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Showing posts from May, 2022

Not Again

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Not again. This shouldn't be happening. I've debated whether I wanted to do this article. It's been done before though. Here it is again. We are our own worst enemy. This is what happens when we become consumed by our own gods. We become dreadful of non-existent demons while the cartoon villains in our minds become very real in our eyes. Thus, we become distracted by misplaced priorities. Not wanting to look at ourselves in the mirror and acknowledge that our worship of firearms to the point of it overriding life itself is what drove the shooting; instead it simply becomes easier to blame violent movies and video games along with social media. It's easier to blame something else than ourselves I guess.  This isn't a partisan issue, but a health one. Yet, because we are creatures of conflict with our righteous sides, we transformed the topic into a partisan one. The gun topic is one that can be approached without catering to a Liberal or Conservative bias. Unfortunat

Classic Games Emulated : NFS Most Wanted

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It's with Most Wanted where one becomes witness to a growing gaming " generation  gap". Those who grew up with the earlier titles usually see this release as yet another noteworthy follow-up, while those who were first introduced to NFS with the Underground games tend to think of MW as the pinnacle game in the series . For me personally, Most Wanted is actually a very divisive game. While there are many things that I love about it, their are also many things I simultaneously   hate about it about as well. As such, my opinion falls in the middle. I hated the storyline and the characters. Yet, the gameplay and graphic visuals were the most awesome of any NFS game up to that point. Thus, I tolerated the shortcomings only because the gameplay of MW was so awesome.  While this game does deserve a lot of praise, it also deserves a fair amount of criticism as its distractions are so much more noticeable .  What are these negative aspects?   Nitpicks Galore Most of the cr

Windows Computing In The Late 90's (Part 1)

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That Dead Zone Called The Late 90's For many computer historians, the late 90's seems like a dead zone where nothing much happens. On one hand, their were some very major events that played out, like the rise of 3D accelerated gaming, the Internet, and multimedia in the form of online content and the MP3. But, when it comes to general, everyday computing, the late 90's is seen as a dull era (along with portions of the 2000's and 2010's). Compared to the rise of the IBM Compatibles, the 386 and then other alternative 32-bit architectures and various operating systems, it doesn't seem as much happened during that time, outside of gaming and the Internet anyway.  Why is the late 90's in computing viewed in that manner? With the transition from DOS and Windows that occurred in the early 90's, standards weren't fully established yet. The software ecosystem was like the Wild West. Their was such a rich ecosystem of various programs. Multimedia programs whe

Political Ramblings 5/2022 (Extremism)

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Extremism is bad, regardless of the group. Now this should be a given , especially in lite of something horrific, like the recent racially-motivated shooting at a supermarket in Buffalo, New York. However, something needs to be addressed. Whenever there is an act of terrorism committed by Radical Muslims, they are usually directly called out directly by name, which they should. Whenever, they commit an especially heinous act, like described in the recent Federal trial of El Shafee Elsheikh, then they should be identified as the monsters that they are. However, many are very reluctant to hold white-supremacist to the same standard. In the past, whenever I stroll threw my FB feed, this seems to be the case.  While many are quick to condemn Radical Islam, few will reference white-supremacists by name. Many will opt for a cop-out, posting memes on FB like "How unfortunate", or "is this the new state of things" or various other tidbits of social commentary while ignorin