13.4
Damn, this neck. Puts really new perspective into ergonomy when you have to support your neck with hand when sitting up
or experience rather inconvenient pain. Last night I couldn't even turn the
head left. Where did this come? I've spent a day in front of terminal
before. Suppose the way I spent it makes difference; I read a book from
screen, at first just sitting and watching, later leaning my head on the
chairback, lying in rather awkward position. Ah well, painful but worth it.
Great book, though I really prefer dead book form books, this isn't
something I'd do every day.
The book in itself was quite interesting. Journey to Alpha Centauri. OK,
it's a bit geeky to read books about a friggin' game, but then
again, some would argue that reading a book from a computer screen at all is
pretty geeky. Geeks do geeky things. Which reminds me, the monitor is 15" (I
think - the diagonal diameter of visible space was actually a bit under 15
inches) and screen's at 1280x1024 resolution. They say that's insanity and
bound to destroy my vision (see eye strains). I wonder if that's true; the
first day I had quite a headache, but now this is completely natural. I
don't even need to squint. And the non-downscaled background image of rei
ayanami in kimono, the reason I switched resolution in first place,
really makes up for it ;)
But the book. Or well, a novel maybe. I didn't expect much as I read it; it
was a marketing effort, designed to rule unsuspecting nerds into giving
their money to firaxis, but I think the game was good enough to justify
that. The characters actually had character (is that a pun?), but
obviously they were rather stereotypic - but that's just as well for
characters meant to be just icons for ideologies fighting. But, the writer succeeded in giving
a plausible rationale for their actions; only Miriam Godwinson, the leader
of religious faction, seemed like a moron. But then
again, I've yet to meet a religious person whose rationales for faith didn't
sound stupid to me, so I'm a bit biased (and judging by Miriam's behaviour
in game when controlled by AI, I don't think the coders were particularly
fond of religions either... crusades are one thing, being a total bitch is
another.).
Some relevant passages (maybe I should write a node about these? My
alpha centauri -related nodes didn't get exactly a warm greeting, but who
cares...):
Prokhor Zakharov (ex-Prokhor Saratov):
You can not measure faith. You are atoms, and nothing more. That your
configuration of atoms believes in something it calls God means nothing. Your
kind, you crusaders, have set back humanity a thousand years or
more.
Miriam Godwinson:
Your atoms betray you. Every struggle you undertake is for a purpose you can
not define. Put your own faith in science, because it feels safe. Rescue the ship,
because you consider it a grand experiment. Live or die, it changes nothing. God
is waiting for you as well as me.
Nwabudike Morgan:
Exploit. I wondered who would first use that word. We all...
all life forms exploit, Officer. Your plants exploit the very air we exhale.
We exploit them for food. But even the simplest of your hybrids would gladly
kill us if they could, to stop from being torn from the earth and
consumed. [..] If you wanted Planet to remain truly pure, you would not have come at all.
14.4
Surprisingly, even after a night's sleep my neck is not fine. Did I break
something? Aww. Well, it's better, but turning my head too far left still
feels rather uncomfortable. I up around 09:20. I put the TV on on computer
and went back to bed, thinking that I'd wake up when pokemon started. Yes,
Pokemon! And I'm technically (well, legally) an adult. The damn show is
still strangely attractive. The drawing, although a little crude, reminds me
of nge, and as much it shames me to admit it, I
actually find pikachu quite cute and like normal human beings, don't have
an urge to skin him. Pikapiipii! Chuuu?... And don't get me even started on
Jenny, Joy and others.
Now the day's turned to evening (where do those days go? I never get out,
never see anyone besides my family and not too much of even them, I don't
even really do anything geeky in large proportions. It's almost 3 days since
I coded, for e's sake!). I was just reading a book called centauri dawn.
It's written by the same guy who wrote journey to centauri and
centauri: arrival, but it's a full-fledged trilogy with mighty 300
pages/book. I liked alpha centauri enough to add 5$ more to my amazon.com
bill, and I don't think it was even wasted. OK, I don't like the focus on
peacekeepers and spartans exclusively; zakharov's people are so much
more interesting. Strange... I was just reading the description on
Santiago's attack at U.N. Headquarters. Her troops had just fired
high-energy laser beams directly at tower where peacekeeper were operating
machine guns. As the shot blinded one of them, private Jones, I thought
"what? blinded for rest of her life?!". I found the idea horrifying. It was
curious, since soldiers on both sides were dying all around. I guess, with
majority of popular games being about killing in way or another, you start
ignoring it. This not to say the games are turning us to killers. To me it
seems pretty obvious that it's very hard to confuse games with reality, no
matter what some say.
Still, I think I'll be less militant in my next alpha centauri game.
Estimation of what really happens when you move that Impact Rover towards
Plasma Garrison unit and watch numbers, presented in first person, has just
so much more emotional impact than "Strength: 5.00 vs 4.23 - Power
10..8..4..2..*boom*". Fine, it's just a book, but so what. Let me rant if I
want to.