When I went searching for the original tune on Youtube (I found it here) I also discovered a great playlist: It’s called ‘Best VGM’ and it’s by a user called ‘SupraDarky’. Nonetheless, it has a number of my favorite songs from across genres and systems.

Indeed, that’s only the *first* playlist. There are several and at least 1000 songs he’s earmarked in total.

To conclude, here is something fun and delicious, or something like that:

From St. Katherine’s College Forum: ‘Civilizing the Heart: C.S. Lewis on Education‘ is well worth listening to. It should come as no surprise that we’re down with the idea here, that the actions that people repeat form their deeply felt affections towards various things. Indeed, also that the things we experience become impressed upon our souls. For many of us, video games, popular music, science fiction and fantasy literature, movies and T.V. shows and Anime form a great deal of that ‘inform-ation’ (in the sense Aristotle punned it) – and the times we re-read, hit the repeat button, pressed rewind, or started up that favorite game again? They trained the dispositions of our hearts, certainly. Not always for the better, perhaps, but if one wants to know what people actually feel about the world, these are the places one must start.

As an aside, This is another reason to be cautious for what you watch, read or play both in terms of quality and content; this formation does not cease but continues in us as long as we live (at least on this side of the grave, to my knowledge). To this end, we hope that this discussion here will aid in that process. We are not children here, so I think Father Chris will agree that we’re not here to instruct so much as to inform and discuss, to give opinions based on our beliefs and experiences, and to see what others convictions are and why they hold them.

Along with this Lewis argues for a ‘proper affection towards’ something, which is a way of defining an objective morality. The speaker talks not so much of ‘a one particular proper way’ to feel or think about something, but rather ways which are ‘right’ and other ways which are ‘wrong’. As a programmer, I’m much familiar with the ‘many wrongs, many rights’ approach.

Thoughts? Ideas?

Presented without comment. Also check out the humble bundle – you get to choose how much to pay for Voxatron (3-d iso shooter), The Binding of Issac (Zelda/roguelike shooter), and Blocks That Matter (Puzzle+Platformer similar to Boulderdash)

In the last half-century, the clear result of “architectural myopia” is buildings whose makers have been so concerned with the drama of their appearance that they fail on the most fundamental human criteria. They isolate people; they do not provide enough light; or provide a poor quality of light; they provide a hostile pedestrian environment at their edges; they cause excessive shade; or create winds in what is known as a “canyon effect;” or they trap pollutants in the “sick building syndrome;” they use resources wastefully; etc. Moreover, the buildings themselves are a wasteful use of resources, because they are not likely to be well-loved, cared for, repaired, modified, and re-used over many years. In short, it is not just that people find them ugly, but they represent a fundamentally unsustainable way of building human environments.

As a kid who was obsessed with architecture and who went on to design countless levels for FPS games (and of course, loves Minecraft) I really dig this stuff. This idea of ‘construct as spectacle’ applies also to video games (and games in general) wherein the press for novelty among AAA game studios produces games that are more and more visual spectacle and less intellectually gratifying gameplay. ‘Atmosphere’ in a game can be related strongly to how ‘human’ a space it provides both in gameplay and visual design. A game with little visual impact relies on the imagination to fuel its visuals and it is then the text and the gameplay that provide grist for the mill of the mind.

There are also some other good articles on the topic of the madness of modern architecture, but I’ll leave ‘em for later. Take instead a link to one of my personal favorite architectural firms

In my thinking, there are differing ways in which a game could be addictive. One way is like a slot machine: constant offer of instant gratification. Games which offer far too much randomness vis a vis an individual action’s result often have this problem. But also games which have no long term goal may suffer from slot machine syndrome as well. Some sandbox games, for example, can ride a fine line in regards to this. Take Spore. While in theory it is possible to create long term goals for yourself (i.e. defeat the galactic enemy, the Grox; create series of themed custom buildings and ships, make the largest class of empire, etc) mostly the gameplay involves short term goals almost to the point of distraction. You will end up meeting the long term goal without noticing it, and you could end up playing the game like a slot machine; collecting food, body parts, spice, technologies, etc. Only the two middle modes (tribal and civilization) are more thoughtful in their approach. The rest can be played like a non-stop game of Pac-Man sans strategy.

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Spore Space Mode - As distracting as it looks - with bonuses for continuous popup alerts

Admittedly, Minecraft can suffer from this problem as well. However, in Minecraft, the things which are really worth doing (building castles, finding diamonds, laying railways, clearing mines, finding villages and strongholds) all require a lot more time than one sitting. There is instant gratification in harvesting wheat, killing monsters, harvesting wood, collecting blocks in general and many other ADD moments (‘Oh, look a sheep. Oh, look, iron! Oh look, reeds. Oh look, pumpkins! Hey, is that a mushroom? Oh, I need some wood. Hey look a cave.’) and you could easily spend 10 minutes being pulled from one immediate activity to the next. However, the satisfaction gained from these activities is usually small, like the satisfaction of putting two lego bricks together. Or the satisfaction of painting a single fencepost or planting a single seed. They only matter in context, and unless you’re obsessed with collecting things or just exploring, it is unlikely you will find satisfaction in Minecraft playing like a distracted wreck. Spore on the other hand, you might get away with it (at least in Space mode.)

Along these lines, the best way to play a game is generally with a long term goal in mind. The reality is that most games that are not actually slots machines can be played this way, but some offer more or less incentive for you to delay gratification. In Arcades, it was always about high scores – you got the high score you wanted by playing the game numerous times on different days until you got good enough (or perhaps lucky enough) to get that high score you wanted. Then, the satisfaction is not necessarily in vainglory (for often who will praise you for 300000 points in Tetris?) nor even in pride (though beware of it, certainly.) but often simply it is having executed and followed through on your goal.

And as a Christian, the idea of ignoring instant gratification for long term goals is an important part of the way you view the world. Contra Camping and the Rapture lot, we don’t mean that you act like a prude now to get heaven later – for one, being a good person by a checklist is not the ‘keeping the commandments’ that the Fathers were talking about. But instead, we simply mean that most fleshly pleasures are instant or near instant gratification with no context or long term payoff (often they are trading long term payoff for short term gain) and what is important is the ability to reject that. You might respond, but how can you reject instant gratification if you’re not trading it for a long term payoff? But if you, like me, believe that virtues are real things, have to recognize that the process of rejecting short term gratification for a long term gain is teaching yourself Temperance. Having learned temperance is certainly the prerequisite for the harder thing, giving up worldly pleasures without knowing what you’re receive (if anything) in recompense, simply for the love of another.

Thanks for the many years of prayer and nagging!

Was Merlin Irish? Yes, I think he must have been. [NO BIAS I SWEAR].

Of course, I’m not a believer in the Arthurian mythos, I much prefer, along with Chesterton, to accept the factual and far more awesome St. Alfred. It may just be that I’m not French enough.

There are new memes to be made. Great meme makers of the west, I call upon thee! Ride!

Egypt is being used metaphorically here, similar to the Rastafarian (or Orthodox or Muslim) references to “Babylon”. Egypt is where we were imprisoned.

Now that we are free, we are not to forget everything we were when we were in Egypt, but to “plunder”. What is plundered? Riches; that which is valuable: all else is left behind.  That is sort of the deal with Orthogeeks, and our approach to pop-culture.

As to Halloween specifically, I remain conflicted.  It seems to me as I look around that in purely popular terms it has changed, from being a chance for kids to eat way too much candy, to being a chance for adults to lose their freakin’ minds, in some form or other.  So it’s coming back around, at least in the manner in which it is celebrated, to being a purely pagan holiday.  I mean, dressing up as something else and engaging in various debaucheries?  What could be more pagan than that?  The spirit of this is the Party, the whole Party, and nothing but the Party.

If we’re concerned about how to deal with Halloween, I say treat it as a learning opportunity.  It’s a great time to talk about paganism, human sacrifice, harvest festivals, etc.  To touch on Garth’s point, it’s a great time to start showing how such holidays as Samhain were reclaimed by the Truth.  To teach how the power of the demons is vain and futile.  To show (with examples if possible) how the beauty there was in the ancient pagan world is pointing to and is fulfilled in Christ.

And there was great beauty in that world.  It is with us still.  And the beauty that exists in the modern pagan (it might be called “secular”) world can also be reclaimed.  But it must be beautiful.  I see very little beauty in modern Halloween celebrations.  I see a lot of kitsch, and a lot of obnoxious childish nonsense.  Sometimes that can be fun, but the way it’s celebrated in America by adults has the sweaty tang of desperation.

Here’s a fun exercise: work out what you’ll spend on Halloween this year, and give it to your church, or a local charity.  See what kind of return that gets you, spiritually; will it be the vague emptiness that comes after a night of trying to forget you’re mortal?

Or will it be the cool breeze of a spring day that you somehow catch as the weather turns cold?

The sharp sea-air of Truth will smack you in the face and make you go, “Oh, yeah! That’s what it means to truly Live! To give of myself to others.”

Anyways.

Check out Hallowe’en: An Orthodox approach. While this is not entirely geek related (though it certainly is Orthodoxy related!) it kind of relates to our general approach to cultural ephemera. On a similar vein, at OCF we recently talked about the Orthodox approach to culture (especially as it is aimed towards evangelism) which is one of analysis and ‘reclaiming’. Instead of reacting against the negative elements, you sideline them and isolate the positive elements. Granted, Orthodox have not had much involvement in the ‘culture war’ and if anything our representation during the era of ‘the Moral Majority’ was certainly sparse. This is another way to say that a key point is not take a side in the culture war while at the same time not acquiescing to unacceptable things. To take one side or another draws you into what can only be called at this point a State of Reaction, made most visible in the actions of the Tea Party and the Wall Street Occupiers.

In my view, and I suppose Fr. Chris may back me up on this, the Christian’s role is not to seal themselves in a scripture-cell (though if you’re a monk a cellular existence is viable) but to ‘plunder Egypt’ as our Father among the Saints Gregory of Nyssa put it. The reclaiming of positive elements is much like the reclaiming of persons through baptism; in essence the whole person comes through unharmed, but all that is evil must pass away from them.

And in this, even the bad examples (and isn’t all literature rife with them) serve a purpose.

Thoughts on this concept?

I have less than ten minutes left at work, and I figured: “what better time to post?”

Lots of exciting stuff is happening for geeks right now, and I intend to be more vocal about it.

First of all, I’ll definitely be visiting that Art of Games exhibit, and I think it would be fun to go with Garth, and maybe our wives if they’d care to.

I saw something a few posts back where Garth responded to the question (paraphrased) “what gives you the right?”

Nothing.  It’s one of those things where, by the Grace of God and/or dumb luck, we find that we’ve actually started a website, started a podcast, and update irregularly (well, I’m irregular anyway…fibercon? Metamucil?).

That plus a few decades of solid and consistent time-wasting on both our parts, plus just enough ego to think we might have something interesting to say, and here we are!

Whee! Friday!

On a more serious note, we had a beautiful service for the Protection of the Mother of God last night.  I got to direct the choir again, which doesn’t happen that often.  Nice to not have on all that brocade all the time.

Friday!

Later!