I’ve applied to do a talk at this year’s Black Stump Festival, and if I get the spot, I plan to do a talk similar to the one I did last year. I won’t say more about it here, cause I’ve just finished doing a slightly more complete write up of what I’m planning to do on the Digital Missions Blog (the blog I set up after last years Stump – it’s been pretty dormant, but I hope that’ll change).
Hopefully I’ll have another blog post later on in the week (I’ve had a few thoughts simmering for a while, I may as well get them out). Until then, God Bless.
So it’s been over a month since my last post, and I’d been a bit erratic before that. So much for the schedule I decided to keep at the beginning of the year…… so I’ll play a bit of catch up with you all now that I’m in a blogging frame of mind.
So over the past month I became very busy – I’ve been helping a friend and fellow blogger move into (and renovate) his new house, I’ve done a few days of manual labour for some money (which was really helpful, since I’m not on a regular income at the moment), and the school holidays took place, meaning my access to any sort of computer was limited. Putting this together with not really having anything to say at the moment, and not wanting to waste people’s time (or my own) by rambling on about things that don’t fire my imagination or passions, led to me putting both my blogs aside for a while – along with my online games, the various Internet videos and flash games I play, and almost everything except reading (of which I did a lot over the past few weeks).
There’s not much else I have to say about the past few weeks. Hopefully I’ll still be in the mood to write, something to write about, and the time to do so, next week. Until then, God Bless.
I’d like to talk about a game that a friend (who also loves video games) and I came up with a couple of weeks ago. Essentially, we pit two Video Game characters together in a verbal battle royal – basically calling each characters action in a turn based battle to the death.
In previous games we’ve generally used characters that we have created ourselves (so a character from any game with a custom character creation or stat building feature – mostly RPGs) and we’ve always drawn from RPGs or stat-building games, mostly beacuse those games offer a wider variety of skills and abilities to draw from, but I don’t see why a pre-defined character couldn’t be used as long as they are pitted against something similar (i.e. pitting Ezio Auditore [Assassins Creed] against The Lone Wanderer [Fallout 3] probably wouldn’t work, while pitting Ezio against Gordon Freeman [Half Life] probably could – and would be absolutely awesome!).
To start a match, you simply need to say which game you’re pulling a character from. Character strength can be completly variable – but having the max level and/or best equiptment for your character is advisable unless you want to cripple yourself for a more interesting match. However, it’s against the rules to have a character that breaks the rules that define the gameworld the character hails from (i.e. you cannot have a character from KotOR that possesses all of the force powers and feats – it’s impossible in the gameworld – or a Fallout character with perks that don’t match up with their skills and attributes – a non stealth character with the ninja perk is impossible to come by). You don’t immediately need to list every aspect of your characters skills and equipment – but you will need to keep track of what skills/abilities you’ve already used (so you don’t get caught out breaking the rules of the game).
To compensate for the differences in damage levels between games (i.e. Final Fantasy characters have very high health and damage (often over a couple of thousand for both), while my characters in Fallout are lucky to top 500 HP), damage roughly scales to fit the target (so a hit from a 2000 damage weapon from the FF character will do less than 100 to the Fallout character, and vice versa). Attacks and skills based on a probability system (the percentage to hit system in Fallout’s VATS system, or the modified DnD rules that KotOR is based on) that system roughly carries over (my friend and I agreed pretty much on just averaging the probability as simply as we could – but if you really want to get the dice out, feel free).
Other than these few guidelines, the game pretty much plays out like a complicated game of chess. Each player takes turns calling out a move (and explaining it if necessary), either as a defense against the last move that your opponent made (which cancels or reduces their last attack), or as an answering offensive move. Generally the win goes to the player who is the most imaginative (using a combination of the Metal Blaster and the Mysterious Stranger [Fallout 3] to take down a completely defensive player was my best win), and the one with the best grasp of their character’s abilities, and their opponent’s weaknesses (my friend using a Final Fantasy spell to lock my Jedi Guardian [a KotOR class that's terrible with a lightsaber] into a basic saber attack was inspired).
I don’t know if I get any serious gamers reading this (at least, they never comment if they do), but I’ve spent a fair amount of time playing this with some of my friends, so if this sounds like your sort of thing, feel free to give it a go.
Appologies for missing last weeks post – between a lack of time on my writing days, and a desire to ask a few of the people involved in the post I was writing whether it was ok with them, I simply couldn’t get one written out….to make it up to you guys, here’s the first of at least 2 posts this week…..
I graduated last Monday (the 12th), which brought with it a lot of reflection and introspection on my part. Not only was Monday Night the recognition of 3 years of hard work, wherein I received a certificate saying ‘Benjamin Larkin has done everything he needed to do to receive an Advanced Diploma of Ministry’, but it was, for me, very much the end of an era in my life. I have been a student for 16 years – since I started Kindergarten at 4 years old – and in that time, the period from November 2011 (my last exam) to now is the longest consecutive time period where I haven’t had to attend classes, take notes, sit exams, or write assignments. At this point in time, I can no longer call myself a student.
This is a big deal for me, up until now the fact that I am a student has been a big part of my life – and probably a part of my identity (which would explain some apprehension and confusion that I have been feeling this year) – and now I have finished studying (for now, I can’t speak to the future). I can’t say what this year holds for me, but if Monday Night marked the end of an Era, Tuesday morning must have marked the beginning of something…..
So the scheduled ‘Who Am I?’ post isn’t going up this week. I sat down this morning to continue write it, and immediately realised that there’s more that I want to say than I was originally planning to – and much more than a few blog posts can comfortably hold. Rather than sorting out what the barest bones of my story is, and posting that, I’m going to put this series on hold. I’ll probably end up posting a conclusion to ‘Who Am I?’ after I’ve done some more thinking and praying about it, but at the moment I think I’m going to end up writing my Autoblography (as a series of posts – possibly a long series), and then finishing this series as an addendum to that.
I’m not sure when this will all come about – I’m still thinking my 21st birthday would be a good time to frame it around – but I’m pretty sure it will happen. Until then, we’ll just have to see what comes up.
It’s been a while since I’ve posted anything about politics (which is a shame, cause I actually enjoy following what’s happening in Australian Politics), but this is an issue that has been knocking around for a long time, and finally it seems to be getting somewhere.
Between this video, and the tweets of my local minister (who is surprisingly interested in informing people about how this debate is going – still waiting on a reply to some of my responses though….), I’m really looking forward to the possibility of playing games that have – for a variety of reasons – either been cut down or completely banned from selling in Australia. I want to share a few more thoughts about the debate in general, and the video specifically tonight. Again, this post won’t replace the second part of my Who Am I? Series – I should have that written up and published sometime in the next few days – but it’s something that I have at times been incredibly passionate about, and while I can no longer get as riled up about it as I once could, it’s great to see a conclusion on the horizon.
On a broad level, this issue doesn’t affect Australian Gamers at all – if people are that desperate to get their hands on a (proper) copy of the game, they can easily import it – customs only stops banned games/movies/entertainment at the gates if they can prove intent to distribute (i.e. more than a couple of copies) – so getting their hands on stuff that cannot be sold here isn’t a big issue. In fact, it’s often easier and cheaper to just import or use digital distribution for all of your games, as the pricing system for games in Australia is incredibly bad (Big budget games start out at $60 US in America – compared to $80-$120 in Australia when the currency is going incredibly strong), so it’s not that big an issue for Australian Gamers. What this is a major issue for is the Australian Games industry, and for the retail businesses that sell Video Games.
From the industry perspective, it allows developers here to branch out into games that can more fully explore aspects of life or the human condition (something that I’m eager for all games developers to do), and allow for those games to be released here. From a retail side, it means that more games will be bought in Australia, with Australian Dollars, and the economy will continue to do whatever it is that economies do when people buy things locally. The number of people who, upon hearing that a game is getting released with an MA rating only after the developers/publishers agreed to cut certain content from their game, cancel their pre-orders with (or their plans to buy the game from) companies like EB games, and find themselves an uncensored import version is significant, which means that the amount of potential profit lost for the Australian retail companies on those games is significant (I think – I’m not sure about the inner financial workings of the games retail industry).
As for the video itself, I found some of those figures to be incredible – I’m not sure about where they got some of them, but that’s not the point. 9 out of 10 homes having at least one gaming device, Women making up nearly half of the total number of people that play games, and the average age being in the early 30′s (5-10 years older than I was expecting), over 58 thousand submissions to an inquiry looking at what people thought about an R18+ rating for video games. These are not insignificant figures – this is a hobby that many people are engaged with, and one that a large portion of people are passionate about to the point where they will get involved with the putting of a reform to Parliament in whatever way they can. For the portion of society that doesn’t play video games: you cannot ignore the social phenomenon that gaming has become in the last few decades. For the various Christians that I know condemn video games as violent and dangerous to society: Don’t just write us or our hobby off, there are a lot of us, many of whom you’re potentially pushing away from ever hearing and accepting the words you know to be true. And for those of you who are Australian Gamers: Here’s to a swift resolution to this reform, and to a bright future.
So I’ve been thinking about posting a modified version of ‘The Rules if the Internet‘* for a while now – taking a few from the original (and a couple from other places around the interwebs) and a few of my own observations. This isn’t going to replace my regularly scheduled post, so look forward to that later this week, but I feel like writing a semi-humorous random post today.
The Rules of the Internet (as observed and written by me) are as follows:
1. Anything written online is complete bull unless it can prove otherwise.
1b. Occasionally things that can prove otherwise are complete bull anyway. Be aware!
2. When communicating online, Wheaton’s Law of Online Interactions** Supercedes rule #1
3. It’s safer to assume that everyone you meet is a Troll until you determine otherwise. However, don’t break rule #2 in your assumptions.
3b. Don’t argue with Trolls – to them, it’s an encouraging victory.
3c. When browsing in unknown territory, don’t feed the Trolls+ – it’s safer that way.
4. If it cannot be found online, you are obligated to make sure that future searchers will be able to find it – even if you need to write it from scratch
4b. This applies to everything from hardware issues with a computer, to an in depth analysis of an obscure ancient work.
5. Contrary to popular belief, there are members of the Female Gender on the Internet.
5b. If you are one of the people who believe otherwise, you just inhabit an area of the Internet where no self respecting Woman would ever go.
That’s all I can come up with at the moment – I’ve already spent longer on this than I thought I would for a fun aside – I may port this to a page rather than a post if I can come up with more rules during my travels.
P.s. The links contained in this post may not be safe for Children or the Easily offended – you have been warned.
*’The Rules of the Internet‘ being a loosely defined (and constantly changing) list of forum rules and popular sayings, mostly from the site \b\ – which is will not talk about here (citing rule 1)
**Wheaton’s Law of Online Interactions simply reads as follows: ‘Don’t be a dick’
+by ‘don’t feed the Trolls’, I mean don’t start a topic about anything that they can use to rile other people up.
Before I start this week’s post, I’d like to let you all know that I’m working on making the archives friendlier to browse – mostly putting things in categories (which I probably should have done when I started this 2 years ago…oh well). Now returning you to your regularly scheduled blog post…..
The question ‘Who Am I?’ is one that I think everyone has to struggle with at some point (more likely than not fairly young). I know when I was struggling with this question – which I have done several times for the past 5 years or so – it didn’t cut it to simply say that I am Benjamin Larkin – I needed to (re)discover something deeper about myself, whether I liked what I found or not. A lot of what I consider to be who I am is bound up in my personal history – which I’m going to talk about a bit more in this post* – and in my interests and personality, as well as the people who are a part of my life. So Who am I? Well, keep reading, and you may find some answers to your question.
Starting simply, I am Ben Larkin – a 20 year old Bible College Graduate. I play Video Games, read Science Fiction and Fantasy Novels, watch Sketch Comedy on the Internet, and write a Blog – to put it otherwise I am a nerd/geek. Not the arch-typical picture of nerds/geeks though – there are entire volumeswritten aboutwhat needs to be doneto maintain nerd credibility^ that I haven’t followed or achieved everything on – nor the ‘romanticised’ version of them that seems to exist in popular culture at the moment. In saying that I play video games, I also imply that I carry a number of different character names and screen names with me as part of my life experiences. Over the years that I have played games, I’ve gone by several different pseudonyms – many of which describe my personality and traits – including no-all (my original screen name – it was spoken to me by a friend as a reflection of my incredibly large amount of random knowledge), and Fr33Lanc3r (my chosen screen name, which I have been using for nearly 10 years now, and has had several variants over those years – currently it’s Fr33Lanc3r.007).
Personality wise, I’m an intelligent, slightly cynical, slightly hard to get along with – although I can be friendly when I have a mind to – have a warped sense of humor – no-one else seems to find what I find funny amusing (it’s mostly puns and personal in-jokes) – and am not generally good at organization or working out how to move from the problem to the solution. I have issues with setting my own life direction and goals – I can be too ambitious at times, and I have trouble coping when I fail to meet those ambitions – and I often want every step to be assured before I begin any sort of change in direction (which meant I was completely terrified both times when I absolutely knew I had to do something big – apply for College and register for an Electrical Apprenticeship – but had no idea how to go about either of them – where to apply, what course to undertake, etc. God can be funny like that.) Yet I have no issues being impulsive with smaller things – starting this blog was a spur of the moment decision; I have a tendency to buy first, ask questions later when looking at games or DVDs at the shops – often to my own detriment. I often speak before I think – an artifact of the group of friends that I had in High School – yet when I’m explaining something I have been (or am at that moment) seriously thinking about, I tend to stumble over my words as new ideas and concepts come to mind faster than I can say them.
So I’m now looking at the wordcount on this post, and I’m figuring that you don’t want to read more than 800 words on a blog post (even 800 might be too much)……I think I’ll write the rest up in next weeks post……that way I don’t need to cut a lot of what I want to say….see you next week.
*I may tell my story in more detail at some point in the future, I figure I’m turning 21 this May, and that’s a milestone that could launch into an Autoblography (to steal a term from someone else who wrote out part of his life story on his blog), so stay tuned…
^I know Wikihow articles of this nature are often written for humor (and as a reflection on the popular culture views a particular subculture or group of people) rather than as an attempt to actually explain the ins and outs of the topic at hand, but you get my drift.
I’m posting late this week, partly due to writing a Sermon, and partly because I didn’t have anything that I really wanted to write about until this morning (I know I’ve got a backlog of post ideas, but none of them were really exciting me this week). But I have something to write now, so enjoy.
I was hit again this morning by exactly how interacting online can bring about a sense of community. When I logged onto The West this morning, I caught the beginning of a conversation where one of the younger members (about my age, maybe a bit older) of the alliance I’m part of was talking to some of the older members (a grandmother, and a 40-something with teenage boys) about some issues he was having (which I won’t talk about here, cause it’s not really my place to talk about that). I didn’t catch the whole conversation (having to go out for a bit shortly after logging on), but the fact that this group are comfortable enough with each other that they are willing to share personal struggles with each other (remembering that the only way a lot of us communicate is via in game messages and chat – I haven’t seen any of them face to face, or heard their voices) is evident of how community can form in an online environment.
Sharing struggles in a game (such as fighting together to take over a fort, or chasing off other players who are attacking our people), and helping others wherever we can in game (such as sharing equipment we no longer need, or getting items for people who cannot) has easily translated to sharing our struggles in ‘real life’ (in the form of telling each other about our lives and the struggles we face), to helping each other in whatever way we can in ‘real life’ (mostly sharing advice from our own experiences when people share their struggles – I pray for people as well, still need to tell them that……).
The Resistance (the alliance I am a part of) is a community in it’s own right. We have our own in-jokes, our own ways of doing things, and we all rally around each other in their times of need – despite the fact that none of us have seen each other face to face. As I write this, I’m laughing and joking with a few other members – people I know and trust, and people I have given my (virtual) life for time and time again. If this isn’t a true community, I don’t know what is.
Have any of you experienced community in an online setting? How have you found it? What can the fact that there is community within online settings mean for society? What does it mean for the Church?
Small Note: I’m playing around with the theme of the blog – almost a total overhaul of a lot of the little things – I’m liking the changes so far, but let me know if there’s anything that doesn’t work – if you’re in a different web browser, etc
I’ve had a fairly interesting day – one part of which I found interesting enough that I think it warrants the most blog posts I’ve ever written in a week. I did a variety of different things, some part of commitments I have made to ministries of the Church I attend, some for fun (it is a Saturday after all). One event from the day stands out from the rest, however, in that – thinking about it a few hours later – it seems I have now come full circle in regards to some of my online goings on.
Yesterday I posted about my stance on the interaction between Science and Christianity in regards to the origins of the universe, and the origins of life on Earth. What I didn’t share was that the aformentioned post was directly inspired by a Facebook friend’s status update on the matter. While I respect his views on the subject (which he didn’t really go into), many of his other Facebook friends were affirming his stance, and I felt that I should share my own with them…..when I logged onto Facebook this morning, I found that one of his friends has called me out on my point of view, and engaged me in an argument between his hardline creationist stance, and my ‘Genesis 1-3 isn’t concerned with the HOW’s of creation, so science may be right for all we know’ stance. I honestly can say that I had answered all of his questions as completely as I could (not being an expert on science) with as much tact and sincerity as I could, yet his responses seemed (to me) to become more and more agressive, to the point where he seemed (to me) to stop talking rationally, and instead began an emotionally charged rant on the failings of Science to point towards any conclusive evidence for anything that cannot be observed.
This is the second time this has happened to me during my history of interacting with others online – the first time being the very first time I decided to voice my opinion online, coincidentally about the same subject, while I was meant to be studying for my final exams at school. I was on a unofficial forum set up by students to help other students (with exam tips, copies of past papers, general tips for each subject, etc), when I discovered a very long discussion about religion – particularly the arguments against any form of religion – which I jumped into with a defense of the existence of God (which in hindsight was very close to Pascal’s Wager). The discussion turned to evolution (as they all seem to do), and I stated my thoughts on the matter as succinctly as I could (my thoughts at that point being a less refined rendition of what I posted yesterday, I’ve had over 4 years since then thinking about this sort of stuff). Eventually the discussion turned into an argument where either side wasn’t going to be persuaded either way, and I made the tactful decision to just leave the conversation before either of us got too emotional.
In both these discussions, it quickly became heated, and it became apparent to me that neither side was going to accept the other’s position (to the point where everyone ignored statements they couldn’t refute or didn’t want to talk about), and I simply bowed out rather than continue to waste effort simply making myself (and the other people) more and more frustrated and bitter. The only difference between these two conversations was that one of them was had with a self-professed Atheist, and the other with a Christian with a hardline creationist view of the world. In fact, I think the Atheist may have been more civil than the Christian (but this is going back 4 years, so my memory may be a bit hazy). I’d always thought that Christians would at least be civil when it comes to discussing matters of less importance in the overall scheme of things (as I consider the whole debate to be) – that ripping you hear is the sound of some of my illusions being stripped away….
In any case, it appears that I’ve come full circle arguing about evolution and the origins of the universe. I only wish it had taken longer than 4 years to get there…..
