Historically Irrelevant

Hurricanes are monsters of nature. These mammoth beasts have brought down entire civilizations, and have been feared for millennia. The Chinese called them the “Great Wind.” When the Spanish arrived in the Caribbean during the 16th century, hurricanes were a new phanomenon for them. Therefore, they took the natives’ word, huracan. Huracan in the Taino language (a language indigenous to the Caribbean region) meant “Storm God,” for these storms were so powerful that they could only be the work of some divine being. Worldwide, they are referred to as tropical cyclones. Regardless of the name, hurricanes are a force to be reckoned with.

What are hurricanes, exactly? Put simply, hurricanes are low pressure systems that contain a warm core and an eye of calm in the middle, with thunderstorms and extremely fast wind speeds orbiting the eye. Hurricanes can also spawn tornadoes, and may boast huge storm surges of water that can flood entire regions. They typically develop over large, warm bodies of water, and gain strength the longer they are over warm water. Over land, they gradually lose strength until they fade into nothingness. Tropical cyclones form all over the world, and impact millions upon millions of lives each year. 

Over the years, we have made huge strives in understanding, and thereby predicting the path of, hurricanes. We send planes inside the storm to monitor its progress. We train satellites on the storm to view it from space. We look at atmospheric pressure, weather fronts, water temperature, and computer models to try and predict the path of the storm. But we can never be quite sure. Hurricanes still emit a sense of mystery about them. We still can’t be absolutely positive where a hurricane is headed. And while we do understand them, that doesn’t mean we don’t fear them.

When a hurricane forms, we send out experts to try and classify the storm. Category 1, Category 2, and so on. As humans, we like to put things in little boxes and be done with it. So we give the hurricane a category, and hope it doesn’t change. We name the little fellows, as if they were our friends. We try and personify the hurricane, for it seems almost alive. It moves, it reacts, and it destroys. Just like us. But a hurricane destroys indiscriminately. It cares not for human life. And so our petty attempts at making a hurricane seem playful and unimposing fails, for you can classify and you can name, but you certainly can’t control a hurricane. At least, not yet.

For now, humanity reamins at the mercy of the Great Wind. We cannot stop a hurricane; we can only run from it. And so, a hurricane garners a certain sort of respect. It commands respect, and by the gods does it deserve it. A hurricane can tear every single thing you hold dear to shreds in a matter of seconds. Power like that certainly deserves respect. So as you hunker down inside your home and Irene swirls around you, be scared, sure, but also respect the storm that threatens you so.

When a hurricane makes landfall, it is a sad event. Not just for the humans inhabiting the area, but for the hurricane itself. For once a hurricane hits land, it knows that it’s on its last legs. It will lose strength gradually, and then fade away into nothingness. So the hurricane goes out with a bang. It destroys. It kills. It terrorizes. And then it dies. More hurricanes will come, but never one just like it. When a hurricane dies, never again will the Earth witness another hurricane like it. Each hurricane has its own quirks, its own size, its own wind speed and storms and path and countless other things that separate it from the rest. 

Irene will hit, and when it does, she’ll destroy some property. But if she had the choice, she wouldn’t. She’d stay out in the open sea forever, living on for all eternity. But the choice is out of her hands in the same way it is out of our’s. Irene must die so that other hurricanes may live. She must die, like all other life. And when she does, her memory will be forgotten by nature. Plants will regrow, animals will return, and all will return to normal. But not us. We shall remember. In that way, hurricanes and humans are connected. For once a hurricane ceases to exist, it is humanity that carries its exploits with them. The storm may die, but the impact of a hurricane never will, so long as there are humans around to witness them. And that is almost beautiful. 

Every once in a while, a game will come by that will make you think. It will take you on a journey to another world, make you care for characters that don’t exist, and get you involved in a story that could never happen. Recently, that game was Bastion. Bastion is a indie action-RPG, developed as the debut game of a new studio, Supergiant Games. And it’s fantastic. The art style, narration, gameplay, and story all draw you in to create an unforgettable experience. And at the end, I did in fact cry my eyes out. Why, you may ask? Well, to see what Bastion did right, we must examine what most other games (and all other story-telling mediums, for that matter) do wrong. 

For the most part, I play video games for the same reason that I watch movies or read books; I want to experience a story. Each of these three mediums have different ways of conveying stories to the adventurous soul who decides to embark on the journey. Books let its readers’ imaginations run wild, and the reader creates the world the book is set in. Movies (and television shows) show the viewer the story, and hope that the viewer can connect due to the use of real life imagery. But video games, at least for me, evoke the most potent emotional connection and response. Unlike movies and books, video games don’t feed the player a story. In video games, the player is the story. He participates in it, and moves the plot forward. Characters help him and hamper him, interacting with the player. Because of this deep personal connection one feels with the characters in a video game as opposed to a book or movie, emotions seem a bit heightened whilst playing. I can confidently say that I’ve cried more during video games than I have during books and movies combined. 

Of course, not all video games have deep, engrossing stories in the same way that not all movies try to tell a story. Some movies just want the viewer to watch as explosions tear apart the screen and dead bodies litter the ground. Likewise, some video games just want the player to experience thrill after thrill, leaving virtually no room to tell a story. But when a game gets it right, and focuses on a character driven story where the player drives the plot forward, it’s a pretty damn beautiful experience. Bastion is one of these games. So even if you’re not a gamer, even if you’ve never played a video game in your life, I implore you to play Bastion. It’s a game that will make you cry, and it’s a game that will make you think about your own life. Bastion poses some big questions about what it means to be human, and like any good game, it’s up to you, the player, to answer them. So yes, I cried when Bastion ended, and I’m sure you will too. 

Steve Jobs’ resignation is big news. But to put things into context, read this article by John Gruber about the future of Apple.  

Reading around the web an hour ago, looking for confirmation of the then-minutes-old news that Steve Jobs had resigned as CEO, I repeatedly encountered and bridled each time at use of the adjective “shocking” to describe the announcement. But my initial resentment was unwarranted. This is not out of nowhere, it’s not even unexpected. We could all see this was coming — but it is a shock.

I saw that headline and my nervous system took a jolt.

The thing to keep in mind is this: Apple tomorrow, a week from now, and next month is the exact same Apple from yesterday, a week ago, and last month. Tim Cook wasn’t named “CEO” until today, but he’s been the chief executive at the company since Jobs started this — his third — medical leave back in January, and probably even before that. Whatever Steve’s role is going forward, it’s only different in title than what it has been, in effect, for some time. Whatever it is that ails him, he’s been diminished.

It’s no coincidence that I wrote about succeeding Jobs just last month. All you need to read in that piece is the second footnote:

Perhaps this entire article could be replaced with, “Look, it’s going to be Tim Cook, and that’s that.”

How do you replace the irreplaceable man? Like we’re seeing. An open-ended medical leave, where he retains the CEO title. A continuation of strong new products, including a major improvement to the iPad, the device that is upending the entire computer industry. The ceding of day-to-day operations and leadership to Tim Cook, his right-hand man and chosen successor. Ever-higher profiles during public product announcements of top product-focused lieutenants like Phil Schiller, Scott Forstall, and Eddy Cue. It wasn’t something you could see or hear, but from the audience during this year’s WWDC keynote, it was something you could feel. Midway through, I wrote:

He’s here, but this is the first post-Steve keynote.

Apple’s products are replete with Apple-like features and details, embedded in Apple-like apps, running on Apple-like devices, which come packaged in Apple-like boxes, are promoted in Apple-like ads, and sold in Apple-like stores. The company is a fractal design. Simplicity, elegance, beauty, cleverness, humility. Directness. Truth. Zoom out enough and you can see that the same things that define Apple’s products apply to Apple as a whole. The company itself is Apple-like. The same thought, care, and painstaking attention to detail that Steve Jobs brought to questions like “How should a computer work?”, “How should a phone work?”, “How should we buy music and apps in the digital age?” he also brought to the most important question: “How should a company that creates such things function?”

Jobs’s greatest creation isn’t any Apple product. It is Apple itself.

Today’s announcement is just one more step, albeit a big and sad one, in a long-planned orderly transition — a transition that no one wanted but which could not, alas, be avoided. And as ever, he’s doing it his way.

So it goes.

Ever since the Women’s World Cup defeat of the United States at the hands of Japan in penalties, there has been quite a buzz about the need to “fix” soccer. People on a variety of sports shows and blogs have called for the end of penalty shootouts, in favour of an open-ended overtime with no time limit. In particular, this blog post on One Foot Tsunami has been cited as a good way to go to fix soccer. However, soccer is a game that has no need of a fix, for every one of the points presented in the post would be impractical at best, and downright stupid at worst. The beautiful game is one that has been enjoyed by generations, and there’s no reason to change something that isn’t broken. So, without further adieu, a present to you a defense of soccer.

Let’s tackle the first point brought up in the post: changing the clock. Soccer currently operates on a 90 minute clock, which doesn’t stop for anything except for halftime at the 45th minute mark. Because things like injuries can occur on the pitch and the clock doesn’t stop, stoppage time is added to the end of each half at the referee’s discretion. Because of this continuous time, soccer is unique in the fact that it doesn’t have commercials except for halftime. There are no unexpected stops, no short commercial breaks, no timeouts and no bullshit. It’s just the game, and that’s it. Changing the clock to stop for injuries and setting up set pieces would slow down the game considerably, and allow networks to take annoying commercial breaks. I don’t think any fan of the beautiful game wants to see commercials during the match, so changing the clock to start and stop on command is simply a stupid idea.

The next point the post brings up is to make the nets bigger so we can see more goals. When I started reading that, I broke out into laughter due to the author’s ignorance of the game of soccer. Soccer is a game of patience and tactics, where goal-scoring is very hard, and one goal could make or break a match. This sets it apart from most other sports, which seem to be a point scoring bonanza where individual points are essentially meaningless. The reason crowds erupt at the sight of a goal is because they are so rare, and they could have potentially watched the match-winning point. If we make the nets bigger and increase the amount of goals scored per match, the value of the goal itself decreases, and it wouldn’t be as exciting to watch a goal. Matches themselves would become somewhat boring, with teams scoring goals all the time. Not to mention the fact that the goalkeepers would be absolutely exhausted after each match if they had a bigger area to cover. Changing the size of the nets to make room for more goals changes the very game of soccer itself, and makes it less exciting.

The third point brought up is, surprisingly, one I think all of us can get behind, at least for the most part. It states that the players on the pitch should stop faking injuries and diving to get penalties, and simply play the game. Injury faking and bad sportsmanship has been a problem for soccer for quite a while, and it’s time athletes stepped up and played the game fairly. Unfortunately, I simply can’t see that happening anytime in the future. The post then brings up the idea of having a penalty box, which is a bit of a stupid idea. The idea of yellow and red cards already takes the place of having a penalty box; adding a penalty box would just further complicate a game that is supposed to stay as simple as possible. 

The fourth and final idea brought up by the blog is to get rid of penalties and instead play an unrestricted overtime where both teams continue to play until somebody wins. Essentially, he wants to bring back Golden Goal with no penalty shootouts. If the author had paid attention to the international soccer scene over the past five years, he’d realise that golden goal was a flawed concept that was scraped by FIFA for good reason; it caused teams to play too defensively and made overtime unexciting. If the author does love goals as much as he professes to, then he should support FIFA’s decision to not use golden goal in favour of normal overtime that allows both teams to fairly score, rather than just having one team get lucky and score one goal. On the issue of penalties, they are a flawed but necessarily evil in the world of soccer. If we had endless overtime, the game itself would simply fizzle out into nothingness. 90 minutes is a long time, and 120 minutes is a longer time still. Soccer players are running around the pitch for those full 120 minutes, and any time over would have them so tired that many would be unable to run. Endless overtime works in sports such as baseball, because the players are nowhere near as tired as they would be if they were running around a soccer pitch for two hours straight. In soccer, it’d be cruel and unusual punishment to the players. Penalties decide a match quickly and somewhat fairly; luck is involved, but luck is involved in normal play, too. To win a penalty shootout, you have to have a combination of luck, skill, and determination to win. 

Soccer is a beautiful game to watch, and an exciting one to follow. The excitement of a penalty shootout in the final of an international tournament is at a level that cannot hoped to be matched by any other form of competition in the world. There is no need to fix a game that is not broken in any way. Just because your team lost in penalties doesn’t meant that penalties themselves have to be scrapped. The beautiful game should be kept the way they are to keep the game just that; beautiful.