  Shit heads are everywhere and in all nationalities and races.  So this is more of an individual thing being as there are no "Uniforms" ...but this is really where the strength is needed.

One last thing to consider.

Those who are quick to judge do so because they are afraid.  They might even be willing to fight but that is only because their fear is that deep and their insecurity is that strong.  Knowing this will help you gain perspective.  Those who are quick to judge have this reason to be afraid from whatever filters happen to be in their head.  Maintain a sense of fairness and compassion ... not only to others but to yourself as well.  The truth is your compass.