What grinds my gears

Conspiracy theories, as well as most religions, are really popular. One might even say that they are addictive. People get "hooked" on them, and have hard time letting go of them once they have embraced them, no matter how much evidence is presented to them of the contrary. There is, in fact, some evidence that this is not a purely psychological phenomenon, but also in part physiological. That means that it can have an effect that changes body chemistry. If something is new and exciting, exhilarating, and extremely interesting, if something "blows your mind" as they say, that sensation may in fact be caused in part because of a rush of body chemistry. The brain may cause adrenaline, dopamine and serotonin to be produced in certain psychologically significant situations, such as hearing something that's very exciting and interesting. Some people literally get a "high" in these situations; not just metaphorically or even psychologically, but literal...

One of the core tenets of our modern judiciary system, something that is engraved in the constitution of most countries, as well as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and many other such documents, is that people accused of a crime ought to be considered innocent by default, until it has been proven beyond all reasonable doubt that they are indeed guilty. The fundamental idea behind this is that convicting an innocent person is considered a greater injustice than letting a guilty person go unpunished. It is better to play it safe, to err on the safe side, and let an accused to go free if there is any doubt that they are guilty. It's better to have a thousand criminals go free than a single innocent person to be punished. Punishing the innocent is by far the greater injustice in this situation. It is up to the prosecution to prove beyond reasonable doubt that the accused is guilty, and counter all the arguments of the defense, than the other way around. Of course this do...

Consider the recent online multiplayer video game Evolve . It was nominated for six awards at E3, at the Game Critics Awards event. It won four of them (Best of the Show, Best Console Game, Best Action Game and Best Online Multiplayer). Also at Gamescom 2014 it was named the Best Game, Best Console Game Microsoft Xbox, Best PC Game and Best Online Multiplayer Game. And that's just to name a few (it has been reported that the game received more than 60 awards in total.) Needless to say, the game was massively hyped before release. Some commenters were predicting it to be one of the defining games of the current generation. A game that would shape online multiplayer gaming. After release, many professional critics praised the game. For example, IGN scored the game 9 out of 10, which is an almost perfect score. Game Informer gave it a score of 8.5 out of 10, and PC Gamer (UK) an 83 out of 100. (Mind you, these reviews are always really rushed. In most cases reviews are published...

A common adage among modern progressive feminists is that "feminism benefits men too". However, one has to understand what they really mean by that. Does it mean that feminists are equally concerned about problems that primarily face men? Like significantly higher suicide rates, longer and harsher prison sentences for the same crimes (which is the case in surprisingly many countries), unequal treatment in child custody disputes, and so on and so forth? No. They may pay lip service to those problems if directly asked, but hell will freeze before you see a tumblr or twitter feminist campaign, or a protest march, or any such thing, to raise awareness and combat those problems. Feminists might pay lip service to those problems, but they aren't really interested in them, nor are going to do any activism to combat them. No, what feminists mean with "feminism benefits men too" is something quite different. You see, modern progressive feminism has this dogma that ...

Chemophobia (yes, it's an actual term) is an irrational aversion to or prejudice against chemicals or chemistry. It's surprisingly common. And it's a surprisingly common argument against substances that some people don't like, or are prejudiced against. You wouldn't believe how common it is for someone to warn people against using something because it contains "chemicals". Just that. Chemicals. As a concrete example, I saw someone on the YouTube comments of some video rallying people against using sunscreens because of all the "chemicals" that they contain. That was his only argument. The "chemicals". If you have even the most basic understanding of what that word means, you would understand how completely ridiculous that argument is. Basically everything is a chemical. You consist almost completely of chemicals. Heck, water is a chemical. (A chemical is, essentially, a compound that contains more than one atom, which are bound to ...

"Room scale VR" is this gimmick mainly promoted by HTC/Valve, where you play the game by standing up and walking around your room, using two controllers that are tracked by the computer. As your head movements are also accurately tracked, the computer pretty much creates a virtual environment and it looks exactly like you were within that environment. It can look astonishingly real and impressive. It certainly does make for very impressive tech demos. But does it have a future in actual gaming? As an actual game mechanic? I have my doubts. Consider one of the most basic core things that's common to almost all video games in existence, with only few exceptions: Movement. You play the game by moving the playable character. In games depicted from the first-person perspective, the "playable character" is essentially the "camera", and you play by moving it from place to place. And "from place to place" usually means significant distances. Fr...

Consider that the first development kit of the Oculus Rift came out in late 2012. That means that game developers have had over three years of time to add VR support to their games. It was expected that when the Rift, and the Vive, launched, there would be a plethora of games supporting it. Where are they? The amount of launch titles for the Rift is pitiably small. The launch titles for the Vive is even smaller. And we are talking here about all games, not just big-budget triple-A ones. Over three years of development time. So where are all these games with VR support? On the contrary, many companies that initially announced VR support have abandoned it at the last stretch. Consider, for example, Doom3 and Doom4. From the very beginning id Software announced that they would add full VR support to both games, and they were working closely with Oculus to make it happen. Now VR support has been abandoned in one case, and cancelled in the other. It seems to be that the general m...

I have noticed that there are almost eerie similarities between the brand-new VR headsets, and the PlayStation Vita, in terms of things that could potentially affect the success of the former. I have been thinking that this might be an early warning sign that, perhaps, VR will not become successful after all. The PlayStation Vita had impressive specs, but Sony got greedy with its launch price, making it significantly more expensive than the competing products (different versions of the Vita ranged from $250 to $300). What's worse, there were deceptive hidden expenses. Namely, the unit did not come with a big-enough memory card to download any purchased games, and you had to purchase one separately. (And, quite greedily, the memory cards were twice as expensive as standard memory cards of the same size.) The triple-A game library for the Vita at launch was abysmal. It didn't get much better later, as developers seemed to have no interest in making games for it. The poor adop...

I have been ranting for several blog posts about how VR seems to be going to the wrong direction, and it's way too expensive. However, I would like to write some thoughts in a more level-headed manner, and ponder if VR has actually "failed" in a manner of speaking. You see, when Oculus first started developing the Oculus Rift, the general vision of the whole VR thing was that it would become essentially a new display device for almost all of your games, just way, way more immersive and cooler, because rather than just seeing the game on a flat screen, you would be seeing it in stereo, which would mean that it would really look like you are in the game, not just watching it on a flat screen. In other words, VR headsets would become a more or less generic display device for most games (which of course would need to add explicit support, but if such headsets become popular, it would be a no-brainer.) And not just like a 3D monitor, but due to it being a visor with lenses,...

Video game companies are in increasing numbers catering to the demands of social justice warriors, and engaging in self-censorship. Now, consider that a typical big-name big-budget triple-A game has something 1-2 million customers. Also consider that the number or social justice warriors complaining about such a game is at most 1-2 hundred (and that's quite generous). This means that the game company will be placating to about 0.01% of their customer base. Although, in fact, that number is completely wrong. That's because almost none of those whining social justice warriors are actually buying the game. At most maybe 10-20 will be buying it, if even that. In other words, the game company will be catering to about 0.001% of their actual customers. The voice and opinions of the remaining 99.999% of their customers don't matter. At all. This is how powerful social justice warriors are. And nobody elected them to speak on their behalf. It's almost scary.

It seems that during the past year or two, the term "hate speech" has become a very fashionable expression used by social justice warriors and multiculturalists to belittle, dismiss and attack their critics. Often this is done instead of addressing the actual criticism. It's simply labeled as "hate speech", and that's it. Of course the use of the term has become popular because it's a perfect way of circumventing the question of what the constitutional principle of freedom of speech entails, and what should and shouldn't be allowed to be said. Because in most countries hate speech does not fall under constitutional free speech rights, labeling all dissenting opinions as "hate speech" gives a platform for censorship, silencing and banning, while still keeping up the illusion of maintaining constitutional human rights. What do these social justice warriors and multiculturalists label as "hate speech"? Among other things, critic...

I wrote earlier a "fist impressions" blog post , about a week or two after I bought the Steam Controller. Now, several months later, here are my impressions with more actual experience using the controller. It turns out that the controller is a bit of a mixed bag. With some games it works and feels great, much better than a traditional (ie. Xbox 360 style) gamepad, in other games not so much. The original intent of the controller was to be a complete replacement of a traditional gamepad, and even the keyboard+mouse mode of control (although to be fair it was never claimed that it would be as good as keyboard+mouse, only that it would be good enough as a replacement, so that you could play while sitting on a couch, rather than having to sit at a desk). With some games it fulfills that role, with others not really. When it works, it works really well, and I much prefer it over a traditional gamepad. Most usually this is the case with games that are primarily designed for g...

Both the Oculus Rift and the HTC Vive are now out and available. I have written several previous blog posts about them, and their problems. Read them if you want some context for this continuation post. Unlike my worst predictions, according to reviews, the Oculus Rift seems to be more or less what it promised to be. In other words, stereo vision with head-tracking, to be used in not only custom games made specifically for it but, more importantly, in existing and new generic triple-A games if and when support is added to them. The available game library with support is still pitiably small, but hopefully that will be remedied in the months and years to come. The price of the unit is still way too high for me to even consider it, but hopefully it will come down in the future. (It might take years, but well... I'll have to be patient.) The HTC Vive, however, seems to have gone exactly to the extreme I predicted and dreaded. Or at least it seems so at this point. In other words,...